The 2012 London Summer Olympics Thread

[NC_Skins]

Originally Posted by JoeRedskin

Did anyone else see Britain and Ukraine robbed in the Men's gymnastics last night.

What a terrible decision. The guy falls of the horse without completing the required handstand so the judges bump up the difficulty after-the-fact to, essentially, compensate for the massive deduction. Bad. Just bad.

It's why I like sports with objective measurables (i.e. - Who ran the fastest? Who threw it the farthest?) as opposed to judges deciding who looked the prettiest.

One of my friends is actually a trainer at WOGA, and this was her exact comment in regards to that dismount.

Looks like he got vertical, but his legs passed through together to a crazy 'omg I'm falling' split right away. If it's just the vertical that counts I don't see why he wouldn't get it

Which is why they changed the score. It did suck for the Brits and Ukraine, but it was the right call apparently.

Got to admit, I've learned so much about gymnastics from my friend this year (probably more than I want to know). She works with Valeri Liukin so she knows her shit, but it's interesting to learn how these kids are picked at a young age. Believe it or not, physical makeup actually plays a huge part in it. (overly flexible, hips wider than shoulders, particular knee alignments....are generally all NO gos when deciding) That's your useless information for today. :P

[JoeRedskin]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

One of my friends is actually a trainer at WOGA, and this was her exact comment in regards to that dismount.

Which is why they changed the score. It did suck for the Brits and Ukraine, but it was the right call apparently.

I get what your friend is saying and I, in fact, did watch it a couple times (via DVR) when it happened to see if the guy ever, even if for a split second, got his legs together as he was going over. Maybe I missed it, but I remember thinking his legs never even got close to what one would call a handstand. As to the scoring adustment:

Gymnastics scrapped its perfect-10 high score in 2006, replacing it with one that was supposed to remove some human error by instituting one score for the difficulty achieving certain moves, alongside a second, more subjective score for execution. But even the difficulty points have to be assigned by humans. "Everybody is human and everybody can make errors," Gueisbuhler said. "The dismount of Kohei was a very tricky thing to judge. You are talking about angles, and those decisions have to be given in quick time."

Teams can only appeal—or, in the parlance of the sport, "inquire"—the difficulty portion of their own scores. They can't object to the points they get for execution, or to other teams' scores.

London 2012: Chinese Men Take Gymnastics Gold - WSJ.com

So, after reviewing the tape, I guess the judges thought he had done the required move and adjusted the difficulty of the move since they couldn't change their subjective "execution" score. Seems pretty ass backward to me. Reading more on it, the Japanese guy is sort of rock star gymnast and, it seems to me - like MJ in the NBA finals - he gets the call (or no call in MJ's case).

I still think they were robbed.

[NC_Skins]

Incredible night for US women's gymnastics. Pulled out the team gold after Russia did their best impersonation of the US men's team. The girls did a fantastic job overall


Michael Phelps lost the 200m breast stroke for the for the first time in his Olympic career. He was in the lead all the way until the last 1/2 second when he lost it. He had to settle for the silver. Was disappointed.

Incredible job by the men's relay team for destroying the competition. Lochte, Dwyer, and Berens won this race by giving Phelps a 3+ second lead going into his anchor run. This medal brought Phelps career total to 19 making him the leader in overall medals in Olympic history. Incredible career, and a shame he'll be retiring.


Still impressed as hell with the women's gymnastic teams performance tonight. Remarkable.

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by NC_Skins

Incredible night for US women's gymnastics. Pulled out the team gold after Russia did their best impersonation of the US men's team. The girls did a fantastic job overall


Michael Phelps lost the 200m breast stroke for the for the first time in his Olympic career. He was in the lead all the way until the last 1/2 second when he lost it. He had to settle for the silver. Was disappointed.

Incredible job by the men's relay team for destroying the competition. Lochte, Dwyer, and Berens won this race by giving Phelps a 3+ second lead going into his anchor run. This medal brought Phelps career total to 19 making him the leader in overall medals in Olympic history. Incredible career, and a shame he'll be retiring.


Still impressed as hell with the women's gymnastic teams performance tonight. Remarkable.

The women's gymnastic team was amazing. Their talents are incredible. Did you see that story about Domonique Moceanu and her sister?

[NC_Skins]

Originally Posted by SmootSmack

Did you see that story about Domonique Moceanu and her sister?

The sister she didn't know about that ended up being a legless gymnast? It was incredible in the fact that both of them turned out to be gymnasts. It was indeed a amazing story.


In case others are interested. It's worth the read and watching the video mid-story.

Dominique Moceanu Finds Sister, Jen Bricker: Olympic Gymnast Finds Long-Lost Acrobat Sibling (VIDEO)