2012 Olympics (spoilers for tape-delayed events)

[River]

The version I read was they dropped the lowest score and if Raisman had won just 0.001 more of a point on her floor routine, she'd've been the bronze medalist. Heart-breaking. And ridiculous. Why can't they just honor a tie?

Going out to a three decimal places in the score has got to be one of the weirdest things about gymnastics judging.

[Elentári]

Great day for Britain, anyway! We won three gold medals and three silvers:

The men's sprint cycling team twice broke the world record on their way to victory in a packed Velodrome, with Chris Hoy earning his fifth gold medal.

Earlier we claimed two golds and a silver within the space of five minutes in the men's canoe slalom and men's double trap shooting.

We also won a rowing silver in the men's lightweight four earlier in the day and another silver in women's judo.

That places us fifth in the medal table...

[halplm]

I have a feeling there will be a lot of people upset with the whole tiebreak idea in the US .

I hope Aly comes out and destroys the field in the Beam and Floor finals.

[nerdanel]

The version I read was they dropped the lowest score and if Raisman had won just 0.001 more of a point on her floor routine, she'd've been the bronze medalist. Heart-breaking. And ridiculous. Why can't they just honor a tie?

Going out to a three decimal places in the score has got to be one of the weirdest things about gymnastics judging.

I read an article that said that FIG wanted to give dual medals but was told to stop doing so a few years ago by the IOC. So the US gets shafted by unfair gymnastics rules twice in four days. First, the fourth best finisher in prelims is excluded from the all-around final - essentially because she's from the wrong country; 21 gymnasts who performed worse than her are permitted to continue through to the all-around, because their country's gymnastics programs are not as strong. Second, one of our gymnasts legitimately ties for third place, and loses to a gymnast who fell off the beam because the latter gymnast arbitrarily gets to drop that score (if this version of FIG's rules is correct. The tiebreaking procedure isn't in the 2009-12 Code of Points; I checked.) (And, FWIW, Nastia Liukin got shafted by the same refusal to honor ties when she lost out on a gold medal in the uneven bars four years ago due to another inane tiebreaking procedure.)

Of course, the problem is that it's hard to make the case that the country that is being treated unfairly is the country that won team gold 2012, all-around gold 2008 and 2012, and team silver 2008. But...but!

Also, Rebecca Soni FTW. Haven't seen her second WR 200 BR yet but can't wait to do so!

[halplm]

Ultimately you just have to accept what the judges gave them. If Aly had gotten slightly more or less on any score, in very arbitrary situations, it wouldn't be an issue. I think she was underscored on the floor, but she had a big step on her last tumbling pass, and that's the last thing they see.

I'm glad there was no controversy for Gabby winning, but it's a shame they have such crazy situations come up with the scoring.

[halplm]

Phelps

[nerdanel]

Yeah, it's a fair point re: Raisman. They could've taken a tenth (from either Raisman or Mustafina, on almost any event), and we wouldn't be having this conversation. But as they didn't, the unfairness rankles.

Some absolutely amazing swimming happening that I'm not getting to watch in real time, but I'm thrilled with absolutely all the results. Rebecca Soni putting up the world record in the 200 breaststroke, one of many swimmers to show this week that you don't need a high-tech suit to swim the fastest time in the world; a very nice recovery from her 100 breaststroke disappointment. Michael Phelps finally getting that individual gold medal in the 200 IM that had been proving elusive and becoming, at long last, the first man to win the same event in three straight Olympics (two women have previously done so). I'm thrilled for Tyler Clary, who has so often been denied the limelight due to Phelps and Lochte, schooling Lochte to win the 200 back in Olympic record time. And now it's Missy Franklin up in the 100 freestyle, but she's up against a crowded, tremendous field. Still, from Gabby to Rebecca to Michael to Tyler, a tremendous day for the Americans in my two favorite sports. Couldn't be more pleased.

[halplm]

Yeah, it's been a great day for the US. We caught up with China for Gold's too .

I'm watching the US men play Brazil in volleyball. Brazil took the first set, but it's a great match.

Great day of tennis today too, the US has 4 spots in the semifinals.

The US water polo teams have been playing really well too .

[nerdanel]

Man, Phelps just can't get a break. A tweet from someone associated with the NYT (@AndrewDasNYT): "Phelps beat Lochte, yes, but it took everything he had. He was completely spent at wall. #london2012"

Unless I'm missing something, unless you're "completely spent" and have given your race "everything you have" at the end of an Olympic final (in any racing sport, not just swimming), you're doing it wrong ... barring an extreme circumstance like racing in back-to-back events, which is very rare, but which Ryan Lochte had to do tonight. Phelps has performed so well for so long that I think our expectations have become ridiculously skewed: "Sure, he won the gold medal, but couldn't he do it without all that breathing hard and fatigue stuff?" Good times!

Missy Franklin failed to medal in the 100 free, finishing fifth, but we have to be massively excited for Ranomi Kromowidjojo of the Netherlands, who finished in an Olympic record, 53.00. Good on her. Aliaksandra Herasimenia and Tang Yi of Belarus and China, respectively, were the silver and bronze medalists. And Missy has had an amazing meet already, with golds in the 100 back and 4x200 free relay and a bronze in the 4x100 free relay, with more swims still to come. (She finished out of the medals in the 100 and 200 free, but 5th and 4th in the world ain't all that awful, either.) All in all, a presentable effort, for a rising high school senior. I'm such a huge fan of hers and can't wait to see what she does in the next couple of Olympics. She's going to be huge. And I'm so much keeping my fingers crossed that, given her determination to forgo endorsements to preserve her NCAA eligibility, she comes to Cal, one of the schools at the top of her consideration list right now. It'd be so awesome to be able to cross the Bay to watch her in home meets.

[halplm]

Yeah, we're going to be seeing a lot of missy franklin in future games . She might be the one to challenge Phelps's medal count .

[yovargas]

Man, Phelps just can't get a break. A tweet from someone associated with the NYT (@AndrewDasNYT): "Phelps beat Lochte, yes, but it took everything he had. He was completely spent at wall. #london2012"

Unlike most gold medal winners who are usually only, like, kinda half-way trying.

[River]

Man, Phelps just can't get a break. A tweet from someone associated with the NYT (@AndrewDasNYT): "Phelps beat Lochte, yes, but it took everything he had. He was completely spent at wall. #london2012"

Unlike most gold medal winners who are usually only, like, kinda half-way trying.

Yeah. he couldn't half-ass it. What a loser.

No wonder he intends to retire. Yeesh.

[ToshoftheWuffingas]

Well, last night I watched the best fencers in the world compete. It was the semifinals and finals of the men's individual epee and the women's individual sabre. The fencers in the semi finals that I admired most for their style and verve were the ones who eventually won.
The atmosphere was electric, the audience loud and enthusiastic and the fighting was nail biting.

[halplm]

Congrats to Kayla Harrison, the first from the US to ever win a Gold Medal in Judo!

I imagine the reaction to Phelps was that he was ahead of WR pace with 5m left and didn't finish it.


I now have a dilemma... Track and field starts tomorrow at 2AM my time... I've been doing pretty well not trying to stay up, but rather just getting up early. Most everything I want to see is covered this way... but I kind of want to watch everything when it comes to track and field... and there are like 5 things going on at once, and it goes all day (or all night in my case).

Sigh... gonna have to make some choices.

[nerdanel]

Actually, nel, is it unusual for swimmers to be able to excel over 100, 200 and 400m like it is for sprinters to make the change up to 400m?

It is unusual - to my knowledge, unheard of - for someone to excel in all of the freestyle events (50, 100, 200, 400, 1500 for men, and the same for women, except that the 1500 is replaced with the 800.) It's more common for people to pair two successive distances and to excel in both - e.g., the 50 and the 100, the 200 and 400, or the 400 and 800 (for women). (Similarly, it's common for stroke specialists to do well in the 100 and 200 of a particular stroke, like Rebecca Soni, who just took the silver in the 100 breast and the gold in WR time in the 200 breast.)

Medaling in three freestyle distances is much less common. To answer your specific question, the only recent male freestyler I know of who medaled in the 100, 200, and 400 was Australia's Ian Thorpe. He took the 400 gold in 2004 and 2008; was on the 4x100m gold relay in 2004 and the silver relay in 2008; was on the 4x200m gold relay in 2000; was the 100 bronze medalist in 2004; and was the 200 silver medalist in 2000 and gold medalist in 2004. What I'm trying to say is that he was a real underachiever. But even for the Thorpedo, you see a pretty pronounced difference in performance between the different events - far more dominance in the 400 than the 100, for instance. I don't know of of a recent female Olympian who medaled in the 100, 200, and 400, though I could be missing someone.

[Impenitent]

Tosh, I have seen very little of the fencing (work deadlines mean I have to sneak in my viewing and rely on the morning and evening telecast roundups), but I've enjoyed what I've seen!

Fencing is one of my favourite things - that, and the equestrian eventing, which was so beautiful to watch! Those are some magnificent beasties! Spectacularly beautiful, graceful, strong, elegant animals!

[halplm]

Ok, I'm officially back on the "stupidest possible way to break a tie" bandwagon for the gymnastics.

Here's what happened in case you were wondering... Aly Raisman and Aliya Mustafina both finished the competition with a score of 59.566 which was the third best score.

Because they apparently don't like ties for medals, a tie-breaking rule came into effect that gave Mustafina the Bronze, and left Raisman off the podium.

Here's how the rule works: Drop each of the gymnasts lowest score of the four apparatus and then compare them again.

Mustafina fell off the Balance Beam, so she dropped a 13.633

Raisman had a poor performance on the Beam as well, so dropped a 14.200

This gave Mustafina an advantage over Raisman of 45.933 to 45.366... giving her the Bronze.

But that makes no sense. AT ALL. For an all around competition, the better ALL AROUND gymnast, Raisman, lost, because Mustafina did WORSE on one event.

To reward one athlete over another for doing worse seems pretty backwards. Raisman was better than Mustafina on 3 of the four apparatus... and deserves a Bronze Medal.

[halplm]

Or maybe it's completely different, there still doesn't seem to be a consensus on how the tiebreaker works.

There's now a story that the tiebreaker is some reference to internal judges scores that are never made public... which would essentially mean the judges decide after the fact who wins... which seems like they made the wrong decision based on my above argument about "all around."

Someone needs to clarify this, and if I were the coaches for Aly, I'd be wanting some serious explanations.

[halplm]

Never mind, I'm way off... they actually throw out the floor exercise score (it's not an apparatus, so I was confused). So apparently the floor is a lesser part of the "all around"

[halplm]

Apparently as soon as thy US team learned that Aly was not going to win a bronze, they were going to file a protest, but this was already after the five minute time limit to do so.

It's just messed up and a disgrace to the sport.