bunnyfubbles
Lifer
yet he has 700% more total gold medals (450% more individual) and 350% more world records (200% more individual world records)
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Official Thread of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games (August 8-24)...
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yet he has 700% more total gold medals (450% more individual) and 350% more world records (200% more individual world records)
CottonRabbit
Golden Member
And in the 200m finals, Bolt was 1.89 standard deviations above the mean time between the 8 racers while Phelps was 1.92 SD's above the mean time of his competitors in the 200m free final.
Comparing numbers like these is pretty meaningless 😉.
The different swimming strokes are arguably as different as say running 100 and running the 110 hurdles. (One example is the breaststroke and the butterfly, while there is some crossover in the other strokes I don't remember ever seeing anyone dominating in both of those.)
Then you have the different distances, which Bolt took advantage of. Bolt only added the 100 m very recently.
People that participate in different disciplines/distances typically can't hang with those that specialize.
I think someone mentioned Horton's high bar routine.
I was surprised to hear the rousing boos from the arena when Horton's lower score came up (figured it would be Chinese dominated).
His routine was actually 0.3 lower starting that the Chinese gymnasts (Horton had increased his value by 0.5 but the other's routine had increased by 0.2)
Horton's execution score was 0.275 higher than the Chinese gymnast's but wasn't enough to make up the 0.3 difference in start value.
Great job by Horton though, nice to see him get another medal. Same for Johnson and Liukin as well!
I was surprised to hear the rousing boos from the arena when Horton's lower score came up (figured it would be Chinese dominated).
His routine was actually 0.3 lower starting that the Chinese gymnasts (Horton had increased his value by 0.5 but the other's routine had increased by 0.2)
Horton's execution score was 0.275 higher than the Chinese gymnast's but wasn't enough to make up the 0.3 difference in start value.
Great job by Horton though, nice to see him get another medal. Same for Johnson and Liukin as well!
Throckmorton
Lifer
BTW, why did China beat Romania on the balance beam? Seems like the girl was a lot worse
StormRider
Diamond Member
It's not surprising to me -- most Chinese truly like Americans. For what I've been hearing, Americans are warmly received in China. Our basketball team is treated like rock stars over there.
From my layman's eyes, Horton had the best and most exciting routine. It actually looked like it was more difficult than the routine by the eventual Chinese gold metal winner.
It was actually the Russian in fourth. The Romanian was fifth and a bit further behind them both. The Russian and the Chinese both had the same starting (A) score and the Chinese had an execution (B) score that was 0.05 higher. So it was basically decided by how the judges saw it. /shrug
One thing to note is that Sacramone actually had the fourth highest qualifying beam score but because Johnson and Liukin both scored ahead of her she wasn't able to compete in the event final (each team is limited to two per individual event).
I wasn't trying to imply that Chinese don't like Americans, but he was basically going head to head with the Chinese gymnast for first place. It's not like the score he got was booed because it was low (because it wasn't low), the score was booed because it was just barely below the Chinese gymnast's. That's what surprised me.
I would agree that Horton's routine appeared "better" to me as well. I can only surmise that the Chinese gymnast's routine had been designed from the ground up with technical elements in combination to get the higher value.
StormRider
Diamond Member
I wish people would let it rest because what is the definitive proof in our country of a person's age? It's probably the birth certificate or visa. It's not gonna be some document on a US government or state website. If you have a driver's license that says you are 21 years old but your birth certificate says you are 18 years old, which one has more weight?
Now, my gut feeling is that those 3 gymnasts might be underage. But when you think about it, that's really the only case where China might be "cheating". 3 out of thousands of athletes is not so bad considering how many of our own athletes have been in doping scandals in the past.
And in my opinion, competing against steroid/performance enhancing drug users is far worse than competing against the natural talents of three 14 to 15 year old girls.
StormRider
Diamond Member
That Chinese gymnast was the veteran of the Chinese team. She's 20 years old and is considered an excellent/legendary gymnast but her performance was really bad in this Olympics. She didn't stick her landings and had lots of balance checks and she consistently got higher scores than she deserved.
My feeling is that this was caused by the "home field advantage" (which happens at every Olympics) and the fact that many judges know her from past competitions and know how good she can be. This can unconsciously bias them to give her a slightly higher score than what she earned if she falters a little.
I've had this happen to me during high school. I had a reputation of being a very good student and I've turned in English papers that I didn't think that were that good but I still got a very good grade.
StormRider
Diamond Member
The Chinese sports machine is like the old Soviet era sports machine which was government supported.
Our sports machine is supported by private companies. Do you really think that 1 person did steroids by himself/herself? You don't think there might be some sort of infrastructure/hidden culture that supports steriod use in our country? Was it just one baseball player (Barry Bonds) that used steroids -- or was there a whole lot more we don't know about?
OrByte
Diamond Member
I can't agree with you. 🙁
rules are rules...and they are in place for a reason. And in this particular case, the reason of instituting an age limit is to protect the growing bones and bodies of girls under the age of 16. imho thats pretty important.
Doping gets tested...and those that do it get caught...or they are so good at it that the officials haven't yet figured out a way to catch them....yet.
If there is a discrepency in the ages then it is the responsibility of the governing sports body to investigate, otherwise, what is the point of having rules?
As of right now I think the IOC is just ignoring the issue. Thats the wrong approach imho.
If it was an american scandal, I'd feel the same way. All of these athletes train super hard..they all deserve a level playing field.
Those 12 year old and 14 year old chinese girls will get their chance...when they are the appropriate age.
That is, if they don't burn themselves out before the next olympics. Another thing too, I had to explain to my 10 year old daughter about why there is such a fuss over the age of the gymnastics...it shouldn't be that way.
lupi
Lifer
This is pretty funny for those whom are enjoying the host nation.
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3542649
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3542649
Ballatician
Golden Member
I read somewhere he averaged 9.65s per 100m. Weird that his first and second 100m were exactly the same but that's even faster than what he ran in the 100. Imagine if there was no headwind.
Ballatician
Golden Member
I agree that it appeared better as I said earlier. Your math makes sense though, I don't know why I thought his start value was higher.
StormRider
Diamond Member
Like his trainer? Edit: Isn't that how Roger Clemens got his from?
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