Olympics 2021 err 2020

[LASteve]

That said... Carapaz was the sole Ecuadorian entrant, I imagine Kiesenhofer was the only Austrian.

Funny you say that, Kiesenhofer was the only Austrian in the women's race, but there was another Ecuadorian in the men's. The NBC commentators kept saying that Carapaz was the sole representative from his country, even when the cameras at the back of the peleton were showing another Ecuadorian, Jhonatan Narvaez who finished the race tied with Richie Porte, so clearly no slouch.

[railsquid]

The typhoon decided to head north up the coast away from the Tokyo are; dunno if any there are events up north which would be affected, but here it's merely a little windy with occasional showers.

[LASteve]

Didn't they shift the marathon oop north in Sapporo to avoid the heat? Grand idea from my perspective, plenty of beer to hydrate the runners.

[Bealman]

Hi Steve, sorry our Aussie Arianne Titmus took the gold from the American girl in the 400m freestyle yesterday.... not 

[LASteve]

Don't worry, George. If Stacey Kerr and the Australian women's soccer team (sorry, I can't call them the "Matildas") come up against the grandstanding Rapinoe and crew, I know who I'm rooting for. My loyalties lie in sporting behavior. I think this picture of Ledecky and Titmus after the race nicely illustrates what I mean:

[Bealman]

Great pic, Steve.

I don't think the Matildas is as bad as the Hockeyroos, though! 

[LASteve]

I think the "Socceroos" started it. They should be punished. Transportation is too good for 'em! (oh, wait)

[Bealman]

Wouldn't ave 'appened at 'ome. Guvment wud ave done summat.

Strangely enough, after my initial transportation, when I went back to the UK to bury me old man in 1990, I had a great of difficulty getting out and back to Aus!

However, that's another story. 

[TrevL]

I finally watch the highlights of the women's cycling roadrace, and couldn't help criticise the commentators (with the benefit of hindsight) for saying she had no chance, and it was a mistake going so early etc etc.  How wrong they were, so much for (so called) expert analysis

[LASteve]

Areet! Now wee snecked me tabs? Wor George has a tale to tellus, like. Ah need a smerk forst.

[LASteve]

How wrong they were, so much for (so called) expert analysis

It's always fun to see the "experts" eat their words. My wife and I were calling out the commentators on the men's race (the rerun - two Australians, not the live feed) when they were awarding the gold/silver to Carapaz and McNulty with 20 k's to go. Carapaz, bless him, did get the gold, but I've no idea where McNulty finished. Nowhere close to the podium.

Willful ignorance on the women's race. We both knew something was odd at about 30k out when no-one seemed bothered about the Austrian. My wife said that they must have forgotten about her. We both laughed, but holy moley it was true. The commentators couldn't wrap their heads around that one.

[njee20]

That said... Carapaz was the sole Ecuadorian entrant, I imagine Kiesenhofer was the only Austrian.

Funny you say that, Kiesenhofer was the only Austrian in the women's race, but there was another Ecuadorian in the men's. The NBC commentators kept saying that Carapaz was the sole representative from his country, even when the cameras at the back of the peleton were showing another Ecuadorian, Jhonatan Narvaez who finished the race tied with Richie Porte, so clearly no slouch.

I take it back then, but you know what I mean - he was hardly a strong lead out man for Carapaz!

It's interesting how much flak there's been from a number of the riders, talking about making a mockery of the sport (to paraphrase). I do get why - you get to show women's cycling on the global stage, and there are some crazy amateur mistakes like that!

Huge crash for pre-race favourite Mathieu van der Poel (yes - the one who was in the TdF yellow jersey a few weeks ago) in the mountain biking yesterday. He's blaming it on their having removed a ramp from a rock drop which he didn't know about. Incredible to see GB get gold, given we only just got a spot. Great skills to avoid ploughing into VdP about 2 seconds after this too!

[railsquid]

In other news, Team Covid has had an impressive few days, breaking through the Sunday and Monday records for Tokyo, and today achieved a record high for any day with almost 3,000 new infections. Records have tumbled in other prefectures too. This is probably not directly connected to the Olympics, and is more likely due to spread of the "Delta" variant...

[Bealman]

Eeek. And I thought we were doing badly with 179 in Sydney today. 

[NScaleNotes]

That said... Carapaz was the sole Ecuadorian entrant, I imagine Kiesenhofer was the only Austrian.

It's interesting how much flak there's been from a number of the riders, talking about making a mockery of the sport (to paraphrase). I do get why - you get to show women's cycling on the global stage, and there are some crazy amateur mistakes like that!

Really... sigh, they can be angry at themselves for not doing more but it doesn't make a mockery of the sport. This is what used to happen when we didn't have radios and we actually got some surprises and drama and you know non-precessional events; I know not everyone agrees but I think it'd be good to dump the radios.

Someone took a chance, slogged their guts out to stay out front and won the race. You could say they got lucky, yes perhaps, but what's wrong with that, they still worked extremely hard to get there and win, so suck it up other riders and stop complaining, you should have paid more attention to what was going on.