Cyclists with a "Running" Problem

[PhilipV]

13 minutes ago, b-rad said:

Very decent results for the three SA ladies at the Olympic marathon yesterday! Superb Olympics for Sifan Hassan too. 
Finishing 1h30 behind Sifan was a runner from Bhutan. Finished 80th in 3h52 (79th place finished almost 1hr ahead in 2h55 for perspective). This runner “qualified” by way of a IOC ‘universality’ place. Quickest marathon prior to Olympics being a 3h26.
Qualification standard for all the other genuine athletes was 2:26:50.

I admire the perseverance to push on and finish because at the end of the day a marathon is a marathon and for anyone taking part it’s a challenge and a major achievement to finish. But let’s also be realistic here. The Olympics are the pinnacle and showcase (or should showcase) the best athletes from different countries. Qualification standards are there for a reason. But here we have someone being awarded a starting place with a time almost 1hr slower than the actual qualification standard? In fact almost too slow for a Boston marathon qualification.
There are many other big events to send such runners if international scale marathons are the goal. Any of the majors or platinum level marathons would suffice surely? Leave the Olympics for the Olympians 

Ja I’ll put that right next to the Australian Breakdancing lady’s performance in the “But Why?” Box? 
The ladies skateboarding also warranted  a quick channel change. 
 

 

[PhilipV]

That marathon finish. 👌🏻

 

 

[Shebeen]

27 minutes ago, b-rad said:

Very decent results for the three SA ladies at the Olympic marathon yesterday! Superb Olympics for Sifan Hassan too. 
Finishing 1h30 behind Sifan was a runner from Bhutan. Finished 80th in 3h52 (79th place finished almost 1hr ahead in 2h55 for perspective). This runner “qualified” by way of a IOC ‘universality’ place. Quickest marathon prior to Olympics being a 3h26.
Qualification standard for all the other genuine athletes was 2:26:50.

I admire the perseverance to push on and finish because at the end of the day a marathon is a marathon and for anyone taking part it’s a challenge and a major achievement to finish. But let’s also be realistic here. The Olympics are the pinnacle and showcase (or should showcase) the best athletes from different countries. Qualification standards are there for a reason. But here we have someone being awarded a starting place with a time almost 1hr slower than the actual qualification standard? In fact almost too slow for a Boston marathon qualification.
There are many other big events to send such runners if international scale marathons are the goal. Any of the majors or platinum level marathons would suffice surely? Leave the Olympics for the Olympians 

agreed, having an automatic spot can always backfire. looks like all of the universality places in the men's race were genuine elites.

 

https://www.letsrun.com/news/2024/05/bad-news-for-leonard-korir-world-athletics-adds-11-universality-places-in-2024-olympic-marathon/

 

he went, and finished.

[Jewbacca]

1 hour ago, PhilipV said:

Ja I’ll put that right next to the Australian Breakdancing lady’s performance in the “But Why?” Box? 
The ladies skateboarding also warranted  a quick channel change. 
 

 

A bit of research will show you that Raygun's performance was a flawlessly brilliant protest.

She recently wrote an academic paper on the impact of sportification of breakdancing. How devising scores from a pre set spreadsheet and adding it to the Olympic roster will completely destroy the essence of what is interpretive dance.

The fact that she scored 0 points shows you just how brilliantly contrary her performance was. Not 1 move could be interpreted by a single judge to match 1 of the scoring criteria, all the way down to wearing a generic cricket tracksuit to show that breaking would become 'just another sport'

It was brilliantly put together by a hugely smart university lecturer who has competed successfully in many breakdancing competitions around the world before the Olympics. 

Just like another hugely influential lady we can all look up to - Princess Leia - She set her Raygun to stun and nailed every shot........

[PhilipV]

5 minutes ago, Jewbacca said:

A bit of research will show you that Raygun's performance was a flawlessly brilliant protest.

She recently wrote an academic paper on the impact of sportification of breakdancing. How devising scores from a pre set spreadsheet and adding it to the Olympic roster will completely destroy the essence of what is interpretive dance.

The fact that she scored 0 points shows you just how brilliantly contrary her performance was. Not 1 move could be interpreted by a single judge to match 1 of the scoring criteria, all the way down to wearing a generic cricket tracksuit to show that breaking would become 'just another sport'

It was brilliantly put together by a hugely smart university lecturer who has competed successfully in many breakdancing competitions around the world before the Olympics. 

Just like another hugely influential lady we can all look up to - Princess Leia - She set her Raygun to stun and nailed every shot........

That is very interesting, thanks. 
But  that begs the question whether the Olympics is the place for that protest? 
Then again, what better stage to make a point than the Olympics? Well played. 

Also it reminds me that we see a lot of things in isolation, without context, potentially taking all meaning away from it. 
 

[Jewbacca]

8 minutes ago, PhilipV said:

That is very interesting, thanks. 
But  that begs the question whether the Olympics is the place for that protest? 
Then again, what better stage to make a point than the Olympics? Well played. 

Also it reminds me that we see a lot of things in isolation, without context, potentially taking all meaning away from it. 
 

I'd suggest it's the best place to stage a non violent, well put together protest, especially in France, who are the world champions at protesting and striking!

For me it also shows how removing 'news' from media houses has created very, very dumb articles which are ill researched (at best) and often just mirror the opinion of the blogger with no real insight. 

The algorithm spreads this hard and people are conned into believing what they see. Beware the 'news' feed on your phone! hahahaha

[Cardio Goth]

21 hours ago, PhilipV said:

That is very interesting, thanks. 
But  that begs the question whether the Olympics is the place for that protest? 
Then again, what better stage to make a point than the Olympics? Well played. 

I think it's a brilliant way of reminding people that not everyone who form the core group of participants for a 'sport' believes that the Olympics is the pinnacle.

I put sport in quotes not because I don't consider it a sport (wtf do I know?) but because I don't think that the vast majority of breakers think of it as a sport, let alone an Olympic sport.

[PhilipV]

So it seems breakdancing’s brief limelight is over, being replaced by T20 cricket. Boxing out as well. 

“Five more new sports will be added to the Olympic program in LA – flag football, baseball/softball, cricket, lacrosse and squash.”

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/12/sport/los-angeles-olympic-games-2028-paris-spt-intl-scli/index.html

 

 

[Jewbacca]

23 minutes ago, PhilipV said:

So it seems breakdancing’s brief limelight is over, being replaced by T20 cricket. Boxing out as well. 

“Five more new sports will be added to the Olympic program in LA – flag football, baseball/softball, cricket, lacrosse and squash.”

https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/12/sport/los-angeles-olympic-games-2028-paris-spt-intl-scli/index.html

 

 

The breakdancing was decision was apparently made and announced before these games kicked off. No boxing is a shame but also meh..... 

Loving the LA Games trying to declare themselves a 'No Car' Olympics. Hopefully they can pull it off

Cricket! Another outside chance at a medal for us, but meh... growth for the sake of growth and money. They need to tap into that Indian GDP somehow

[mecheng89]

On 8/12/2024 at 10:59 AM, b-rad said:

Very decent results for the three SA ladies at the Olympic marathon yesterday! Superb Olympics for Sifan Hassan too. 
Finishing 1h30 behind Sifan was a runner from Bhutan. Finished 80th in 3h52 (79th place finished almost 1hr ahead in 2h55 for perspective). This runner “qualified” by way of a IOC ‘universality’ place. Quickest marathon prior to Olympics being a 3h26.
Qualification standard for all the other genuine athletes was 2:26:50.

I admire the perseverance to push on and finish because at the end of the day a marathon is a marathon and for anyone taking part it’s a challenge and a major achievement to finish. But let’s also be realistic here. The Olympics are the pinnacle and showcase (or should showcase) the best athletes from different countries. Qualification standards are there for a reason. But here we have someone being awarded a starting place with a time almost 1hr slower than the actual qualification standard? In fact almost too slow for a Boston marathon qualification.
There are many other big events to send such runners if international scale marathons are the goal. Any of the majors or platinum level marathons would suffice surely? Leave the Olympics for the Olympians 

I hope I'm not the only one that's disappointed in Gerda's result. 

[Shebeen]

2 hours ago, mecheng89 said:

I hope I'm not the only one that's disappointed in Gerda's result. 

What exactly were you expecting? She is absolutely world class at ultra marathons, but the 42km scene is a much bigger pond to play in.

She ran her best(only) time for the year?! She did Comrades, and went all in for it chasing down the win, record and big prizemoney. With only 8 weeks before the Olympic marathon. her goal was basically to finish.

While she broke her own national record (2:24) last year in Valencia, but was still not in the top 10 on the day.

 

but if you didn't know any of that, then your disappointment is understandable. Just weird to see similar comments we got in Tokyo again.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 13 by Shebeen

[mecheng89]

1 minute ago, Shebeen said:

What exactly were you expecting? She is absolutely world class at ultra marathons, but the 42km seasons is a much bigger pond to play in.

She ran her best(only) time for the year?! She did Comrades, and went all in for it chasing down the win, record and big prizemoney. With only 8 weeks before the Olympic marathon. her goal was basically to finish.

While she broke her own national record (2:24) last year in Valencia, but was still not in the top 10 on the day.

 

but if you didn't know any of that, then your disappointment is understandable. Just weird to see similar comments we got in Tokyo again.

 

 

 

 

 

I sure as heck didn't expect her to win. I guess I just expected her to do better than 45th. I think she was just over 10 minutes off the "Dutch" winner, which is about 7% slower. Perhaps ultra does not translate to the marathon distance, but there seems to be a case for track athletes doing well in the marathon.

[saggy]

22 minutes ago, mecheng89 said:

I sure as heck didn't expect her to win. I guess I just expected her to do better than 45th. I think she was just over 10 minutes off the "Dutch" winner, which is about 7% slower. Perhaps ultra does not translate to the marathon distance, but there seems to be a case for track athletes doing well in the marathon.

Gerda's marathon pb is 10:30 slower than the dutch winner .... so seems pretty much in line then.

 

 

[mecheng89]

1 minute ago, saggy said:

Gerda's marathon pb is 10:30 slower than the dutch winner .... so seems pretty much in line then.

 

 

Puts it in perspective, thanks.

[IceCreamMan]

On 8/12/2024 at 12:17 PM, Jewbacca said:

A bit of research will show you that Raygun's performance was a flawlessly brilliant protest.

She recently wrote an academic paper on the impact of sportification of breakdancing. How devising scores from a pre set spreadsheet and adding it to the Olympic roster will completely destroy the essence of what is interpretive dance.

The fact that she scored 0 points shows you just how brilliantly contrary her performance was. Not 1 move could be interpreted by a single judge to match 1 of the scoring criteria, all the way down to wearing a generic cricket tracksuit to show that breaking would become 'just another sport'

It was brilliantly put together by a hugely smart university lecturer who has competed successfully in many breakdancing competitions around the world before the Olympics. 

Just like another hugely influential lady we can all look up to - Princess Leia - She set her Raygun to stun and nailed every shot........

So passive aggressive god level. 

[b-rad]

22 hours ago, mecheng89 said:

I hope I'm not the only one that's disappointed in Gerda's result. 

Gerda admits she wasn’t feeling great from the beginning. What that level of feeling was only she will know. But I very much doubt she would make any excuse just for the sake of it (unlike Lyles in the 200m who was miraculously jumping around before the race then suddenly had covid after he lost 🤦‍♂️).

She just had an off day. It happens. There were some other big names who had shockers (relative) too. Doing Oceans, Comrades, and Olympics within the space of 4 months is definitely not ideal. She knew this and mentioned it some time ago. I suspect very few athletes could have done this to such a high level.

Sifan is next level in terms of abilities that’s for sure so we should probably exclude her from this 😁

Oceans and Comrades and marathons where there is appearance money is where the money can be made. Unfortunately there is no real financial incentive to taking part in the Olympics so I can understand Gerdas approach. 

For all of the athletes there is no doubt they must have found the course a challenge. And explains the relatively slower times of course. Tougher than any of the marathon majors. Almost double the elevation gains of NY and Boston. 3 big climbs, all of them much steeper and longer than those in Boston which is considered the hilliest major. One of the climbs was 600m at 10.5%. Besides the fact that the temperatures were nowhere near the much cooler temps of big marathons. Just for some perspective.