Olympic musings.....

[bigpiney]

Originally Posted by SteelBlue

I love baseball, but I'm not sad to see it go as an Olympic sport. It just doesn't have an Olympic feel to me. I guess if a sport already has a huge league and a huge fanbase and a yearly championship that is seen as greater than Olympic gold, then seeing that sport in the Olympic games doesn't feel special. I feel this way about basketball to an extent as well.

I agree with you. How often does the general public watch swimming or gymnastics or even track and field? Probably once every 4 years. Heck I love watching swimming, but there was no way to watch the world championships last year, at least that I knew of. Gymnastics does get more play, but it is still hardly ever on.

One thing that is stupid is that have the Cahmpions Gala in gymnastics. Cmon we have just seen these girls for the last 7 nights and they only showed the really good ones anywya. Do we really need to show more? There have got to be some other sports going on.

[Runner Coug]

I was going to write a post making fun of the competitive walking events, and how they could be dropped. But then I calculated that the woman that won the 20k walk yesterday did it in 6:55/mile.

Walking.

Not running.

Walking.

That is a FAST walk.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by Runner Coug

I was going to write a post making fun of the competitive walking events, and how they could be dropped. But then I calculated that the woman that won the 20k walk yesterday did it in 6:55/mile.

Walking.

Not running.

Walking.

That is a FAST walk.

that reminds me a meet I went to when I was a kid (in Waco, TX; incidentally Baylor has a well-known track program, if you know anything about track).

My friend who wasn't particularly good at any event, but mainly did long distance, signed up for the last event, the race-walk. Well, so it comes time for this event, it's late, and there is only one other entrant.

So the meet organizer says, would you rather do this, or flip a coin? Both entrants agreed to flip a coin. My friend was the first-place winner.

Olympics always remind me of my summer track days.

This was the same meet that my dad decided to enter the adult 400m. He was one of three entrants, the other two being recent former SWC 400m champion, and the other current member of Baylor track team. I've probably mentioned the story more than once. When the two guys were finishing my dad was at about the 250m mark. He told me that he almost ran off the track to save the embarrassment. But he finished and got the bronze.

I remember going to meets in Houston, with this awful track. It was black asphalt, and hotter than hell. You had to hop around to prevent your feet from getting uncomfortably hot. It was at one of these meets that I had the misfortunate to sub in the 4x400. Never run it before. I made up more than 50m or so, and then I was done. 400m ever meet after that, which sucked, because I had previously been a 100m/200m.

[bigpiney]

Originally Posted by Runner Coug

I was going to write a post making fun of the competitive walking events, and how they could be dropped. But then I calculated that the woman that won the 20k walk yesterday did it in 6:55/mile.

Walking.

Not running.

Walking.

That is a FAST walk.

the american man in the 50k qualified by doing it sub 4 hours. 31 miles in 4 hours, walking. wow. Too bad it looks so stupid.

[il Padrino Ute]

Originally Posted by SteelBlue

I love baseball, but I'm not sad to see it go as an Olympic sport. It just doesn't have an Olympic feel to me. I guess if a sport already has a huge league and a huge fanbase and a yearly championship that is seen as greater than Olympic gold, then seeing that sport in the Olympic games doesn't feel special. I feel this way about basketball to an extent as well.

I can understand what you're saying, but I am a baseball junkie. I've even watched Cactus and Grapefruit League games.

The only thing I don't like about Olympic baseball is that the US hasn't been the best at it for a long time. When it comes to sports, I am a nationalist.