2020 (2021) Summer Olympics in Tokyo

Forostar

Ancient Mariner
Who else is excited about this? First we get a bit of football... Tour de France and then .... will it happen? The Covid cases are rising in Japan.

This was pretty cool I thought: recently, Jorinde van Klinken (21 years) totally destroyed the Dutch discus throw record, with a sensational 70.22 m.
First there was the long standing 1998 record by Corrie de Bruin, who did 63.88 m. Last Thursday Klinken threw 65.94, and yesterday almost 5 meters further! She started this only two years ago and now she leads the world ranking.

Also, the Dutch track performances of late should bring some fireworks to the games. E.g. seeing Femke Bol (21 years) running the 400 m is very exciting. I also hope for some good relay results. Love the way how easily she can catch up with others:

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Who else is excited about this?
I am, I am!
I really hope the Olympics will finally take place. We don't expect many medals, but I expect everyone will be really eager to prove themselves after the long competition pause, so it will be fun.
 
This was pretty cool I thought: recently, Jorinde van Klinken (21 years) totally destroyed the Dutch discus throw record, with a sensational 70.22 m.
I was like WOW, 70 meters! Then I realised it's women's discus, which I frankly don't know anything about. We had a world class discus thrower Gerd Kanter who holds the 3rd best throw of all time: 73.38 m. He has also thrown 72.02 (2007), 71.88 (2008), 71.64 (2009) and 71.45 (2010).
 
Looking at discus world records now, I can see that the 15 best women's throws of all time are from the period 1980-1992. The first place is from East Germany at 76.80 m (1988). That's over two meters more than the second place!! And men's WR is also from East Germany, thrown in 1986. I wonder what substances they were using. :innocent:
 
It shouldn't happen, but it probably will. I don't really care about the Summer Olympics as much as I do the vastly superior Winter Olympics, but I'll probably check out stuff from time to time.
 
I am excited. I love Summer Olympic Games. I like to watch every competition. I'm not interested in football or tennis because this games happens every year so I'd like to watch every sport I can. I love Tour de France so I hope it will be a interesting and exciting summer.

There is a thing I don't like that I saw the last year in height jump. or something is that the athletes enter to the ground between pyro and if it was a video game sport. That's beyond what sport has to be. It's not a show. It's healthy sport.
 
Sorry Foro, I was going to say something but I was severely distracted by the abs on that Dutch runner, I mean, Jesus Christ! Six Packs aren't a myth!
 
In all seriousness, when I was a kid, I must've been 9 since it was during the Barcelona Olympics, I asked my dad, "If the Olympics are all about what we can achieve with our bodies, isn't using special shoes and shorts and jerseys cheating since it's no longer just our bodies?" He said, "Not really son, because everybody is using them, the playing field is still even." As a side note, that's the same argument Lance Armstrong used to cheat in the Tour de France sooo.....

Anyway, turns out I wasn't the only one wondering this AND I'm stunned to see 9 year old me was right about "modern" athletes. Here is a Ted Talk discussing the very topic of ARE athletes stronger, faster, higher?

 
Let the Games begin! Today it started.

Some football results (women):

World Champion USA lost from Sweden: 0 - 3!
Zambia lost from European Champion Netherlands: 3 - 10.
Great-Britain vs Chile: 2 - 0.
China vs Brazil: 0 - 5.
Japan vs Canada: 1 - 1.

Saturday, Brazil vs Netherlands. Looking forward to that.

I'm looking forward even more to this weekend's road cycling (road races). Saturday the men, Sunday the women.
 
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I'm super excited can't wait to see Kipchoge (Marathon), Joshua Cheptegei (5k & 10k men), Letesenbet Gidey (5k & 10k women) & hopefully the first Olympic gold metal for Johan Blake in 100 & 200m.

Curious to see the 400 -800m outcome too.

I heard Beleke withdrew again, I'd be thrilled to see a clash Kipchoge -Bekele, it will never happen now.

Shoe-wise I obviously respect Nike Vaporfly which boosted innovation & transformed the industry a few years back, but being a huge fan of ASICS Metaspeed SKY I'd like to see a few winners wearing those or even breaking records like Beth Potter recently.
 
The new rules (or tolerance towards new techniques with different spikes) for shoes are controversial imo. Like this, world records, e.g. for the 100 m could easily be broken. Doesn't sound that fair, or it does not have much respect to older performances. So, I rather not see a Bolt record broken.
 
Yes, thankfully the turbocharged Nike 100m spikes were not approved, so I don't expect Bolt's record will be broken but it's a matter of time something equivalent to be approved in the future.

Still, just as Jesse Owens, it will be extremely difficult to "break" his legacy.
 
Some more names to watch: Sydney McLaughlin women’s 400m hurdles & recent WR holder, Karsten Warholm men’s 400m hurdles & recent WR demolisher, Jacob Ingebrigtsen men’s 1500m. In 2019, he was Kipchoge’s pace-keeper for the legendary sub 2hrs marathon race in Vienna, at only 19 years old of age.
 
So because there has to be the Olympics on TV, there is now badminton on TV because that's the only Olympics there is or something and I'm honestly wondering what I'm supposed to find interesting about it.
 
Not true - I'm currently watching swimming on one of the channels, there's beach volleyball on the second one, and gymnastics on the third. I don't know why your TV channels have settled for badminton but it's not the Olympics' fault.
 
I'm finding it hard to find live coverage at all. I'm sure the BBC had several different sports showing live on their website at a time in past Games, but it looks like they're only screening one at a time now, and doing short clips. Hoping to see the finals of all the big equestrian stuff myself.
 
Dutch coverage also does a lot of talking and summarizing, causing me to miss a lot of live stuff. :/
Ah well, I've still seen a lot, I even did some night "crawling".
 
Considering I'd have to watch everything between midnight and 3qm to watch it live, with m a k with replays
 
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