199 replies to this topic

[James Dodsworth]

Discussion of the Olympic games. On your marks...

[Chris Fenton]

Murray fails to qualify for the high jump,

[brucegray666]

So... the Steeplechase is just horse racing without horse then is it?

[craggy]

am surprised, and vaguely delighted that Murray didn't manage to choke this time.

also, stuck at work today with olympics on all the time- that marathon was a bit rubbish with no-one dressed as batman or anything.

[Sanjay]

Bolt! What a comeback from that bad start.

I have been really enjoying these Olympics and it's great to see us doing so well on the medal table, hopefully we'll hold on to that number three spot at the end of next week.

[Mike]

We should make closing ceremony plans!

[garjones]

Obscure fact: if the Grampian region of Scotland was competing on its own it'd be 10th in the medal table.

[Mike]

Tim Baillie was 2 years below me in school!

Yorkshire's doing pretty well too I think.

[garjones]

Look at the name of the lady that didn't finish the 400m hurdles because she tripped over one of them.

[Ogul]

That really looked painful.

[Chris Fenton]

I want to know what happened to the spectator who threw the bottle at the athletes before the 100m final.

And who whatshisname is...

[brucegray666]

I want to know what happened to the spectator who threw the bottle at the athletes before the 100m final.

I had a quick look at the BBC website and couldn't find any info beyond the fact he had been arrested. It's an incredible dick move to pull - as is his reported shouting of abuse - and it makes me wonder what exactly he was thinking. I mean, paying money for what must have been a pretty good seat only to act like a total dickhead.

[garjones]

I had a quick look at the BBC website and couldn't find any info beyond the fact he had been arrested. It's an incredible dick move to pull - as is his reported shouting of abuse - and it makes me wonder what exactly he was thinking. I mean, paying money for what must have been a pretty good seat only to act like a total dickhead.

One of the female judo team on Twitter said he was drunk and she 'took him down'. Don't know if it is true but its an amusing image to think she scored an ippon while disposing of him.

Saw this in The Guardian:

Edith Bosch, who won a bronze medal last week in the 70kg category, had a trackside seat in the second row, but said on Twitter that she attacked the man after he threw the bottle.
"Some drunk in front of me throws a bottle onto the track!! I hit him … Unbelievable," she said, adding the hashtags "angry" and "norespect".
She revealed in her next tweet that she had missed the race in the commotion: "Dammit ... and I missed the 100m! What a BEEP".
Bosch later told NOS TV. "I had seen the man walking around earlier and said to people around me that he was a peculiar bloke. Then he threw that bottle and in my emotion I hit him on the back with the flat of my hand. Then he was scooped up by the security. However, he did make me miss the final, and I am very sad about that. I just cannot understand how someone can do something like that."
A spokeswoman for the London Organising Committee confirmed that a man had been arrested following the incident.
Scotland Yard said a man was arrested "on suspicion of causing a public nuisance".
"The man had been heard to shout abuse and then throw a plastic bottle on to the track immediately prior to the start of the men's 100m final. He remains in custody at an east London police station," said a Metropolitan police spokesman.
"No one was injured during the incident and the event was not interfered with in any way," he added.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/06/bottle-thrown-olympic-100m-final?intcmp=239

[David Meadows]

I keep hearing these:



referred to as "uneven bars".

I'm sure they used to be called asymmetric bars. Why the name change? Is it because people don't know what asymmetric means? Are they dumbing-down the Olympics? What next? "Usain Bolt wins the short-run-along and Andy Murray takes gold in hit-the-ball"?

[Steve Sensible]

referred to as "uneven bars".

I'm sure they used to be called asymmetric bars. Why the name change? Is it because people don't know what asymmetric means?

Asymmetric was always a bit of a misnomer though, because when viewed from the front - the view the gymnast has of them - they're symmetrical. I think "uneven" is a better description.

Are they dumbing-down the Olympics? What next? "Usain Bolt wins the short-run-along and Andy Murray takes gold in hit-the-ball"?

Now try that for some of the cycling events.

[brucegray666]

I'm sure a lot of you will have seen this already, it's been doing the rounds on Twitter this a.m.:

[steveuk]

Not a genuine Mail cover;


http://funnypicturesplus.com/mo-farahs-historic-win-according-to-daily-mail.html

[jamon g]

I'm sure a lot of you will have seen this already, it's been doing the rounds on Twitter this a.m.:

surely that's a bogus excerpt. if anything like that was published in oz they'd lose their media licence faster than you could say racial discrimination.

[Sanjay]

Sadly Jamon, it wasn't.

And with somewhat related news:

How Mo Farah rejected the "Plastic Brit" charge


Before the opening of the Olympics, the Daily Mail ran a series of stories on those athletes it called "plastic Brits". By this ugly term, it referred to those in the British team who were born overseas and later acquired citizenship. Under the guise of reporting a "controversy" (controversial to no one but itself), the paper complained that "11 per cent of the 542-strong squad were born abroad." Thus, as Sunder Katwala noted previously, competitors such as Mo Farah (born in Somalia) and Bradley Wiggins (born in Belgium) were, according to the Mail's definition, "plastic Brits".
Now many of those same Brits have triumphed, my guess is that the Mail will quietly forget that it once disparaged them as "plastic". It may even use this moment to celebrate the successful multiethnic society it normally does so much to hinder (one witnesses a similar volte-face when overt racists such as Nick Griffin, whose party swims in the swamp of hatred created by the right-wing press, appear on Question Time or other public platforms and are noisily denounced by the Mail and the Daily Express).
Should anyone revive the "plastic Brit" charge, however, here is how Mo Farah, his voice denoting impatience, responded last night when asked by one journalist if he would have preferred to run as a Somali.

"Look mate, this is my country.
This is where I grew up, this is where I started life. This is my country and when I put on my Great Britain vest I'm proud. I'm very proud."

Was the Mail listening?

http://www.newstates...tic-brit-charge

[garjones]

surely that's a bogus excerpt. if anything like that was published in oz they'd lose their media licence faster than you could say racial discrimination.

It is genuine, although The Mail Online quickly edited it to change that sentence. People have Twitter and print screen though.

There are no media licences for print in the UK, they self regulate (at least for now). Online I don't think there's anything.