OT: Sochi 2014 Olympics - General Discussion - All Non-Hockey Olympic Talk Here

[Nac Mac Feegle]

The whole thing was rigged. Even the inventor of the step move in the short program said that Virtue and Moir did it better than the Americans (obviously there are other factors, but that was where the Canadians were deducted).

There was an article that the judges had already agreed to prop up the Americans in turn for helping the Russians get gold in the team event. Is it true? With figure skating's history it wouldn't surprise me at all.

Yep, it was in a French paper several days ago. Pretty telling that everything the paper said would happen did. And the judges had the gall to go ahead with it anyways and the IOC turn a blind eye, no matter how obvious and tainted the whole thing is. Exactly why I barely follow the Olympics anymore, it's all about $$$$$ and back door deals. I'm keeping an eye on Sweden & Canada in hockey (only because there's no other freakin' hockey on the tv) and that's about it.

The whole thing is sickening.

 

[smithy]

How about "Squaw Valley, CA" (1960). Out in the middle of nowhere.

That's a resort on Lake Tahoe, which is rather developed and close to San Francisco (about 3 hours away).

 

[General Zodd]

That's a resort on Lake Tahoe, which is rather developed and close to San Francisco (about 3 hours away).

Yup That's where I used to live!!!

 

[BonkTastic]

Yep, it was in a French paper several days ago. Pretty telling that everything the paper said would happen did. And the judges had the gall to go ahead with it anyways and the IOC turn a blind eye, no matter how obvious and tainted the whole thing is. Exactly why I barely follow the Olympics anymore, it's all about $$$$$ and back door deals. I'm keeping an eye on Sweden & Canada in hockey (only because there's no other freakin' hockey on the tv) and that's about it.

The whole thing is sickening.

Figure skating hasn't belonged in the Olympics since the 80's. Probably the greatest legacy of cheating, bribing and result-fixing in the history of the Olympics (Summer OR Winter).

They need a 12-year ban from the Winter Games (3 consecutive Games) to drive the point home to the sport that the Olympic games are going to be held to a higher standard, but the problem is that they needed that ban at LEAST 12 years ago.

It's a highlight event for the Games, though, so they'll never ban it because they like the exposure... and they won't change ANYTHING because they know they're not going to get banned. Catch 22.

 

[Nac Mac Feegle]

It's really disappointing. You want to believe there's something out there which is pure and true. An ideal to believe in and strive for. Pure sport, pure competition without cheating, doping, or other outside influences.

It's nice watching kids play sports for the love of it and for fun...it's just a shame those ideals never survive in the higher competitive levels.

 

[MakeOttawaGreatAgain]

Although I agree that if rigged, that's awful... but it's not like they gave it to some random team. The Americans won like 2/4 World Championships (Moir and Virtue the other 2)' and the CBC commentators both agreed it could have gone either way, because they had a perfect run. They literally made no errors and were tight in every move.

I just hope the Americans don't feel discredited. It's not like they didn't deserve to win. It was a toss up.

And for the record, my favorite was Russia's dance, despite being a little sloppy.

 

[bacon25]

C'mon Hamelin stay on your G-D skates.

Canada has really struggled these past few days.

 

[L'Aveuglette]

C'mon Hamelin stay on your G-D skates.

All of our speed skating athletes are crapping the bed. It's been an awful Olympics for that team. Thank god Hamelin won a medal because otherwise this would be a total disaster.

 

[L'Aveuglette]

Of course as soon as I write that they win a silver medal in the relay. Lol

 

[SilverSeven]

How many sure fire medals have we lost in short track now?

It seems like every day our favourites are just falling down...whether its short track, slopestyle, snowboard cross....

Our athletes who are gold medal favourites are just falling everywhere. Disappointing.

 

[bacon25]

How many sure fire medals have we lost in short track now?

It seems like every day our favourites are just falling down...whether its short track, slopestyle, snowboard cross....

Our athletes who are gold medal favourites are just falling everywhere. Disappointing.

In Canada's defense I guess everyone else seems to be having a tough time as well on a lot of these tracks. I can't imagine how much it would suck to work to hard and then fall when I mattered most (or be taken out by someone else).

 

[StefanW]

Re: Ice Dance stuff in the Olympics. I think they can use the snowboard and half pike events as standards for how to judge fairly. An unknown can walk away with a medal if he or she performs well in those events, and the results make sense even to an untrained eye. Figure skating is all about reputation, and if the favourites fall 5 times in a routine they will still win a medal ahead of an unknown who gives the skate of a lifetime.

 

[DrunkUncleDenis]

Re: Ice Dance stuff in the Olympics. I think they can use the snowboard and half pike events as standards for how to judge fairly. An unknown can walk away with a medal if he or she performs well in those events, and the results make sense even to an untrained eye. Figure skating is all about reputation, and if the favourites fall 5 times in a routine they will still win a medal ahead of an unknown who gives the skate of a lifetime.

I guess this can be applied to other events as well, but with figure skating there is a hard cap on how good your routine can be. If 'unknown person A' performs their routine flawlessly but their degree of difficulty is lower than 'well-known person B' who had a few mistakes, 'well-known person B' is still going to receive a higher score. Maybe it's the fact that there is a larger gap in degree of difficulty in figure skating than in say board sports or aerial ski jumping? That could be why figure skating results are so predictable.

 

[StefanW]

I guess this can be applied to other events as well, but with figure skating there is a hard cap on how good your routine can be. If 'unknown person A' performs their routine flawlessly but their degree of difficulty is lower than 'well-known person B' who had a few mistakes, 'well-known person B' is still going to receive a higher score. Maybe it's the fact that there is a larger gap in degree of difficulty in figure skating than in say board sports or aerial ski jumping? That could be why figure skating results are so predictable.

Maybe, but I still believe it is more about reputation.

 

[BonkTastic]

Canada's about to win Gold in Men's Curling.

Up 8-2 after 6 ends, in case anyone wants to tune in to witness the final stages of this massacre of the Brits.

 

[FolignoQuantumLeap]

Canada's about to win Gold in Men's Curling.

Up 8-2 after 6 ends, in case anyone wants to tune in to witness the final stages of this massacre of the Brits.

Whoa, Dog. Thems be Scots.

 

[BonkTastic]

Whoa, Dog. Thems be Scots.

Yeah, but it's the Great Britain team.

It's weird seeing a team in English colours in a curling final, and not the blue & white of the Scots.

 

[BonkTastic]

Double-gold for Canadian curling in Sochi!

 

[SixthSens]

Loving the gold rush by the Canadian Olympic Team right at the end.

 

[Qward]

Norway 25 medals. 21 of them involve cross country skiing of some sort.

We need to get people from Saskatchewan cross country skiing more.

 

[harvey]

any Judging "sport" is liable to prejudice and corruption.
like OMG syncrhonized diving... sounds like the leafs...

 

[harvey]

Norway 25 medals. 21 of them involve cross country skiing of some sort.

We need to get people from Saskatchewan cross country skiing more.

we used to have quite a good number of xcountry skiiers from nunavut, not sure what happened

 

[SanderSen]

Re: Ice Dance stuff in the Olympics. I think they can use the snowboard and half pike events as standards for how to judge fairly. An unknown can walk away with a medal if he or she performs well in those events, and the results make sense even to an untrained eye. Figure skating is all about reputation, and if the favourites fall 5 times in a routine they will still win a medal ahead of an unknown who gives the skate of a lifetime.

Exactly, what I don't like is that the figure problems grossly taint the sports that go out of their way to make judging as fair and transparent as possible. For all the other judged events, I didn't see anything that I could disagree with. I'm not an expert, but pretty well everyone that won looked like they had the edge. You can get this right!

 

[bacon25]

Norway 25 medals. 21 of them involve cross country skiing of some sort.

We need to get people from Saskatchewan cross country skiing more.

The Netherlands got most of their medals in speedskating, this is why i am fine with Women's hockey in the Olympics. Every countries got their niche specialty.