2020 Olympics: Non- Gymnastics Discussion

[RedBirdie]

My 4 year old is obsessed with fencing. However, of you call it fencing, he yells at you. "Its not fencing, its SWORDFIGHTING! "

 

[Indy]

LOL! My son (6) was disappointed with fencing…I think he was hoping for more movie-type sword fighting and more hitting each other instead of the tap and retreat kind of action. Water polo is more his deal apparently

 

[Sparklesmom]

We watch a lot of it. I LOVE the olympics. other than the gymnastics I will watch swim and dive (love love love swimming!!) and also track and field.

 

[Snowfan]

I just wanted somewhere to complain. I “loved” diving until I saw the synchro team from Italy. I thought some leos were bad this is just ridiculous. Can they please penalize teams for this? I can’t imagine any advantage that it would give. If anything I think if their butt cheeks are flapping it would detract from their lines.

 

[irichluck21]

Tom Daley winning a gold medal in his 4th Olympics and then watching his emotions was everything the Olympics is about.

 

[RAFIKI]

I will always watched the athletics. I also enjoy diving and badminton but to be honest I can get in to anything aside from boxing. I’ve been trying to watch some of the new sports in my non-gym time. So far I found 3 on 3 basketball really exciting, would be even more fun with a crowd. Street skating was fine but I preferred runs to tricks. I’ll definitely try and catch the park. Surfing ended up being a watch the highlights/final sport for me. I never tend to see swimming live because I’m so caught up in gymnastics, but I do want to watch some relays live.

 

[arabiandoublefront]

Looks like Japan won softball gold, and USA won a surprise silver in synchronized 10m platform diving. Great for Parratto and Schnell!

 

[Sasha]

Based on my time at the beach this summer, I’d say this is a trend.

 

[Sasha]

Have you heard about the Norwegian beach volleyballers being fined for playing in shorts rather than bikini bottoms? Apparently P!nk has offered to pay their fine for them!

I hope that what the Germans are doing becomes part of an overall effort by athletes to push back against arbitrary attire rules.

 

[makam]

I think that was beach handball (not olympics), beach volleyball players are allowed to wear shorts or leggings or bikini bottoms as far as i know.

 

[arabiandoublefront]

I feel bad for US pitcher Cat Osterman who had to answer a question about failure, like winning silver is failure. Screw NBC.

 

[Sasha]

My bad, thanks. I can’t tell the difference between the various sportsballs.

 

[makam]

I hear you. My coworker told me about it and I was like “handball players wear shorts and tanks” because I was thinking court handball. I didn’t even know beach handball was a thing until that moment.

 

[Hatsumomo]

As much as I want the USA to win gold, I also want Japan to win as many golds as possible.

 

[arabiandoublefront]

Despite how this day is going, USA did end up tying with China for gold medals and have four more total.

 

[JDB]

Story time:

Saeid Mollaei was competing in judo for Iran in 2019. He started throwing matches and faking injuries to avoid appearing with Israelis. Despite the IJF’s efforts to prevent Iran from encouraging this, it hit a boiling point at 2019 worlds. Iranian diplomats went to the venue to intimidate Mollaei into throw matches. That resulted in Iran’s IJF membership being suspended After worlds he went back to Germany where he resides and sought asylum a few months later.

He competes for Mongolia now and got a silver medal today. And he didn’t have to worry about being forced into throwing matches this time. Here’s the gold medal match.

 

[MaryClare]

Jagger Eaton, who won bronze in skateboarding is the grandson of Stormy Eaton, and his parents the present owners of Desert Devils. I think his mother is a former elite gymnast

 

[Hatsumomo]

The little Brazilian girl who went viral at age 6 for doing skateboarding tricks while wearing a fairy costume won the silver in skateboarding at 13. Gold was a 13-year old Japanese girl.

 

[gtu07]

The youngest Olympic athlete this year is 12 year old Hend Zaza, a Syrian table tennis player. It’s amazing to think of the focus it takes to compete and travel while living in a country struggling with a Civil War. https://www.npr.org/sections/tokyo-.../a-12-year-old-syrian-makes-her-olympic-debut

 

[gtu07]

And I also love that he won it in synchro diving both because it is quite difficult to beat the Chinese divers and because he previously had some struggles with the event when he was a very young diver. The footage of Lance and Tom’s Mom watching the TV was super cute.