ombelico
-
Posts
340 -
Joined
Content Type
Blogs
Gallery
Downloads
Discussion
Posts posted by ombelico
-
-
This is now a Kaori Sakamoto stan account.
Also, I'm outraged at the PCS scores for Trusova (70.97) and Valieva (70.62) in comparison to Higuchi (69.26). Utter bullshit.
If one of the ROC women had to win then I suppose I'm glad it was Shcherbakova since she at least has a balance of technical and artistic content, and seems like a nice person. I also felt bad for her that she was left all alone after winning - perhaps she and Zagitova can commiserate about that. That said, I think all 3 ROC women have been on something at one time or another given the system at Eteri's rink. Kaori is my Olympic gold medalist.
-
16
-
-
4 hours ago, Hana Chan said:
This is not something that easily can be answered, as we've had some absolute legends start their Olympic careers at very young ages. Sean White was a kid when he launched his Olympics career and it's shocking when you think of how many years we've watched him compete and he's retiring now at the ripe old age of 35. But I think it needs to be on a sport by sport basis and where there are problems, then it needs to be addressed. One 11 year old competing in skateboarding is a very different situation than having generations of Russian teenagers being used up like toilet paper.
The problem with having age restrictions on a sport-by-sport basis is that the anti-doping code applies to all sports the same. If WADA is essentially saying that someone 15 and under is too immature to be held to the anti-doping regulations, then it stands to reason that they are also too immature to be competing on the world stage, no matter which sport it is.
The issue with asking people like Tara Lipinski, Sarah Hughes, and Dominique Moceanu what they think about age restrictions is that they're (understandably) going to have the bias that their Olympic glory occurred at such a young age, and there's of course the chance the same outcome wouldn't have happened for them at a later age. They were lucky - it worked out for them (I mean only in terms of winning Olympic gold; I'm well aware of the abuses that Moceanu suffered at the hands of the Karolyis). However, that misses the countless number of young anonymous athletes who were pushed too far, too early, and either burned out or couldn't keep up as their bodies broke down. If their coaches had known that they needed to wait until 17 or 18 to compete at that level then perhaps their training schedule would have been approached very differently (and hopefully, more healthfully).
-
8
-
-
13 hours ago, Rootbeer said:
Watching the NBC coverage and Tara just said Mariah Bell 'thrives on competition'. Should we request that Lipinski be screened for drugs?
Thank you! When Tara said that I immediately thought, "Does she though? Does she?"
There's no guarantee that raising the minimum age to compete would change training practices, but if, for example, a coach knows that a skater won't be eligible for senior competition until they are 17, then hopefully there would be less incentive for them to be training quads when they are 13. It would also remove this "protected persons" nonsense where someone is not held to the same anti-doping standards as the rest of the field.
I got into following skating with the '92 Olympics and have watched every Olympics since then, but the Russian dominance the last 10 years has just left me cold. I was already feeling checked out from women's figure skating after the ridiculous decision to award gold to Sotnikova over Kim in Sochi, which reflected simply that the Olympics were being held in Russia, and nothing to do with the actual skating. Follow that up with Zagitova's back-loaded program that clearly exploited the loophole in the rules without a care for actually being a cohesive program. And now, this doping stuff. It's been a slow death, but Russia (and the complicit ISU) is murdering women's figure skating.
-
8
-
-
11 minutes ago, ShellsandCheese said:
Only if they go after adults; they would be assholes to after a 15 year old kid. I would also argue that this particular instance didn’t effect American athletes that much; by that I mean sub out Kamila for Anna or some other Russian skater and chances are results are the same.
There's no chance the U.S. would try to prosecute Valieva but going after Team Eteri and other adults involved? Fair game.
Also there are American athletes impacted right now as they haven't been able to get the medals that they earned, and at the rate this is going there's a chance the medal ceremony might not even be able to happen during the Olympics. They are being robbed of their podium moment, even if the color of the medal doesn't change.
-
13
-
-
Things could get even more interesting since the U.S. now has a law that allows for prosecution of non-Americans whose doping violations affect American athletes (which is absolutely the case here):
-
5
-
2
-
-
I know the IOC lets each sport determine age eligibility for the Olympics but for crying out loud, if the WADA code says a 15-year-old is too young to "possess the mental capacity to understand and appreciate the prohibitions against conduct contained in the Code" then they should not be allowed to compete in the Olympics!
Quote above from this article:
-
11
-
-
In track and field and swimming, if one athlete on a relay is found to fail a drug test, then everyone on the team is disqualified and loses the medal. In gymnastics, when one Chinese gymnast was determined to be underage at the 2000 Olympics, the entire team lost the bronze medal (which was then awarded to the U.S.). If one of the Russians failed a drug test, then the entire team will likely be disqualified from the event and lose the medal.
-
2
-
8
-
-
In the moment right at the end of Ilia's LP I thought "they have to put him on the team now" but after sleeping on it I think the team is the right one. Ilia did a fantastic job but as stated upthread, performance at Nationals is not the only factor that goes into selecting the team. It's an important component, but it's not the only thing. They really don't have anything else in Ilia's background to justify putting him on the team beyond this one great performance and potential future promise.
Vincent really did not do himself any favors with his performance here, though, especially after his talk of "coming to Nationals to win" (paraphrasing). If Vincent had been left off the team in favor of Ilia, I would have easily accepted that. Vincent's had so many chances and after his Worlds performance last year (and Nationals performance this year), he's certainly not a guarantee of a strong performance at the Olympics.
It is of course frustrating that Jason's jumps aren't up to the international standard, but he can still contribute to the team and with the exception of the quad, his performances were great. If Vincent's failed jumps had been scored properly, Jason would have rightly won the bronze medal.
-
8
-
-
I forget which season it was but I distinctly remember Paul talking about a week where the bakers were so close that the judges would "have to look back retrospectively" to differentiate between the bakers and choose who would be eliminated that week. So there is precedent, especially at this point in the season where it's just down to a few strong bakers.
I agree with Lizzie being eliminated this time but I also agree that Juergen got a bit lucky. His macarons were not strong, he dropped his sausage rolls on the floor (and apparently the judges were not informed of this?), and honestly I thought his cake looked a bit wonky. But overall, he's been a much stronger baker over the previous episodes so I think it's fully justified for the judges to expect a stronger performance from him than from Lizzie going forward.
-
3
-
-
At this point I just ignore Noel and Matt and their tasteless jokes so that I can continue to enjoy the good parts of the show. Noel on his own would be fine (he interacts well with the bakers and is kind and supportive of them) but Matt and/or the combination of Noel and Matt just doesn't work. Matt brings a more caustic sense of humor that might work in other venues but isn't appropriate for GBBO.
At some level I admire that Freya sticks to her principles and uses vegan recipes and ingredients, but at a certain point I think it will catch up with her. I know vegan bakes can still be tasty but at the end of the day if you're not allowing yourself to use milk, eggs, butter, cream, honey etc. you are putting yourself at a disadvantage in comparison to everyone else who uses those ingredients, which simply taste better than the vegan options. There's a reason those ingredients have been used in baking for centuries. Not to mention that some vegan options also take significantly longer, like using aquafaba instead of egg whites.
-
9
-
-
Gymnastics
in Sports
The author of the Slate piece (and all of their articles on gymnastics) is Rebecca Schuman, who shows up in "Golden" touting the typical line of "the USA team is so dominant, they will inevitably win the gold medal and even the C team would win" and now appears to be trying to distance herself from that.
I read her pieces because I enjoy reading about gymnastics but overall I've never come away thinking that her work is especially knowledgeable and well-researched. I doubt she actually talked to any of the gymnasts before writing this latest piece.
-
3
-
3
-
-
Re: the whole sushi "episode", it sounded like NBC dumped them all in a van as soon as Simone had her medal and got them over to the Today show set without much notice. I don't think any of them (except perhaps Simone) was expecting to be on tv that evening. Then add on suddenly being offered food on national TV; even if they liked sushi I could understand them declining just out of surprise. I think it's pretty unfair to take any of this as evidence of anything regarding their character or maturity.
I interpreted what MyKayla said about those that did and didn't make finals just to mean that it was just a bit awkward that Jordan and Grace were completely done with competition and didn't need to continue full training, whereas the others that had more finals still had to stay in competition mode (and MyKayla was in sort of a limbo waiting to see what was happening with Simone).
-
12
-
-
52 minutes ago, TwopLurker said:
Why was Marta sitting next to Tom Forster at the competitions? Shouldn’t she be banned from even smelling chalk at this point?
I'd have to watch again to figure out who you're referring to but I'm 100% sure that was not Marta. Reports are she and Bela are long gone and back in Romania.
39 minutes ago, irisheyes said:Did she say where she was going to college?
Morgan is going to the University of Florida.
-
1
-
-
Hopefully these Olympics will be a wake-up call for everyone (athletes, coaches, media, the audience, *cough* National Team Coordinators *Cough*) that you never, ever, know what is going to happen. Putting all of the attention and focus on just one person both skews the pressure onto one set of shoulders and leads to a myopic loss of recognition for the other team members and other athletes.
I'm sad for Simone that she had to go through a crisis (for whatever reason) at the most inopportune time, but the silver lining is that it opened up opportunities for so many other wonderful athletes to win medals and get their moments in the sun. And paradoxically, it reveals just how remarkable her long-term success and dominance has been. If she had come in and won team, AA, vault, beam, and floor golds as expected, it would have just been lauded as #SimoneThings, pointed to as evidence of her superhuman abilities, and she and her gymnastics would have continued to be taken for granted. What we saw this week was how fragile that success has been all along, and how much it takes from her to grace us with all of the wonderful performances we have had the immense privilege to witness all of these years.
-
14
-
-
It appears that NBC is embargoing the replay, presumably to capitalize on Simone's return. Given that all of the other replays had been available right after the competition and that I value my sleep, I stayed unspoiled and went to load up the replay to find that it's not there! If there had been a note ahead of time that the replay wasn't going to be available, I would have woken up for it. Grr!
With today's bronze medal, Simone now ties Shannon Miller for the most Olympic medals by a U.S. gymnast (but Simone comes out on top with more golds, 4-2) and ties Larisa Latynina for most Olympic and Worlds medals (but Simone comes out on top with more golds, 23-18). I'm just so happy for Simone that she was able to safely compete on beam and go out from these Olympics on a good note.
-
14
-
-
12 minutes ago, Lady Whistleup said:
In retrospect I think the US made a mistake putting so much faith in Jordan Chiles. She was sort of the "it" elite gymnast this year but she didn't have much international experience and also didn't have the difficulty in routines that the other girls had. Also there was so much stuff going on with her mom.
I don't think there's any way they could have left Jordan Chiles off the team without a huge uproar. She was solidly third in AA at both nationals and Olympic Trials with no missed routines. Although some other options (e.g., Skinner, Wong, DiCello) might have had the capability to beat her AA score on a given day, they never did at any point in the lead up to naming the team, IIRC.
Also, in the end I'm glad that Jordan was on the team since it meant that both Cecile and Laurent could go (if only Simone were on the team, I'm pretty sure only Laurent would have been able to travel) and Cecile's presence this week has probably been really critical for Simone.
-
5
-
-
Another reason to bring back the one-touch warmup is to equalize between those athletes that haven't competed in the arena since the qualification rounds, and those that competed in the team and/or all-around finals in between. Warmups are done in both team and AA finals so the rationale for their exclusion in event finals is completely inconsistent, particularly when there is over a week between qualifying and event finals.
-
11
-
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
Part of the problem with the framing and explanation of Simone's issues this week is that it has been primarily described as a mental issue. Although mental health in and of itself is definitely a legitimate reason to step back, what Simone appears to be experiencing is not just a mental issue, but a neurological and vestibular one.
It seems like once the "twisties" set in, it's not something that can be resolved solely with stress reduction but requires re-training her brain and vestibular system to know where she is in the air. This is an injury that requires recovery.
-
6
-
25
-
Gymnastics
in Sports
6 minutes ago, Frisky Wig said:Sorry to derail but does anyone have experience watching live Olympics on the Peacock app? Seriously considering getting up at 3:30 to watch women’s AA live and I really don’t want it to be a big hassle. Is it just go to the app and push Play or something easy?
Also, screw the Karolyis!
It will be part of a show on Peacock called "Tokyo Live" in the Olympics tab.
-
2
-
-
Given the time difference and schedule, I'm not sure how much more they could provide for gymnastics coverage. The gymnastics finals are aired live on the free part of Peacock. More dedicated fans who subscribe through cable or other providers can watch the livestreams and replays on nbcolympics.com or the NBCSports app, immediately after each event concludes. The gymnastics coverage has included a stream showing all events simultaneously, as well as a stream dedicated to following Team USA. They had streams of every single qualification round, not just the ones with USA competing.
It may not be free, but it is available and it's not outrageous to expect viewers to have to pay something for that level of comprehensive coverage. Yes there have been a few glitches (the first rotation of the men's team final on the multi-event stream included a lovely extended view of the end of the parallel bars!) but overall there's been a massive amount of coverage.
-
7
-
-
Just now, KittenPokerCheater said:
Is this online somewhere? I want to see this clip. That was super tone deaf of Savannah, and I want to see Laurie politely read her the riot act.
There should be a video in the link in my post - I hope it plays correctly!
-
Kudos to Laurie Hernandez for calling Savannah Guthrie out on using the term "cracked" to describe Simone's decision to withdraw. Overall, I've been extremely impressed with Laurie's poise as an analyst. If she wants to make this a part of her career long-term, I think she will do really well. She has a knack for getting right to the heart of the matter and explaining things in a way that quickly synthesizes the issue for the regular viewer.
-
16
-
-
There are 4 members on each team. On each event, 3 compete, and all 3 scores count. The start list for each event had the 3 designated members in the order they would compete, and the 4th member was listed as "reserve." So, when Simone scratched after vault, Jordan, who was the reserve on bars and beam, moved into the 3rd spot on those events, and Suni, who was the reserve on floor, moved into the 3rd spot on that event.
-
1
-
4
-
-
- Popular Post
- Popular Post
25 minutes ago, Quickbeam said:My take on Biles, and I speak as a pre-Title IX woman who got nothing but an eye roll for my efforts…..no one should compete if they don’t want to. However imagine what would happen to a man who said “guys, I’m bagging on the team event, pick up for me, will you?”. As my husband said, he’d be crucified in the press. From a gender neutral POV, she’s getting treated extremely gently.
Toxic masculinity is not a valid justification to not treat Simone Biles with grace, compassion, and empathy.
-
31
Figure Skating
in Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games
Watching that Michelle Kwan Tosca program linked above has reminded me of something that's different now that really detracts from the viewing experience - the scorebox in the upper left corner of the screen. I get that the ISU is trying to go for more transparency in the scoring, but it's distracting to see the score and the evaluations, which items are under review and so on during the skate rather than just being able to focus on the performance itself. For transparency, the list of elements and how they were scored can be provided when the skaters are in the Kiss and Cry getting their final scores (and this would also remove the confusion about the on-the-fly scores being provisional until all the reviews are completed).
Also, I think the focus on jumps being under-rotated also is a turn-off for the average viewer, who typically can't tell that a jump is underrotated unless it's very obvious. If a skater has a minor underrotation on the jump but handles it well and anyone but an expert wouldn't have known that there was a problem, it just causes confusion to the general public to see that the jump doesn't score well. If the ISU wants there to continue to be a penalty for under-rotation, then they'd better start penalizing pre-rotation as well (which is arguably worse since it's apparently more prone to causing long term injury).