Skateboarding, Sport Climbing, Surfing - New in 2021!

[Bill1978]

Skateboard - I honestly don't know what I really expected from the skateboarding events but what has been shown at the Olympics has been a little disappointing. I am not dismissing the athletes skills and talents but in generally I've left both events feeling that's it? I think I prefer Street over Park if I had to choose. And maybe the Men's Park competition will change my mind but who knows. But I just expected more impressive tricks or something.

 

19 hours ago, tracyscott76 said:

Ok, there's a hill in the middle of the skateboarding park that looks like a giant butt. Was that intentional?

I described the Park to my friend as follows "Imagine a half pipe, but make it a salad bowl. And then dump a giant concrete butt into it" Glad I;m not the only one who thought that. I did hear a commentator call it a volcano.

 

Sport Climbing - I want to like this sport but bouldering really leaves me cold and I wouldn't mind them ditching it. People make fun of sports like artistic swimming or rhythmic gymnastics for being 'silly'. And I just find Bouldering silly. Look I understand the difficulty and all of that but to watch it, it isn't that exciting/tense as Speed (who will get to the top first and how fast) or Lead (ooh they are climbing climbing oh no they just fell game over).  I described Bouldering to the same friend above as 'Imagine 4 people standing around looking at plastic rocks, they then clean the rocks with a broom, start climbing, fall off and do it all over again - for 4 minutes' I'm not sure if it's the format of multiple attempts (removing the need to be perfect first go) or the fact they disappear and reappear from the stage and you can't really see a competitor's full attempts cause the stage is so busy with 4 people competing and doing different things. I assume its a popular aspect of sport climbing but it isn't something I would choose to go and watch - the other two aspects though I'm there.

 

[greyhorse]

4 hours ago, Danny Franks said:

Bunch of precocious, insanely talented little blighters in the skateboarding.

Skye Brown became Great Britain's youngest ever medal winner, at thirteen, taking the bronze. It seems like she'd have had a shot at more if she hadn't fallen on her first two runs, meaning she couldn't try to add more skills in on her last one.

Meanwhile, a twelve year old gets silver and the gold goes to a positively ancient, nineteen year old.

Agree, pretty incredible that you can be 12 and 13 and now own an Olympic medal.  I guess there never really is an age requirement to enter the Olympics (thinking the Chinese women's gymnastic team from all the previous years).  If you're good enough to be the best in your country, then why the heck not?

Sky Brown...I think they said she lives in Oceanside but competes for Great Britain where her father is from and her mother is Japanese?  Did she try out for the US team?  Don't know much about her background.

Of the 9 medals, I think 5 have been won by Japanese skaters.  Are they just that more dominant?  Or is it home court advantage and they were allowed to practice on the course?

Still don't know what technically I'm watching and I think everything happens so fast that I'll just never know.  Was Tony Hawk one of the announcers?  I'm assuming he was, even though I never saw his face?  He was great at calling out the tricks as they were happening ("that was textbook"). although I can't tell the difference.  I especially like the tricks where they go high up in the air, flip it, and not even hold on to the board and their feet land right back in place.  

[MaryMitch]

I caught some of the women's speed climbing today - it was hard to believe, they looked like Spider-Man!

[Guest]

3 hours ago, Bill1978 said:

I described the Park to my friend as follows "Imagine a half pipe, but make it a salad bowl. And then dump a giant concrete butt into it" Glad I;m not the only one who thought that. I did hear a commentator call it a volcano.

The volcano appears to be its official name, but I also heard a commentator call it the "sushi rolls".

Guys. It's a butt. Own it.

[legaleagle53]

3 hours ago, greyhorse said:

Agree, pretty incredible that you can be 12 and 13 and now own an Olympic medal.  I guess there never really is an age requirement to enter the Olympics (thinking the Chinese women's gymnastic team from all the previous years).  If you're good enough to be the best in your country, then why the heck not?

 

The age limits are set by the governing bodies of the different sports, not by the IOC. That's why 12-and-13 -year olds can compete in Skateboarding but in Gymnastics.

[Mittengirl]

Skateboarding- Why are the “women” so young?  Is this really a sport where you are over-the-hill before puberty?  The few times I have watched the X Games, I don’t remember the athletes being sooo young.

 

I tried to watch the climbing last night on NBC’s app and just couldn’t last through the bouldering.  First of all - where were the boulders?  Those things stuck to the wall looked like some kind of art project.  At one point someone, I think the American, finally  finished(?) the last wall, but they didn’t show how he got there.  Watching people fall isn’t exactly riveting.  That stage just seemed interminable.  Maybe tonight I will try and fast forward to the lead part.

Edited August 5, 2021 by Mittengirl

[greyhorse]

2 hours ago, Mittengirl said:

I tried to watch the climbing last night on NBC’s app and just couldn’t last through the bouldering.  First of all - where were the boulders?  Those things stuck to the wall looked like some kind of art project.  At one point someone, I think the American, finally  finished(?) the last wall, but they didn’t show how he got there.  Watching people fall isn’t exactly riveting.  That stage just seemed interminable.  Maybe tonight I will try and fast forward to the lead part.

From what I've gathered, "bouldering" is basically just climbing small rocks or walls without a rope or harness, so if you fall it really doesn't hurt you.  I caught some World Championship of Bouldering on either Fox Sports or ESPN late at night a few months ago.  After watching one or two competitors go, it's just not very interesting.  Everyone takes the same path.

I can't believe Sport Climbing will be part of Paris 2024, yet baseball and softball are left out.  I know softball doesn't have a huge following, but it's taking away a sport that a lot of young women play and hope to represent their country doing so.  But sport climbing?  Just don't think the popularity is there.

Just read that Breakdancing is a demonstration sport in 2024.  WTH?  Is this the 1980s?  

I'm waiting for Cornhole, Hula hooping, and Croquet to be selected as demonstration sports.  

[Cherpumple]

I watched some skateboarding and was very "meh" about it. It's not nearly as impressive as the snowboarding halfpipe, which I love to watch. And I'll probably chalk this up to being a grumpy old lady, but seeing two medalists that are 12 and 13 made it even less impressive. I know phenoms pop up in every sport, but if this is truly a sport that can be mastered by multiple middle school kids, then it doesn't seem very Olympic worthy to me. YMMV. Now get off my lawn!

[redpencil]

2 hours ago, greyhorse said:

I can't believe Sport Climbing will be part of Paris 2024, yet baseball and softball are left out.  I know softball doesn't have a huge following, but it's taking away a sport that a lot of young women play and hope to represent their country doing so.  But sport climbing?  Just don't think the popularity is there.

I think the baseball/softball issue is primarily the venues. They aren't making host cities with no baseball parks/stadiums build a whole bunch of them that won't be used ever again (can't really be repurposed like some other venues potentially could). Thus they won't be in Paris, but likely back for LA.

I guess I'm in the minority in that I liked the bouldering portion of the sport climbing more than the speed climbing. I liked the problem-solving aspect of it. Yeah, most people take the same general route, but they each still have to figure it out. I like the lead (or whatever it's called) for the same reason. The speed climbing I was meh on.

[katisha]

So an Australian kid won the men's park skateboard gold medal and opened his mouth to speak in his post-victory interview...and he sounds totally Anerican. Turns out he was born in San Diego and moved here when he was young, but his accent remained intact!

[legaleagle53]

8 hours ago, greyhorse said:

Just read that Breakdancing is a demonstration sport in 2024.  WTH?  Is this the 1980s?  

And if we can have Breakdancing, why not BALLROOM Dancing (or DanceSport, as it's officially known), as I've been asking for over 30 years now?

[skipnjump]

36 minutes ago, legaleagle53 said:

And if we can have Breakdancing, why not BALLROOM Dancing (or DanceSport, as it's officially known), as I've been asking for over 30 years now?

I think a lot of these new sports like skateboarding, and BMX are to appeal to the younger crowds.  To me, it's just making the Summer Olympics bloated as all get out.

[greyhorse]

2 hours ago, skipnjump said:

I think a lot of these new sports like skateboarding, and BMX are to appeal to the younger crowds.  To me, it's just making the Summer Olympics bloated as all get out.

Agree.  It's basically becoming a World X-Games.

[SeanC]

15 hours ago, greyhorse said:

I can't believe Sport Climbing will be part of Paris 2024, yet baseball and softball are left out.  I know softball doesn't have a huge following, but it's taking away a sport that a lot of young women play and hope to represent their country doing so.  But sport climbing?  Just don't think the popularity is there.

Apparently from the reports I read sport climbing has succeeded in generating a lot of buzz at these games (same with the skateboard events).

[Garden Wafers]

I don't mind sport climbing, but I do want to speak with the person who came up with the ranking system for the speed climbing portion of the finals. With the head-to-head system they implemented, even under ideal circumstances, the person who came in 4th (WIN-LOSE-LOSE) would have a worse record than the person ranked 5th (LOSE-WIN-WIN). And if someone has to withdraw due to injury, you can end up in a situation where an athlete ends up in 4th place without even winning a single head-to-head race. 

[SnideAsides]

Sport climbing and skateboarding have been to these games what rugby sevens was in Rio and what BMX was in Beijing and triathlon was in Sydney: an event that makes a big impact on the zeitgeist at the time but which are completely forgotten by the time the next Olympics roll around.

[greyhorse]

On 8/4/2021 at 10:22 PM, greyhorse said:

Just read that Breakdancing is a demonstration sport in 2024.  WTH?  Is this the 1980s?  

I'm waiting for Cornhole, Hula hooping, and Croquet to be selected as demonstration sports.  

Quoting myself here... I made the above comment in jest, but I just came across this...

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/31944288/the-next-great-olympic-sport-cornhole

Please no.

[Irlandesa]

33 minutes ago, greyhorse said:

Quoting myself here... I made the above comment in jest, but I just came across this...

I knew you were joking but a few weeks ago I saw a cornhole tournament on ESPN so it wouldn't surprise me.

I watched a bit of the climbing competition today.  I assume it's a repeat.  It looks interesting. I just wish I understood the scoring.

[Bill1978]

The Australian broadcaster showed a replay of the Women's Sport Climbing Finals this morning while waiting for today's competition to start. The host said 'Wow hasn't Sport Climbing been a breakout sport these Olympics with it's thrills and spills. It's composed of 3 stages - speed, boulder and lead. We go now to [insert park's name] with our commentators' And no joke they showed Speed and Lead. Totally jumping Boulder. Guess the station has the same views of Boulder as I do. That's it not really that thrilling to watch on the TV.

[NUguy514]

3 hours ago, greyhorse said:

Quoting myself here... I made the above comment in jest, but I just came across this...

https://www.espn.com/olympics/story/_/id/31944288/the-next-great-olympic-sport-cornhole

Please no.

FINALLY!  An Olympic sport I could win a gold in!!

[Bill1978]

On 8/5/2021 at 3:22 PM, greyhorse said:

Just read that Breakdancing is a demonstration sport in 2024.  WTH?  Is this the 1980s?

I think it's time to bring back Ski Ballet (Acroski) into the Winter Olympics.

[SnideAsides]

I think the thing with bouldering is just that the scoring is broken. If it was setup as an elimination style event where, like, you get one shot at a time each and they keep going on with each section until a certain number of people reach the top, then it would work better. It's definitely the weak link of the three types of climbing though; speed is nuts and almost all of the issues with lead are due to the camerawork making it hard to tell which way is up.

[Bill1978]

2 hours ago, SnideAsides said:

almost all of the issues with lead are due to the camerawork making it hard to tell which way is up.

At least Lead has that thrill of when you fall you are done, plus the cool shot of someone falling and swinging.

[Trey]

On 8/5/2021 at 7:33 PM, SnideAsides said:

Sport climbing and skateboarding have been to these games what rugby sevens was in Rio

I loved rugby sevens in Rio and I loved it again in Tokyo.  Canada didn't do well in it but it was still a great sport to watch - and mercifully short

I watched some of the climbing and didn't think too much of it.