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I think the only time anyone cares about weightlifting is when internal organs are pushed out of the lifters poop shute.

 Mr. Burning wrote:
I think the only time anyone cares about weightlifting is when internal organs are pushed out of the lifters poop shute.

That's powerlifting.

And considering that there are 1.1m comments on a single photo on the International Weightlifting Federation's instagram it's pretty obvious someone cares. Just not people in the Americas. And not you.

Track Controversy!

The U.S. men’s 4x100m relay team crossed the finish line in Rio in third place, but they will not be taking home any medals. The team was disqualified after it was ruled that the first exchange between Mike Rodgers and Justin Gatlin illegally took place outside of the takeover zone.
It was the ninth time since 1995 that the U.S. men have been disqualified or failed to get the baton around at an Olympics or world championships, according to the Associated Press.
Jamaica won the gold medal for the third consecutive year. Japan took silver, and the bronze medal went to... Canada.
Read more - http://www.nbcolympics.com/…/us-mens-4x100m-team-disqualifi…,
and watch the video of Team USA's illegal baton pass that resulted in a disqualification in the 4x100m relay and cost them a bronze medal. here - https://www.facebook.com/nbcolympics/videos/10154956588135329/
Seth Rubinroit / NBColympics.com

Baton exchanges are what makes the relay race more difficult.

It isn't a new trend for people to suddenly care about certain sports when the Olympics are here and then forget about them once a short time has passed.

 Ahtman wrote:
It isn't a new trend for people to suddenly care about certain sports when the Olympics are here and then forget about them once a short time has passed.

Certain sports, yes. Does anyone really care about sprinting in the lull between Olympics? I have no idea. I never care about probably half the sports actually in the Olympics, but seeing how fast rowers can push their boats was pretty impressive.

Weightlifting remains fairly prominent even outside the Olympics in certain countries, Russia, China, Iran, and that collection of countries jokingly referred to as the 'stans. The popularity of Crossfit in America has increased local focus on weightlifting, but I really doubt more than a minority of crossfitters follow weightlifting year round.

Edit: Interesting tidbit for anyone from Ireland or the UK...an Irish weightlifter could have medaled and potentially won gold in the 94kg weight class. He just isn't interesting in competing.

A bloody world elite athlete gave up on a chance to win an Olympic medal because it didn't interest him...

 Orlanth wrote:

 kronk wrote:
We need Phelps and Ledecky to create a new race of super human babies that will swim across the pool at a pace of 10 seconds per lap. They'll have gills, webbed feet, and shoulders like Space Marines.

Wont breeding Phelps with Ledecky be cheating?

Oh, have an exalt!

On the US relay disqualification, I watched the replays and am not an expert, but they muffed that one. Rules are rules.

That article says the US sprinters have been DQed 9 times since 1995. That seems high.

Ferris Buehler's mom "9 times?"
Principal "9 times."

Lochte drama fallout begins. Ouch.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/speedo-drops-sponsorship-of-ryan-lochte/ar-BBvUu2b?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=ASUDHP


***UPDATE*** Ralph Lauren has just dropped Lochte as well.

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Lochte drama fallout begins. Ouch.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/speedo-drops-sponsorship-of-ryan-lochte/ar-BBvUu2b?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=ASUDHP

Good. He's an idiot.

This! This is as cool as it gets! EXALT!!!!


http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/us-pole-vaulter-stops-mid-stride-to-stand-at-attention-for-national-anthem/ar-BBvUksi?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=ASUDHP

 kronk wrote:

 BigWaaagh wrote:
Lochte drama fallout begins. Ouch.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/speedo-drops-sponsorship-of-ryan-lochte/ar-BBvUu2b?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=ASUDHP

Good. He's an idiot.

Well then, here he is trying to sing his way out of it. Courtesy of schmoyoho.

Was surprised that the Japanese won 3 in the 4*100m event (then i remembered that the Russian track & field team wasn't there because of issues

But they also did well at the female wrestling events.
http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/rio-2016-japanese-wrestler-celebrates-winning-gold-by-body-slamming-her-own-coach-a7199681.html
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/motorikisi/c/d9089a284a1c3cb1d46635f6ada34e19

 reds8n wrote:
blimey eh ? !

The gold medal winning time in the 100m freestyle in 1896 was 1 minute and 22 seconds. If you swam that time today you probably wouldn't qualify for the swim team of a fairly competitive high school.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 trexmeyer wrote:
It's a bit funny. It seems like testing for every other sport has gotten looser, while it has increased for weightlifting. I believe the records for Ilya Ilyin (Clean and Jerk and total at both 94kg and 105kg) are going to be thrown out since his sample for 2012 was retested and came out positive.

Huh? Testing isn't getting looser in any sport. What's happening is we're finally talking about all the problems that have existed in drug testing and expecting them to be better. A lot of people are assuming that because they didn't used to hear about athletes bypassing testing or whole sports programs working to avoid testing regimes then it never happened. But it did happen, in some cases at least as bad as Russia's program, and now we're finally starting to address it.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
Was surprised that the Japanese won 3 in the 4*100m event (then i remembered that the Russian track & field team wasn't there because of issues

The Japanese are investing big money in their sports program in anticipation of the Tokyo games. They want wins in the track and field events, and have identified the relay events as a way to get it.

The biggest mystery is that Japan's indoor cycling team continues to go nowhere. Japan invented the kierin, and its the only country where there is a strong professional comp (with huge amounts for betting). And yet their riders can't even make the final.

How appropriate!


http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/lochte-to-compete-on-dancing-with-the-stars/ar-BBw1m5d?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=ASUDHP

Apparently the US womens football Goalkeeper who was running her mouth after losing has been suspended.

Seems fair to me. This Olympics wasn't ideal for the US in terms of its athletes saying and doing really dumb things

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Baton exchanges are what makes the relay race more difficult.

Thing is...it's not hard. You can coach high school athletes to do blind handoffs well.

This streak the U.S. has going on with the 4 x 100 has gone well past astounding ineptitude at this point. It's not as if the U.S. needs perfect exchanges -- just get the baton around cleanly and they'll probably medal thanks to their talent level.

Methinks a healthy chunk of the blame goes to the personalities and egos involved, and maybe what USA T&F has to consider is fielding a team of lesser sprinters who are willing to put the time into becoming a bonafide team. Look at what precision and teamwork did for the Japanese, who most certainly are NOT blessed with great sprint talent.

That's probably no way to beat the Jamaicans, but then I don't think anyone's going to do that anyway until they find a way to bust up the fairly obvious institutionalized cheating going on there. Yes, cheaters have been found everywhere, including the U.S. and Canada. But for a small island nation to be not just winning against, but DOMINATING the rest of the world AND rolling out top athlete after top athlete...that just doesn't add up.

I think you may be on to something with the team approach. The handoff is the difference between relay and standard racing.

What is the fairly obvious institutionalised cheating going on in Jamaica?

Jamaica "dominated the world" in short distance running because Usain Bolt.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Apparently the US womens football Goalkeeper who was running her mouth after losing has been suspended.

Seems fair to me. This Olympics wasn't ideal for the US in terms of its athletes saying and doing really dumb things

There is quite a bit of history with her that contributed to that suspension.

 gorgon wrote:
That's probably no way to beat the Jamaicans, but then I don't think anyone's going to do that anyway until they find a way to bust up the fairly obvious institutionalized cheating going on there. Yes, cheaters have been found everywhere, including the U.S. and Canada. But for a small island nation to be not just winning against, but DOMINATING the rest of the world AND rolling out top athlete after top athlete...that just doesn't add up.

That's a pretty big accusation. The first problem is that the US relay team included Justin Gatlin, a two time drug cheat that we're being asked to believe just happens to running faster than he ever has before now that's clean and aged 34.

But then if we just look at Jamaica, they won 6 gold medals. That's a lot for a small island nation, but two of them were to Bolt for individual races, and another was a relay with Bolt. Then you have Elaine Thompson winning the 100m and the 200m. So what we're actually looking at is two elite sprinters in one country. Neither of whom have ever even looked like testing positive for anything.

I'm not saying that Jamaican athletics is certain to be clean, because ultimately who the hell knows? But it also isn't that hard to believe that a country which focuses its athletics almost entirely on sprinting might just happen to have two elite sprinting champs at the one time.

 sebster wrote:

 gorgon wrote:
That's probably no way to beat the Jamaicans, but then I don't think anyone's going to do that anyway until they find a way to bust up the fairly obvious institutionalized cheating going on there. Yes, cheaters have been found everywhere, including the U.S. and Canada. But for a small island nation to be not just winning against, but DOMINATING the rest of the world AND rolling out top athlete after top athlete...that just doesn't add up.

That's a pretty big accusation. The first problem is that the US relay team included Justin Gatlin, a two time drug cheat that we're being asked to believe just happens to running faster than he ever has before now that's clean and aged 34.

But then if we just look at Jamaica, they won 6 gold medals. That's a lot for a small island nation, but two of them were to Bolt for individual races, and another was a relay with Bolt. Then you have Elaine Thompson winning the 100m and the 200m. So what we're actually looking at is two elite sprinters in one country. Neither of whom have ever even looked like testing positive for anything.

I'm not saying that Jamaican athletics is certain to be clean, because ultimately who the hell knows? But it also isn't that hard to believe that a country which focuses its athletics almost entirely on sprinting might just happen to have two elite sprinting champs at the one time.

I guess the use of weed making them relaxed and without anxiety

There was a good article about Jamaica making public health improvements over the decades, and one of the big areas of focus being excercises programs for chilsren. Turns out having them run around the dirt was cheap, so track became a countrywide program for all children.

Obviously you guys don't follow track much, or else you'd know that Jamaica has come under fire for cheating. They had a bunch of runners test positive a few years ago, and there's been talk recently about how their national testing program has serious issues.

They haven't nailed them to the wall yet on it being a systemic thing, but it almost has to be. It ends up becoming almost mathematical -- countries with populations the size of a large city shouldn't be producing sprinters on both the men's and women's side at the rate they do. They have FAR deeper teams than just Usain Bolt. Five of the top 8 men all-time in the 100m are Jamaican! And all in the last 6 years.

When you see big leaps in performance well outside the norm...there's a good bet someone's cheating. See McGwire and Sosa jacking 70 homers, or (more on topic) FloJo going from being a really good 200m runner to crushing the field and setting records in the 100m that no one's gotten close to in almost 30 years.

While there's definitely technique and plenty of coaching involved with individual sprinters, it isn't like some sports where 'good enough' athletes can be coached up and perform at an elite level based on technique. Pure athletic talent is the main thing, and Jamaica is pushing out more elite talent than it should.

The city of Chicago (about the same population as Jamaica) could spend $1 billion on exercise programs and it wouldn't allow it to dominate the rest of the planet in sprinting, fer crissakes.

Well, if the Jamaican government is cleverer at drug cheating than the Russian government and various US programmes, you kind of have to hand it to them.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Well, if the Jamaican government is cleverer at drug cheating than the Russian government and various US programmes, you kind of have to hand it to them.

I propose a new Olympic Gold Medal; "best cheater." We'll just funnel all the dopers there and have them compete to see who can best hide that they're doping

 gorgon wrote:
Obviously you guys don't follow track much, or else you'd know that Jamaica has come under fire for cheating. They had a bunch of runners test positive a few years ago, and there's been talk recently about how their national testing program has serious issues.

Fair enough. I just did some reading and things do seem very suss. Whenever you get athletes caught by WADA in-competition testing, but never caught by their national programs outside of competition... that is pretty much always a sign that something fishy is going on.

I retract my earlier comment.

 LordofHats wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Well, if the Jamaican government is cleverer at drug cheating than the Russian government and various US programmes, you kind of have to hand it to them.

I propose a new Olympic Gold Medal; "best cheater." We'll just funnel all the dopers there and have them compete to see who can best hide that they're doping

That would be the All Drug Olympics. It's already a thing.

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