2024 Summer Olympics from Paris

Yeah but didn't Bolt turn off in those races

Why is Netherlands so strong? It should go GB then distance to rest of the world - we used to be GB's greatest competition back 20 odd years ago (and better)

yep, that looked like she was defending her position

Dutch are having a good games. You can understand swimming and rowing because they're so tall as a nation. Not so sure why indoor cycling

yeah agree. but it's gotta be brutal for the Italian who finished 4rth, heartbreak, then elation at getting a bronze, then losing it again.

yeah I'm looking forward to this one, and to the 400m hurdles with Femke Bol vs the other woman who is like supposed to be the best to ever run it. like these two women are supposed to be leagues ahead of everyone else. semi finals tomorrow, and finals on Thursday iirc

Totally agree.

I would say it's because they all cycle in The Netherlands, but that logic would mean USA should win all the shooting medals.

I think quite some money goes towards 'topsport' where even a bunch of (current) nobodies with medal potential can practice their sports full time, and which takes stuff like 3x3 basketball, wind surfing and bmx race seriously since day 1.

I want to see Simone do an alley-oop dunk with her head up there over 12 feet. Would be unreal. Set up a temp hoop on the mat and lets's see it. MJ and LeBron would be small potatoes compared to that.

I want to see a gold medal sprinter race a gold medal distance racer in an in between race.

like a 400m champ vs a 5000m champ in like a 1500m

Ive never seen as dominant a game of badminton as this gold medal match

Man, this high bar looks dangerous. Has the bar ever broken or come loose?? It has to have happened.

I'll snap take the 5k guy

It needs to be 400-800m, but Bolt vs Farah never happened, so I doubt anyone cares right now.

Yeah considering Jakob Ingebrigtsen runs the 1500 and 5000, I'd say the 400m runner is drawing dead.

I read sprinter and went to 100m. My bad.

Someone like Sifan Hassan at 1500m would crush 400m runners.

I'm curious what Simon Biles actual vertical leap is. And I wonder who the shortest person to ever legit dunk is. I'm assuming she can't.

FWIW Usain Bolt's PB in the 400 is 45.28 and his PB in the 800 is 2:05

Yeah but perhaps she's not the best example for such hypotheticals on account of the bronze 1500m medal she already got in Tokyo, although perhaps her usual style of just sticking around, confident in her ability to sprint towards the end wouldn't quite work against the people from the 400.

I believe it was only last week that she announced that she wasn't going to run the 1500 this time, but only 5k, 10k, marathon, after doing 1500, 5k, 10k in Tokyo.

I was just thinking that a female 5k vs male 400 at 1500 would be the closer bet

multi distance/multi event runners are interesting though. 100 200 is more common than 200 400 but that does happen eg Michael Johnson, Wade van Niekirk. The schedule makes it difficult but I actually think Gabby Thomas would be an excellent 400 runner.

400/800 is rarer but Alberto Juantorena won 400 and 800 golds in 76 and while he didn't run it, Joaquin Cruz would have made a good 400 runner (84 800 champ)

then 800/1500 and 5/10 are super common double ups

you see sprint/LJ occasionally but you don't see long jump and triple jump doubles which kind of surprises me. there's an American high/triple jump guy which seems super rare to me. And nobody does more than 1 throwing event (afaik?)

Long jump/triple jump combo is rare because while there's some overlap, each technique requires different training

long jump is mostly about top speed, that's why you see a lot more 60m+lj or 100m+lj combos, triple jump is about being able to withstand g-forces of a hop and have a proper follow-through

you can see that triple jump has a much flatter arc as a result

great triple jumpers will have a very good long jump as well, but I don't think there's a modern athlete who's done both at an elite level

source: did triple jump from middle school through 1st year of college

I turn on the TV 30min later than the advertised starting time for the basketball game and there's 3min left in the 2nd quarter

Had this been a NBA game, they'd still be singing the national anthem

Simone Biles is 4'8. She obviously can't dunk a basketball. She might have as much raw athletic ability as any woman alive, but I would be absolutely astonished if she could even touch the rim.

Not to mention basketball courts don’t have sprung floors or springboards…