OT: Olympic Competition Day 13 (you know how the spoiler thing works by now, right?)

Submitted by M-Wolverine on

Women's Volleyball going up against S. Korea right now (oh, the battles in the CRex household - and hey, Korean handball at noon!), and then a bunch of other stuff...early track, synch. swimming and ribbon gymnastics. Pretty type stuff. But Water polo women at 1:30, and the I'm sure to be popular around here soccer game at 2:15. Not a bad day all around.

(I almost thought about turning the Brian on WTKA thread into this, but the first few posts would have been awfully weird...)

OverDey

August 9th, 2012 at 3:13 PM ^

cant believe the state of usa boxing overall. went from a strong medal contender in every weight class to only medalling  in two womens events the entire olympics!



is it just a "down" year, or do you think there are other factors involved? wonder if the rise in popularity of mma has had an effect? people inclined to compete in "fighting" events now start in the more popular mma gyms rather than the more traditional boxing gyms? quit following boxing but has it fallen off that much in usa in general?

wile_e8

August 9th, 2012 at 6:08 PM ^

Grantland also had an article with a similar theme before the Olympics started.

The bigger issue is that the punch-counting system has led to a mutated style of boxing that is suited toward landing single punches with no regard for the effectiveness of the punch. Why throw a five-punch combination if the most you can expect from the judges is one point for it? You may as well thrust out a quick jab to the forehead and then get the hell out of the way.

snarling wolverine

August 9th, 2012 at 12:12 PM ^

Canada's women's soccer gets its own stoppage-time miracle, beating France 1-0 on a goal in the 92nd minute.  Canada won despite being pretty clearly outplayed - they were outshot 25-4.  Soccer can be very weird.

MGlobules

August 9th, 2012 at 12:33 PM ^

hitting their outside shots in the early going, Aussies looking tough. Their men did for a while last night, too, though, so. . . hard to tell. 

MichiganTeacher

August 9th, 2012 at 12:45 PM ^

USA's defense inside is non-existent. They are letting the Aussie big girls get right to their spots. Entry passes are way too easy too. The battle's already done once the ball gets that far inside. USA needs to change that or else get hot shooting in the second half.

Raoul

August 9th, 2012 at 2:28 PM ^

I was comparing each Australian team's relative chances against the respective U.S. team, not which U.S. team is more heavily favored to win gold. One betting site had the Aussie women at 10-1 to win gold (2nd choice behind U.S.), while the Aussie men were 250-1 (the longest odds of all the teams in the quarterfinals).

And both U.S. teams were the heavy favorites with the exact same odds: 1/20.

TatuajeVI

August 9th, 2012 at 1:24 PM ^

The competition is really intense! A bunch of teenage girls running around in circles passing bouncey balls back and forth. The crowd is absolutely going crazy!

Johnny Blood

August 9th, 2012 at 1:42 PM ^

US women (or should I say the former UCONN team) pulled out a victory in basketball.

And with 8 events done, the US is looking very good still at 1-2 in the decathlon, which I can't believe isn't getting more coverage.  Eaton and Hardee are awesome.

M-Wolverine

August 9th, 2012 at 1:53 PM ^

It's amazing how it's gone from practically the signature event in the Olympics (maybe just behind the tumbling pixies the ladies love) to something that even the Americans get time sped coverage of, replaced by Beach Volleyball and the like.  It would be different if Americans suddenly sucked in the sport...but we're still kinda dominating it.  And the "world's greatest athlete" get no pub. It's seems like it peaked with this:

 

Johnny Blood

August 9th, 2012 at 2:52 PM ^

McKayla and the Queen are not amused that the Decathlon doesn't get better press.

McKayla Maroney meme

And, yes, I do agree with the theory that the Dave v. Dan hype is what started the downfall of the sport in the public eye.  But if they do finish as expected and get the Gold / Silver, I hope that Ashton and Trey get some good press out of this.

Yeoman

August 9th, 2012 at 3:35 PM ^

which is that the best marketing vehicle (and thus the event that's most hyped and most covered) is one that's free of this risk of failure. We see endless beach volleyball, and basketball and women's soccer, because advertisers can be fairly certain there's gold at the end of the trail, and the more one-sided the competition the better (women's softball was ideal in this regard, since hardly anyone else plays it).

The more compelling the competition, the greater the marketing risk. In other words, decathlon is screwed.

It's what's different, and unfortunate, about the olympics. An advertiser can pour money into college football or the NFL without caring who wins as long as the competition is good. But it's the nature of Olympics coverage that the vast majority of viewers are rooting for the same side, so that it's essential for the sponsor that that side win (or at very least not flop out so early that people tune out).

OverDey

August 9th, 2012 at 2:49 PM ^

agree and you raise a valid point. really enjoy the decathlon myself in olympic years, but must say, wasn’t familiar with it this year nor that our athletes were such strong favorites. wonder if the whole “dan and dave” commercialization and result previously had a negative impact on publicity for them this year.

Wolverine in Troy

August 9th, 2012 at 4:12 PM ^

It's a real shame NBC isn't covering it better. Through 9 events with 8,148 points, Ashton Eaton is on pace to easily beat the olympic record (8,893) and could potentially break his world record (9,039) from the US trials in June.

The last event is the 1,500m. He needs a time around 4:30 to break the olympic record and 4:08 for the world record. His personal best in a decathlon is 4:14.