OT: The 200 Meter Dash Tonight, and non-Lochte Olympics Open Thread
Tonight Usain Bolt, already the greatest sprinter in history, attempts to win his third gold medal in the 200 meter dash. It is the race he was born to run. No other man has repeated as a 200 champion, and he is attempting to win it for a third time. As in the 100 meter dash, he smashed and gutted the world record for the event, producing times that have not been approached by anyone else.
As a visual spectacle I actually have a bias toward the 200 when it features compelling athletes. The image of the runners sprinting full-out around the bend and catapulting down the straight is spectacular. I'm looking forward to this.
This has been something of a golden age for the Olympic games, with both Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt emerging as superstars and all-time greats in two of the crucial disciplines of the Games at the same time. Both merit and have received worldwide attention, athletes that transcend their sports and the Games themselves. In four years the Tokyo games will be notable for their absence, and it is likely that fan interest will be reduced as a result.
Should be a fun night. The team competitions are moving into the late stages of competition as well, medals are coming soon. Open thread time. About the games, not... legal issues.
August 18th, 2016 at 9:44 PM ^
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August 18th, 2016 at 9:45 PM ^
A 19.79 when nobody else was in the 19s. Simply incredible.
August 18th, 2016 at 9:52 PM ^
August 18th, 2016 at 9:59 PM ^
Never happened before. You can never say never, but it's pretty unlikely.
I really like that he cares about how fast he ran. He's excited to win but he wanted to do well. Cares about his craft. I'm not big on his "showmanship" stuff but when he is seriously talking about the meat of what he does, it's good stuff.
August 19th, 2016 at 12:22 AM ^
Well, in the 200m the gold and silver were pretty clear-cut, but look how close it was for the bronze:
It was Christophe Lemaître (second from the bottom) who got it. Churandy Martina (bottom lane) was officially one hundredth of a second slower, while Adam Gemili (top) had the same time to two decimal places (20.12 seconds), but was three thousandths of a second slower. Crazy.