Thought I'd contribute this PS I made.

A bit off-topic -- here's a link to a LOL thread I made about a restaurant in Beijing. Those of you who watch ESPN's Around the Horn might be familiar with L.A. sportswriter Bill Plaschke. There's a video of him eating a bowl of dicks.

Man, I get tired just watching water polo...

Man, just saw the US win that relay against France - unbelievable. I didn't think there was that much variance in swimming for a great swimmer with that kind of lead. Top 10 all-time sports moment right there.

QFT> I knew nothing about the sport and thought it sounded kinda gay. I was very wrong, it looks brutal as hell.

Who are these clowns calling the tennis, was McEnroe busy or something this week?

Did anyone see any of the Chinese female gymnasts? Apparently some might be underage, but the age verification system is to just get a passport approved. They really do look like 10 year olds though.

Here is a bad article from an awful writer that talks about it:

http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/bei...yhoo&type=lgns

I really never learned to swim and I have yet to successfully tread water in the times that I've tried. I can't imagine how much energy it must take to do that non stop basically...especially for the goalie. How in the hell do the keepers somehow block ANY shots?

Late to the party here. Just wanted to add that the 4x100 relay was the greatest swim event ever.

Also, if you want to talk about chokes, the team archery final was this morning. (Embarrassingly enough, I was late to work because I was watching team archery.)

There are 24 arrows. And you can get between 1 and 10 points for each one. At the halfway point, Korea had a six point lead over Italy. But Italy got hot and Italy went cold and the teams went to the final 3 arrows tied.

Keep in mind that, as long as I was watching, I'd only seen one 8, the rest were 9 or 10. First two Italians each get a 9. Third Italian gets a 7! Choke city. Koreans get three 9s to win the gold.

http://www.nbcolympics.com/basketbal...les/index.html



12/08 20:00PM
USA ANG Men's Group B-Preliminaries - Game 23
United States vs Angola


when the nbc site lists something as 12/08 20:00pm is that beijing time or US eastern time?

re: swimming world record progression. Rule changes have at times been the biggest force behind record progression. Backstroke had their entire turn rules overhauled 17 or so years ago or so allowing a freestyle type flip turn as opposed to the long standing touch on back and turn rules.
An assault on the records was the immediate result as each turn was sped up multiple tenths of a second.

In the past, rules have been enacted to prevent swimmers from exploiting non technological areas to gain an edge also though. The rule in 88 I think to prevent the Berkoff blastoff in backstroke was actually a rule that limited progression in the world record by restricting the distance one could travel underwater off of walls.
More recently FINA has changed their interpretation of the rules so that the toes of a backstroker may come above the surface of the waterline at the start. This contributes to better starts.

They limited butterfly and freestyle to 15 meters underwater off each wall a decade or so ago- taking away some natural training/capacity edge some swimmers had.

In Breaststroke the downward kick off the start/wall that Kitajima can get away with now historically was against the rules. It has been incorporated into start and turn rules now to streamline the rules for more consistent rulings during races.

So rules in general are changing the standards in every stroke/race and it's clear that some times it contributes towards faster records and some times hampers.

The stroke where rules changes have seemingly had the least impact is freestyle- but you could probably guarantee a new set of world records in freestyle sprints by allowing unrestricted dolphin kicking off walls and it would have more impact than any suit or pool design.

That's not to say that the suits and pool design don't help- obviously they do- but we also have better athletes and training methods now than ever before so it's hard to assign precisely how each factor contributes.

As long as we continue to have races like that relay and performers like Michael Phelps I don't much care.

I'm pretty sure most of the games e/c the Spain game start at 8 am EST, so that must be Beijing time.

The Korean women were so sick at archery it was unreal. 10 10 10 9 10 10 9 8 10. They got 231 in one of their match ups

Do they do it from closer than the men or is it the exact same event?

check your scriptblocker add on. Under options, silverlight, etc can be set to off

i've been playing polo since i was 10 (21 now) and though i'm not at a collegiate varsity level, i am decent at the sport. if you have any questions, feel free to ask - i'm always happy to help more people understand the sport.

as for treading water, just treading water itself is very easy once you learn to "eggbeater," which is a special technique that makes staying afloat super easy. it's the being able to tread water well enough to stay at the top of the water for an extended period of time and then being able to lunge when the shot actually happens that is hard.

but yeah, the goalies have ridiculous leg strength. they do less swimming and more leg work then the rest of the team, and some of their exercises are hardcore. one that my high school's goalies would have to do is fill up those sparkletts watercooler jugs with water and hold them above your head (while treading water) until they emptied.

dukemagic, confirm or disconfirm: In terms of tricks and (occasionally literal) low blows, water polo is a dirty as hell sport.

That is Beijing time. The game is early in the morning in the US.

Wikipedia says 70 meters (229 ft) for both men and women. But Wikipedia also says its 27 arrows for men and 24 for women. But today's men's finals was definitely 24 arrows.

And my description earlier was slightly off. The Italians finished 9, 10, 7. The Koreans finished 9, 10, 9.

oh absolutely Confirm.

i'm a relatively clean player, and even i've done some crazy stuff. most memorable one was a varsity tourney in hs. a guy grabbed me, put his head down, and started to spin me (where he uses his arms and legs to literally rotate us around 180 degrees so now he's in front of me). since he put his head down (a rookie mistake that seasoned players don't make) i kneed him in the face to prevent him from spinning me. he didn't play the rest of the game.

the biggest tactic is just grabbing, which is universally accepted as part of the sport. but when two players get mad at each other, which happens a lot, there is elbowing, kneeing, kicking, punching, etc. probably the most common occurence of this would be when there's a turnover or a shot and the teams are now beginning to swim to the other side of the pool. in that case the offensive player will often kick the defensive player that's now trying to guard them to gain some extra space, and often this kick happens in the stomach or neck area. it's an unwritten rule that if the kick is under the water, it's usually allowed, whereas if you can see the kick happen near the surface of the water, then it might be called as an offensive foul.

it's hard to explain when it's a foul and when it's not, but yeah that type of kicking is extremely common. i've had the wind knocked out of me a few times.

Just heard Tiki Barber say that he thinks the Volleyball team will rally around their coach and succeed, much like the NYG rallied around David Tyree after his mother died.

No, I am not making this up.

I thought freestyle meant that you could swim however you want. What are the stroke rules for "free"style.

in regards to water polo, how deep is the water they're playing in and how tall are the players usually?

I am not sure if it means you can swim how you want or if that is the name of it, but as one who participated in swim meets (only as a kid pre high school) the free style is the fastest.

I said it in a BBV thread a few weeks back- will repeat it here- water polo players deserve respect. Many high caliber players were/are also high caliber swimmers at some point and the beating they take in a match is amazing at times.

As swimmers in college we would play makeshift games of polo at times until someone inevitably got injured doing it.

Rules and regulation

Freestyle means any style for individual distances and any style but breaststroke, butterfly and backstroke for medley competitions. The wall has to be touched at every turn and upon completion. Some part of the swimmer has to be above water at any time except for the first 15 m after the start and every turn. This rule was introduced to avoid the dangers of swimmers passing out during underwater swimming. (see: History of swimming). The exact FINA rules are:

* Freestyle means that in an event so designated the swimmer may swim any style, except that in individual medley or medley relay events, freestyle means any style other than backstroke, breaststroke or butterfly.
* Some part of the swimmer must touch the wall upon completion of each length and at the finish.
* Some part of the swimmer must break the surface of the water throughout the race, except it shall be permissible for the swimmer to be completely submerged during the turn and for a distance of not more than 15 metres after the start and each turn. By that point the head must have broken the surface.