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Are we rushing to premature conclusions about the latest COVID figures? – politicalbetting.com

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  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243

    Nigelb said:

    Another Scottish success story.
    Actually British, with the anchors from Wales and the turbines from England. And investment from both the the EU and London..
    As this is a prototype, it's also a little early to call it a success. But I hope it will be.
    Ok then, we’ll call it a European success story.

    You really don’t want to go down that road. Eg, how “British” is the car industry?
    Maybe we can simply call it a success story? (If, indeed, it proves to be a success.)
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021

    May be behind the polling decline:


    Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton
    Is the UK Government currently taking the right measures to address the coronavirus pandemic? (25 July)

    Yes: 29% (-5)
    No: 53% (+3)
    Don’t know: 18% (+1)

    Changes +/- 19 July

    Highest % for 'no' since Oct 2020.


    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1420369056075554816?s=20

    The pingdemic i think has really hit them plus the worry over rising case numbers. It a double whammy of FFS i have to isolate, but i don't have COVID, so unfair, while also FFS cases are everywhere.
    Just had a thought: how much has having the pingdemic helped to reduce the number of infections? Did it actually work, and that is why cases are falling? Or (more likely) is it just one of a number of factors?
    It probably did have an impact as it was a defacto lockdown for many....but people will just see it as unfairness, especially as a friend of mine, has had 3 isolations in 5-6 weeks via app and test / trace. They are absolutely hopping mad, as double jabbed, done load of lateral flow and went and got a PCR test and all negative.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840

    AlistairM said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    * Good
    ** Should give the performance medals to the horses then
    *** Walking shouldn't be an event
    Pace Stephen fry, walking is like a competition to see who can whisper the loudest... Had the swimming debate yesterday with the wife. I think it could be restricted to who can go the fastest (which would be freestyle). Always thought it a bit unfair how many medals swimmers can amass. Also think that the distances are odd too. 100 m athletics is very different to 200, 400, 800 and 1500. Are the equivalent in swimming so different? I’d argue not.
    Makes me smile to see the BBC get so excited about the sprinting ability of Adam Peaty - of course as a breaststroke specialist he's one of the slowest swimmers at the Olympics with even alsorans in the other events quicker.
    Adam Peaty I believe has some freak genetic double-jointedness which makes him naturally pre-disposed to being great at breast stroke. He clearly won the genetic lottery when it comes to all the characteristics needed to be good at that specific stroke.

    To give you an idea of how good he is as a result, Adrian Moorhouse set a WR for 100m breaststoke in 1990 of 1:01.49. Peaty's WR is now 56.88. That is 5 seconds, or 7.5% faster. If they had been in the same race when setting their WRs, Moorhouse would have been 7.5m behind Peaty.

    The 100m freestyle WR is 46.91 (interestingly set way back in 2009) and so breaststroke is nowhere close to that. Peaty's breaststroke would be competitive with the Peter Fick in freestyle. Peter Fick set the freestyle WR in 1934, 1935 and 1936!

    I do think there should be different distances in swimming. I just don't think there should be all the different strokes, just freestyle. Don't get me started on the medleys! That would be like getting a track competitor to cover 400m - 100m hopping, 100m skipping, 100m running backwards and 100m normal running. Frankly ridiculous.
    Most of the GOATs of swimming are total human freaks...massive advantage if you have enormous hands and feet, huge disproportionate wingspan, while having a narrow body. If i remember correctly Phelps has the wingspan of somebody who should he over 7ft, packed into a 6ft 4 body.
    It's interesting how breaststroke rather stands alone. Where you have a dominant crawler they often add on the fly too, then that plus various distances, plus all the relays, and lo you're looking at a massive medal haul. Not so much with breaststroke. You do that - and often just the one distance - and that's it. Our guys seem to go this route. We've specialized in the 100m and 200m breaststroke. Wilkie, Goodhew, now Peaty, these guys are great but they don't hoover up the medals like those American crawl/fly water monsters that seem to come along quite frequently.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    With randomly allocated horses so an element of luck but also rider skill and not subject to quite as much suggestion of buying the win.
    But if you get the wrong horse a strong medal candidate might not be able to finish in the top 20 even if they perform their best. Hard to train for 4 years and stay motivated when so much luck of the draw.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    maaarsh said:

    Whilst we're correcting Olympic errors, the ROC situation is a joke.

    The argument is you can't punish individual Russian athletes for the crimes of the country at large. Fine. But then they should compete as independants in individual events. Letting them enter team events (and win) and including them as a category on the medals table is just a nonsense which utterly nullifies the so called ban.

    I agree. It's about nations competing and that means individuals suffer if their nation cheats, which one would hope will encourage nations not to cheat. As it is the cheating is worth the risk since you get to compete as a nation anyway.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    kinabalu said:

    AlistairM said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    * Good
    ** Should give the performance medals to the horses then
    *** Walking shouldn't be an event
    Pace Stephen fry, walking is like a competition to see who can whisper the loudest... Had the swimming debate yesterday with the wife. I think it could be restricted to who can go the fastest (which would be freestyle). Always thought it a bit unfair how many medals swimmers can amass. Also think that the distances are odd too. 100 m athletics is very different to 200, 400, 800 and 1500. Are the equivalent in swimming so different? I’d argue not.
    Makes me smile to see the BBC get so excited about the sprinting ability of Adam Peaty - of course as a breaststroke specialist he's one of the slowest swimmers at the Olympics with even alsorans in the other events quicker.
    Adam Peaty I believe has some freak genetic double-jointedness which makes him naturally pre-disposed to being great at breast stroke. He clearly won the genetic lottery when it comes to all the characteristics needed to be good at that specific stroke.

    To give you an idea of how good he is as a result, Adrian Moorhouse set a WR for 100m breaststoke in 1990 of 1:01.49. Peaty's WR is now 56.88. That is 5 seconds, or 7.5% faster. If they had been in the same race when setting their WRs, Moorhouse would have been 7.5m behind Peaty.

    The 100m freestyle WR is 46.91 (interestingly set way back in 2009) and so breaststroke is nowhere close to that. Peaty's breaststroke would be competitive with the Peter Fick in freestyle. Peter Fick set the freestyle WR in 1934, 1935 and 1936!

    I do think there should be different distances in swimming. I just don't think there should be all the different strokes, just freestyle. Don't get me started on the medleys! That would be like getting a track competitor to cover 400m - 100m hopping, 100m skipping, 100m running backwards and 100m normal running. Frankly ridiculous.
    Most of the GOATs of swimming are total human freaks...massive advantage if you have enormous hands and feet, huge disproportionate wingspan, while having a narrow body. If i remember correctly Phelps has the wingspan of somebody who should he over 7ft, packed into a 6ft 4 body.
    It's interesting how breaststroke rather stands alone. Where you have a dominant crawler they often add on the fly too, then that plus various distances, plus all the relays, and lo you're looking at a massive medal haul. Not so much with breaststroke. You do that - and often just the one distance - and that's it. Our guys seem to go this route. We've specialized in the 100m and 200m breaststroke. Wilkie, Goodhew, now Peaty, these guys are great but they don't hoover up the medals like those American crawl/fly water monsters that seem to come along quite frequently.
    Optimistic Peaty and Scott end up with 3 golds here!
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874
    TOPPING said:

    Why is the bbc going mad about Simone biles? I couldn’t give a stuff. Concentrate on our athletes please.

    Seriously? She is a young person, perhaps a role model, affected by mental health.

    These past 18 months have been hugely injurious to the mental wellbeing of in particular young people and children.

    If some of them think - well she is talking about it so can I then it will be fantastic; if they see the sympathetic coverage and think I won't be ridiculed if I share my problems then that will be amazing; if they realise that it is widespread and hence they are not suffering on their own, that will be hugely beneficial.

    Other than that, no idea.

    I have sympathy for her but don’t need the bbc endlessly going on about when actual sport is happening.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    I believe they get randomly allocated a horse for the jumping part. A competitor can be, and have been previously, completely ruined by getting a bad horse. Any event which has a major determining factor being an animal is open to question really.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021

    Piers Moron at it again....

    *NEW: Simon Biles calls herself the Greatest of All Time - but no GOAT would quit on their teammates like that, costing them an Olympic gold medal.
    Get back out there, Simone - you're a great champion not a quitter.
    My column: https://t.co/gxNC7kOMN2 https://t.co/bLs9vH2SW7

    He's being an arse, but it's true that performance under the greatest pressure is what sport is about. It's not about if you can do XYZ, but can you do it at the point when you have to.

    It's a tricky fine line that people should be looking after their mental health, clearly, and it's an important thing, but elite sport requires that pressure and that stress to also operate.
    And often many of the GOATS perform best when the greatest pressure comes...Woods in golf being a real stand out, its like he needed to pressure unleash the beast.

    If you ever see elite athletes training, under no pressure they are all out of this world, however some can never fully reproduce that when it comes to the crucial moment.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557
    edited July 2021

    Personally, I'd like to see the Royal Navy adopt a more Iain M. Banks Culture ship naming convention.

    I can just hear HMQ intoning "I name thee Kiss My Ass'...
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442

    May be behind the polling decline:


    Redfield & Wilton Strategies @RedfieldWilton
    Is the UK Government currently taking the right measures to address the coronavirus pandemic? (25 July)

    Yes: 29% (-5)
    No: 53% (+3)
    Don’t know: 18% (+1)

    Changes +/- 19 July

    Highest % for 'no' since Oct 2020.


    https://twitter.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1420369056075554816?s=20

    The pingdemic i think has really hit them plus the worry over rising case numbers. It a double whammy of FFS i have to isolate, but i don't have COVID, so unfair, while also FFS cases are everywhere.
    Just had a thought: how much has having the pingdemic helped to reduce the number of infections? Did it actually work, and that is why cases are falling? Or (more likely) is it just one of a number of factors?
    It probably did have an impact as it was a defacto lockdown for many....but people will just see it as unfairness, especially as a friend of mine, has had 3 isolations in 5-6 weeks via app and test / trace. They are absolutely hopping mad, as double jabbed, done load of lateral flow and went and got a PCR test and all negative.
    There seems little to stop malicious pinging as well. A local taxi firm who know someone who tests positive could get them to name rival firms drivers. The drivers pinged are not told when and where they were in contact so wouldn't know (and can't find out) that the contact was spurious.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    kinabalu said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Speaking of maritime symbols of doubtful purpose, probably £500m in the unlikely event of it ever coming to fruition? And I thought it was not going to be a 'royal' yacht, or are they going to persist with that terminology despite Brenda's disapproval?


    It was only £100m when Johnson started wanking off over it.

    Meanwhile the RN are down to one functional air warfare destroyer (Defender) and that's in the South China Sea while Diamond is broken in (ironically) Taranto, Daring and Duncan are in deep maintenance, Dauntless is getting a power system upgrade so they can plug the kettle in when it's more than 25 deg C and Dragon is in pre-deployment maintenance.

    That's tory defence priorities for you.
    All our ships start with a D then? I didn't realize that. Defender, Diamond, Daring, Dauntless, Dragon and ... fair enough ... Duncan.
    That class was named to follow up after the Daring class of large fleet destroyers built just after WW2. Only one survives, the Aussie Vampire in Sydney.
  • AlistairMAlistairM Posts: 2,004

    AlistairM said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    * Good
    ** Should give the performance medals to the horses then
    *** Walking shouldn't be an event
    Pace Stephen fry, walking is like a competition to see who can whisper the loudest... Had the swimming debate yesterday with the wife. I think it could be restricted to who can go the fastest (which would be freestyle). Always thought it a bit unfair how many medals swimmers can amass. Also think that the distances are odd too. 100 m athletics is very different to 200, 400, 800 and 1500. Are the equivalent in swimming so different? I’d argue not.
    Makes me smile to see the BBC get so excited about the sprinting ability of Adam Peaty - of course as a breaststroke specialist he's one of the slowest swimmers at the Olympics with even alsorans in the other events quicker.
    Adam Peaty I believe has some freak genetic double-jointedness which makes him naturally pre-disposed to being great at breast stroke. He clearly won the genetic lottery when it comes to all the characteristics needed to be good at that specific stroke.

    To give you an idea of how good he is as a result, Adrian Moorhouse set a WR for 100m breaststoke in 1990 of 1:01.49. Peaty's WR is now 56.88. That is 5 seconds, or 7.5% faster. If they had been in the same race when setting their WRs, Moorhouse would have been 7.5m behind Peaty.

    The 100m freestyle WR is 46.91 (interestingly set way back in 2009) and so breaststroke is nowhere close to that. Peaty's breaststroke would be competitive with the Peter Fick in freestyle. Peter Fick set the freestyle WR in 1934, 1935 and 1936!

    I do think there should be different distances in swimming. I just don't think there should be all the different strokes, just freestyle. Don't get me started on the medleys! That would be like getting a track competitor to cover 400m - 100m hopping, 100m skipping, 100m running backwards and 100m normal running. Frankly ridiculous.
    Triathlon? Any -athlon?
    The "thlons" mostly (modern pentathlon aside) are all genuine sporting endeavours using higher, faster or further. Now if the triathlon started introducing different events where they had to swim butterfly and ride a unicycle then I think I might lose it.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    The Royals really are hypocrites and parasites.

    The Queen’s lawyers secretly lobbied Scottish ministers to change a draft law to exempt her private land from a major initiative to cut carbon emissions, documents reveal.

    The exemption means the Queen, one of the largest landowners in Scotland, is the only person in the country not required to facilitate the construction of pipelines to heat buildings using renewable energy.

    Her lawyers secured the dispensation from Scotland’s government five months ago by exploiting an obscure parliamentary procedure known as Queen’s consent, which gives the monarch advance sight of legislation.

    The arcane parliamentary mechanism has been borrowed from Westminster, where it has existed as a custom since the 1700s.

    In a series of reports into Queen’s consent in recent months, the Guardian revealed how the Queen repeatedly used her privileged access to draft laws to lobby ministers to change UK legislation to benefit her private interests or reflect her opinions between the late 1960s and the 1980s.

    The new documents, uncovered by Lily Humphreys, a researcher for the Scottish Liberal Democrats using freedom of information laws, disclose how the monarch used her special access to Scottish legislation to intervene in the parliamentary process as recently as February.

    The documents also suggest Nicola Sturgeon’s government failed to disclose the monarch’s lobbying this year when a Scottish politician used a parliamentary debate to query why the Queen was securing an exemption from the green energy bill.

    The move appears at odds with the royal family’s public commitment to tackling the climate crisis, with Prince William recently joining his father, Charles, in campaigning to cut emissions and protect the planet.


    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/28/queen-secretly-lobbied-scottish-ministers-climate-law-exemption
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840

    kinabalu said:

    AlistairM said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    * Good
    ** Should give the performance medals to the horses then
    *** Walking shouldn't be an event
    Pace Stephen fry, walking is like a competition to see who can whisper the loudest... Had the swimming debate yesterday with the wife. I think it could be restricted to who can go the fastest (which would be freestyle). Always thought it a bit unfair how many medals swimmers can amass. Also think that the distances are odd too. 100 m athletics is very different to 200, 400, 800 and 1500. Are the equivalent in swimming so different? I’d argue not.
    Makes me smile to see the BBC get so excited about the sprinting ability of Adam Peaty - of course as a breaststroke specialist he's one of the slowest swimmers at the Olympics with even alsorans in the other events quicker.
    Adam Peaty I believe has some freak genetic double-jointedness which makes him naturally pre-disposed to being great at breast stroke. He clearly won the genetic lottery when it comes to all the characteristics needed to be good at that specific stroke.

    To give you an idea of how good he is as a result, Adrian Moorhouse set a WR for 100m breaststoke in 1990 of 1:01.49. Peaty's WR is now 56.88. That is 5 seconds, or 7.5% faster. If they had been in the same race when setting their WRs, Moorhouse would have been 7.5m behind Peaty.

    The 100m freestyle WR is 46.91 (interestingly set way back in 2009) and so breaststroke is nowhere close to that. Peaty's breaststroke would be competitive with the Peter Fick in freestyle. Peter Fick set the freestyle WR in 1934, 1935 and 1936!

    I do think there should be different distances in swimming. I just don't think there should be all the different strokes, just freestyle. Don't get me started on the medleys! That would be like getting a track competitor to cover 400m - 100m hopping, 100m skipping, 100m running backwards and 100m normal running. Frankly ridiculous.
    Most of the GOATs of swimming are total human freaks...massive advantage if you have enormous hands and feet, huge disproportionate wingspan, while having a narrow body. If i remember correctly Phelps has the wingspan of somebody who should he over 7ft, packed into a 6ft 4 body.
    It's interesting how breaststroke rather stands alone. Where you have a dominant crawler they often add on the fly too, then that plus various distances, plus all the relays, and lo you're looking at a massive medal haul. Not so much with breaststroke. You do that - and often just the one distance - and that's it. Our guys seem to go this route. We've specialized in the 100m and 200m breaststroke. Wilkie, Goodhew, now Peaty, these guys are great but they don't hoover up the medals like those American crawl/fly water monsters that seem to come along quite frequently.
    Optimistic Peaty and Scott end up with 3 golds here!
    Yes we're doing great. And for me swimming beats rowing and velodrome. I rank it high as a sport.
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    Perhaps they should stop being speciesist and let horses compete in the other events. Put Pumpkin up against Usain Bolt.
    Over a short distance Bolt would win as he would accelerate faster.
    Over a very long distance (into the ultra marathon range) humans would again win: properly fit humans can run down horses eventually. Indeed humans are the fastest runners of all animals if the distance is far enough.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112

    IshmaelZ said:

    kinabalu said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Speaking of maritime symbols of doubtful purpose, probably £500m in the unlikely event of it ever coming to fruition? And I thought it was not going to be a 'royal' yacht, or are they going to persist with that terminology despite Brenda's disapproval?


    It was only £100m when Johnson started wanking off over it.

    Meanwhile the RN are down to one functional air warfare destroyer (Defender) and that's in the South China Sea while Diamond is broken in (ironically) Taranto, Daring and Duncan are in deep maintenance, Dauntless is getting a power system upgrade so they can plug the kettle in when it's more than 25 deg C and Dragon is in pre-deployment maintenance.

    That's tory defence priorities for you.
    All our ships start with a D then? I didn't realize that. Defender, Diamond, Daring, Dauntless, Dragon and ... fair enough ... Duncan.
    All the different classes of ship have some sort of naming theme. The destroyers all start with a "D", the Trident-armed subs all start with a "V", a class of smallish patrol ships are all named after rivers (Mersey, Clyde, etc).
    There was a hunt (as in pack of foxhounds) class destroyer in ww2. Probably not going to be reprised
    The Hunt class ships look like the oldest ones still in service (besides Victory).

    Ledbury, Cattistock, etc.

    Minehunters appropriately enough. Clearly an irresistible association.
    PLastic. The previous minesweepers of the Ton class were timber - last of the wooden walls in RN service, apart from Victory of course.
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    As far as I'm concerned, horse dancing is THE Olympic sport. The only one worth watching. Charlotte DuJardin is a legend. As is Carl Hester.

    So there!

  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021
    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    AlistairM said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    * Good
    ** Should give the performance medals to the horses then
    *** Walking shouldn't be an event
    Pace Stephen fry, walking is like a competition to see who can whisper the loudest... Had the swimming debate yesterday with the wife. I think it could be restricted to who can go the fastest (which would be freestyle). Always thought it a bit unfair how many medals swimmers can amass. Also think that the distances are odd too. 100 m athletics is very different to 200, 400, 800 and 1500. Are the equivalent in swimming so different? I’d argue not.
    Makes me smile to see the BBC get so excited about the sprinting ability of Adam Peaty - of course as a breaststroke specialist he's one of the slowest swimmers at the Olympics with even alsorans in the other events quicker.
    Adam Peaty I believe has some freak genetic double-jointedness which makes him naturally pre-disposed to being great at breast stroke. He clearly won the genetic lottery when it comes to all the characteristics needed to be good at that specific stroke.

    To give you an idea of how good he is as a result, Adrian Moorhouse set a WR for 100m breaststoke in 1990 of 1:01.49. Peaty's WR is now 56.88. That is 5 seconds, or 7.5% faster. If they had been in the same race when setting their WRs, Moorhouse would have been 7.5m behind Peaty.

    The 100m freestyle WR is 46.91 (interestingly set way back in 2009) and so breaststroke is nowhere close to that. Peaty's breaststroke would be competitive with the Peter Fick in freestyle. Peter Fick set the freestyle WR in 1934, 1935 and 1936!

    I do think there should be different distances in swimming. I just don't think there should be all the different strokes, just freestyle. Don't get me started on the medleys! That would be like getting a track competitor to cover 400m - 100m hopping, 100m skipping, 100m running backwards and 100m normal running. Frankly ridiculous.
    Most of the GOATs of swimming are total human freaks...massive advantage if you have enormous hands and feet, huge disproportionate wingspan, while having a narrow body. If i remember correctly Phelps has the wingspan of somebody who should he over 7ft, packed into a 6ft 4 body.
    It's interesting how breaststroke rather stands alone. Where you have a dominant crawler they often add on the fly too, then that plus various distances, plus all the relays, and lo you're looking at a massive medal haul. Not so much with breaststroke. You do that - and often just the one distance - and that's it. Our guys seem to go this route. We've specialized in the 100m and 200m breaststroke. Wilkie, Goodhew, now Peaty, these guys are great but they don't hoover up the medals like those American crawl/fly water monsters that seem to come along quite frequently.
    Optimistic Peaty and Scott end up with 3 golds here!
    Yes we're doing great. And for me swimming beats rowing and velodrome. I rank it high as a sport.
    Defund the poshos in the rowing....they can't even row in a straight line!
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,182
    Sco+Wal+NI Positives / Deaths (Positives last Wed / Deaths last Wed)

    Sco: 1179 / 9 (1686 / 7)
    Wal: 588 / 6 (641 / 1)
    NI: 1600 / 3 (1973 / 1)

    Sco+Wal+NI: 3367 / 18 (4300 / 9)

  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    Perhaps they should stop being speciesist and let horses compete in the other events. Put Pumpkin up against Usain Bolt.
    Over a short distance Bolt would win as he would accelerate faster.
    Over a very long distance (into the ultra marathon range) humans would again win: properly fit humans can run down horses eventually. Indeed humans are the fastest runners of all animals if the distance is far enough.
    The very basis of the race in Wales - man vs horse... Started with a discussion in the pub, now a 20 mile off road race between runners and riders.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    Why is the bbc going mad about Simone biles? I couldn’t give a stuff. Concentrate on our athletes please.

    Seriously? She is a young person, perhaps a role model, affected by mental health.

    These past 18 months have been hugely injurious to the mental wellbeing of in particular young people and children.

    If some of them think - well she is talking about it so can I then it will be fantastic; if they see the sympathetic coverage and think I won't be ridiculed if I share my problems then that will be amazing; if they realise that it is widespread and hence they are not suffering on their own, that will be hugely beneficial.

    Other than that, no idea.

    I have sympathy for her but don’t need the bbc endlessly going on about when actual sport is happening.
    Sounds like the BBC has restricted access to the actual sport - surely they are not discussing her when they should be showing live coverage of the dressage.

    If not and your question is why not talk to competing athletes instead of about her then now is the time when anyone gives a damn about it so makes sense to discuss it now.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    HMG confirm vaccinated travellers from the EU and US can travel to England

    Updated now

    From 4.00am on the 2nd August (England only)
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    edited July 2021

    The Royals really are hypocrites and parasites.

    The Queen’s lawyers secretly lobbied Scottish ministers to change a draft law to exempt her private land from a major initiative to cut carbon emissions, documents reveal.

    The exemption means the Queen, one of the largest landowners in Scotland, is the only person in the country not required to facilitate the construction of pipelines to heat buildings using renewable energy.

    Her lawyers secured the dispensation from Scotland’s government five months ago by exploiting an obscure parliamentary procedure known as Queen’s consent, which gives the monarch advance sight of legislation.

    The arcane parliamentary mechanism has been borrowed from Westminster, where it has existed as a custom since the 1700s.

    In a series of reports into Queen’s consent in recent months, the Guardian revealed how the Queen repeatedly used her privileged access to draft laws to lobby ministers to change UK legislation to benefit her private interests or reflect her opinions between the late 1960s and the 1980s.

    The new documents, uncovered by Lily Humphreys, a researcher for the Scottish Liberal Democrats using freedom of information laws, disclose how the monarch used her special access to Scottish legislation to intervene in the parliamentary process as recently as February.

    The documents also suggest Nicola Sturgeon’s government failed to disclose the monarch’s lobbying this year when a Scottish politician used a parliamentary debate to query why the Queen was securing an exemption from the green energy bill.

    The move appears at odds with the royal family’s public commitment to tackling the climate crisis, with Prince William recently joining his father, Charles, in campaigning to cut emissions and protect the planet.


    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/28/queen-secretly-lobbied-scottish-ministers-climate-law-exemption

    When I was last passing through Balmoral, there was a hydro scheme being installed at the Linn of Muick.

    Might have been for Charlie's place at Birkhall tho'
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    With randomly allocated horses so an element of luck but also rider skill and not subject to quite as much suggestion of buying the win.
    But if you get the wrong horse a strong medal candidate might not be able to finish in the top 20 even if they perform their best. Hard to train for 4 years and stay motivated when so much luck of the draw.
    I cannot believe the difference in horse's ability is so marked. They must surely be given horses of a similar disposition/ability, etc?
  • Fysics_TeacherFysics_Teacher Posts: 6,060

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    Perhaps they should stop being speciesist and let horses compete in the other events. Put Pumpkin up against Usain Bolt.
    Over a short distance Bolt would win as he would accelerate faster.
    Over a very long distance (into the ultra marathon range) humans would again win: properly fit humans can run down horses eventually. Indeed humans are the fastest runners of all animals if the distance is far enough.
    The very basis of the race in Wales - man vs horse... Started with a discussion in the pub, now a 20 mile off road race between runners and riders.
    And even over that distance humans have won a time or two.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Why is the bbc going mad about Simone biles? I couldn’t give a stuff. Concentrate on our athletes please.

    Seriously? She is a young person, perhaps a role model, affected by mental health.

    These past 18 months have been hugely injurious to the mental wellbeing of in particular young people and children.

    If some of them think - well she is talking about it so can I then it will be fantastic; if they see the sympathetic coverage and think I won't be ridiculed if I share my problems then that will be amazing; if they realise that it is widespread and hence they are not suffering on their own, that will be hugely beneficial.

    Other than that, no idea.

    I have sympathy for her but don’t need the bbc endlessly going on about when actual sport is happening.
    Sounds like the BBC has restricted access to the actual sport - surely they are not discussing her when they should be showing live coverage of the dressage.

    If not and your question is why not talk to competing athletes instead of about her then now is the time when anyone gives a damn about it so makes sense to discuss it now.
    No - I wanted them to be showing live sport. They were wittering about her when a simple ‘she has withdrawn’ would have sufficed. There is little enough coverage on bbc, and I understand their limitations, so why waste air time on this?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Cyclefree said:

    As far as I'm concerned, horse dancing is THE Olympic sport. The only one worth watching. Charlotte DuJardin is a legend. As is Carl Hester.

    So there!

    I support any sport conducted in traditional Olympic style, that is, in the nude. Otherwise it doesnt count.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263

    HMG confirm vaccinated travellers from the EU and US can travel to England

    Updated now

    From 4.00am on the 2nd August (England only)

    What happens if they try to sneak into Wales or Scotland? Or (if sufficiently insane) Northern Ireland?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021
    I think an additional problem for the BBC with their coverage is that normally they can fill time with beautiful outside VT of the host city and packages of what a certain country is like. Given how different Japan is culturally to Europe, they could have easily filled hours of time with reports about unique aspects of Japanese life.

    Instead this time it is just 2-3 people filling dead time in a studio.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    TOPPING said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    With randomly allocated horses so an element of luck but also rider skill and not subject to quite as much suggestion of buying the win.
    But if you get the wrong horse a strong medal candidate might not be able to finish in the top 20 even if they perform their best. Hard to train for 4 years and stay motivated when so much luck of the draw.
    I cannot believe the difference in horse's ability is so marked. They must surely be given horses of a similar disposition/ability, etc?
    How easy is it to judge a horses disposition with riders they've never met of variable skill?
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001

    HMG confirm vaccinated travellers from the EU and US can travel to England

    Updated now

    From 4.00am on the 2nd August (England only)

    What happens if they try to sneak into Wales or Scotland? Or (if sufficiently insane) Northern Ireland?
    I assume Sturgeon and Drakeford will have them arrested and sent back, or more likely do the same a few days later just to be different
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    New rowing event ideas:
    triremes over two miles
    dragon ships (possibly coupled with a competitive monastic plundering at the end)
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    Perhaps they should stop being speciesist and let horses compete in the other events. Put Pumpkin up against Usain Bolt.
    Over a short distance Bolt would win as he would accelerate faster.
    Over a very long distance (into the ultra marathon range) humans would again win: properly fit humans can run down horses eventually. Indeed humans are the fastest runners of all animals if the distance is far enough.
    We can cheat by not stopping to have a drink of course.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    On topic, yeah @Leon had it right, this is the hubris virus, just when humanity thinks it has it beaten Covid-19 comes back with something new.

    I think it was the Czechs who held a farewell to Covid-19 party last summer which turned out to be premature.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112

    New rowing event ideas:
    triremes over two miles
    dragon ships (possibly coupled with a competitive monastic plundering at the end)

    Viking drakars or HK kind?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874

    I think an additional problem for the BBC with their coverage is that normally they can fill time with beautiful outside VT of the host city and packages of what a certain country is like. Given how different Japan is culturally to Europe, they could have easily filled hours of time with reports about unique aspects of Japanese life.

    Instead this time it is just 2-3 people filling dead time in a studio.

    There really needn’t be dead air time. I’m lucky enough to have Eurosport. There are 10ish channels running. There is enough sport.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    edited July 2021
    I mean if hurling is a (winter) Olympic sport then why not skateboarding or horse dancing in the summer Olympiad?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    12 police officers guarding athletes at the Olympic Village test positive for Covid and 38 more are told to isolate - with all 50 officers aged in their 20s and sharing cramped accommodation
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Why is the bbc going mad about Simone biles? I couldn’t give a stuff. Concentrate on our athletes please.

    Seriously? She is a young person, perhaps a role model, affected by mental health.

    These past 18 months have been hugely injurious to the mental wellbeing of in particular young people and children.

    If some of them think - well she is talking about it so can I then it will be fantastic; if they see the sympathetic coverage and think I won't be ridiculed if I share my problems then that will be amazing; if they realise that it is widespread and hence they are not suffering on their own, that will be hugely beneficial.

    Other than that, no idea.

    I have sympathy for her but don’t need the bbc endlessly going on about when actual sport is happening.
    Sounds like the BBC has restricted access to the actual sport - surely they are not discussing her when they should be showing live coverage of the dressage.

    If not and your question is why not talk to competing athletes instead of about her then now is the time when anyone gives a damn about it so makes sense to discuss it now.
    No - I wanted them to be showing live sport. They were wittering about her when a simple ‘she has withdrawn’ would have sufficed. There is little enough coverage on bbc, and I understand their limitations, so why waste air time on this?
    Plenty of time for all of it. As for "wittering" about her, as mentioned, it is important for many reasons some of which I articulated earlier that they should spend more time explaining the context.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    edited July 2021

    I think an additional problem for the BBC with their coverage is that normally they can fill time with beautiful outside VT of the host city and packages of what a certain country is like. Given how different Japan is culturally to Europe, they could have easily filled hours of time with reports about unique aspects of Japanese life.

    Instead this time it is just 2-3 people filling dead time in a studio.

    When i used to have NHK one of my favourites was 'At home with Venetia in Kyoto' an English posh lady who left her family to go on the hippy trail and ended up in Japan. Very posh very herbal and great fun.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    I think an additional problem for the BBC with their coverage is that normally they can fill time with beautiful outside VT of the host city and packages of what a certain country is like. Given how different Japan is culturally to Europe, they could have easily filled hours of time with reports about unique aspects of Japanese life.

    Instead this time it is just 2-3 people filling dead time in a studio.

    "filling dead time in a studio"

    @turbotubbs thinks every minute they should be showing live sport. It's what he paid his license fee for.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    DougSeal said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    ***And hopping (hurdles, steeplechase).
    I was at the Varsity Athletics meeting back in 1994. We had a walker but Cambridge hadn't sent any so our guy just did it on his own - walking round and round the track for half an hour while everyone watched. Felt really sorry for him, but it got him his blue.
    Damn it; if I'd known, I'd have walked for Cambridge and could have gotten a blue (presumably a Half Blue) too.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    kle4 said:

    TOPPING said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    With randomly allocated horses so an element of luck but also rider skill and not subject to quite as much suggestion of buying the win.
    But if you get the wrong horse a strong medal candidate might not be able to finish in the top 20 even if they perform their best. Hard to train for 4 years and stay motivated when so much luck of the draw.
    I cannot believe the difference in horse's ability is so marked. They must surely be given horses of a similar disposition/ability, etc?
    How easy is it to judge a horses disposition with riders they've never met of variable skill?
    Nah don't buy this. They know that showjumping is one part of the event hence they will all have trained to a certain standard and can cope with most nags they are presented with.

    And the horses as I said must surely be of a similar ability/temperament so it is an unbiased test of their horsemanship.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    So pleased to see Primož Roglič winning gold in the ITT. That solidifies the European Union lead in the medal tallies.

    Sorry? The highest EU team is France, who are 8th.
    Huh? The EU has won 63 medals so far, including 16 golds, easily beating China, Japan, England etc.
    Wait - are we saying that the EU should be treated as a single entity that's allowed to enter 27 separate teams into every event? Hardly a level playing field. Should the US be allowed to enter 50 teams (one for each state)?
    Or at least 27 teams to be fair.
    The UK as well?
    Should every country be allowed 27 entries?
    Wait till you see how many teams 'Oxford' and 'Cambridge' are allowed to enter into University Challenge!
    I reckon Oxford or Cambridge would win Uni Challenge every year if they entered single teams.
    Ah, so it's to give the thickos a chance! Dashed sporting of them..
    Which one rejected you out of interest?
    Oxbridge art schools weren’t much cop when I were a lad.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    I think an additional problem for the BBC with their coverage is that normally they can fill time with beautiful outside VT of the host city and packages of what a certain country is like. Given how different Japan is culturally to Europe, they could have easily filled hours of time with reports about unique aspects of Japanese life.

    Instead this time it is just 2-3 people filling dead time in a studio.

    There really needn’t be dead air time. I’m lucky enough to have Eurosport. There are 10ish channels running. There is enough sport.
    So why are you bleating about the BBC spending time on Simone Biles?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    So pleased to see Primož Roglič winning gold in the ITT. That solidifies the European Union lead in the medal tallies.

    Sorry? The highest EU team is France, who are 8th.
    Huh? The EU has won 63 medals so far, including 16 golds, easily beating China, Japan, England etc.
    Late to this nonsense. If you want an eu team, they only get a limited number of athletes in each event. You can’t have it both ways.
    Same goes for a GB “team”.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841

    12 police officers guarding athletes at the Olympic Village test positive for Covid and 38 more are told to isolate - with all 50 officers aged in their 20s and sharing cramped accommodation

    All the covid theatre around masks, taking your own medal on the podium but the rather larger risk of 50 police officers all holed up in a few rooms of bunks isn't remotely thought about
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    TOPPING said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    With randomly allocated horses so an element of luck but also rider skill and not subject to quite as much suggestion of buying the win.
    But if you get the wrong horse a strong medal candidate might not be able to finish in the top 20 even if they perform their best. Hard to train for 4 years and stay motivated when so much luck of the draw.
    I cannot believe the difference in horse's ability is so marked. They must surely be given horses of a similar disposition/ability, etc?
    I think it's mainly about the rider. Eg, Lucinda Prior Palmer won Badminton 6 times on 6 different horses. What's the common link there? It's Lucinda Prior Palmer.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    TOPPING said:

    kle4 said:

    TOPPING said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    With randomly allocated horses so an element of luck but also rider skill and not subject to quite as much suggestion of buying the win.
    But if you get the wrong horse a strong medal candidate might not be able to finish in the top 20 even if they perform their best. Hard to train for 4 years and stay motivated when so much luck of the draw.
    I cannot believe the difference in horse's ability is so marked. They must surely be given horses of a similar disposition/ability, etc?
    How easy is it to judge a horses disposition with riders they've never met of variable skill?
    Nah don't buy this. They know that showjumping is one part of the event hence they will all have trained to a certain standard and can cope with most nags they are presented with.

    And the horses as I said must surely be of a similar ability/temperament so it is an unbiased test of their horsemanship.
    I'm not disputing your point I just dont know how easy it is to judge, and the line between will and wont jump is pretty abrupt on very small disposition differences perhaps.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Carnyx said:

    New rowing event ideas:
    triremes over two miles
    dragon ships (possibly coupled with a competitive monastic plundering at the end)

    Viking drakars or HK kind?
    Perhaps the Duchess of Cambridge could be coaxed out of retirement if the latter.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243
    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    As far as I'm concerned, horse dancing is THE Olympic sport. The only one worth watching. Charlotte DuJardin is a legend. As is Carl Hester.

    So there!

    I support any sport conducted in traditional Olympic style, that is, in the nude. Otherwise it doesnt count.
    I guess the horses pass on that count? Do we actually need the riders? To be honest, I'd be more impressed if the horses learned their own routines without any human intervention in the final performance.

    Question - do the Team GB horses have to be 'British' as such? Or is it like the cycling where, presumably, it's fine for Team GB to use, e.g., a German made bike?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Carnyx, some drakkars, some snekkes.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    So pleased to see Primož Roglič winning gold in the ITT. That solidifies the European Union lead in the medal tallies.

    Sorry? The highest EU team is France, who are 8th.
    Huh? The EU has won 63 medals so far, including 16 golds, easily beating China, Japan, England etc.
    Late to this nonsense. If you want an eu team, they only get a limited number of athletes in each event. You can’t have it both ways.
    Same goes for a GB “team”.
    I dont follow. It is a team that's why each home nation doesnt get individual slots. If you do you're not a team, what am I missing?
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,442
    TOPPING said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    With randomly allocated horses so an element of luck but also rider skill and not subject to quite as much suggestion of buying the win.
    But if you get the wrong horse a strong medal candidate might not be able to finish in the top 20 even if they perform their best. Hard to train for 4 years and stay motivated when so much luck of the draw.
    I cannot believe the difference in horse's ability is so marked. They must surely be given horses of a similar disposition/ability, etc?
    https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/sports/olympics/in-olympic-pentathlon-riding-horses-theyve-only-just-met.html

    A good article on it if interested.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243
    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    With randomly allocated horses so an element of luck but also rider skill and not subject to quite as much suggestion of buying the win.
    But if you get the wrong horse a strong medal candidate might not be able to finish in the top 20 even if they perform their best. Hard to train for 4 years and stay motivated when so much luck of the draw.
    I cannot believe the difference in horse's ability is so marked. They must surely be given horses of a similar disposition/ability, etc?
    I think it's mainly about the rider. Eg, Lucinda Prior Palmer won Badminton 6 times on 6 different horses. What's the common link there? It's Lucinda Prior Palmer.
    Without stats on the most wins by a horse with different riders, I find that hard to judge.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    Selebian said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    As far as I'm concerned, horse dancing is THE Olympic sport. The only one worth watching. Charlotte DuJardin is a legend. As is Carl Hester.

    So there!

    I support any sport conducted in traditional Olympic style, that is, in the nude. Otherwise it doesnt count.
    I guess the horses pass on that count? Do we actually need the riders? To be honest, I'd be more impressed if the horses learned their own routines without any human intervention in the final performance.

    Question - do the Team GB horses have to be 'British' as such? Or is it like the cycling where, presumably, it's fine for Team GB to use, e.g., a German made bike?
    Nope, applies to the horses too.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,392
    AlistairM said:

    AlistairM said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    * Good
    ** Should give the performance medals to the horses then
    *** Walking shouldn't be an event
    Pace Stephen fry, walking is like a competition to see who can whisper the loudest... Had the swimming debate yesterday with the wife. I think it could be restricted to who can go the fastest (which would be freestyle). Always thought it a bit unfair how many medals swimmers can amass. Also think that the distances are odd too. 100 m athletics is very different to 200, 400, 800 and 1500. Are the equivalent in swimming so different? I’d argue not.
    Makes me smile to see the BBC get so excited about the sprinting ability of Adam Peaty - of course as a breaststroke specialist he's one of the slowest swimmers at the Olympics with even alsorans in the other events quicker.
    Adam Peaty I believe has some freak genetic double-jointedness which makes him naturally pre-disposed to being great at breast stroke. He clearly won the genetic lottery when it comes to all the characteristics needed to be good at that specific stroke.

    To give you an idea of how good he is as a result, Adrian Moorhouse set a WR for 100m breaststoke in 1990 of 1:01.49. Peaty's WR is now 56.88. That is 5 seconds, or 7.5% faster. If they had been in the same race when setting their WRs, Moorhouse would have been 7.5m behind Peaty.

    The 100m freestyle WR is 46.91 (interestingly set way back in 2009) and so breaststroke is nowhere close to that. Peaty's breaststroke would be competitive with the Peter Fick in freestyle. Peter Fick set the freestyle WR in 1934, 1935 and 1936!

    I do think there should be different distances in swimming. I just don't think there should be all the different strokes, just freestyle. Don't get me started on the medleys! That would be like getting a track competitor to cover 400m - 100m hopping, 100m skipping, 100m running backwards and 100m normal running. Frankly ridiculous.
    Triathlon? Any -athlon?
    The "thlons" mostly (modern pentathlon aside) are all genuine sporting endeavours using higher, faster or further. Now if the triathlon started introducing different events where they had to swim butterfly and ride a unicycle then I think I might lose it.
    Triathlon isn't a test of cycling ability. The good swimmer/runners can just ride behind a domestique or a rival.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,392
    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    With randomly allocated horses so an element of luck but also rider skill and not subject to quite as much suggestion of buying the win.
    But if you get the wrong horse a strong medal candidate might not be able to finish in the top 20 even if they perform their best. Hard to train for 4 years and stay motivated when so much luck of the draw.
    I cannot believe the difference in horse's ability is so marked. They must surely be given horses of a similar disposition/ability, etc?
    I think it's mainly about the rider. Eg, Lucinda Prior Palmer won Badminton 6 times on 6 different horses. What's the common link there? It's Lucinda Prior Palmer.
    She bought all the best horses?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021
    The media are laughable in their response...accoridng to Sky News, the UK government saying double vaccinated people from Europe and US can now come is an "embarrassing climb down".

    Although Labour Rayner says we can't have this, too risky, as USA don't have an NHS.
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    kinabalu said:



    Actually, Blair’s thinktank is coming up with all sorts of interesting stuff. A few months ago I moaned about the lack of policy thinking on the left. Blair’s thinktank is going some great work.

    Is it on the left though?
    Sort of. I think it's filling the same sort of space as Bill Gates' personal blogs, which I also read with interest:

    https://institute.global/
    https://www.gatesnotes.com/

    - essentially looking at creative ideas for global problems. Neither of them chew over domestic issues, and to some extent the ideas are free of the usual left-right dimension, but they share a belief in government activism which is more associated with the left.

    As a natural magpie, I also read

    https://thecorbynproject.com/projects/

    which also in my view has interesting projects on international issues. If one takes a step back from all of them personally and just looks at the ideas, it makes a nice change from arguing over Boris Johnson's tweets and similar ephemera.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Urquhart, in all honesty I'm very glad to have PB as a resource given the dire state of modern 'news'.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112

    Mr. Carnyx, some drakkars, some snekkes.

    They could certainly do it from (say) Berwick to Lindisfarne next time London hosts the Olympics.

    Plenty of current sailing/rowing experience at Roskilde Museum in Denmark (one of my covid regrets being not having made time before to go there again and actually have a ride).

    But anent your original post - would not a distance of say 16 stadia be more appropriate for the trireme/trieres race?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,392
    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    As far as I'm concerned, horse dancing is THE Olympic sport. The only one worth watching. Charlotte DuJardin is a legend. As is Carl Hester.

    So there!

    I support any sport conducted in traditional Olympic style, that is, in the nude. Otherwise it doesnt count.
    Should be the case with swimming. Take away the benefit of fabric technology.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    kinabalu said:

    TOPPING said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    With randomly allocated horses so an element of luck but also rider skill and not subject to quite as much suggestion of buying the win.
    But if you get the wrong horse a strong medal candidate might not be able to finish in the top 20 even if they perform their best. Hard to train for 4 years and stay motivated when so much luck of the draw.
    I cannot believe the difference in horse's ability is so marked. They must surely be given horses of a similar disposition/ability, etc?
    I think it's mainly about the rider. Eg, Lucinda Prior Palmer won Badminton 6 times on 6 different horses. What's the common link there? It's Lucinda Prior Palmer.
    Not relevant to the discussion but thanks for the info.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    kle4 said:

    Selebian said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    As far as I'm concerned, horse dancing is THE Olympic sport. The only one worth watching. Charlotte DuJardin is a legend. As is Carl Hester.

    So there!

    I support any sport conducted in traditional Olympic style, that is, in the nude. Otherwise it doesnt count.
    I guess the horses pass on that count? Do we actually need the riders? To be honest, I'd be more impressed if the horses learned their own routines without any human intervention in the final performance.

    Question - do the Team GB horses have to be 'British' as such? Or is it like the cycling where, presumably, it's fine for Team GB to use, e.g., a German made bike?
    Nope, applies to the horses too.
    Er, how does one define a Team GB horse? Birth, or residence, or what? Not as if it can have a passport to wave in its hoof.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    kle4 said:

    So pleased to see Primož Roglič winning gold in the ITT. That solidifies the European Union lead in the medal tallies.

    Sorry? The highest EU team is France, who are 8th.
    Huh? The EU has won 63 medals so far, including 16 golds, easily beating China, Japan, England etc.
    Late to this nonsense. If you want an eu team, they only get a limited number of athletes in each event. You can’t have it both ways.
    Same goes for a GB “team”.
    I dont follow. It is a team that's why each home nation doesnt get individual slots. If you do you're not a team, what am I missing?
    Stuart is talking shite, as usual.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,742
    The silly twat can’t even bring himself to say Catalunya/Catalonia!

    https://twitter.com/paulhutcheon/status/1420358801111326725?s=21
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540

    The media are laughable in their response...accoridng to Sky News, the UK government saying double vaccinated people from Europe and US can now come is an "embarrassing climb down".

    Although Labour Rayner says we can't have this, too risky, as USA don't have an NHS.

    Changes of policy can only be "u-turns", "climb downs" or "volte-face" - where's the fun (or mileage?) in "change"?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    The media are laughable in their response...accoridng to Sky News, the UK government saying double vaccinated people from Europe and US can now come is an "embarrassing climb down".

    Although Labour Rayner says we can't have this, too risky, as USA don't have an NHS.

    Our general attitude to changing position is quite destructive. Some things are humiliating climb downs, but it's hard to find them given any change, even trailed ones, are treated as u turning, which is explicitly treated as being weak. Media and politicians both feed it, it's why gov is so stubborn even on tiny things, but I blame us more - the public support that dramatic view of any change being weakness, even as it is demanded.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    felix said:

    I think an additional problem for the BBC with their coverage is that normally they can fill time with beautiful outside VT of the host city and packages of what a certain country is like. Given how different Japan is culturally to Europe, they could have easily filled hours of time with reports about unique aspects of Japanese life.

    Instead this time it is just 2-3 people filling dead time in a studio.

    When i used to have NHK one of my favourites was 'At home with Venetia in Kyoto' an English posh lady who left her family to go on the hippy trail and ended up in Japan. Very posh very herbal and great fun.
    Looked that up - not the sort of herbal I expected!

    https://www.telecomstaff.co.jp/en/works/325/
  • maaarshmaaarsh Posts: 3,391

    I mean if hurling is a (winter) Olympic sport then why not skateboarding or horse dancing in the summer Olympiad?

    Luckily hurling isn't an Olympic sport at all as there'd only be 1 entrant.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    edited July 2021

    The media are laughable in their response...accoridng to Sky News, the UK government saying double vaccinated people from Europe and US can now come is an "embarrassing climb down".

    Although Labour Rayner says we can't have this, too risky, as USA don't have an NHS.

    Changes of policy can only be "u-turns", "climb downs" or "volte-face" - where's the fun (or mileage?) in "change"?
    Isn't it just a natural evolution of policy as vaccination nears completion?
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    I wonder if we'll get HEMA events one day.

    Anyway, I must be off. Play nicely, my fellow Britons.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    maaarsh said:

    I mean if hurling is a (winter) Olympic sport then why not skateboarding or horse dancing in the summer Olympiad?

    Luckily hurling isn't an Olympic sport at all as there'd only be 1 entrant.
    Er, no. Even without the Scots camanachd, there are plenty of players all over the world. It's not just cricket that got naturalised.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956

    Mr. Urquhart, in all honesty I'm very glad to have PB as a resource given the dire state of modern 'news'.

    And grateful to me as well for helping filling in the huge gaps in your knowledge of (classical) history.

    There may well be a thread this weekend comparing Boris Johnson to Marcus Antonius.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950

    TOPPING said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    TimT said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    In what way is dressage not a sport? Both horse and rider have to be fit and skilled, and must communicate well together, and must attain objectives defined by strict rules of the sport. How is that different than, say, football.

    Personally, I find dressage boring. But just because you, AlistairM, don't understand the sport, does not mean that it is not a sport.
    An Olympic sport should not be so heavily reliant on the performance of an animal. The Olympics is meant to be about the best of human sporting performance, not horses.

    If dressage is in the Olympics then why shouldn't horse racing be?
    I think Modern Pentathlon has a riding element: jumping I think, so timed?
    With randomly allocated horses so an element of luck but also rider skill and not subject to quite as much suggestion of buying the win.
    But if you get the wrong horse a strong medal candidate might not be able to finish in the top 20 even if they perform their best. Hard to train for 4 years and stay motivated when so much luck of the draw.
    I cannot believe the difference in horse's ability is so marked. They must surely be given horses of a similar disposition/ability, etc?
    https://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/11/sports/olympics/in-olympic-pentathlon-riding-horses-theyve-only-just-met.html

    A good article on it if interested.
    I am quite interested but couldn't get access to the article - can you summarise?

    My point is that every horse has its foibles and so forth but they aren't going to have horses, one of which is a 2yr old thoroughbred, another a 22yr old cob, a third an arab, etc

    The horses must surely all have a similar level of temperament and ability and be known to be able to jump a course of show jumps.

    Then it is up to the rider.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    maaarsh said:

    I mean if hurling is a (winter) Olympic sport then why not skateboarding or horse dancing in the summer Olympiad?

    Luckily hurling isn't an Olympic sport at all as there'd only be 1 entrant.
    Fecking autocorrect, I meant curling.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,182

    AlistairM said:

    AlistairM said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    * Good
    ** Should give the performance medals to the horses then
    *** Walking shouldn't be an event
    Pace Stephen fry, walking is like a competition to see who can whisper the loudest... Had the swimming debate yesterday with the wife. I think it could be restricted to who can go the fastest (which would be freestyle). Always thought it a bit unfair how many medals swimmers can amass. Also think that the distances are odd too. 100 m athletics is very different to 200, 400, 800 and 1500. Are the equivalent in swimming so different? I’d argue not.
    Makes me smile to see the BBC get so excited about the sprinting ability of Adam Peaty - of course as a breaststroke specialist he's one of the slowest swimmers at the Olympics with even alsorans in the other events quicker.
    Adam Peaty I believe has some freak genetic double-jointedness which makes him naturally pre-disposed to being great at breast stroke. He clearly won the genetic lottery when it comes to all the characteristics needed to be good at that specific stroke.

    To give you an idea of how good he is as a result, Adrian Moorhouse set a WR for 100m breaststoke in 1990 of 1:01.49. Peaty's WR is now 56.88. That is 5 seconds, or 7.5% faster. If they had been in the same race when setting their WRs, Moorhouse would have been 7.5m behind Peaty.

    The 100m freestyle WR is 46.91 (interestingly set way back in 2009) and so breaststroke is nowhere close to that. Peaty's breaststroke would be competitive with the Peter Fick in freestyle. Peter Fick set the freestyle WR in 1934, 1935 and 1936!

    I do think there should be different distances in swimming. I just don't think there should be all the different strokes, just freestyle. Don't get me started on the medleys! That would be like getting a track competitor to cover 400m - 100m hopping, 100m skipping, 100m running backwards and 100m normal running. Frankly ridiculous.
    Triathlon? Any -athlon?
    The "thlons" mostly (modern pentathlon aside) are all genuine sporting endeavours using higher, faster or further. Now if the triathlon started introducing different events where they had to swim butterfly and ride a unicycle then I think I might lose it.
    Triathlon isn't a test of cycling ability. The good swimmer/runners can just ride behind a domestique or a rival.
    I'm with @AlistairM above here. There are far too many swimming events based on making things unnecessarily difficult for yourself. Medleys is doubly ridiculous. You don't have a 400m medley in which you have to walk the first 100m, run the second 100m backwards, jump the third 100m and run the fourth 100m normally.

    Also anything including points for artistic impression is not a sport e.g ice dancing.

    I'm fairly sceptical of the place of gymnastics to be honest.

    Andwhy no tug of war? That's a proper sport.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112

    The silly twat can’t even bring himself to say Catalunya/Catalonia!

    https://twitter.com/paulhutcheon/status/1420358801111326725?s=21

    Also, "coalition with Tories? Nothing to do with me, siree".
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Paul Waugh
    I understand that the Welsh govt will agree to similar arrangements because of its open border with England, while expressing deep regret at the UK Govt decision.


    https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1420381561518792707?s=20

    "You can come BUT YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN WALES"

    I bet the Welsh Tourist Board are thrilled....
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112

    maaarsh said:

    I mean if hurling is a (winter) Olympic sport then why not skateboarding or horse dancing in the summer Olympiad?

    Luckily hurling isn't an Olympic sport at all as there'd only be 1 entrant.
    Fecking autocorrect, I meant curling.
    Because it's similar to cricket or footie. It's a ball or rather disc game.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited July 2021

    The media are laughable in their response...accoridng to Sky News, the UK government saying double vaccinated people from Europe and US can now come is an "embarrassing climb down".

    Although Labour Rayner says we can't have this, too risky, as USA don't have an NHS.

    Changes of policy can only be "u-turns", "climb downs" or "volte-face" - where's the fun (or mileage?) in "change"?
    The thing that makes the outrage meter being tweaked even more ridiculous is in the same report they admit the at the G7 they apparently talked about exactly this approach between the big nations....so I would presume there was informal chat of well when you get your population to this level of vaccination, we can probably change the general policy.

    So it hardly that Boris got up this morning and went huzzzahhhh, U-turn on the border policy lads and ladettes.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    Cookie said:

    AlistairM said:

    AlistairM said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    * Good
    ** Should give the performance medals to the horses then
    *** Walking shouldn't be an event
    Pace Stephen fry, walking is like a competition to see who can whisper the loudest... Had the swimming debate yesterday with the wife. I think it could be restricted to who can go the fastest (which would be freestyle). Always thought it a bit unfair how many medals swimmers can amass. Also think that the distances are odd too. 100 m athletics is very different to 200, 400, 800 and 1500. Are the equivalent in swimming so different? I’d argue not.
    Makes me smile to see the BBC get so excited about the sprinting ability of Adam Peaty - of course as a breaststroke specialist he's one of the slowest swimmers at the Olympics with even alsorans in the other events quicker.
    Adam Peaty I believe has some freak genetic double-jointedness which makes him naturally pre-disposed to being great at breast stroke. He clearly won the genetic lottery when it comes to all the characteristics needed to be good at that specific stroke.

    To give you an idea of how good he is as a result, Adrian Moorhouse set a WR for 100m breaststoke in 1990 of 1:01.49. Peaty's WR is now 56.88. That is 5 seconds, or 7.5% faster. If they had been in the same race when setting their WRs, Moorhouse would have been 7.5m behind Peaty.

    The 100m freestyle WR is 46.91 (interestingly set way back in 2009) and so breaststroke is nowhere close to that. Peaty's breaststroke would be competitive with the Peter Fick in freestyle. Peter Fick set the freestyle WR in 1934, 1935 and 1936!

    I do think there should be different distances in swimming. I just don't think there should be all the different strokes, just freestyle. Don't get me started on the medleys! That would be like getting a track competitor to cover 400m - 100m hopping, 100m skipping, 100m running backwards and 100m normal running. Frankly ridiculous.
    Triathlon? Any -athlon?
    The "thlons" mostly (modern pentathlon aside) are all genuine sporting endeavours using higher, faster or further. Now if the triathlon started introducing different events where they had to swim butterfly and ride a unicycle then I think I might lose it.
    Triathlon isn't a test of cycling ability. The good swimmer/runners can just ride behind a domestique or a rival.
    I'm with @AlistairM above here. There are far too many swimming events based on making things unnecessarily difficult for yourself. Medleys is doubly ridiculous. You don't have a 400m medley in which you have to walk the first 100m, run the second 100m backwards, jump the third 100m and run the fourth 100m normally.

    Also anything including points for artistic impression is not a sport e.g ice dancing.

    I'm fairly sceptical of the place of gymnastics to be honest.

    Andwhy no tug of war? That's a proper sport.
    Simple rule: get rid of all "sports" where scores are assigned by judges. If it can't be measured objectively, it's an art form, not a sport.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    So pleased to see Primož Roglič winning gold in the ITT. That solidifies the European Union lead in the medal tallies.

    Sorry? The highest EU team is France, who are 8th.
    Huh? The EU has won 63 medals so far, including 16 golds, easily beating China, Japan, England etc.
    Wait - are we saying that the EU should be treated as a single entity that's allowed to enter 27 separate teams into every event? Hardly a level playing field. Should the US be allowed to enter 50 teams (one for each state)?
    Or at least 27 teams to be fair.
    The UK as well?
    Should every country be allowed 27 entries?
    Wait till you see how many teams 'Oxford' and 'Cambridge' are allowed to enter into University Challenge!
    I reckon Oxford or Cambridge would win Uni Challenge every year if they entered single teams.
    Ah, so it's to give the thickos a chance! Dashed sporting of them..
    Which one rejected you out of interest?
    Oxbridge art schools weren’t much cop when I were a lad.
    It was possible to mix art and Oxbridge. Anthony Blunt proved that.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956

    Paul Waugh
    I understand that the Welsh govt will agree to similar arrangements because of its open border with England, while expressing deep regret at the UK Govt decision.


    https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1420381561518792707?s=20

    "You can come BUT YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN WALES"

    I bet the Welsh Tourist Board are thrilled....

    Who would want to visit Wales?

    Scotland and England yes, but Wales?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392

    The Royals really are hypocrites and parasites.

    The Queen’s lawyers secretly lobbied Scottish ministers to change a draft law to exempt her private land from a major initiative to cut carbon emissions, documents reveal.

    The exemption means the Queen, one of the largest landowners in Scotland, is the only person in the country not required to facilitate the construction of pipelines to heat buildings using renewable energy.

    Her lawyers secured the dispensation from Scotland’s government five months ago by exploiting an obscure parliamentary procedure known as Queen’s consent, which gives the monarch advance sight of legislation.

    The arcane parliamentary mechanism has been borrowed from Westminster, where it has existed as a custom since the 1700s.

    In a series of reports into Queen’s consent in recent months, the Guardian revealed how the Queen repeatedly used her privileged access to draft laws to lobby ministers to change UK legislation to benefit her private interests or reflect her opinions between the late 1960s and the 1980s.

    The new documents, uncovered by Lily Humphreys, a researcher for the Scottish Liberal Democrats using freedom of information laws, disclose how the monarch used her special access to Scottish legislation to intervene in the parliamentary process as recently as February.

    The documents also suggest Nicola Sturgeon’s government failed to disclose the monarch’s lobbying this year when a Scottish politician used a parliamentary debate to query why the Queen was securing an exemption from the green energy bill.

    The move appears at odds with the royal family’s public commitment to tackling the climate crisis, with Prince William recently joining his father, Charles, in campaigning to cut emissions and protect the planet.


    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/28/queen-secretly-lobbied-scottish-ministers-climate-law-exemption

    Naughty naughty.

    I am though occasionally struck by what makes a mechanism arcane, or using a procedure being exploiting it (its clearer in this case), as it can be arbitrary.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    kinabalu said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    So pleased to see Primož Roglič winning gold in the ITT. That solidifies the European Union lead in the medal tallies.

    Sorry? The highest EU team is France, who are 8th.
    Huh? The EU has won 63 medals so far, including 16 golds, easily beating China, Japan, England etc.
    Wait - are we saying that the EU should be treated as a single entity that's allowed to enter 27 separate teams into every event? Hardly a level playing field. Should the US be allowed to enter 50 teams (one for each state)?
    Or at least 27 teams to be fair.
    The UK as well?
    Should every country be allowed 27 entries?
    Wait till you see how many teams 'Oxford' and 'Cambridge' are allowed to enter into University Challenge!
    I reckon Oxford or Cambridge would win Uni Challenge every year if they entered single teams.
    Ah, so it's to give the thickos a chance! Dashed sporting of them..
    Which one rejected you out of interest?
    Oxbridge art schools weren’t much cop when I were a lad.
    It was possible to mix art and Oxbridge. Anthony Blunt proved that.
    Eh? He was a mathematician turned modern linguist.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112

    Paul Waugh
    I understand that the Welsh govt will agree to similar arrangements because of its open border with England, while expressing deep regret at the UK Govt decision.


    https://twitter.com/paulwaugh/status/1420381561518792707?s=20

    "You can come BUT YOU ARE NOT WELCOME IN WALES"

    I bet the Welsh Tourist Board are thrilled....

    Who would want to visit Wales?

    Scotland and England yes, but Wales?
    Laver bread. Yum.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    Carnyx said:

    kle4 said:

    Selebian said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    As far as I'm concerned, horse dancing is THE Olympic sport. The only one worth watching. Charlotte DuJardin is a legend. As is Carl Hester.

    So there!

    I support any sport conducted in traditional Olympic style, that is, in the nude. Otherwise it doesnt count.
    I guess the horses pass on that count? Do we actually need the riders? To be honest, I'd be more impressed if the horses learned their own routines without any human intervention in the final performance.

    Question - do the Team GB horses have to be 'British' as such? Or is it like the cycling where, presumably, it's fine for Team GB to use, e.g., a German made bike?
    Nope, applies to the horses too.
    Er, how does one define a Team GB horse? Birth, or residence, or what? Not as if it can have a passport to wave in its hoof.
    https://www.bhs.org.uk/advice-and-information/horse-ownership/horse-passports/faqs

    Do all horses need an equine passport?

    Yes. Horses, ponies, donkeys, mules and zebras must have an equine passport, even if they never leave their field.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    kinabalu said:

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    So pleased to see Primož Roglič winning gold in the ITT. That solidifies the European Union lead in the medal tallies.

    Sorry? The highest EU team is France, who are 8th.
    Huh? The EU has won 63 medals so far, including 16 golds, easily beating China, Japan, England etc.
    Wait - are we saying that the EU should be treated as a single entity that's allowed to enter 27 separate teams into every event? Hardly a level playing field. Should the US be allowed to enter 50 teams (one for each state)?
    Or at least 27 teams to be fair.
    The UK as well?
    Should every country be allowed 27 entries?
    Wait till you see how many teams 'Oxford' and 'Cambridge' are allowed to enter into University Challenge!
    I reckon Oxford or Cambridge would win Uni Challenge every year if they entered single teams.
    Ah, so it's to give the thickos a chance! Dashed sporting of them..
    Which one rejected you out of interest?
    Oxbridge art schools weren’t much cop when I were a lad.
    It was possible to mix art and Oxbridge. Anthony Blunt proved that.
    One of Blunt's codenames was 'Johnson'.

    Now there's a joke about there currently being a massive Johnson doing Russia's work for them today.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    edited July 2021
    Endillion said:

    Cookie said:

    AlistairM said:

    AlistairM said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    * Good
    ** Should give the performance medals to the horses then
    *** Walking shouldn't be an event
    Pace Stephen fry, walking is like a competition to see who can whisper the loudest... Had the swimming debate yesterday with the wife. I think it could be restricted to who can go the fastest (which would be freestyle). Always thought it a bit unfair how many medals swimmers can amass. Also think that the distances are odd too. 100 m athletics is very different to 200, 400, 800 and 1500. Are the equivalent in swimming so different? I’d argue not.
    Makes me smile to see the BBC get so excited about the sprinting ability of Adam Peaty - of course as a breaststroke specialist he's one of the slowest swimmers at the Olympics with even alsorans in the other events quicker.
    Adam Peaty I believe has some freak genetic double-jointedness which makes him naturally pre-disposed to being great at breast stroke. He clearly won the genetic lottery when it comes to all the characteristics needed to be good at that specific stroke.

    To give you an idea of how good he is as a result, Adrian Moorhouse set a WR for 100m breaststoke in 1990 of 1:01.49. Peaty's WR is now 56.88. That is 5 seconds, or 7.5% faster. If they had been in the same race when setting their WRs, Moorhouse would have been 7.5m behind Peaty.

    The 100m freestyle WR is 46.91 (interestingly set way back in 2009) and so breaststroke is nowhere close to that. Peaty's breaststroke would be competitive with the Peter Fick in freestyle. Peter Fick set the freestyle WR in 1934, 1935 and 1936!

    I do think there should be different distances in swimming. I just don't think there should be all the different strokes, just freestyle. Don't get me started on the medleys! That would be like getting a track competitor to cover 400m - 100m hopping, 100m skipping, 100m running backwards and 100m normal running. Frankly ridiculous.
    Triathlon? Any -athlon?
    The "thlons" mostly (modern pentathlon aside) are all genuine sporting endeavours using higher, faster or further. Now if the triathlon started introducing different events where they had to swim butterfly and ride a unicycle then I think I might lose it.
    Triathlon isn't a test of cycling ability. The good swimmer/runners can just ride behind a domestique or a rival.
    I'm with @AlistairM above here. There are far too many swimming events based on making things unnecessarily difficult for yourself. Medleys is doubly ridiculous. You don't have a 400m medley in which you have to walk the first 100m, run the second 100m backwards, jump the third 100m and run the fourth 100m normally.

    Also anything including points for artistic impression is not a sport e.g ice dancing.

    I'm fairly sceptical of the place of gymnastics to be honest.

    Andwhy no tug of war? That's a proper sport.
    Simple rule: get rid of all "sports" where scores are assigned by judges. If it can't be measured objectively, it's an art form, not a sport.
    Hmm, I generally agree, but what about things like boxing and taekwondo? Dont multiple judges have to record the scoring hits?

    Itd be a shame not to have gymnastics or diving etc, but it can be hard to tell sometimes why one is .x better than another.

    I think we'd lose too many.
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122
    Carnyx said:

    felix said:

    I think an additional problem for the BBC with their coverage is that normally they can fill time with beautiful outside VT of the host city and packages of what a certain country is like. Given how different Japan is culturally to Europe, they could have easily filled hours of time with reports about unique aspects of Japanese life.

    Instead this time it is just 2-3 people filling dead time in a studio.

    When i used to have NHK one of my favourites was 'At home with Venetia in Kyoto' an English posh lady who left her family to go on the hippy trail and ended up in Japan. Very posh very herbal and great fun.
    Looked that up - not the sort of herbal I expected!

    https://www.telecomstaff.co.jp/en/works/325/
    She's totally into herbal teas/infusions, etc. She probably was a dope head in her youth - now she's just mellow! :0
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,182
    edited July 2021
    TOPPING said:

    I think an additional problem for the BBC with their coverage is that normally they can fill time with beautiful outside VT of the host city and packages of what a certain country is like. Given how different Japan is culturally to Europe, they could have easily filled hours of time with reports about unique aspects of Japanese life.

    Instead this time it is just 2-3 people filling dead time in a studio.

    "filling dead time in a studio"

    @turbotubbs thinks every minute they should be showing live sport. It's what he paid his license fee for.
    I'm with turbotubbs here.
    The BBC - and the highlights programme with Clare Balding in particular - sees sport as a human interest/reality program. Oh, the inanity! They have no faith that people wathcing can be interested in sport for its own sake. Always the interview with the family, always 'look at the emotion', always 'how proud are you?' (one of my particular bugbears - what are they expecting the answer to be, apart from 'very'?) They treat it like the X Factor.
    Clare Balding used to be quite good when all she had to do was enthuse about horses.
    It's the Olympics. Just show some sport! It's really easy telly to make. I don't mid a bit of human interest, but the BBC highlights programme is about 70% human interest to 30% actual sport. They've got the balance way off.

    Hazel Irvine, on the other hand, remains a class act.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,112
    edited July 2021
    Endillion said:

    Carnyx said:

    kle4 said:

    Selebian said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    As far as I'm concerned, horse dancing is THE Olympic sport. The only one worth watching. Charlotte DuJardin is a legend. As is Carl Hester.

    So there!

    I support any sport conducted in traditional Olympic style, that is, in the nude. Otherwise it doesnt count.
    I guess the horses pass on that count? Do we actually need the riders? To be honest, I'd be more impressed if the horses learned their own routines without any human intervention in the final performance.

    Question - do the Team GB horses have to be 'British' as such? Or is it like the cycling where, presumably, it's fine for Team GB to use, e.g., a German made bike?
    Nope, applies to the horses too.
    Er, how does one define a Team GB horse? Birth, or residence, or what? Not as if it can have a passport to wave in its hoof.
    https://www.bhs.org.uk/advice-and-information/horse-ownership/horse-passports/faqs

    Do all horses need an equine passport?

    Yes. Horses, ponies, donkeys, mules and zebras must have an equine passport, even if they never leave their field.
    I stand corrected, thank you.

    But that's more of a tracing scheme for future Shergarburgers (or not as the case may be). Doesn't define the horse as being e.g. English except by residence. So what do they do in the OLympics?
  • felixfelix Posts: 15,122

    maaarsh said:

    I mean if hurling is a (winter) Olympic sport then why not skateboarding or horse dancing in the summer Olympiad?

    Luckily hurling isn't an Olympic sport at all as there'd only be 1 entrant.
    Fecking autocorrect, I meant curling.
    Must admit I thought it was another of your sick jokes..
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,841
    Endillion said:

    Carnyx said:

    kle4 said:

    Selebian said:

    kle4 said:

    Cyclefree said:

    As far as I'm concerned, horse dancing is THE Olympic sport. The only one worth watching. Charlotte DuJardin is a legend. As is Carl Hester.

    So there!

    I support any sport conducted in traditional Olympic style, that is, in the nude. Otherwise it doesnt count.
    I guess the horses pass on that count? Do we actually need the riders? To be honest, I'd be more impressed if the horses learned their own routines without any human intervention in the final performance.

    Question - do the Team GB horses have to be 'British' as such? Or is it like the cycling where, presumably, it's fine for Team GB to use, e.g., a German made bike?
    Nope, applies to the horses too.
    Er, how does one define a Team GB horse? Birth, or residence, or what? Not as if it can have a passport to wave in its hoof.
    https://www.bhs.org.uk/advice-and-information/horse-ownership/horse-passports/faqs

    Do all horses need an equine passport?

    Yes. Horses, ponies, donkeys, mules and zebras must have an equine passport, even if they never leave their field.
    They need up to date vaccinations too.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080

    kinabalu said:

    kinabalu said:

    AlistairM said:

    maaarsh said:

    AlistairM said:

    Pulpstar said:

    AlistairM said:

    Dressage should really not be at the Olympics. It is not a sport. Even though we seem to be quite good at it.

    Genuine question though. *Why are there separate mens and womens events for it? Does being one gender give a significant advantage? What about the horse's gender? Does a male rider have to compete on a male horse and female riders on female horses? If not, why not?

    To my eye it looks like the horse does all the hard work and the rider just sits there. It is like figure skating for horses. **Might as well give Olympic medals for choreography. That would at least be honest.

    It is even worse than having all the umpteen different swim medals for swimming with different strokes. Should just be freestyle. ***Otherwise why aren't there skipping, hopping and running backwards competitions on the track?

    * There aren't
    ** The choreography is scored in the individual competition.
    *** Walking is included in the program of events.
    * Good
    ** Should give the performance medals to the horses then
    *** Walking shouldn't be an event
    Pace Stephen fry, walking is like a competition to see who can whisper the loudest... Had the swimming debate yesterday with the wife. I think it could be restricted to who can go the fastest (which would be freestyle). Always thought it a bit unfair how many medals swimmers can amass. Also think that the distances are odd too. 100 m athletics is very different to 200, 400, 800 and 1500. Are the equivalent in swimming so different? I’d argue not.
    Makes me smile to see the BBC get so excited about the sprinting ability of Adam Peaty - of course as a breaststroke specialist he's one of the slowest swimmers at the Olympics with even alsorans in the other events quicker.
    Adam Peaty I believe has some freak genetic double-jointedness which makes him naturally pre-disposed to being great at breast stroke. He clearly won the genetic lottery when it comes to all the characteristics needed to be good at that specific stroke.

    To give you an idea of how good he is as a result, Adrian Moorhouse set a WR for 100m breaststoke in 1990 of 1:01.49. Peaty's WR is now 56.88. That is 5 seconds, or 7.5% faster. If they had been in the same race when setting their WRs, Moorhouse would have been 7.5m behind Peaty.

    The 100m freestyle WR is 46.91 (interestingly set way back in 2009) and so breaststroke is nowhere close to that. Peaty's breaststroke would be competitive with the Peter Fick in freestyle. Peter Fick set the freestyle WR in 1934, 1935 and 1936!

    I do think there should be different distances in swimming. I just don't think there should be all the different strokes, just freestyle. Don't get me started on the medleys! That would be like getting a track competitor to cover 400m - 100m hopping, 100m skipping, 100m running backwards and 100m normal running. Frankly ridiculous.
    Most of the GOATs of swimming are total human freaks...massive advantage if you have enormous hands and feet, huge disproportionate wingspan, while having a narrow body. If i remember correctly Phelps has the wingspan of somebody who should he over 7ft, packed into a 6ft 4 body.
    It's interesting how breaststroke rather stands alone. Where you have a dominant crawler they often add on the fly too, then that plus various distances, plus all the relays, and lo you're looking at a massive medal haul. Not so much with breaststroke. You do that - and often just the one distance - and that's it. Our guys seem to go this route. We've specialized in the 100m and 200m breaststroke. Wilkie, Goodhew, now Peaty, these guys are great but they don't hoover up the medals like those American crawl/fly water monsters that seem to come along quite frequently.
    Optimistic Peaty and Scott end up with 3 golds here!
    Yes we're doing great. And for me swimming beats rowing and velodrome. I rank it high as a sport.
    Defund the poshos in the rowing....they can't even row in a straight line!
    If you defund it, that will prevent the oiks getting in.

    Stop discriminating against poor people.

    People of colour are over-represented amongst poorer people, so you must be a racist as well.

    (Argument copyright D. Butler.)
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,182

    maaarsh said:

    I mean if hurling is a (winter) Olympic sport then why not skateboarding or horse dancing in the summer Olympiad?

    Luckily hurling isn't an Olympic sport at all as there'd only be 1 entrant.
    Fecking autocorrect, I meant curling.
    Because curling is a proper sport where the outcome can be measured objectively.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    edited July 2021

    The Royals really are hypocrites and parasites.

    The Queen’s lawyers secretly lobbied Scottish ministers to change a draft law to exempt her private land from a major initiative to cut carbon emissions, documents reveal.

    The exemption means the Queen, one of the largest landowners in Scotland, is the only person in the country not required to facilitate the construction of pipelines to heat buildings using renewable energy.

    Her lawyers secured the dispensation from Scotland’s government five months ago by exploiting an obscure parliamentary procedure known as Queen’s consent, which gives the monarch advance sight of legislation.

    The arcane parliamentary mechanism has been borrowed from Westminster, where it has existed as a custom since the 1700s.

    In a series of reports into Queen’s consent in recent months, the Guardian revealed how the Queen repeatedly used her privileged access to draft laws to lobby ministers to change UK legislation to benefit her private interests or reflect her opinions between the late 1960s and the 1980s.

    The new documents, uncovered by Lily Humphreys, a researcher for the Scottish Liberal Democrats using freedom of information laws, disclose how the monarch used her special access to Scottish legislation to intervene in the parliamentary process as recently as February.

    The documents also suggest Nicola Sturgeon’s government failed to disclose the monarch’s lobbying this year when a Scottish politician used a parliamentary debate to query why the Queen was securing an exemption from the green energy bill.

    The move appears at odds with the royal family’s public commitment to tackling the climate crisis, with Prince William recently joining his father, Charles, in campaigning to cut emissions and protect the planet.


    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jul/28/queen-secretly-lobbied-scottish-ministers-climate-law-exemption

    It can't be obscure or secret or arcane; the Guardian has published 10+ articles about it in the last several months alone.

    Unless no one reads the Guardian, of course.
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