Your Rio 2016 Summer Olympics anticipation thread!

Polish 800m runner feels current controversy is insufficiently a shitstorm.

“It hurts a bit. I saw Melissa Bishop who was very disappointed, she improved her personal best and was 4th. It's sad, and I think she should be the gold medalist."

"I'm glad I'm the first European, the second white," she added.

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/rio-2016-joanna-jozwik-caster-semenya-800m-hyperandrogenism-a7203731.html

She can join Paula Radcliffe on the naughty step

I came a bit late to this Ryan Lochte thing and am confused by the controversy. So he said he was robbed at a gas station but then it seemed like his story didn't add up and then people thought he vandalized a bathroom and armed security guards confront him but now it sounds like armed security guards may actually have robbed or tried to rob him or that he maybe didn't actually vandalize the bathroom and they made that up but in any case something about privilege and we should all feel ashamed about it?

I think in his original story there was no gas station - they just got pulled over and a gun was stuck in his face

While bystander Deluz and the police said the amount paid was for property vandalized, it is unclear whether the swimmers understood the situation.

Lochte initially claimed that he was robbed of $400 and has yet to say if that was another embellishment.

Deluz thinks the men understood they were detained because of the damaged sign, as the broken advertisement was shown to them

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/olympics/rio-2016/2016/08/21/investigation-ryan-lochte-rio-olympics-authorities/89082232/

oh dear

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CqepCOUWYAIz5sV.jpg

This MP does realize that the sun has set on the British Empire, doesn't she?

Could she include the US in the British empire count and thus subtly alter the balance. i mean 44 years or whatever is just as dead a connection to empire as 240. Or something?

Or is this just her subtle get back at the EU for trying to create statistics that weren't popular among some in a Brexit Britain

I, er, think you might want to look a bit closer there, Stevo.

Lol at 'Thirteen Colonies'.

So did they break down the American (North and South) Olympians by place of birth and then assign them based on their colonizer? Feels like that would bump up a mess of the EU totals...

‏@MediaREDEF
NBC’s $12 Billion Olympics Bet Stumbles, Thanks to Millennials (@gerryfsmith - @Business)

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-19/nbc-s-12-billion-olympics-bet-stumbles-thanks-to-millennials

@keithlaw
Blaming Millennials was a actually a demonstration sport in Rio

BBC News has just been talking about Lochte being dropped by most of his non Olympic sponsors. & also that that might well not be all that resulted from his drunk impatience. I'm kind of surprised he needed to break into a toilet if he was in that kind of state.
Was he in a really built up area or something? Or even then surprised he wouldn't go in the street.

Stevo i love you man but you have this bewildering way of asking musing questions here about things that could be verified easily by being even moderately informed about the subjects you appear to be interested in.

posts that effortlessly etc

yeah and i'm guilty of it too but it's not a one or two-off it's like EVERY POST!

I'll put that another way, I'm surprised that he wouldn't just piss in the street then is that clearer?

you realize that rio is like a huge modern international city, right?

would you pull off the street and take a piss in front of somebody's house in los angeles?

If you're pissed enough to vandalise a door like that you probably would. People do it all the time. Probably find something less conspicuous to p against. I've seen it reported that they did p against a wall or in a grassy area now.
I think the hassle was over the vandalism though. Wonder if there would have been as much fuss if they'd just been seen p-ing in public place in the middle of the night. Sounds like it was the early hours of the morning after leaving a club, possibly en route to another.

people piss on the street in "huge modern international cities" all the time in fairness

I'm assuming that at 32 Lochte's Olympics career would be pretty close to over anyway. Seems like the average age of the rest of his team is about a decade younger. So expecting him to make the team for the next Games may have been questionable anyway. But now he seems to have screwed up his sponsorship outside of the Olympics.
Wonder if at hios age he'd be likely to pick up any new sponsors or what is left open for him.

He hasa fashion line that has apparently mainly been talk since around the time of the last games.
So is a rash decison while drunk going to be a major wake up call for him or is he just royally screwed by his won actions?

Hate to say it, and please don't take this the wrong way but, I pretty much couldn't give a fuck.

ryan lochte is clearly a scapegoat people are using to project their own guilt about the olympics, an event that sucked up resources that would have been better spent on infrastructure projects that actually benefited the people of rio

so the USA Today report that calls into question many of the details the Rio police supplied is just being retconned out of existence, eh? I mean, even if just to question their conclusions, I would have expected other outlets to comment on it (frivolous as this story is), but they're all pretty much ignoring the report that implied the bathroom door wasn't broken, and that other reports of damage were unverifiable, as well as witness testimony that suggested Lochte and company actually *didn't* know what was going on.

Far be it for me to defend a douche like Lochte, but just seems weird that that article hasn't been commented on much at all (regardless, Lochte heavily exaggerated the events in his original report).

I am sorry to the dude I was a dickhead to upthread - I mostly objected to using the phrase "foreign-speaking" to describe a security guard speaking his native language while in his own country.

If anyone is being scapegoated it's clearly Hope Solo. I hate what she said, but six months?

don't really feel too sorry for Hope, she has a history of being inflammatory, this is not her first offense and she got off a bit lightly for her domestic abuse incident a few years back.

(I don't really feel *that* sorry for Ryan either, tbf)

i agree about hope solo too. she's a jerk, it would have been inauthentic for her to have behaved otherwise. i hate this idea that all athletes need to be exemplary/boring people

it's probably a 'make-up punishment' for those who thought the squad was too soft on her 2014 arrest

she also goes after her own teammates, so she's not exactly good for the locker room

that's who she is though, idk. she's a great goalie.

tho it's definitely double-standardy considering what Dempsey did in 2015 in that Gold Cup match (taking the notebook out of the refs pocket and ripping it up) was far worse and got a much lighter punishment

she's a great goalie, I prefer Ashlyn Harris tho

my problem isn't the fine or the suspension or (in lochte's case) the possible legal repercussions for lying. it's the whole scarlet letter bullshit that pops up around these controversies.

(xp neanderthal. yeah, I should of had the air quotes around "foreign speaking" but I think people understood what I meant)

(But yeah, there probably would of been a lot less heated exchanges in some of the resulting Lochte discussions if I had used the air quotes to begin with. Thanks for the apology)
:)

It's not a scarlet letter. It's basically a timeout. Lochtes dumb ass will be back in another 4 years. It's not like getting dropped by sponsors is so bad literally the week after the olympics is over..

Isn't he getting on a bit for an athlete already. From what I read he's already 10 years older than most of the rest of his team and will be 36 by the time of the next one.
Is he going to pick up new sponsors so easily at his age and with stigma attached to him from this? I thought it was most of his non-Olympic sponsors that ad dropped him too.
Would think to get into the olympic team he'd have to still be a lot better than people a lot younger than him in 4 years time and be on the right side of the Olympic management.

yeah he's prob done. got smoked in his best individual event and other dudes will be able to beat his times for relays.

Also Lochte has historically been a 'big event' swimmer - he peaks at Olympics/Worlds and swims like a dead dog the rest of the season (this has generally got results, until this year). This means his non-sponsor earning potential at Pro Series/World Cup meets is way less than year-round pros like Chad Le Clos or Katinka Hosszu. For context, Hosszu is the only swimmer to ever top $1m in career prize money, and she is a massive outlier - unless you race every weekend like her, the prize money barely pays your airfare/accommodation - definitely not coaching/physio staff etc. I doubt Lochte's new cough sweet gig will make up for the loss of the Speedo contract so maybe he'll switch up his in-season game. He's going to have to do *something* different as his last few years of peripatetic ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ training clearly didn't do the job: while he won the 200IM at Worlds last year, it was with a now-illegal underwater kick, clearly making up for lack of closing speed (last length was half a second down on his WR split; on the 200free he was 2nd for 150m then went backwards on the last 50, finishing 4th) which was fully exposed in Rio (last length 1.5sec down on his WR split!). It will be interesting ('interesting') to see if he does try a Hosszu and goes for prize money, or sacks off any sort of credibility and goes full-on Cher infomercial. I doubt he'll quit just yet but I can't see him making the 2020 team.

Right, I'm re-lurking now - unless a dedicated swimming thread starts up I'll see you all in 4 years :)

If you'd write more posts as interesting as that, I would definitely be pro a dedicated swimming thread :)

fo real, tell us more about the illegal kick thing!?

https://www.swimmingworldmagazine.com/news/fina-officially-makes-ryan-lochte-turn-illegal-in-im-races/

Backstroke kick is faster and less effort for Lochte, saving energy for his final free leg. So basically his 200IM finish has suffered a fair bit as a result of the rule change. Still world class obv, but no longer the gold-medal-cert-if-Phelps-isn't-around of the last 4 years. I guess his best shot now is the 4x200 relay, where he's always been consistently good (even this year). Can't let your teammates down! Apart from doing a runner & saddling them with a $10k fine!

interesting, thanks!

good posts, ty!

These Russian leaks are insane. And the state news are using it for propaganda purposes. Throw this asshole state out of professional sports at this point.

Bill Sweeney, chief executive of the British Olympic Association, said: "The British public have a fantastic opportunity to meet their Rio heroes."

The velodrome training centre for Team GB's track cycling athletes, who have brought home 11 Olympic medals, is based in the city with many of the team living nearby - including Sir Bradley Wiggins who will be absent from both celebrations.

it is quite heartwarming to see someone who isn't really into all this vulgar showiness, such modesty and humility should be applauded.