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Athletics - Running and Jumping and Throwing and stuff!

smmudge said:
Dunno, seems there's a real risk of devaluing the shorter races just because we don't get to see the vast majority of the work put in (because superheroes generally just get 'gifted' their powers).

It also helps that there's a lot of very very good short distance athletes right now - seen in the finishing times of those finalists who didn't get a medal. So yeah, why shouldn't it be popular?
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I don't think its about devaluing the sprints - I simply don't find them as interesting to watch. Each to their own - I prefer watching endurance events.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
On reflection, John Inverdale was a total disgrace in that piece on sprinting and race. But the feature reflected badly not just on him but on the wider BBC too. :( Shame as their coverage has generally been really good.
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makes me think that they asked Alan Wells to mention that he was the last white man to win the 100m, just so they could have the debate later
 
My guess is that that hastily thrown together piece of rubbish was probably made in response to Wells's crass comments, to show that they weren't 'dodging the issue'.
 
kabbes said:
I was horrified by it from beginning to end. Unbelievably insulting. Insulting because it's just plain wrong. Scientifically, it's nonsense.
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Exactly. That's the worst of it. Only glad Michael Johnson was there to put them right. But Inverdale was still insisting that there must be something in it. :rolleyes:
 
"Statistically", as he kept saying, thus betraying a complete lack of understanding of statistics.
 
kabbes said:
If it's all about "West African twitch muscles" then where are all the Ivory Coast sprinters?
If slavery is the key then where are all the Liberian sprinters?

As with all sports, success in sprinting is about coaching and tradition. The tradition gets you take-up of the sport and coaching gets you success. Suggesting that actually it's all just genetic is insulting to that success.
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There was the great Frankie Fredericks from Namibia a few years back.
But he managed to get an American university scholarship.
And as for Cote D'Ivoire, I think every boy in that country wants to be Yaya or Didier.
 
twistedAM said:
There was the great Frankie Fredericks from Namibia a few years back.
But he managed to get an American university scholarship.
And as for Cote D'Ivoire, I think every boy in that country wants to be Yaya or Didier.
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Exactly. Coaching and tradition. I would think that most west Africans want to be footballers, just as most British kids do too.

Thing is with most traditionally 'olympic' sports that even athletics is really quite a small sport compared to the biggies like football. So it isn't so unlikely that somewhere relatively small like Jamaica where athletics takes off in a big way can excel. Similarly, in even smaller sports like cycling, the uk can get to almost sweep the board after a few years' concentration on it.
 
twistedAM said:
Since when was the 200m a deal? is it just the cult of Bolt and this double double thing?
800m is a much more formidable race and what happened tonight was almost unbelievable.
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I've often wondered that. It's fine being the fastest on earth (on land), much like a cheetah, but a cheetah's only the fastest over short distances, whereas the prong-horned antelope is the fastest over long distances. But then, who ever talks about prong-horned antelopes?

I've come to the conclusion that the reason people get so excited is because it's harder to shave seconds off a race that's being run under 10 seconds

I personally think people should stop getting so excited about 100m and go back to concentrating on the longer distances, or classify Usain Bolt as Fastest Man on Earth Over Short Distances :D
 
Minnie_the_Minx said:
I've often wondered that. It's fine being the fastest on earth (on land), much like a cheetah, but a cheetah's only the fastest over short distances, whereas the prong-horned antelope is the fastest over long distances. But then, who ever talks about prong-horned antelopes?

I've come to the conclusion that the reason people get so excited is because it's harder to shave seconds off a race that's being run under 10 seconds

I personally think people should stop getting so excited about 100m and go back to concentrating on the longer distances, or classify Usain Bolt as Fastest Man on Earth Over Short Distances :D
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_versus_Horse_Marathon

'04 + '07 never forget. :)


not that i'd begrudge the horsies their equestrian and show-jumping medals.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Exactly. Coaching and tradition. I would think that most west Africans want to be footballers, just as most British kids do too.

Thing is with most traditionally 'olympic' sports that even athletics is really quite a small sport compared to the biggies like football. So it isn't so unlikely that somewhere relatively small like Jamaica where athletics takes off in a big way can excel. Similarly, in even smaller sports like cycling, the uk can get to almost sweep the board after a few years' concentration on it.
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Maybe there is something in pasty-faced Manx and Scotch genes that makes them good cyclists.
 
And Michael Johnson and Colin Jackson both said they had been involved in similar programmes or research covering the same themes so it wasn't like it was a new or outrageous thing the BBC taped segment covered.
 
It needs to be pointed out that Johnson himself believed in this slaves stuff very recently, and I'm not convinced he's let it go fully. In fact I'm sure he was putting it forward in an interview published over the last weekend. I'll try and find it.
 
Maltin said:
Not that it helps but it's not a John Inverdale piece or his opinion. Just a BBC taped segment covering the subject.
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There is no subject and so no need to bung that in there at that point and make a subject of it.
 
butchersapron said:
It needs to be pointed out that Johnson himself believed in this slaves stuff very recently, and I'm not convinced he's let it go fully. In fact I'm sure he was putting it forward in an interview published over the last weekend. I'll try and find it.
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Also he fronted (an investigwted his own heritage in) an hour long c4 doc screened the week before the Olympics.

People who don't watch telly :facepalm:
 
5t3IIa said:
Also he fronted (an investigwted his own heritage in) an hour long c4 doc screened the week before the Olympics.

People who don't watch telly :facepalm:
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Didn't see that myself, but I know he's been banging this drum fora long time now.
 
Funny how they didn't mention Charles Lawrence Somerset Clarke, who had come fourth in a sprint event just the day before. Or maybe the 110m hurdles doesn't need special slave-activated West African twitch muscles.
 
butchersapron said:
Didn't see that myself, but I know he's been banging this drum fora long time now.
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It was less about genes than about 'shock evolution' (totally the wrong term, soz) of slavery. Proper :eek: with him saying the sort of things racists say.

I think Michael Johnson has won the whole Olympics tbh.
 
kabbes said:
Funny how they didn't mention Charles Lawrence Somerset Clarke, who had come fourth in a sprint event just the day before. Or maybe the 110m hurdles doesn't need special slave-activated West African twitch muscles.
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I'm not entirely certain that he was talking about twitch muscles but Jackson did say that 80% of white Europeans did have that gene.
 
Maltin said:
I'm not entirely certain that he was talking about twitch muscles but Jackson did say that 80% of white Europeans did have that gene.
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That's the point, though, isn't it? If they'd have bothered to consult with their own in-studio expert pundit before making the piece, he could have told them not to bother. Jackson looked well pissed off after it, and I'm not surprised.
 
littlebabyjesus said:
Exactly. That's the worst of it. Only glad Michael Johnson was there to put them right. But Inverdale was still insisting that there must be something in it. :rolleyes:
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The whole thing was cringeworthy. I too was pleased that Michael Johnson and Jackson were there to put him straight. The whole segment was a stupid filler that drew on some very flimsy ideas and reinforced even more offensive ones. I may have been sitting in a park full of people and have been heard to shout 'fuck off' very loudly at the large screen. :D
 
WTF were the beeb thinking."survival of the fittest" may be the most misunderstood phrase in English.
 
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