The A2K Fantasy Olympics Beijing 2008

Ah, very well, I remained on 10th place - 103 points was popular.
Haven't seen anything so far, perhaps tonight when I have more time.

Thank you so much, fbaezer, for giving us a reason to get involved in
the Olympics again. In recent years, I haven't been interested that much.

Dammit, I forgot one medal:

1948

Bronze - Mariles - Campero - Solano - Equestrian (Eventing)

Grand total:

10 gold
18 silver
24 bronze

great fbaezer :wink:

I heard an interview today with the guy who swam the last portion of the relay that earned Phelps his 3rd gold medal. The guy went into his leg behind; thought he wasn't going to be able to catch up, but with a mere two or three meters left, caught up and touched the finish line .008 seconds ahead.
I also heard an interesting explanation of why world records are being set and broken in swimming within hours. The suits the swimmers all have access to are vastly superior. In addition the pool in Bejing is 3 meters deep vs the 2 meters typical in earlier olympics. The turbulence that the swimmers create takes longer to go down and bounce back up, reducing the turbulence ahead of the swimmers.

I've also read about the new use of the dolphin kick being important, Phelps being a key figure in the 'regeneration' of it. Not sure it was used in that relay though. After all, they weren't dogpaddling.

If if find my link, I'll be back with it.

The way he explained it in the interview I read is that for his entire career, other swimmers have 'drafted' on his wake in the pool. This time fortune placed him in the lane next to the higher rated French swimmer and he took advantage to 'draft' in the wake of the French swimmer and accurately judged the point at which he needed to begin his sprint for the finish. It apparently was a brilliant strategy.

rjb, That's interesting stuff about the water turbulence. Thanks for sharing that info.

I failed physics on a pretty regular basis, foxfyre. So I will take your word for that. I peaked in science in biology, disecting dead animals.

LOL, I threw up dissecting dead animals.

There is a groove in the wake of the lead swimmer, if you can get into it, that does give you just a bit of a forward push. It works somewhat differently but the principle is the same as bicyclists or race cars drafting on each other. Obviously it wouldn't work unless both swimmers were reasonably equally matched.

(I haven't done any competitive swimming myself, but once hired and supervised people who did and who then became teachers. We had a good swimming training facility and also a pretty good gymnastics program--actually started out a few youngsters who moved on and eventually tried out for olympic teams--don't believe any ever made it tho. Our basketball and volleyball leagues were too abusive to the referees to become really good.

wtf happened with ali?

they didnt count like 5 hits!

what a joke! we got screwed over in that boxing match...AGAINST ROMANIA!!!

who are they again? yeah, im biased.

Are you unhappy about something, OGIONIK?

what country is prk???

You're biased alright, I saw the fight, and the American took a beating.

The Romanian was shrewd, long arms, precise; he is the next rival of a Mexican. I'm worried (and, believe me, I would not be if Ali had won).

they didnt count like 5 of alis hits, retarded.

2 to one is better than 4 to 1...


i dont care if he didnt win, but at least count some damn hits.

no im just excited.

ive never got to watch the olympics.

There are a lot of articles on google re new use of the dolphin kick if you use 'dolphin kick michael phelps' - here's one:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/other_sports/swimming/6528915.stm

ukraine is gonna whoop china...

i keep forgetting this is real time, he WON!

gg china!

Democratic People's Republic of Korea ie North Korea (you know, 'axis of evil')