All About London Olympics and Paralympics 2012

[concern2]

Tell me I am not seeing mirror images! I was :scared: by these two girls in synchronized diving. Watch from 18s to 1.22 for the performance.


http://2012.ifeng.com/jingxuanshipin/detail_2012_07/30/16403769_0.shtml

[fightingmom]

concern2:

Tell me I am not seeing mirror images! I was :scared: by these two girls in synchronized diving. Watch from 18s to 1.22 for the performance.


http://2012.ifeng.com/jingxuanshipin/detail_2012_07/30/16403769_0.shtml

Gosh! These 2 girls are really good !

[auntieM]

Schooling came in last (8th) place de.. :sad:

[Happy Mama]

Tao Li booted out of Olympics.

http://www.tremeritus.com/2012/07/30/china-born-swimmer-tao-li-booted-out-of-olympics/


Tao Li blames her poor performance on change of coach.
http://www.tremeritus.com/2012/07/30/china-born-swimmer-tao-li-blames-her-poor-performance-on-change-of-coach/

[daisyt]

I am so pissed off with mediacorp coverage of the london olympic games. I am watching men 10m syn diving snd they just cut off and move to telecast table tennis for national interest! I am not interested in table tennis at all, regardless national or non national interest!! Sooooooo angry!!!


During the BJ olympics, starhub had a few channels delicated to the games. We can choose what we want to watch and all programes properly identified.

If I am not interested, free I also won’t watch!!!

Lucky still have youtube live, so I can continue enjoy the 10m syn diving.

[concern2]

daisyt:

I am so pissed off with mediacorp coverage of the london olympic games. I am watching men 10m syn diving snd they just cut off and move to telecast table tennis for national interest! I am not interested in table tennis at all, regardless national or non national interest!! Sooooooo angry!!!!


During the BJ olympics, starhub had a few channels delicated to the games. We can choose what we want to watch and all programes properly identified.

If I am not interested, free I also won't watch!!!

Lucky still have youtube live, so I can continue enjoy the 10m syn diving.

I know what you mean. I was bored watching the table-tennis that I switched to gymastics. Good thing they still had Okto, or was it CNA..that was the night before. Heard China won! Haven't' started catching up on the news yet..

[concern2]

My oh my, I am starting to get annoyed with all these protests and appeals - first Korea in swimming, now Japan in Gymnastics. What is this? :mad:


Japanese protest leads to Ukrainian disappointment in men's gymnastics final
By Martin Rogers and Dan Wetzel | Yahoo! Sports – 3 hours ago
(source: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics--japanese-protest-leads-to-ukrainian-disappointment-in-men-s-gymnastics-final-20120730.html)

LONDON – For 10 whole minutes, Ukraine's men's gymnastics team did the things that unexpected bronze medalists are supposed to do.
They stood at the western edge of the North Greenwich Arena, hugging, high-fiving, and celebrating a third-place finish that felt like gold.
They screamed into the air. They pumped their fists and sought out whatever fans they had in the place, mostly a few family members waving flags among a pro-Great Britain throng that included Princes William and Harry.
\"It was a big emotion,\" said coach Yuliy Kuksenkov.
And then it was gone.


A controversial scoring appeal of Japan's Kohei Uchimura's dismount from the pommel horse resulted in .700 points being added to his score. That small amount was enough to push Japan from fourth place at 271.252 to second at 271.952, mere decimal points for some, but for Ukraine, it meant the difference between delight and an empty-handed return home.
China remained the gold medalists by a great margin. Great Britain was pushed to third but scarcely cared, so unexpected was their own run for the podium.
It was the Ukrainians who lost out and couldn't quite accept this tortured outcome.
\"We did not expect [the appeal],\" said Kuksenkov, searching desperately for diplomacy but finding it elusive. \"We are not blind, everyone has their own opinion, everyone has their own vision about it. We think we deserve the medals.\"
The judges, however, watched the video of Uchimura's dismount repeatedly, a huddle of sports-coat-clad officials circling a television monitor. They talked among themselves and pointed at the video to make sure he got both feet down.

While the men from Ukraine celebrated originally, Uchimura's face carried the opposite emotion. He knew that with everything on the line and a pocketful of silver awaiting him, he had forgotten his lines. The three-time world champion had held his nerve in some of the toughest arenas in gymnastics. But this was the Olympics.
As he made a final twist and prepared to make his landing from the horse he overextended, lost balance for a split second and toppled awkwardly from the apparatus.

\"I knew I had made a mistake, so I was sure that the score would not be too high anyway,\" Uchimura said. \"I was not expecting a lot. I saw the score and the team leader said we were going to protest. Of course, it is better to get silver than no medal at all. I wanted to land it better, but it was a mistake.\"

And almost the most costly of his career.

Originally, he was credited not with a dismount but with a fall. A gymnast receives no points for a fall. However, even a clumsy exit from the horse, as long as the gymnast gets two feet down, counts for some points.
Once the giant scoreboard in the middle of the gymnastics hall announced the appeal had been accepted, the fortunes of the teams spun.

The Japanese began celebrating wildly as they moved from fourth to silver. The crowd booed the decision for a moment as they realized Great Britain was relegated to bronze, but the reaction was brief.

It was the Ukrainians who hung their heads, picked up their backpacks, and left the gymnastics hall in disbelief. Moments before, they had cheered their fortune. They then waited nervously for the appeal. And then it all sank in.
Their reign as the bronze-medalist team was just 10 minutes long.
\"Life is life,\" Kuksenkov said.

[concern2]

US attacks China over drugs row supergirl swimmer: Chinese teenager who swims faster than men's No1 is forced to deny doping claims

Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen smashed world record by a second and her own personal best by five seconds

Coach John Leonard said history suggested doping could be involved
Called feat 'impossible' and said tests would prove if she had taken drugs
Swam last 50m faster than U.S. champion Ryan Lochte in the men's finals
By DAVID WILLIAMS and KATHERINE FAULKNER
PUBLISHED: 16:25 GMT, 30 July 2012 | UPDATED: 23:45 GMT, 30 July 2012

(source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181121/Ye-Shiwen-US-attacks-China-drugs-row-supergirl-swimmer.html)

A diplomatic storm was brewing last night over Olympic swimming sensation Ye Shiwen.

The Chinese 16-year-old was forced to deny using drugs after a respected US coach called her gold medal-winning performance ‘unbelievable’.
But her defiant pledge that the world record-breaking swim on Saturday – which saw her outpace the winner of the men’s event – came purely from ‘hard work and training’ failed to defuse a doping controversy gripping London 2012.

John Leonard, the US executive director of the World Swimming Coaches Association, described Saturday’s swim by ‘Supergirl’ Miss Ye – who last night broke the Olympic record in another event – as ‘unbelievable’ and ‘disturbing’.

He also made the extraordinary suggestion that the Chinese could be using genetic manipulation to enhance performances.

Outspoken: Top US swimming coach John Leonard called the feat 'unbelievable' and said history suggested doping could be involved.

His claims came as anti-doping officials revealed that cleaners and security staff have been asked to spy on athletes in the Olympic Village and report anything suspicious that could be linked to performance-enhancing drugs.

Miss Ye’s gold medal came in the 400m individual medley, in which she swam the last 50m of the freestyle leg in 28.93 seconds – compared with the 29.1 seconds that 27-year-old American Ryan Lochte managed in the men’s event minutes earlier.
Her time for the whole event was more than five seconds better than her previous best.

Pressed on the use of drugs she told the China News Service last night: ‘There is absolutely no problem with doping. The Chinese have always had a firm policy about doping. My results come from hard work and training and I would never use any banned drugs. The Chinese people have clean hands.’

But Mr Leonard compared the final 100m swum by Miss Ye as being ‘reminiscent’ of some old East German swimmers, several of whom were subsequently exposed for using performance-enhancing drugs.

He said Miss Ye looks like Superwoman, adding: ‘Any time someone has looked like Superwoman in the history of our sport they have later been found guilty of doping.’

If someone could outpace one of the fastest male swimmers in the world and finish three-and-a-half lengths ahead of her nearest female rival, he said, ‘all those things, I think, legitimately call that swim into question’.

Mr Leonard also called for an investigation into the Chinese, saying they could be using genetic manipulation.

‘It is a result that demands an explanation – it is unprecedented,’ he told the Mail. Genetic manipulation in animals, he said, had given added strength and oxygen usage. ‘Who knows what it can do to humans?’ he added.

CHINA: A HISTORY OF DRUG USE
Questions over Shiwen's performance come after a string of Chinese swimmers tested positive for doping in recent years.

China won 12 of the 16 women's titles at the 1994 world championships in Rome but these achievements were sullied less than a month later when seven Chinese swimmers tested positive for banned drugs at the Asian Games in Hiroshima.
At the 1998 world championships in Perth, four Chinese competitors were sent home after testing positive for steroids. It came a week after one of their team mates and her coach were caught smuggling human growth hormone at Sydney Airport.

China's top backstroke swimmer and record holder Ouyang Kunpeng, now 29, was given a lifetime ban after he tested positive for the same substance a month before the 2008 Beijing Olympics. The ban was later changed to two years.
In 2009, five junior Chinese swimmers were banned for two years by the country's swimming association after they tested positive for the anabolic agent clenbuterol - a performance-enhancing drug.

And in June Chinese state media said 16-year-old Li Zhesi, part of the country’s winning team at the 2009 World Championships, had tested positive for a performance-enhancing drug, EPO, which boosts the body’s oxygen supplies.
And he said Miss Ye’s performance had brought ‘back a lot of awful memories’ of Irish swimmer Michelle Smith’s winning performance at the Atlanta Olympics in 1996.

Smith was banned for four years in 1998 for tampering with a drugs test.
As a gold medal winner, Miss Ye will have been automatically drug-tested. The first four in each race are routinely tested.

Last night she continued her astonishing success by setting a new Olympic record in the semi-finals of her best event, the 200m individual medley, with a time of 2 mins 8.39 seconds.

Jonathan Harris, London 2012’s head of anti-doping, said that organisers had made security, cleaning, events services and others ‘very aware of the issue of doping, so if they were to come across practices, paraphernalia, whatever it may be, then they would bring it to our attention and, of course, we would investigate this and treat it as intelligence.’

A source close to the British swimming team, who did not want to be named, said yesterday: ‘There has been a lot of talk since Saturday about the Chinese swimmers, particularly Ye, and how they are managing to come out of nowhere and achieve these incredible times.

'We all know about the kind of punishing regimes the Chinese swimmers are put through.’
One insight came on Sunday. After winning silver in the 100m butterfly, Chinese athlete Lu Ling said: ‘In China we’re used to study, study and train, train and then rest. I think our way of thinking has many limits. In Australia I’ve been invited to barbecues with my teammates – that would never happen in China.’
Officials say there have been 1,461 drug tests carried out so far in this Olympics – no results are yet known – and that testers can take samples at any time.
_________________________

How come no one questioned Phelps when he won 8 MEDALS har? :mad:
Worse, this time he hasn't even smelled a single gold.
Goodness, and to bring out China with a history of doping - tell me US has NONE?! :mad:

[concern2]

Fencing controversy forces Korean to sit on piste for ages, eventually costs her medal

(source: http://www.stltoday.com/sports/olympics/blogs/fencing-controversy-forces-korean-to-sit-on-piste-for-ages/article_56269c8c-4cca-570d-bc93-4ee002337ae8.html)

The Olympic fencing tournament was thrown into an incredibly emotional, dramatic and elongated controversy when a semifinal bout of the women's individual epee competition was won on a final touch with 1 second remaining and the losing fencer launched an appeal of the decision which eventually cost her a place on the podium.

Yet it was the appeal of the decision itself which led to incredibly acrimony and one of the lengthiest delays in recent Olympic memory. Here's how everything unfolded:

With time running out in one of the two semifinal matches for the women's individual epee competition, South Korea's Shin A Lam led Germany's Germany's Britta Heidermann by a single point. Officially, Heidermann had just one second to launch an attack and score a touch, which would advance her on to the gold medal match to face the Ukraine's Yana Shemyakina, a lack of time which all but ensured that Shin would advance.

Instead, the timing mechanism on the piste became stuck, giving Heidermann extra time to complete her attack and win the bout, which earned her the spot in the gold medal bout. Officials, unsure what to do without a true, official protocol to follow, eventually decided to award the victory to Heidermann.


As one might expect, Shin and her coaches were enraged with the decision, and launched an immediate appeal. Yet the appeal itself proved to be incredibly lengthy and also contained a unique bylaw that required Shin to remain on the piste throughout its duration. Unable to leave the playing surface, Shin bawled uncontrollably for the first 10-15 minutes, often shading her head in a towel while occasionally looking out to the crowd before rubbing her eyes again.

At long last, after more than 30 minutes of a delay that included the Korean federation having to expedite a payment for the use in the official appeal, Shin's attempt to overturn the result failed. That brought a crushing end to a ridiculously long period marked by piquant discussion between Olympic and Korean officials and occasional announcements trying to explain what was going on to the spectators in the crowd.

Clearly, Shin should have had a chance for the gold medal; if the timing mechanism didn't get stuck, the clock would have run out and she would have advanced. Yet denying Heidermann a shot without some kind of a playoff-style bout might have been equally cruel.

Either way, the fencing tournament somehow ended up with an unfortunate and completely unforeseen loser which will lead to plenty of gripes and arguments going forward from multiple national federations, to be sure.

Just to rub salt in the wound, Shin was forced to come back out and fence for the bronze medal almost immediately. In that bout, after jumping out to an early lead, the Korean fell to China's Sun Yujie, who claimed the bronze by a score of 15-11.

There was little consolation for that result for Shin, particularly after she quite rightfully should have been fencing for a gold medal, a position which would have guaranteed her at least a silver. Still, throughout her bout — just as during the delay — the Korean was applauded and cheered by fans, and she earned a rapturous applause as she went and was consoled by her coach after the bronze medal defeat.

Somehow, that might not go far enough to making the Korean federation feel better about being royally worked over en route to missing out on a medal.

[concern2]

Here is the link to the Youtube live, in case you don't see the banner in KSP:


http://www.youtube.com/olympics/?gl=US&hl=sg?feature=etp-gd-lss