London 2012 Olympics

lukin2006 wrote:

According to this quite a few countries play baseball.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of ... ted_States

I believe 28 countries will be competing in the world baseball classic...so more than enough countries play baseball for it to be in the Olympics. I hope it get reinstated in the future.

Not an Olympic level. Most of those teams would come to the Olympics and it would literally seem like we were watching little leaguers playing college baseball teams knce they played the few countries where the sport is big. That's not fair competition, no matter who has more of a shot. That's just a set up for humiliation. Not sure why anyone would want to watch that. I mean, you can find american football teams in Europe now, but you're not about to pit them against any NFL team. It's just not a competition anymore. In basketball and hockey there are at least plenty of teams that put up a good fight, and which have NBA and NHL players on those teams.

The IOC didn't get rid of baseball to be malicious. I know many aren't happy, but there are good reasons for it, or else they wouldn't have made that decision, and I bet it wasn't an easy one. But I trust that they made the decision for good reasons, knowing that it would disappoint some people.

rick1zoo2 wrote:

wow. Just watched the women's US soccer defeat Canada, what an amazing game! Canada scored first and each time USA scored again to tie. It went to overtime (2 x 15 minute periods) and was still tied 3-3, until in final 30 seconds of 3 minute extra time, USA scored. It was a very physical game, a total fight the whole way. I feel bad for Canada, they played amazing. Hopefully USA will have enough energy for Thursday's gold medal game against Japan (rematch of last year's world cup final that Japan won)

Good game...go JAPAN...

lukin2006 wrote:

PJ_Soul wrote:

lukin2006 wrote:

Only 2 countries have gold medals in woman's hockey, in men's hockey there is really only 6 teams that have a realistic shot at gold...more countries play baseball than people think.

What about basketball...unless its a fluke team USA will win most games. Baseball is far more international than basketball.

The USA has won 13 of 16 gold medals in basketball...let's drop basketball then.

No, it's not about only a few countries having a SHOT. It's about a lack of possible national teams that could even come close to any kind of qualifying level altogether. Hardly any countries could assemble an Olympic baseball team because the sport simply is not played in so many countries. But lots and lots of countries have basketball teams and hockey teams, even though many don't have a a chance against a few nations that dominate. Baseball just isn't international enough for the Olympics they decided.

It appears other than the USA no country can really field an Olympic basketball team, have you watched women's hockey? Men's hockey...really only 6 competitive teams. My guess because the Olympics were in Europe this time is why baseball was dropped...

Don't think so. They're in Rio next time. That is not how the IOC works. Hockey and basketball are way more international and internationally competitive than baseball. And again, it's not about who can make the finals. It's about not being humiliated. Hockey and basketball aren't even in the same realm in this sense. And way more countries have those sports.
Anyway, these are all the IOC's reasons. I personally think they're reasonable, and do not apply to hockey and basketball at all (in some cases it may actually be for certain women's events because wkmen in sport is still only growing in many countries, but they can't have a men's event without having a women's for obvious reasons, so those examples can't really be included in the equation). But if baseball grows internationally (maybe it will with this world thingy you've mentioned) they'll bring it back.

so glad I DVR'd tonight's primetime coverage and started watching later, I fast forwarded through all the diving and beach volleyball, now enjoying the track events.

http://www.thestar.com/sports/london201 ... -semifinal

London 2012: Canadian women robbed in soccer semi: Kelly

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND—Melissa Tancredi wanted to get on the bus. She couldn’t trust herself to talk.

But after being robbed of a chance for a gold medal — in what was the equivalent of pilfering the chalices from one of the sport’s cathedrals — she couldn’t walk away.

She returned, face twitching, eyes red-rimmed and wet.

“I couldn’t believe what happened,” Tancredi said, jaw working side to side. “That was our game. That was our win. And it was just taken away. So …”

She let that “So” trail off.

Canada will be thinking about that “So” for a long time.

Monday’s Olympic semifinal at Old Trafford was probably the best game of women’s football ever played. Canada lost 4-3 after added extra time. The key player? Norwegian referee Christina Pedersen.

Canada took the lead three separate times through three Christine Sinclair goals of exponentially expanding skill. It was a triptych that ought to be hanging over a Flemish altar.

“We feel like we didn’t lose, we feel like it was taken from us,” Sinclair said. “It’s a shame in a game like that that was so important, the ref decided the result before it started.”

After last night, the committee that gathers to decide the Lou Marsh Award for Canada’s top athlete next year can start drinking at noon. It won’t be a very long meeting.

Sinclair is already the finest female team athlete this country has ever produced.

She was the very best she has ever been in the biggest game she has ever played. What other athlete can say that?

Whether Sinclair comes away from these Games with a medal or not, last night was the golden cupola crowning her career.

Her third came in the 73rd minute, pushing off two markers and heading the ball back across the face of goal and over a defender standing at the far post. It was a flat classic. Men. Women. Martians. Nobody scores that good a goal.

There was a long, long way to go until victory, which makes what happened next so crushing and also so bizarre.

Around the 78th minute, the ball found its way back to Canadian goalkeeper, Erin McLeod. The American forwards were pressing high up the pitch. McLeod was looking for a chance to outlet the ball to a fullback, rather than to launch it up the field. Eventually, she gave in and hoofed it forward. But Pedersen had blown her whistle.

She called a foul on McLeod for a six-second violation — time wasting in other words, though nobody’s foolish enough to begin eating the clock with 20 minutes to go.

No warning was given, according to McLeod. That’s the form — warning first. You want another theme? This has been the Army Olympics, the Empty Olympics and the Angry Olympics. Now it’s the Making Things Up As You Go The Hell Along Olympics.

Regardless of the warning, how often is that call made?

“I’ve never seen that before,” U.S. coach Pia Sundhage said afterward. Sundhage has worked in the game since they used mammoth tusks for goalposts.

She’s never seen it because that call is never made. Never.

And in a one-goal game in which a gold medal hangs in the balance, it should be made never to the power of infinity.

On the ensuing free kick inside the Canadian area, the ball cannoned into the protective arm of Marie-Eve Nault. That’s probably a penalty. That’s how Pedersen called it. The problem was that Pedersen and her crew had ignored an even more blatant handball in the area by American Megan Rapinoe 10 minutes before.

After Abby Wambach’s penalty tied it 3-3, it went to added extra time. Alex Morgan headed in the winning goal in the 123rd minute.

But the game was truly lost when Pedersen lost control of her senses and called what is the footballing equivalent of a high-risk takedown after a rolling stop.

After the call, Canadian players rushed Pedersen.

“I said, ‘I hope you can sleep tonight. Put on your American jersey. That’s who you played for today,’” Tancredi said, voice shaking. “I was honest.”

As captain, Sinclair asked Pedersen for an explanation.

“She actually giggled and said nothing,” Sinclair said. “Classy.”

Even coach John Herdman, a man so positively charged he may bleed protons, could not contain himself.

He started out diplomatic: “It is what it is.” Then the emotion began to get hold of him. At one point, he was forced to stop, near tears. By the end, anger was finally surfacing.

“It was taken from them,” Herdman said. “We’ll move on from this. I wonder if (Pedersen) will be able to.”

Afterward, like Tancredi, he couldn’t quite bring himself to leave. His eyes were glassy, his look dazed. He seemed unsteady on his feet. One wonders if disappointment can cause a concussion.

The point he wanted to keep banging on — “To watch them women just keep getting up was phenomenal. It felt like it was America and the referee against us. … And not to come away with something?”

But they did. There may still be a bronze in this for them, but they’ve already given us the Canadian Olympic team’s defining performance in these Games.

A performance like that cannot be forgotten only because it came in a loss.

We celebrate victories, but we also celebrate classics. If all those great Canadian triumphs we like to talk about — from ’72 onward — were celebrations, this team’s 4-3 loss at the Olympics was Lear on grass. It was Macbeth. It was a great tragedy. Emphasis on “great.”

Canada played the world’s No. 1-ranked team, the double defending gold medallists, a side they had not beaten in 11 years.

And they lost, unfair and unsquare. But they were magnificent.

If there is to be any justice after a largely unjust night, the rest of us will remember and celebrate what happened here.

lukin2006 wrote:

http://www.thestar.com/sports/london2012/football/article/1237877--london-2012-canada-loses-4-3-to-us-in-olympic-soccer-semifinal

London 2012: Canadian women robbed in soccer semi: Kelly

MANCHESTER, ENGLAND—Melissa Tancredi wanted to get on the bus. She couldn’t trust herself to talk.

But after being robbed of a chance for a gold medal — in what was the equivalent of pilfering the chalices from one of the sport’s cathedrals — she couldn’t walk away.

She returned, face twitching, eyes red-rimmed and wet.

“I couldn’t believe what happened,” Tancredi said, jaw working side to side. “That was our game. That was our win. And it was just taken away. So …”

She let that “So” trail off.

Canada will be thinking about that “So” for a long time.

Monday’s Olympic semifinal at Old Trafford was probably the best game of women’s football ever played. Canada lost 4-3 after added extra time. The key player? Norwegian referee Christina Pedersen.

Canada took the lead three separate times through three Christine Sinclair goals of exponentially expanding skill. It was a triptych that ought to be hanging over a Flemish altar.

“We feel like we didn’t lose, we feel like it was taken from us,” Sinclair said. “It’s a shame in a game like that that was so important, the ref decided the result before it started.”

After last night, the committee that gathers to decide the Lou Marsh Award for Canada’s top athlete next year can start drinking at noon. It won’t be a very long meeting.

Sinclair is already the finest female team athlete this country has ever produced.

She was the very best she has ever been in the biggest game she has ever played. What other athlete can say that?

Whether Sinclair comes away from these Games with a medal or not, last night was the golden cupola crowning her career.

Her third came in the 73rd minute, pushing off two markers and heading the ball back across the face of goal and over a defender standing at the far post. It was a flat classic. Men. Women. Martians. Nobody scores that good a goal.

There was a long, long way to go until victory, which makes what happened next so crushing and also so bizarre.

Around the 78th minute, the ball found its way back to Canadian goalkeeper, Erin McLeod. The American forwards were pressing high up the pitch. McLeod was looking for a chance to outlet the ball to a fullback, rather than to launch it up the field. Eventually, she gave in and hoofed it forward. But Pedersen had blown her whistle.

She called a foul on McLeod for a six-second violation — time wasting in other words, though nobody’s foolish enough to begin eating the clock with 20 minutes to go.

No warning was given, according to McLeod. That’s the form — warning first. You want another theme? This has been the Army Olympics, the Empty Olympics and the Angry Olympics. Now it’s the Making Things Up As You Go The Hell Along Olympics.

Regardless of the warning, how often is that call made?

“I’ve never seen that before,” U.S. coach Pia Sundhage said afterward. Sundhage has worked in the game since they used mammoth tusks for goalposts.

She’s never seen it because that call is never made. Never.

And in a one-goal game in which a gold medal hangs in the balance, it should be made never to the power of infinity.

On the ensuing free kick inside the Canadian area, the ball cannoned into the protective arm of Marie-Eve Nault. That’s probably a penalty. That’s how Pedersen called it. The problem was that Pedersen and her crew had ignored an even more blatant handball in the area by American Megan Rapinoe 10 minutes before.

After Abby Wambach’s penalty tied it 3-3, it went to added extra time. Alex Morgan headed in the winning goal in the 123rd minute.

But the game was truly lost when Pedersen lost control of her senses and called what is the footballing equivalent of a high-risk takedown after a rolling stop.

After the call, Canadian players rushed Pedersen.

“I said, ‘I hope you can sleep tonight. Put on your American jersey. That’s who you played for today,’” Tancredi said, voice shaking. “I was honest.”

As captain, Sinclair asked Pedersen for an explanation.

“She actually giggled and said nothing,” Sinclair said. “Classy.”

Even coach John Herdman, a man so positively charged he may bleed protons, could not contain himself.

He started out diplomatic: “It is what it is.” Then the emotion began to get hold of him. At one point, he was forced to stop, near tears. By the end, anger was finally surfacing.

“It was taken from them,” Herdman said. “We’ll move on from this. I wonder if (Pedersen) will be able to.”

Afterward, like Tancredi, he couldn’t quite bring himself to leave. His eyes were glassy, his look dazed. He seemed unsteady on his feet. One wonders if disappointment can cause a concussion.

The point he wanted to keep banging on — “To watch the m women just keep getting up was phenomenal. It felt like it was America and the referee against us. … And not to come away with something?”

But they did. There may still be a bronze in this for them, but they’ve already given us the Canadian Olympic team’s defining performance in these Games.

A performance like that cannot be forgotten only because it came in a loss.

We celebrate victories, but we also celebrate classics. If all those great Canadian triumphs we like to talk about — from ’72 onward — were celebrations, this team’s 4-3 loss at the Olympics was Lear on grass. It was Macbeth. It was a great tragedy. Emphasis on “great.”

Canada played the world’s No. 1-ranked team, the double defending gold medallists, a side they had not beaten in 11 years.

And they lost, unfair and unsquare. But they were magnificent.

If there is to be any justice after a largely unjust night, the rest of us will remember and celebrate what happened here.

stay classy Canada

Indirect kick-no
Handball-yes

That's coming from someone who played soccer for 12 and has been watching it since 90. It doesn't matter if your arm is next to you and the ball hits your hand, its still a Handball. I

Best Olympic event? Womens Beach Volleyball

Worst Olympic event? Mens Beach Volleyball

lukin2006 wrote:

You really think woman's hockey is competitive! Men's basketball has been won by the USA 13 out of 16 times. 28 countries are sending teams to the word baseball classic! No argument holds up...IMO. Quite simple they dropped it because the Olympics were in Europe.

Not sure how much more clearly I can explain the IOC's reasoning for you, but that was their reasoning. Had nothing to do with an Olympics being in Europe. The IOC looks forward 16 years at all times and are not enemies of sport. They don't go around knocking out sports because it isn't popular in the next venue.

Sorry you're missing out on Olympic baseball though. You're obviously a fan.

FenwayFaithful wrote:

Best Olympic event? Womens Beach Volleyball

Worst Olympic event? Mens Beach Volleyball

Men's beach volleyball came on and i was like WTF is this shit?!?!

The amazing Brownlee brothers in the triathlon :shock: Gold and bronze ... they would have been fighting it out for gold and silver if Johnny hadn't gotten a 15 second penalty :(

We've now equalled our number of gold medals from Beijing ... which was already a huge jump from Sydney

Can we host all the Summer Olympics :P

I travel to and from work every day surronded by people going to/coming from the various events. Everyone is loving it and it's a complete party atmosphere