Italy is having a good champs for sure, some 17yo won 100m breaststoke? Also I thought Meilutyte has retired? Good to see her win a medal 10 years after the London shock.
I think she was banned. Now she comes back and swims her best time in 5 years or so. Ridiculous really. The Justin Gatlin of swimming. Her winning a medal is a huge loss for the sport.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
it seems that they're still trying to find a deal, rather than being done and dusted (he is/was not the only candidate)...or maybe, now they've finally got the agreement they were looking for...
we'll see in the next few weeks, I guess (sooner or later they have to make some kind of announcement)...
Would be extremely weird. Spain must pay insane money for him to go there. I am sure he could have gone to pretty much any world-class country (or France) for a lot of money.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
Who cares about the popularity of the events when a swimmer can realistically win all of 200, 400, 800, 1500 just by being a great mid and long distance free swimmer? A sweep of more than 2 individual events should only be possible when someone is good in more than one swimming styles, or somehow they can win 100, 200/400, 800/1500 events. Obviously we need a second fly event because otherwise either sprinters or mid distance swimmer won't get a good opportunity in that swimming style, at that point it would more fair just to throw butterfly out of the program.
Currently there is noone who can win the 200 free and 1500 free and even historically this was very rare. Should we get rid of the long jump because Carl Lewis was able to win it and also the 100 m? I think winning the 200, 400 and 1500 free is about as difficult as winning the 100/200/400 m in athletics. The 800 free is unnecessary though. Freestyle is the most popular stroke = most competitve stroke (since there are far more people specializing in it), therefore it absolutely has to have clearly more events than the other strokes. The question is whether those should be individual or relay events and in my opinion it should be individual events, since those are usually more competitive than relays. Freestyle in my opinion should lose 3 events per gender (1 out of 50/100/200 free + 800 free + 4x200 free relay). In that case there would still be 5 freestlye events per gender, which is still 3 more than any other stroke has and in my opinion that would be appropriate for the popularity of freestyle compared to the other strokes.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
Australia finished with 9 gold-3 silver-8 bronze medals (20 in total). A significant improvement comparing with the last Olympics in Rio. This is their best olympic performance ever in terms of both gold and total medals
Completely crazy that in swimming alone they almost won enough golds to finish top 10 in the medal table, again shows that there are clearly too many events. One sport shouldn't be enough to finish top 10 in the medal table, same is true for judo/wrestling/cross-country skiing/speed skating.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
Just to elaborate, this is probably a controversial opinion, but I would throw men's/women's 50, 400, 1500 free all out, have the 100 as the only sprint event, and have 800 as the standard long distance event. We got the open water anyway for those who find 800 too short. I would also leave the mix relay out for obvious reasons. 28 gold medals in the pool, sounds about right.
I don't agree about throwing out the 400 free, also pretty absurd take to have 2 butterfly/IM events and only 3 individual freestyle events, despite the freestyle being far more competitive and popular, but for a hungarian this take isn't too surprising.
My program for individual events would be:
100/200/400/1500 free, 100/200 back/fly/breast, 200/400 IM
Not sure what to do with the relays, i think i would have the 4x100 free relays and a mixed medley relay. The longer the distance, the bigger the gaps and therefore the less interesting the relays. The 4x200 free relays usually have 4 medals contenders at best. It is pretty much the same with the 4x400 m relays in athletics.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
That's pretty much the main argument against swimming having so many events. I would be in favor of cutting down freestyle events, but that will obviously never ever happen because they just added two more.
I think there is far less diversity than in athletics or even taekwondo, so there is no reasonable explanation (if you don't consider the US buying as many medal events in their best sports a reasonable explanation) for swimming to have that many events. If you are the 2nd best american athlete in the 100 free and you are also decent in the 200 free, you are already pretty much guaranteed 4 medals (4x100 free, 4x200 free, medley relay, mixed medley relay). If you are equally good but were born in a smaller country, you win 0 medals (despite having the exact same abilities).
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
Perfect olympics for Brazil in swimming. All their medal contenders (Fratus) delivered and then they also won a medal by a complete nobody (Schaffer). I think they won more medals on the men's side than Japan and as many medals as Japan and China combined ...
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
So only 3 European countries win gold medals in the swimming pool, This might be a new negative record.
Obviously the main reason is the fact that the US forced morning finals on everyone else. Not easy to be at your best when you have to do it at 3 AM. I am sure that we will see a differet picture in 2024.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
Lol is the correct reaction. Wellbrock/Paltrinieri/Romanchuk dominated men's distance freestyle for the whole olympiad and then this nobody comes around and makes them look like amateurs. He is probably dirty enough to glow in the dark.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
Sadly another expected gold for Finke. This guy has one of the most absurd progressions i have ever seen. From complete nobody to dominating Wellbrock/Romanchuk/Paltrinieri, the athletes who dominated men's distance freestyle for years, within a year. If i ever hear another american crying about russian doping again, i will cause a massacre. The US is the dirtiest country of them all, yet their fans somehow find a way to be stupid enough to think that they are the victim.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
Shockingly slow women's 800 free, Quadarella probably can't believe her luck, completely out of shape and still bronze, same was true for Paltrinieri in men's 800 free. Wellbrock and Köhler threw away two ultra easy medals despite clearly being in shape. Their coach must be super frustrated, he told them exactly what to do and from the first moment of the race they did exactly the opposite.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
Haughey didn't become the new Schooling. Let's see, if she would disappear on the road to Paris like he did.
Would make sense and would be nice to see (her disappear). Whenever a country pays insane amounts of money for medals (like Singapore or Hong Kong) it basically translates to "We don't care if you dope, just win a medal".
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
South African swimming is ultra suspicious. Somehow they always find someone who becomes elite very quickly. First Van der Burgh, then Le Clos and now Schoenmaker, kind of reminds me of Hungary. Whenever someone fades away, suddenly some new generational talent magically turns up. Will be interesting to watch the progression of Sates/Coetze/Du Preez. All of them were completely irrelevant at junior level and then during the pandemic their performances completely exploded.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
WOW shocking final metres for Finke (USA) and he steals the gold from the favourites!!
Completely absurd performance by Finke. This guy never did anything at world stage and now he massively improves his PB at the olympics and swims the last 100 m 2 seconds faster than Wellbrock/Romanchuk/Paltrinieri (the guys who dominated men's distance freestyle for years). I fear that he will be difficult to beat in the 1500 free as well. Always sad to see when a nobody magically appears at the olympics and steals a medal from those athletes who dominated before the olympics.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
Duncan Scott in 200 FR and 200 IM, Dawson with a shot in 100 BK, maybe Proud in 50 FR.
About yesterday (or this morning in Tokyo), a bit sad Ledecky couldn't win, but she looks very good and is a clear favourite to win 800 and 1500 if her body holds up after a busy week.
Summer McIntosh amazing at 14 yo, will win a medal in 4x200 for sure and even a shot in the individual race.
Chalmers split... Insane. That 100 FR final will be the race of the tournament.
How will McIntosh win a medal in the 800 free relay for sure. They are roughly on par with USA and China, anything between 2nd and 4th is possible. If Ruck would be at her best, they would pretty much would be guaranteed silver though.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
Hungary's swimming team coach said weeks earlier to the competition that the realistic result for is 1 gold (Milak) and a few silver and bronze medals.
We are still on track to that
How do you judge whether you are on track or not?
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
Pretty much all finals were really slow. I guess we will have to get used to seeing faster times in prelims. China probably could have won a medal in women's 400 free relay if they would have used their two best athletes. Men's 400 free was the most disappointing race of all, even yesterday (not to mention two years ago) noone would have bet anything on none out of Rapsys/Sun Yang/Detti/De Tullio/Horton/Malyutin winning a medal. I wonder if Wellbrock regrets not swimming this event, i think he certainly will if he won't win a gold medal. Mühlleitner with the expected finish (considering that he is german), but he might still get bronze in the future if the tunisian guy is caught. At this point i just hope that i will become old enough to again witness a german swimming medal at the olympics.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
If Popovici is from a wealthy Western European country or USA, no one will question his legitimacy...
Such is the hypocrisy
Would be glad, if you could send me a link to the study/survey you conducted on this matter. Thanks!
Of course when you think like that, you never really have to deal with criticism, because you will always find a reason why someone else shouldn’t be allowed to criticize you. Obviously athletes from certain countries have it far easier to dope, but in the end when someone is world class, he is most likely doped, no matter the nationality. The US has dominated athletics and swimming for years, when you also take the systematic doping in other college sports and the number of American elite athletes who were caught in recent years into account, then the only logical consequence is that American sport is extremely dirty and probably not much different from Russian sport. You can’t dominate sports like athletics or swimming without doping, no matter whether you are the US, GB, Russia or China. You also can’t deny that western countries are investing more in anti-doping measures, which means that it is more difficult for western athletes to get away with doping, therefore the sentiment of SOME western people you mentioned is somewhat understandable, although of course those same people often ignore possible doping of their own athletes.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
OK, he's very young, but almost 3 seconds of improvement in a year...
To me it is simple: If you are a medal contender, you are doped. You could ask yourself how likely it is that someone without doping is faster than the most talented Chinese/Russian swimmers (talent pool of 1.5 billion, countries that have no problem with doping to say the least). For me the probability of something like that happening is zero. Doesn’t change the fact that he might have the most beautiful stroke of all active freestylers (alongside Sun Yang) and has a lot of room for improvement once he starts lifting weight. Paltrinieri for example has an ugly stroke and should never be as fast as he is. Also the rise of Turkey (thanks to another Italian magician, just like Ethiopia/Kenya/Uganda in athletics) makes you question how clean Italy itself is.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
In Women 100m free Zhang will not attend. She achieved the result in prelims and quit finals so She isn’t selected and she just wanted to show competence in relay.
Thanks. She will be replaced by Wattel from France with 53.32.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
or 
that much..
This might be a new negative record.
Posted
I think she was banned. Now she comes back and swims her best time in 5 years or so. Ridiculous really. The Justin Gatlin of swimming. Her winning a medal is a huge loss for the sport.
Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached.
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