I have started this new national thread with Sindo's permission because the other one had a lot of clutter with no clear direction, and I wanted to have control since I am the most regular United States poster on here.
Not much left in terms of athletes who still might Qualify.
Judo will produce 7 or 8 more (Or Sasoon, Sagi Muki, Golan Pollack, Linda Bolder, Yarden Jerbi, Gili Cohen and currently Shira Rishony have the continental quota that still might go to Artem Arshansky if she can get into the top 14 which she is close to because she is just 44 points behind)
Rowing - Dani Fridman have the Continental Event in the end of the month and might make the quota in Men Singles
Triathlon - Ron Darmon will make the cut in the official rankings out next week
Golf - Leticia Beck will probably be in the field for Women's Golf
Cycling Road- Shani Bloh is at the edge of the ranking list
Cycling Mountain Bike - Shlomi Heimy is well within the quota and is close of getting one quota place for israel
Israel arriving to the Rio 2016 games after disappointing games in London where they didnt win a medal for the first time since Barcelona. In 1992 the first 2 medals came in Judo, Yael Arad with the silver and Oren Smadja (the national judo coach today) with the bronze. 1996 saw Gal Fridman win bronze in sailing, 2000 Michael Kalganov won bronze in Kayak Sprint, 2004 2 medals won again. Bronze by Arik Zeevi in Judo and finally a gold by Gal Fridman in sailing. Last medal was in Beijing by Shahar Tzuberi, Bronze in Sailing.
However 2012 wasn't so good Lee Kurzits came closest to a medal in Sailing but a bad medal race knocked her out. Alex Shatilov made the all around final which was a big achievement but he was a contender on the floor exercise and only finished 6th.
Sergey Richter didnt make the final in shooting, Alice Shlesinger (representing Great Britain this year) lost in the repechage round in Judo.
A good achievement was Yakov Toumarkin in swimming 200 Back, who reached the final and finished 7th.
With past precedence, a sport not in thr top 2 tiers will likely find it hard to add another discipline without dropping event. For ex. Canoeing in Paris.
Ok but the kata is not dancing, are a sequence of pre-established movements which have centuries and is one of the pillars of most martials arts, i cant simply equalize with an street dancing.
In kata, i watch a martialist looking for make perfection, in breakdancing i watch a dancer trying to make the best choreography for a judge.
Is there anyone out there tracking countries that have met the Alpine Olympic standard already? There have been enough SAC races for it to be possible I think.
Karate obviously has lots of problems with officiating. and WKF itself is not a great organization either (most of their rule changes are dumb) but the scoring basic is very simple with only 1 or 2 rare situations.
I know in past IOC (under previous IOC presidents not the current dictator) asked WKF to find a solution, using helmets or something like that to avoid situation like the last Olympic final. and I remember WKF used it for few tournaments around 2000 (1998 Asian Games for example) but nobody (specially the athletes) didn't like it, they dropped the idea.
I totally understand Kata looks very very boring, (as boring as Surfing in my opinion) but that's the heart of karate. even if WKF is allowed to pick 1 event for the Olympics, they will pick Kata (team kata is much better though)
Cross-country is a long standing WA ask. Handball was never going to get Beach, Gymnastics would defo want tumbling, but possibly prefer double mini or trampoline synchro to acrobatic. High diving SHOULD get in and Archery would be better looking at field events, but may be satisfied with the five it has.
Worth noting that MMA was once more or less known as 'no holds barred', the most brutal form of combat sport....but almost immediately, certain holds and techniques were barred! Eye gouging, fishhooking and, more important for this discussion "small joint manipulation" - i.e torture submissions based on breaking fingers and toes. Holds that work in te real world...but are unacceptable in the sport. Any martial art that becomes a sport compromises - what do you think boxing gloves are?
My problem with karate is following the scoring and understanding what scores and what doesn't. The action itself looks interesting, but its hard to read a context.
Under no circumstances whatsoever should we see fierce growling and staring at invisible people - Kata - ever return to the games - the only event more shambolic that B-girl Raygun. What next, Haka?
Posted
we'll settle it over beer, hot dogs and a good ol' game of baseball!
Link to post
Share on other sites