mpjmcevoy

You could put together a simple enough system - connecting punch (jab basically) 1pt, connecting combination (double jab, 'soft' 1-2) 2pt, CP with power (hook, unprotected jab, uppercut) 3 pts, CC with power four points(classic forceful combo). 5 judges, 4 buttons each, an attack scores the highest value 3 of the judges agree on instantaneously -so if the 5 judges split with 2 claiming a combo, no force, 1 thinks 1 punch had force but not combo, and 2 thought it was a combo with force - that's 2pt, 2pt, 3 pt, 4pt 4pt - which means three judges gave at least three points - so 3 points scored. If a mandatory 8 count grants oddly enough 8pts, snf of vourse a KO/TKO ends the contest immediately, there's your system. Score cumulatively, or over three round by round scores (I prefer cumulative, round by round leads to a lot of dead rubber thirds rounds). Obviously punches defended with arms and gloves aren't going to score at all, so in effect sound defence is well rewarded. Eventually you could look at similar pressure sensors in the gloves as TKD has, but that's not a necessity right now. If you think successfuly inflicted power should be better rewarded, make those numbers 4 and 6, and a standing count 10 rather than 3 and 4. If you think pure technique more important put everything up one to 2,3,4,5, as this will make a successful jap worth 40% a hard combo, rather than 25%. Fiddle and trial until you are happy Remember TKD fiddled with its scoring a lot to start with, introduced rounds, incentivised and then disincentivised roundhouse kicks - there's no harm in messing with the rules a bit - the key, maybe, is to get away from the assumption that Olympic boxing is just a training ground for the prize fighting pros of the future, so should basically look like prizefighting. That' need not be true..

GBs had that sort of week in the pool...whe it was good, it was very, very good...and when it was bad, it was shocking. to top it off poor Jsmes Heatly appears to have developed the yips.

The talent just doesn't seem to be there. Despite its travails in Poland GB Boxing is still in a pretty good place. GB Taekwondo is a wonder of the world, frankly. But GB Judo - a sport where GBR was a genuine global power in living memory, and where they can still field a pretty strong women's team, seems to have lost anything like an idea in the men's side.

GBR favourites I think in the men's final tournament. ALL the good teams likely to qualify directly. Tonga likely the biggest banana skin

GBR have, quietly, had a pretty dreadful qualification tournament given their pedigree. I still think they'll do quite well in the final qualification tournament. Ireland's men have not dazzled, though their women have, as have Turkey's. There's been an amazing spread of the men's spots, but the women's spots have gone in the main to the same handful of countries.

Who we thinking from oceania?

As I heard it, the powers that be were actually genuinely lobbied by certain people COMPLAINING that objective buzzer mechanisms were taking away their 'power' and 'influence' - and actually CAVED to that demand because it helped when securing event hosts and fees if home boxers could expect some favours! Anecdotal, but where do you even start if there's truth in that?

Thats tough on those who won their groups, but that's the nature of sport, the seed who muck up can expect to suffer consequences, and the non seeds who excel ought to see rewards

I never entirely understood - well, I knew it was a corruption thing, but you know - why, when boxing with its buzzer system had found the beginnings of a way to counter these things, actively dumped it for subjective, corruptable judging. Taekwondo used to be riddled; they've managed to sort of sort it out. Gymnastics was renounded for homers; the code of ponts seems to have levelled the playing field a bit. Yet boxing actively chose the worse option...

Sadly, Heatly seemed to stutter stop the last dive - eventually took it quite well but I think that's the second time that's happened him this week, a worrying 'yips' style development for him in what has been a pretty excellent week for the 'B' team. Eden Cheng taking a European solo crown and an Olympic quota the highlight.

OK....I agree, let's look at the problem. 1. For all the talk months ago about EBU, certainly here both BBC and RTÉ barely care. I'm really not sure how to fix that. 2. This thing was hobbled from the outset by lack of Western interest - if that sounds biased, sue me, but there's a reason the European Championships events worked in Berlin, Munich and Glasgow, despite some questionable presentation choices, and one of them was the hosts chosen - I'm glad Krakow stepped in to save the event, and I acknowledge the difficulties in a first 'post-Covid' games, but this needs to go somehwere next with a history of supporting these kind of events to the hilt, and that means go west son - sadly, I don't think the interest exists anywhere there - but if the European Championship model is in trouble as it looks, that may change things a little. 3. The IOC need to pull rank, and emphasise that this is a major part of the Olympic narrative, not just some random Games - and that means thinking hard about the programme. The IWGF maybe should also be publically involved for the non-Olympic sports. And the European federations need to stop sulking. 4. Patience. Sure, some events take off instantly, but some take a good while. EG is clearly going to be the latter. 5. Again, the sports programme needs to be looked at with a certain ruthlessness. The Team championships concept Knda worked and swimming should maybe be encouraged to follow suit with some sort of LEN Nations Cup. They might also consider including a "European Relays", mirroring the World Relays, as a direct qualification event, even if only for one quota per event. And we need swimming, gymnastics and track cycling back - they form much of the skeleton of a games

The powers that be do have an awful habit of telling us what's new and exciting sport to watch (I appreciate it may be more fun to play) only for the reality to prove underwhelming - Breaking, surfing and now teqball all land squarely in that category for me. And I'm not a fuddy-duddy, I loved both Park skateboard and bmx freestyle. I'll give stuff a crack. I'll even invent events. Both darts and snooker should be dreadfully boring to watch, yet if you have even a limited grasp of them, they aren't - same for all its faults with weightlifting - when it matters, it's absolutely intriguing. Yet teqball...

Grace Reid picks up her second medal of the Games, bronze in the non-Olympic 1 metre springboard. Swiss gold for Heimberg. Diving medals table with one event left very well balanced with three golds each for Germany, Ukraine and Great Britain, while Italy have 2 golds, but the most medals. Championship trophy still up in the air I think.

thats a quota for Penny to go with the two boxing quotas today

Sorry, think I get it now - so many countries in the final 18 have double and triple entries, these spots must mathematically be a top 8 NOC in the final.

Is this right about modern pentathon - today was just semifinals, I thought the finals gave out the 8 spots?

It's a performance sport. If the performance of a performance sport is fundamentally unappealing to watch, it's maybe a sign it shouldn't be there. I am VERY far from sold on breaking as a good addition to either the Olympics or Europeans...

Harder an harder to look past Ireland - though Germany gave them a run out too - I've ALWAYS thought if the Germans ever really woke up to Rugby, you'd be staring at a super power within a decade or two, the gam,e would just absolutely suit them (same for Russians, as it happens) Much better looking on disstaff side, and some unlikely team or teams are going to see the final qualifier.

As I laid out above, if its up to me, my basic rules - the more events the better, so long as there is integrity to the event and it isn't silly (SlalomX comes perilously close, breaking crosses the line imho). - If you build an expensive venue that sells tickets - velodrome, for example, slalom course, use the hell out of that thing. Maximise events - Use novel format events for the bigger well known sports like tennis and golf to showcase diversity. See also skins in swimming - Reward team sports that create solid small sided games friendly versions, as Basketball, rugby and Volleyball have done - spot obvious holes'/free event possibilities like the 4 x 200 m medley relay -Try to make sure all major sports 'families' are covered, alternating if necessary - so cricket and baseball should probably rotate, each happening once every eight years - the ICC and MLB will be relieved and it'll really feel like a once in a lifetime event. Padel, Raquetball and squash might fit in the same category,as might bowls and bowling, Snooker and pool. - Avoid fadish sports that are highly subjective, they can age really badly (as a few of the winter events already seem to be) - be hard on sports that have number sprawl - judo seems to have far more than its share compared to other combat sports - you could almost slice 8 per weight class of judo and have an entire Karate tournament without a single extra quota. - IOC should work far harder to make the Continental Games a huge event in the cycle, and in their own right - note the current somewhat meh European Games - IOC needs to put its weight behind its 'family' of events. - Hammer, hammer, hammer cheats. -

I'm not against it per se - I think the movement might want to consider 'branching out' back into art and 'mind sports' - if we can have a chess Olympiad, we can certainly have actual chess olympics. But neither do I want to see even niche sports being upended to get Texas Hold'em into the Games!

If he was jumping off his real leg, we could have the discussion. Hugely impressive though i is on a personal level, he jumps off a spring; it's basically a pogo stick record. I've seen him jump, his distance does not correlate with his approach speed, and the difference is that blade. FWIW, even if its not 'advantage', it still shouldn't be allowed because it is simply not like with like

Is the advent of drone camera tech not ready made for all the events on the open water?

Hard agree. I personally don't think the movement has been inventive enough in ways to get bang for buck from its quotas. It should actively 'sweat' the assets - for example, you could have another TEN track cycling events without a single extra quota, yet have up to three more days of ticket sales (the ten being M+W x Kilo/500, IP, Scratch, Points and Eliminator), you could probably jiggle the 128 archery quotas by making the mens and women's team event '2-man' not '3-man', freeing between 24 and 32 quotas for a barebow field archery event using broadly the same forested venue as the mountain bike uses. I've no problem with Canoe slalom cross, however silly it looks to some, if it takes up few new spaces and just uses already qualified quota holders, There's definately room for a mixed 2 x 200 metre medley relay to give the distance swimmers outside freestyle a relay to aim at, again requiring no more quota places. I'll be honest, I think judo is perhaps a little overgifted with quotas, compared with boxing and taekwondo - you could easily shave 4 per weight, creating nearly 50 free quota places for, as we discussed, e.g a snooker tournament. Golf is missing a trick not showcasing its variety - its main events should be different from the standard PGA fare - i'd suggest a 'supercut' to 16 after 2 rounds of strokeplay, followed by 4 supertight quickfire 9 hole match play rounds - same total holes, but a totally different feel (ps tie breaker is brutal but tv friendly, 1 shot on a par three 10th after a tie i 9 holes, nearest the pin. THAT'S sudden death. Throw in men's and women's pair fourballs, and mixed pair foursomes, same 9 hole rules... you can throw in again a supertight tennis team event, teams of 2 M 2 W, playing 'champion ties' where each player only plays two sets in the order WD (W1W2) MS (M1) XD (M2W2) WS (W1) MD (M1M2) - 5 set matches, but individual players only playing two maximum - 4 groups of three teams, followed by QF, SF and Final - no extra quotas required. none of these ideas require a single extra quota place, but hugely increase bang for the buck...

Billiards is a sport, Cards is a game. Billiards is a physical activity, involving skill, objective scoring criteria, universal rules and competition. That pretty much defines sport. Gymnastics et al struggle on the objective scoring bit - the more 'artistic impression' is involved, the less it is objective, and the more it is art rather than sport. something like gymnastics and diving at least now have a code of points, but there are too many Olympic events scored subjectively now. Frankly, snooker or billiards would enjoy a similar relationship with golf as table tennis does with tennis (and darts does with Archery) - simply minitaturised version of the sport with stronger emphasis on precision than power and/or speed. i'd have no difficulty with cue sports being included in some capacity. Cards, on the other hand, are about mental skill or even just chance, not physical skill. See also backgammon, schess, quizzing and scrabble. all noble pursuits deserving attention. but not sports.

It rather makes a mockery of the whole 'B-boy' and b-girl' thing that these are all full grown adults - compared with the skateboarders who are genuinely on te young side. But this is the Olympics, dude. This a collection of mostly old mostly men's idea of youth sport - They're all basically Steve Bellucci.