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Re: Olympics 2020

Patman360 — Mon, 9 Aug 2021 12:45:22 GMT

Author: Patman360

Posted: 08/09/2021 16:45

2-0-2 for us in the end, got a second gold in boxing on the last day with a brilliant fight from Kellie Harrington, all our medals coming from boxing/rowing, first time since 1932 we've (legally) gotten more than one gold medal (we got 3 in Atlanta that still technically stand but it's clear as day that doping was involved and no one really recognises them here, besides the athlete herself of course...).

We're starting to see some early signs of improvement given the funding that's now being added into Olympics sports in Ireland, we've had swimmers and gymnasts making finals, decent athletics performances and even sending competitors in for sports like diving and judo, biggest team we've sent and should be in an even better position come Paris here's hoping.

Re: Olympics 2020

19loveless91 — Sun, 8 Aug 2021 07:38:51 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 08/08/2021 11:38

LedZep wrote:

Patty Mills was thermonuclear, not much you can do there honestly. Especially with Doncic apparently playing injured (or was that just false news?). I'm not worried about the future of Slovenia's basketball though, you've got one of the best players in the world.

Final medal count is 3-3-2, not bad for a country of 4 million.

He slammed into the plexiglass during the France game and seemed a bit reluctant to shoot since then (but that could have also been because he wasn't shooting it well early in the game). And he had that hand taped up during the Australia game. But nobody really mentioned it in the interviews, so I can't imagine it was that bad. I think the bigger problem was that he was tired by the end of the tournament, he did sort of kept getting worse from one game to another.

Our medal count was 3-1-1 which I think is one of the best if not the best so far.

Re: Olympics 2020

LedZep — Sat, 7 Aug 2021 21:34:51 GMT

Author: LedZep

Posted: 08/08/2021 01:34

Patty Mills was thermonuclear, not much you can do there honestly. Especially with Doncic apparently playing injured (or was that just false news?). I'm not worried about the future of Slovenia's basketball though, you've got one of the best players in the world.

Final medal count is 3-3-2, not bad for a country of 4 million.

Re: Olympics 2020

19loveless91 — Sat, 7 Aug 2021 09:13:49 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 08/07/2021 13:13

19loveless91 wrote:

I hope we can pull it off tomorrow for bronze, but I am skeptical a bit, most of the other guys (like Blažič, Dragić, Prepelič) operate on 90% hustle, while they aren't really NBA or even Euroleague level players. At this point I can't imagine they have much left in them.

Yeah it was our (and Luka's) worst match by far, which wasn't unexpected, and nobody could stop Patty Mills. There was a moment in the fourth where Blažič got us back to -3 by pure hustle, but then ruined it all by shoving Mills and getting an unsportsmanlike foul (Mills sold it a bit as well, but we have no right to complain considering we got a fairly soft unsportsmanlike foul in our favour moments before). That just totally killed our run.

I hope we can do this again sometime, I imagine Dončić will keep improving, but we need to fill the gap behind him, we can't keep relying on "buying" American players to play center. Also, it's always a problem when we have to play without our best players in those euro and world cup qualification rounds, so it's not a given at all that we'll get back to Olympics at all. I didn't expect it this time around, when we had to play Lithuania. I also certainly didn't expect us to get this far, so 4th place or not, I'd say it's still a success.

Re: Olympics 2020

19loveless91 — Fri, 6 Aug 2021 12:11:56 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 08/06/2021 16:11

Welp the basketball semis were a heartbreaker. We got outrebounded like expected, but the bigger issue was missing some open 3pt shots (10/30 for us, 12/25 for France) + missed free throws. Luka also had a bad shooting night, so he decided to be more of a playmaker (18 assists!!) in the end which almost worked out. I hope we can pull it off tomorrow for bronze, but I am skeptical a bit, most of the other guys (like Blažič, Dragić, Prepelič) operate on 90% hustle, while they aren't really NBA or even Euroleague level players. At this point I can't imagine they have much left in them.

Other than that, I watched the women's climbing competition (which made its olympics debut) where our climber Janja Garnbret dominated the competition. She has dominated the world cup seasons in previous years, so it'd be pretty shitty if she didn't pull this off, but you never know with these events.

I thought it was a fascinating watch, but I agree with those who complained about this being a single event in "combined" rather than there being separate disciplines. It's weird seeing speed climbing where a single run is over in less than 10 seconds side by side with bouldering and lead climbing. Basically speed climbing is very specific and the specialists are often below average or just plain bad in the other two disciplines. So it kind of sucks for them, because they can't get a medal in the combined, but they also kind of meddle with the overall classification by being there.

Re: Olympics 2020

Hayden — Fri, 6 Aug 2021 10:49:28 GMT

Author: Hayden

Posted: 08/06/2021 14:49

Hayden wrote:

Rooting for the Canadian football team too. Think they might just pull this off.

😎 😎 😎

Note: only 6 overall goals is bizarre though.

Re: Olympics 2020

EyeKanFly — Mon, 2 Aug 2021 13:33:58 GMT

Author: EyeKanFly

Posted: 08/02/2021 17:33

19loveless91 wrote:

Our basketball team beat Spain in the group stage to give us an easier opponent in the 1/4 finals (Germany), so huge hype in the country. Although I'm somehow more worried about this match than I was before Spain. Who are a great team and prepared well, but also relatively old. If we win this, we're damn close to a medal, but it's going to be tough vs anyone else. I think the US team is too physical, I think France with Gobert is gonna give us too much trouble (we outrebounded everybody so far, I can't see this being the case against France)... And I haven't seen Australia play so far, so I don't know what to expect with them...

Slovenia's team is incredible. Dončić is a powerhouse in the NBA, and I'm happy to see him do so well on the international stage. Slovenia has an all-around great team though, by no means is it just Dončić carrying them on his back. I think Slovenia has a great chance of going to the finals. I don't think any of Germany, France, or Italy has played at Slovenia's level thus far.

I'll still be rooting for my USA, but I'll also be cheering on Slovenia on the other side of the bracket, at least until we come face-to-face...though there's a good chance that won't happen. Australia-Argentina looks pretty even, and even if the US beats Spain, the next step would be hard to top. All that plus my favorite player on the squad (Bradley Beal) has been out for Covid...

On the women's side, the basketball teams remaining all look relatively evenly matched. Maybe I just haven't caught all the games, but it looks like China and Belgium are defensive powerhouses while Spain and the US are more offensive, the rest look pretty well-balanced. Excited for the next stage of games.

Re: Olympics 2020

19loveless91 — Mon, 2 Aug 2021 03:01:27 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 08/02/2021 07:01

Our basketball team beat Spain in the group stage to give us an easier opponent in the 1/4 finals (Germany), so huge hype in the country. Although I'm somehow more worried about this match than I was before Spain. Who are a great team and prepared well, but also relatively old. If we win this, we're damn close to a medal, but it's going to be tough vs anyone else. I think the US team is too physical, I think France with Gobert is gonna give us too much trouble (we outrebounded everybody so far, I can't see this being the case against France)... And I haven't seen Australia play so far, so I don't know what to expect with them...

Re: Olympics 2020

Patman360 — Sat, 31 Jul 2021 16:37:36 GMT

Author: Patman360

Posted: 07/31/2021 20:37

We got a gold so the country's buzzing! Rowing again, bringing us to a grand total of 10 7 golds ever (we don't talk about Michelle Smith, even though she's bringing herself back into the media lately...).

Guaranteed at least one more medal with the boxing and gonna stay up late tonight in the hope we can guarantee another few boxing medals, high hopes for McClenaghan in the pommel horse tomorrow and McIlroy and Lowry are high up in the golf, may stumble upon a medal in the sailing or equestrian stuff but that's probably it for us, possibly our most successful Olympics ever if we pull a few of those off (think 6 medals at London is probably our peak).

Re: Olympics 2020

junodog4 — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 22:30:57 GMT

Author: junodog4

Posted: 07/29/2021 02:30

Hayden wrote:

Rooting for the Canadian football team too. Think they might just pull this off.

On a related note, the Canadian women are impressive. All of our medals are from them.

Re: Olympics 2020

baystateoftheart — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 20:13:30 GMT

Author: baystateoftheart

Posted: 07/29/2021 00:13

Hayden wrote:

Rooting for the Canadian football team too. Think they might just pull this off.

Isn't it called soccer in Canada? Canadian football is its own sport.

Re: Olympics 2020

LedZep — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 20:05:49 GMT

Author: LedZep

Posted: 07/29/2021 00:05

What's the "weirdest" sport you've watched so far? I'm suddenly into canoeing slalom, it's actually almost as interesting as skiing. Apart from that Judo is incredibly dull to watch (it's because I don't understand the rules, not because we didn't get the bronze in the women's under 70kg), Taekwondo is surprisingly a lot of fun, Olympic boxing is cool, gymnastics are nuts and, traditionally, water polo and handball are exciting (not sure if those two are exotic, maybe for the US audience).

Need to watch some skateboarding highlights, they don't show any on the national TV. But I'm happy to report that Croatia has won a gold and a bronze in Taekwondo and is guaranteed a silver and a gold in men's tennis doubles in an all Croatian finals. Rooting for Mektić/Pavić duo, my brother knows Mektić's brother 😁

Edit: Also Sinković brothers have won a gold, again. They keep switching between coxless pair and the usual doubles, they have an Olympic gold in each event now. Add rowing to the list of weird sports I enjoy at the Olympics.

Re: Olympics 2020

Hayden — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 11:33:36 GMT

Author: Hayden

Posted: 07/28/2021 15:33

I'm not a skateboarder/into skateboarding or anything (think I've ridden one twice), but I dug the street competition. (Sure, the Canadian showed up fell seven times and left, but otherwise). Just felt like a whole bunch of friends hanging out having a good time and at the end a few of them got medals. Hope they continue with it. Looking forward to park.

Rooting for the Canadian football team too. Think they might just pull this off.

Re: Olympics 2020

Patman360 — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 11:05:02 GMT

Author: Patman360

Posted: 07/28/2021 15:05

Glad to see people are enjoying it, we're still working from home (second dose this week) so it's a good opportunity to have it on in the background and watch away as I work, so I'm catching a lot of all sorts of sports, been enjoying the 3x3 basketball as someone with generally no interest in the sport usually and we had the France-US game on Irish tv the other day (we have a mental basketball commentator that they roll out for the Olympics every 4 years so that's generally the only time we catch it, just not very big here).

Ireland's first medal (bronze) came in rowing last night, reckon we're shoe-ins for 2 more, real shot at a gold too, rowing's popularity is really rocketing up these days, a few of our boxers are looking good too and our swimmers have started to look more promising than ever before (well since Atlanta '96, but no one really mentions that any more...).

Re: Olympics 2020

Antonio-Pedro — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 09:55:15 GMT

Author: Antonio-Pedro

Posted: 07/28/2021 13:55

Thumbnail. Click to enlarge.

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Re: Olympics 2020

EyeKanFly — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 09:41:13 GMT

Author: EyeKanFly

Posted: 07/28/2021 13:41

Skateboarding has been very interesting to watch. They've done a good job of making it a very exciting event while maintaining stark differences from the X-Games events. Highlight of the games so far.

Also incredibly disappointed in some of the US men's teams, our basketball squad is straight up embarrassing this year. Most of the team women's sports we're good at continue to be great, with the exception of the gymnastics squad.

Re: Olympics 2020

19loveless91 — Wed, 28 Jul 2021 09:09:15 GMT

Author: 19loveless91

Posted: 07/28/2021 13:09

We're doing pretty well. We got the now traditional medal in judo (silver this time), two medals, gold and bronze, in cycling (Roglič and Pogačar - who won the Tour de France again this year), another gold in the slalom canoe, and Dončić went god mode vs Argentina and casually dropped 48 points. Curious to see how far we can go there.

Otherwise not as interested as I used to be, but I'll keep an eye on a few competitions for sure

Olympics 2020

Patman360 — Tue, 27 Jul 2021 11:07:36 GMT

Author: Patman360

Posted: 07/27/2021 15:07

Anyone watching? Patiently awaiting Ireland's first medal, we don't win many so it's a big deal here, but we've a few decent rowers, boxers, sailers and one gymnast.

We've 31 medals ever, with only 9 gold (3 of which are shrouded in controversy...).

Been enjoying a good mix of all sports so far.