Be Excellent To Each Other

"Dear Zardoz, are you any good at drawing Julia Bradbury?"

Oh my god we need a zardoz rendition of Julia Bradbury

Preferably with Malificent also in the picture.

Rio had some good ideas on that as well, the minor indoor arena's could all be converted to schools e.g. , but the others.:
http://www.boredpanda.com/rio-olympic-v ... ix-months/

That's some pretty rapid deterioration.

Title

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/ ... ew-zealand

If you've an hour, here is a really good podcast on how fairness is threatened.

https://podcasts.apple.com/za/podcast/w ... 0522515770

Can't listen to the podcast, buuuuut let me guess, it will cause lots of mediocre male athletes to transition so they can win "easy" Olympic medals that are worth precisely jack shit (in monetary terms)? In exchange they will have to pay for expensive procedures, and then be discriminated against, fear for their lives, and be assaulted for who they are? Seems like a fair deal for them.

Am I about right?

I'm conflicted on Laurel Hubbard. I strongly support trans rights, believe that trans women are women and trans men are men, but her having been through a male puberty and lived something like 35? years as a man has had undeniable benefits on her musculature and strength despite now having a lower testosterone level.

I know of competitive strongmen who dope to bring their strength and muscle mass up and then go drug free in plenty of time for regional comps - but do not lose the acquired mass.

She was an average lifter prior to transition but would now beat the world records for her age and weight category by over 100kg.

I don't think she's transitioned to deliberately win gold medals (as has been levelled at her by others) and I don't envy her position both as the 'guinea pig' of this decision and under the scutiny of transphobes, sports fans and the like, but I also fully understand the frustration of AFAB athletes who have to compete alongside her. I'd rather see her included than excluded, but this is complicated shit.

(I've tried to write this as sensitively as possible and double checked to ensure I'm not misgendering but please forgive me if I've slipped up.)

ETA: this is a great piece I read a while back about trans men who compete -
https://www.insidehook.com/article/spor ... oys-sports

No.
Miles away.

I'm not going to type the whole podcast out but the below tweet has what it covers. It is done very level headedly.

https://twitter.com/Scienceofsport/stat ... 0952716289

Our transgender sport podcast is out. We explore misconceptions & deceptions, incl:
🚨 “Tall girls & short girls”
🚨 Sporting fairness vs inclusion: How women’s sport creates meaning
🚨 Testosterone & performance denialism
🚨 Overlaps & absence of winnershttps://t.co/cthzgUqgaO

— Ross Tucker (@Scienceofsport) May 21, 2021

The Olympics first came up with rules for this stuff 20 years ago. They have access to better experts than some twat down the pub, and have revised the rules a couple of times since. I'm pretty sure they know what they're doing.

I'm sure they'll do their best but I'm also pretty sure that there aren't any answers that won't leave someone suffering something that feels like an injustice.

He's got credentials



https://sportsscientists.com/who-are-we/

As I am prepared to indulge you, here's an article picking up a few points brought up

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/blog/ ... ompetition

I agree with Markg, and imagine that this is an incredible minefield to navigate.

I tuned to a TV documentary/talking piece on this recently, although I missed the beginning. Paula Radcliffe in particular has very strong views on this and I found that both sides had compelling arguments. I sure am glad that a- I don't have to make these decisions and b- I'm kinda shit at sport anyway so I don't have a horse in this race, so to speak.

Watching highlights of the Opening Ceremony on the 6 o'clock news and it looks like a less self-aware Eurovision.

Darwin and I watched the entire four hour ceremony. I loved it. It was calm and thoughtful, and beautiful in places. It wasn’t overly showy and it didn’t seem ridiculously expensive or full of props (apart from the fireworks and impressive drone display). The section making the pictograms was the most fun segment of the show. I can’t find a video of it, but it was not long after the parade of the athletes and the bit with the coloured blocks moved by the children.

The bit of the speeches about the team of refugee athletes was also very moving. I didn’t catch who was doing the commentary. I’m sure it was Hazel Irvine but wasn’t sure of the chap; maybe Steve Cram? Anyway, the guy came across like a bit of a knob with some of the comments. Also when doing the parade of nations the comments regarding the coin girlies taking part were almost entirely about who was colonised by who which seemed both strange and, frankly, repetitive.

I was thinking about this the other day for some reason, and thought of another potential stumbling block when taking disciplines within sports such as gymnastics when there isn’t a direct equivalent between the men’s and women’s apparatus pieces.

If you were, for example, a male gymnast transitioning to female, there is no female equivalent to a lot of the apparatus such as rings, pommel horse, parallel bars. Even the apparatus that are closer in form are used completely differently; the men’s and women’s floor routines are completely different and the asymmetric to high bar again are completely different in actual usage (though perhaps easier to switch between learning).

Andrew Cotter - who did those lovely videos with his dogs over some lockdown periods (and then turned the momentum into a book, which was probably fair enough for a commentator deprived of his usual work, but felt a bit grifty to me).

She did find a video of it!

If you go here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000y2z6

You can fast forward to 244 minutes for the start of the pictograms section.

Oh, I don’t think I know him. I can’t fully explain why (apart from the occasional not too nice comment), but I didn’t enjoy his commentary. A few times I was hoping he’d just keep quiet.

I thought Wayne Sleep had retired.

Anyone who managed to stay awake through all four hours of that deserves a gold medal.

It was great. I watched every minute.

I just tuned in to check it wasn't Cram, to avoid an 80s idol being tarnished! Not that I'd expect anything 'off' of Cotter, either, though he's kind of sardonic. I trust you more than either of them, though - and surely, less is always more in a ceremony. Hush!

Warhead owes you a medal.

Does that mean I’ve won the first medal of the Olympic Games?

This really cheered me up this morning!!

I only said “deserves,” not that I’d supply it.

And we have a medal!

Gold!

Gold rush!

Went to bed after watching Adam Peaty win in the pool (how dominant is he, not having lost a race in 7 years!) Woke up just in time to see Tom Daley's final dive, and just watched Tom Pidcock dominate the mountain bikes. What a 4 hours!

It looks like Lauren Williams is doing pretty good in the Taekwondo and the GB men were solid in the rugby 7s (I thought their game against Japan was supposed to be on now, but I can't find it)

2-0 uk-nl

Peary always wins but we had some hope. Wel silver ok. And in the cycling MTB we had really hoped for a peacock vd poel battle. But vd poel made a stupid
Mistake… (he forgot that a plank would be removed in the final event). Combined with the missed gold on the women road cycling race this isn’t going well…

The pictograms bit of the ceremony was awesome, cleverly done and fun too, i really liked it, and a great recovery from a fumble part way through too.

I enjoyed the swimming today, the Aussie females are incredibly good at it.

Skateboarding seemed a bit hit and miss, I don't think it worked too well although there was a lady from the Philippines that was clearly having a great time, which was pretty cool.

The skateboarding is a bit.... wooly?

I don’t know anything about skateboarding so I have no idea if it’s good or not, but I did watch a little. There was a chap having his go in a blue shell suit and short sleeved V-neck shirt. It looked like her was wearing hospital scrubs. But aesthetics aside it was very baggy, and he was wearing a baseball cap. Backwards. The baseball cap kept slipping down and he had to keep adjusting it so it didn’t slip over his face. He also had to keep on yanking his trousers up because they were very baggy, and so his arse was hanging out. despite the fact that he looked like someone wearing his dad’s hospital scrubs in the 90s, his clothes were actively hampering his performance, and it just felt a bit crap. I’ve seen a few similar things with the snowboarders in the last couple of Winter Olympics.

Yeah, the event I was watching seemed that way. It was a single-trick run, in the skatepark (although I think they call that 'street' as it had rails and ramps and stuff), and seemed to go like this:

- Skater stands around a bit waving
- Skates down a ramp
- Attempts a trick
- Nails it / falls off (it seemed like there was a lot of falling off)
- End of attempt - skater rolls or walks off, does a bit of waving
- Camera pans around a bit and not much happens until the next skater is ready to stand around a bit and wave before they begin

It wasn't terribly exciting overall, it didn't feel like there was a flow or any radical x-treme coolness. A different skating event, where tricks and moves can be chained together, would probably be more fun to watch.

Edit - fuxache I've edited this post a few times

So you didn't watch the two 45 second runs but just the best trick contest at the end? It was all very weird and sterile, though. Bit like this whole Olympics except doubly so.

It's also pretty hard to explain the difficulty of what some of them were doing, not that long ago some of these tricks down a pretty massive rail could have been highlights from a decent video part. i.e. something they might have battled to make over dozens of attempts. Any one of those skaters could have rolled up and thrown something down that rail first try but a best trick contest is designed as far as possible to show within the limited confines of a contest what skateboarding is about, failing and falling over a lot.

It was the part of the event that the tv station were showing at the time I flicked over to it, so there was no method or reason in my choice. No comment from me on the difficulty or ability of the skaters as I really don't know much if anything about it, but it just didn't seem to work too well on the telly, for me,compared to the other events I'd seen.

I think that having a crowd presence would have changed the feel of it a fair bit. Possibly also if I'd seen them doing the longer runs.

What a triathlon mixed relay!

Just wow!

Nice to see a lot of mixed relays

This Olympics has been my introduction to rugby 7s. Only caught a couple of games and some highlights but loved the pace. Just watched the women's final and found it gripping. Definitely something I'm going to follow in future.

Wasn’t it great. I love the relays.

Commonwealth games ticket ballot opens to the general public from tomorrow, it's in Birmingham next year. I've applied for Rugby 7s tickets.

I will look at that. Cheers.

It's my favourite form of rugby to watch

Shame about Dina Asher Smith, absoloutley devastated for her.

I did like her interview. Such passion. ‘Is my blue running ‘.

If you are injured she needs to get fit.

Those of us nearby have been able to apply for the early ballot.
We're trying for athletics, swimming & diving but I might have a look at the Rugby as well