I think we need a place to talk about stuff like Tiger's amazing chip in at the 16th at the Memorial tournament a couple of months ago, Roger Federer's fabulous victory at Wimbledon earlier this month and Tiger's incredible hole out from the bunker at 18 today. I was having lunch at a more or less sports bar (i.e. multiple tv's all tuned to the British Open) and the place just erupted from the moment the ball took flight (more than one "it's in the hole!" for one of the few times ever shouted accurately) and when it went in it was just wild. The guy's 4 strokes behind and I assume is now the favorite. Only in Tiger's world.

BTB wrote: Only in Tiger's world.

I have mixed feelings about Tiger, though i generally pull for him. Mostly I guess because if he's in the mix there's always the chance he pulls off crap like this. All the other "greats" were before my time so i never got to watch them in their prime but I'm not sure any of them has ever been as clutch as Tiger.

I saw that chip at lunch time. Pretty sick. How great would it be to see Adam Scott (with Steve Williams in tow) playing against Tiger on Sunday?

That would make for some good viewer ratings.

GuitarManUpstairs wrote:

BTB wrote: Only in Tiger's world.

I have mixed feelings about Tiger, though i generally pull for him. Mostly I guess because if he's in the mix there's always the chance he pulls off crap like this. All the other "greats" were before my time so i never got to watch them in their prime but I'm not sure any of them has ever been as clutch as Tiger.

The Golden Bear
I am old enough to have seen him back in the day.
Just sayin....

That said, when Tiger gets on a roll he is amazing to watch.

I'm a big tennis fan. I've been to many U.S. Opens, Wimbledon in 1991 (men's semis and final), Davis Cup (U.S. vs. West Germany in Hartford in the 80s), and both men's (now defunct) and women's (still going) tournaments in New Haven.
The Olympics should be interesting. Nadal (gold medal winner in Beijing) isn't playing. Federer is coming off his 7th Wimbledon title and the Olympic tennis will be played there. Djokovic will be motivated to avenge his recent Wimbledon loss to Federer. Murray has clearly improved and will be playing before supportive fans.

It's all going abit made over here at the moment as we have the olympics starting next weekend. The TV seems to have gone made for it already, we've had documentaries on all sorts of things - best was a documentary on Victoria Pendleton (one of the Uk cyclists) closely followed by a documentary on sports products looking at whether the claims the companies make are backed up by scientific evidence (you can probably guess the answer to that conundrum)

Unfrotunately this all going to overshadow the fact that Bradley Wiggins is likely to win the Tour de France today, yes I know it finished tomorrow but today is the last time trial and the stage into Paris is normally just a procession with a mass sprint at the end. This is probably the greatest sporting achievement by a british athlete (and team) since the England team won the Rugby Union world cup in 2003. One of the most amazing sporting events I have ever seen was Greg Lemond winning the TdeF on the final day (in a time trial) and winning the whole event by 8 seconds.

dogstar wrote:One of the most amazing sporting events I have ever seen was Greg Lemond winning the TdeF on the final day (in a time trial) and winning the whole event by 8 seconds.

And they laughed at the nerd with the new fangled "aero bars"

WTF? Was that a crazy finish to the British Open (or the Open Championship if you prefer) or what? I'm sure i'm not the only one whose 2d reaction was "damn tiger, it was there for the taking!". But congrats to Ernie Els for grinding it out and hanging tough. And what will happen to poor Adam Scott now? Will he go the way of Jean Vandevelde or will he pull it together like Greg Norman (who never lost that badly, but still...)?

And congrats to Mr. Wiggins (and dogstar).

beantownbubba wrote:WTF? Was that a crazy finish to the British Open (or the Open Championship if you prefer) or what? I'm sure i'm not the only one whose 2d reaction was "damn tiger, it was there for the taking!". But congrats to Ernie Els for grinding it out and hanging tough. And what will happen to poor Adam Scott now? Will he go the way of Jean Vandevelde or will he pull it together like Greg Norman (who never lost that badly, but still...)?

And congrats to Mr. Wiggins (and dogstar).

Great theater
And painful to watch. The last round of The British Open is the only golf event left that I try not to miss.
Crazy shit usually happens.

I'll be watching every Olympic event she enters, you betcha!

Ok so with the Olympics getting ready to start is anybody here planning on watching? I mean I know it's terribly unhip among American sports fans to watch the games, and every time they come around I swear that I won't watch and then...yeah, I watch anyway. Nearly religiously for the duration.

Tequila Cowboy wrote:Ok so with the Olympics getting ready to start is anybody here planning on watching? I mean I know it's terribly unhip among American sports fans to watch the games, and every time they come around I swear that I won't watch and then...yeah, I watch anyway. Nearly religiously for the duration.

Really? I thought everybody watched at least some. For me the big issue has been how the time difference affects what you can see live but now w/ all the cable coverage i think virtually everything will be available live somewhere - then it becomes a matter of how it fits w/ the work schedule. So it'll be something new & different but i'll definitely be watching some.

Who's that woman flea and what's her sport?

beantownbubba wrote:

Tequila Cowboy wrote:Ok so with the Olympics getting ready to start is anybody here planning on watching? I mean I know it's terribly unhip among American sports fans to watch the games, and every time they come around I swear that I won't watch and then...yeah, I watch anyway. Nearly religiously for the duration.

Really? I thought everybody watched at least some. For me the big issue has been how the time difference affects what you can see live but now w/ all the cable coverage i think virtually everything will be available live somewhere - then it becomes a matter of how it fits w/ the work schedule. So it'll be something new & different but i'll definitely be watching some.

Who's that woman flea and what's her sport?

LoLo Jones. She's a hurdler.

Nudge Nudge Wink Wink Say No More!

beantownbubba wrote:

Tequila Cowboy wrote:Ok so with the Olympics getting ready to start is anybody here planning on watching? I mean I know it's terribly unhip among American sports fans to watch the games, and every time they come around I swear that I won't watch and then...yeah, I watch anyway. Nearly religiously for the duration.

Really? I thought everybody watched at least some. For me the big issue has been how the time difference affects what you can see live but now w/ all the cable coverage i think virtually everything will be available live somewhere - then it becomes a matter of how it fits w/ the work schedule. So it'll be something new & different but i'll definitely be watching some.

As a Brit I suppose it's my patriotic duty to watch it. Seriously though I'll probably end up watching great chunks of it especially as the ebst bits are on in the evening over here - I guess mid afternoon/teatime for most of you guys.

Going back to Wiggo (as we must now refer to him) he's racing in the Olympic roadrace on Saturday so looking forward to him leading out Cavendish for the first UK gold medal and then he's riding the timetrial a few days later. He could well end up having an amazing year.

I dunno, maybe this belongs in the WTF thread, lol:

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/golf-devi ... -golf.html

Did you even know that you could bet on golf mid-round? How could anyone possibly set the odds for this sort of bet? Good on the bettor for sure, but this just seems so odd in so many ways.

Flea wrote:
LoLo Jones. She's a hurdler.

Nudge Nudge Wink Wink Say No More!

Even more... she's a 29 year old virgin hurdler!

UncleFrank23 wrote:

Flea wrote:
LoLo Jones. She's a hurdler.

Nudge Nudge Wink Wink Say No More!

Even more... she's a 29 year old virgin hurdler!

How many vrigins does she have to jump over?

dogstar wrote:

UncleFrank23 wrote:

Flea wrote:
LoLo Jones. She's a hurdler.

Nudge Nudge Wink Wink Say No More!

Even more... she's a 29 year old virgin hurdler!

How many vrigins does she have to jump over?

29. Each a year old.

Thank goodness they're virgins.

The Olympics are always a mixed bag. It's great to see different sports.
The avalanche of human interest stories can be annoying.

LBRod wrote: The avalanche of human interest stories can be annoying.

You can thank Dick Ebersol for that. The guy in charge of NBC's coverage of The Olympics, Jim Bell, is the brother-in-law of one of my best friends. As a disciple of Ebersol, I'm sure we can expect much of the same with regards to human-interest stories. I read an article in Newsweek last week regarding NBC's approach to The Games. Here's the link.

So the football at the Olympics has already started. Some muppet managed to mix up the Korean flags yesterday and make the North Korean women's team walk off the pitch for an hour - brilliant. Lots of speculation about who's going to light the flame tomorrow night but nobody really has any idea who it's going to be. The GB men's soccer team play tonight.

I just love watching the US women's soccer team. They are soooooo good. Columbia did not seem to be that bad a team, but they had zero chance today. The US team plays a wonderful athletic, skilled, fundamentally sound game, they play hard for 90 minutes and they dominate. They were far from perfect (at least 2 big lapses on defense and one totally muffed corner kick) but still, a pleasure to watch.

cortez the killer wrote:

He's an absolute superstar. Ian Thorpe (the aussie swimmer) was on the BBC last night saying we're unlikely to see anyone like him again. I think I agree.

There's a whale of a women's soccer (football) final being played between Japan & the USA right now. 1-nil USA at the half.

beantownbubba wrote:There's a whale of a women's soccer (football) final being played between Japan & the USA right now. 1-nil USA at the half.

Who cares about the soccer. the US Volleyball team has a player called Destiny Hooker

dogstar wrote:

beantownbubba wrote:There's a whale of a women's soccer (football) final being played between Japan & the USA right now. 1-nil USA at the half.

Who cares about the soccer. the US Volleyball team has a player called Destiny Hooker

And New Zealand has got a guy in the Decathlon called Brent Newdick!

How new is it? Maybe his name used to be Brenda? :giggle:

dogstar wrote:

cortez the killer wrote:

He's an absolute superstar. Ian Thorpe (the aussie swimmer) was on the BBC last night saying we're unlikely to see anyone like him again. I think I agree.

So, inquiring minds want to know: Is Phelps the greatest Olympian ever? Damned if I know - i don't know the Olympic history of the sports I follow well enough, to say nothing of those sports that I don't know anything about. But I think there are some factors/issues/questions we can put on the table:

1. Number of medals, even gold medals, alone is clearly not enough. As Frank Deford noted, nobody thought that Russian gymnast was the "greatest olympian ever" when she had the record for most medals. Besides, a substantial portion of that total is the result of circumstance: Some sports offer more medal opportunities than others.

2. Longevity counts, but how much? Just like the few baseball players who have played in 4 decades are statistical oddities dependent as much on their year of birth/first year in the majors as anything else, so it is w/ Olympians who make it to more than 2 Olympics. Obviously one has to be a superior athlete to make 3 or more Olympic teams much less to win medals at all of them, but it helps a lot to be just short of your athletic peak in your first Olympic year, right at your peak at the 2d one and either still at that peak or just past the peak for your third. I'm sure bill james can do a better age analysis than i can, but it's pretty clear that Phelps was born at the right time to coincide w/ the Olympic calendar. Is repeating or "threepeating" simply a matter of longevity or is it more than that?

3. How important are world records? Mark Spitz "only" went 7 for 7 in '72 (in contrast to Phelps's 8 in '08) but impressively, all 7 were world records. How many of Phelps' golds were also WR's? (That's a real question, I don't know).

4. Jesse Owens' 1936 performance in Germany with Hitler watching was easily the most politically significant great performance in Olympic history. There's virtually no political back story to any of Phelps' achievements. Is that important?

5. Nadia Comenici's unbelievable gymnastics performance in '76 involved an incredible performance breakthrough (the first perfect 10) and she also won 5 golds over 2 Olympics. Speaking of breakthrough's what about Dick Fosbury inventing a whole new way to high jump and using the technique to dominate the field as well as having the technique named after him? Or Bob Beamon's insane long jump in '68, probably the single greatest Olympic moment I ever saw? The guy literally rewrote the understanding of what is possible in a manner more analagous to folks like Newton, Einstein or Neil Armstrong than to any other "mere" athletic performance.

6. What about requiring multiple skills? Phelps swims different events but how different are they compared to, say, all around gymnasts or decatheletes? I don't believe anyone has yet done it, but if some defended a decathelon gold medal would that end the discussion? Does the range of Phelps' skills compare to Owens or Carl Lewis? What about Michael Johnson winning the 200/400 double, which had never been done before? Or Usain Bolt's "double double" even though the 100/200 double had been done before? It seems to me that Bolt's achievement would have to be right up there if he had set 2 WR's this week, but falls a bit short since he didn't set any.

7. Other than Phelps' medal and gold medal totals, what are his greatest specific achievements? How do they compare to folks like Bolt, Beamon and Fosbury?

8. How do you compare someone like Teofilo Stevenson, who due to quirks in the Olympic rules/political system was able to qualify for 3 Olympics and win 3 boxing gold medals w/ someone like Clay/Ali who turned pro after his first Olympics and was therefore banned from future Olympics under the rules of the time? How do those kinds of rules affect the Olympic legacies of any number of basketball and tennis players, to say nothing of Jim Thorpe?

Well that's enough questions i guess. Discuss, please.