Positives and negatives of the Olympics.

I guess that's a positive

I have seen the commentators talk about male competitors as being emotional too! It an euphemism/catch all for teary I think.

yellow I just think the emotional woman narrative is so awful. It really makes me cringe. Like they're going to bring up PMT any second and we'll all be sent back home to do the washing-up...

Horrible question from journalist to Victoria Pendleton about rival Anna Mears being "a cow".

Good on Vicky for essentially telling him to fuck off and not pander to his "women are such BITCHES" schtick.

yellow - the Clare Balding thread is fantastic, but I actually mean the one about the same article I linked to, that you commented about.

Someone will have mentioned this, but a positive for me is UK women athletes getting out there and winning in front of the world, and the focus beach volleyball aside not being on their looks but on their athletic achievements and the effort they have put in. I'm particularly thinking of Kath Grainger - what a fantastic woman.

Clare Balding - a non-glamorous, open lesbian - doing a wonderful job in front of the cameras, the overwhelming response being completely positive, rather than focusing on her looks, her clothes, her sexuality or any other nonsense.

A negative - the nobber from the Telegraph. The bikinis in the beach volleyball make me slightly cat's bum mouth, but apparently the women themselves chose to wear them. I'm still a bit though.

Hmm, not sure if that IS exactly a negative, though it is a common female narrative. She described herself as an emotional mess and she is frequently seen weeping trackside.

Emotional can be a good thing too, no? Although it's not without its own problems, it's nice to see a very "feminine" athlete too. Maybe it encourages women to get into sport who are put off by the macho image.

Another negative, frequently describing Vicky Pendleton as 'highly emotional'.

Positive, charlotte dujardin at the dressage today. An awesome ride, whole crowd in raptures, getting a record score! She was brilliant.

Negative, the interview that was shown at the stadium after her ride was with her trainer (hestor), not her, who talked about how well she had responded to his training! His ride, in comparison, was slipping out of the medals...

LRD, I did see the Clare Balding thread. She is loved, it's great to see and gives me real hope.

Jessica Ennis doing brilliantly and again, nice to see so much support for a female athlete. Also saw all the other competitors hugging her afterwards, something I've seen a lot these games. I think it's just a lovely thing to see, of course they all want to win, but they seem genuinely happy for each other too.

Could be - her dad trained her and encouraged her, so certainly he also deserves credit, doesn't he? It must be really hard for him too.

That's amazing LRD. I suppose - when you think about it - it's not surprising that she's young. She probably hasn't developed a full consciousness yet about what she's doing or why it's remarkable.

Me too treats. I couldn't help rooting for her (well, both of them if that's not a contradiction).

I have just realized that Wojdan Shaherkani, the Saudi competitor in Judo, is only 16. Wow! Lots of courage, there.

That's awful about Kayla Harrison - I'm so glad she got her gold medal.....

That was a fantastic story, wasn't it? How many athletes compete in 4 successive Olympics?

(apart from Sir Steve with his 5 golds from 5 games, of course)

Hurray for Katherine Grainger! And brilliant the amount of fuss they have made about her - definitely no sidelining of the women in the rowing.

Good to see Jess Ennis getting of to a good start. Is it traditional that heptatlon starts first? Either way it is nice to see women starting the athletics off.

I'd noticed that too yellow and they are very consistent about it too.

I've heard a few commentators refer to "gymnastics" and then "women's gymnastics" (for example) but it's certainly getting better re awareness that there are actually two equal genders competing in most events.

DD1 is 4 and really into the Olympics - she's much more interested in women's events than the men's, and it's wonderful that there is always something relevant to show her. Mind you she has a very fat lip today after hitting her mouth on her knee doing some daring jump (gymnastics inspired) at the South Bank yesterday.

Such an uplifting story about Kayla Harrison - amazing inspirational person.

Excited to see how today will unfold.

treats - as I understand it, Kayla's first coach sexually abused her. He went to prison for ten years. They said she thought about suicide, but she claims her current coach saved her life and he seemed very proud of her. I think she must be incredibly strong.

yellow - good point, I'd not registered that!

What was Kayla Harrison's story? I had tears in my eyes when I saw Gemma Gibbons look up to heaven and say "Thank you mum".

I came back on to the thread just to say "Claire Balding!!" but notice that it's already been said. I love that she's able to be herself - enthusiastic, knowledgeable and articulate - without having to conform to any female stereotypes in appearance or behaviour. She gets much better mileage out of Ian Thorpe (another star) than Gary Lineker does.

Actually - GL is a bit of a negative. He does the larky laddish thing that he does on MOTD with the other pundits, and it just doesn't play well. He started off by treating the whole thing as a complete joke which undermines the massive efforts that all the athletes are making. Trouble is, he only presents the football normally, so I imagine it's quite easy to be cynical about sportsmen if that's all you know. I think he's improving as time goes on though.

But some of the other male presenters are good - I like Jake Humphries and Matt Baker at the gymnastics - they're much less likely (as someone said) to make distinctions between the achievements of the women and those of the men. Could be a generational thing - I hope so.

Another thing I thought of this morning. Seeing all sports being referred to as gendered.

Men's football, women's football, women's 200m, men's 200m.

So often we see "rugby" and "women's rugby" for example. It's good to see equal opportunities naming!

Wouldn't have been aware of shitty shabby Telegraph article if it wasn't for MN - but am delighted with vitriol and scorn deservingly poured upon it by trustee MNers and hope Telegraph eds take note... and to you Annie - and you and you and yoo-hoou FWR MNers

Anyone else see Newsnight tonight? Chris Boardman was on and he and Emily Maitliss were discussing how the balance in track cycling has been better at this Games than any previously, in terms of the number of different events for men and for women. He pointed out that road cycling is some way behind both in terms of variety of events for women (far fewer than men) and in terms of distances covered, the women's races tend to be much shorter.

I thought it was really positive to see that a) this games is an improvement, and also b) good to see the issue being raised in a mainstream discussion about cycling rather than as done kind of niche issue.

Don't know if this has been mentioned, but I noticed the other day that of the two commentators, there was a young, conventionally good looking bloke who had his top few buttons done up on his shirt, and a woman who was not unattractive, but not overly "sexy", a little bit older, dressed more conservatively, etc. (Apologies as I don't know the names!)

A minor thing but nice to see the usual trope reversed!

I saw that - lovely article!

yellow, have you seen annie's thread on this in discussions of the day?