A thread for your stupid Olympics questions

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If you have any "stupid" questions about the Olympics here's the place to ask them. Hopefully some knowledgeable people will know the answers.

At this temperature it's too hot for me to walk my dog but the horses are participating in the jumping events. Does the heat not impact them in the same way? Is it because they're bigger? Is it just because they're horses?

My question is about the synchronised diving - when they put the scores up on screen after each dive, some of them are scored through. Why is that?

Don't know for sure but guess they remove the highest and lowest scores to try to make the score less subjective.

I am going to guess that by the next Olympics or the one after it will be AI judging and this will be redundant.

Just watching the rowing...

Why is there no podium for medal ceremonies? The commentators talk about 'the podium' but there isn't one. I know there are different team sizes etc, but in sports like gymnastics there are teams of 5/6 who all get on the same podium, so it's clearly doable.

Yep it's so one judge can't skew the result by giving their favourite/a diver from their country a massive score and the rival team a really low score as they would be discounted.

I think this is kind of a respect thing among rowers, there might be a winner of the race but it’s such a tough sport no one is above anyone else, so there no tiered podium.

I remember watching an explanation about it at one olympics and I’m sure it was something like that but I’ve not checked before I’ve posted this so happy to be corrected by those in the know.

@icebearforpresident - that's interesting. I hadn't thought of that. But surely all sports are tough etc etc? It would be odd if that applied just to rowing.

Having just watched the equestrian gold (I am working, honest...) I now have another question - why is it that in some ceremonies the flag is flown from the top (long side), and for others it's hoisted up a normal flag pole?

How the hell does the trampoline woman keep a sense of what orientation she is in with all that sommersalting and twisting ?

You could see her starting to lose it at the end but I reckon most peoples brains would have been frazzled long before that.

Another question, in the trampolining a woman was described as "competing as a neutral athlete"
How does that work? Do they just rock up and say "my country didn't select me but I think I'm really good?"

Or is it something to do with Russia or another country being banned?

It’s Russia isn’t it?

my question leads on from that, if they win then what national anthem do they play?

It's countries who have been banned, I think both the AIN trampoline competitors were from Belarus. Belarus and Russia both banned because of the war in Ukraine.

They get a lot of criticism from their home countries for competing anyway. I read that Russia was financially compensating athletes who didn't compete. And I imagine if they win they play the Olympic anthem.

I think they have to buy them. Weren't they saying one of the swimmers (Tom Deane?) families fell prey to a scam site and then had to buy them again.

Love that

The US team were given about 6 leos each. They decided as a team which they were using for the team events, and have co-ordinated wearing the others and podium training. I assume they've just chosen their favs from what was left for the individual. There's a cool kit unboxing on Instagram that they did with GK Elite if you want to see the full set reveal.

Because there are lots of set elements required by the judges that the gymnasts have to perform to meet the criteria of the apparatus- so on floor they have to do a set number of leaps/spins/movements etc to demonstrate control/flexibility/grace etc.
It's not just about tumbling.

Correcting myself here, they aren't allowed to use the Olympic anthem, they have an instrumental piece made for them that will play and the AIN flag is flown. Info here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Individual_Neutral_Athletes_at_the_2024_Summer_Olympics

@crazyunicornlady73 the horses in modern pentathlon are rented by the organising committee. They are carefully selected to be the same level and behaviour, but the participants get no background at all on them, and iiirc only 20 minutes to get used to them beforehand. It's supposed to be like blindly stealing a horse out of the field as you escape by running/swimming: shooting/ fencing and then riding away

Equine part of pentathlon is now banned after the last shower of shift riding at the last Olympics.

I thought I'd heard that about the horses being banned. Are they doing something else instead or is it now a quadathlon?

I don't know but I'm sure someone will 😊

Oh what happened last time?

I don't know but I'm sure someone will 😊

You remember, the coach punched the horse...

Let me find the news article.

The riders couldn't ride and were downright abusive to the horses. Major investigation and it was ruled that there would be no horse element going forwards

Ah.

I had a Google and found this for 2028 onwards:

The IOC EB also recommended returning modern pentathlon to the program after the federation replaced the horse riding element with obstacle racing to reduce costs and complexity. The sport has been put on notice and told it must make changes after an animal cruelty incident at the Tokyo 2020 Games grabbed headlines, and proposed changed were not popular among athletes.

Looks like it is still the horse thing this time