A thread for your stupid Olympics questions

[FriendlyNeighbourhoodAccountant]

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?

Well could you hold your breath repeatedly for such periods of time whilst gracefully hanging upside down in a pool and flinging a keg about?

I can't. Tales of a misspent youth trying with my cousins in my aunts pool tells me so 😂

Just been watching the steeplechase - are they running around in wet trainers after landing in the pool? All I can think of is the blisters!

Just watching the hockey. Why do they spray the pitch with water?

Water based AstroTurf is the gold standard of hockey pitch. The ball runs more smoothly, and faster and the bounce is more predictable. And the GK can slide. When the pitch dries out play isn't as fast and smooth. They're watered before the match and at half time usually.
There's other things in development for ecological reasons but currently water based pitches are used for all top level matches.

Thank you

I know they’re posters, and have seen the artwork - but I cannot fix whether they are the same as the general public can buy as merch, or if they are special edition gold/silver/bronze embellished ones (and if so, it is perhaps just the box that is different?).

This was asked a few pages back, but how is there a male cox in the female rowing team?

The same as there's female coxes in the men team.

They are just small light people who give instructions. We have the same one in the men's and woman's boats. So do a lot of countries.

It is actually incredibly physically demanding

many consider it the most physically intense sport in the whole Olympics

www.menshealth.com/uk/fitness/a61790669/is-artistic-swimming-hard/#

I thought it was because it includes the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, which are British, but not part of the UK

Good socks are a godsend to offroad runners. It's often said in the community that shoes don't cause blisters - socks do.

What are the arm straps the Belgian women's hockey team are all wearing? Are they to monitor body temperature/heart rate etc?

Also, after all the publicity about the England women's football team not wanting to wear white shorts in case of leakage during a period are a number of the hockey teams (e.g. Belgium) apparently happy to wear white skorts?

Theu're Whoop bands. Measures your sleep and activity etc and gives a fairly accurate idea of recovery. They've obviously all bought into the cult been given them as a promotion or something.

On the longer races where the runners have a standing start from a line, why don't all of them start with their toes right up to the line? Several of them have been a good 3-4 inches back, and we've seen multiple races lost on inches. Why wouldn't you take every millimeter you could?

I’ve become a complete convert to using magnets

But I would have thought the answer would be to have the number officially stencilled on the outside of both calves of the athete, or perhaps upper arm one side and leg the other
Bit like the triathlon - I was blown away when I found out that their race bibs have holes in the top corner, which mean you can fit them to a belt that you twist to show at the back for cycling or at the front for running

I don't think you need numbers emblazoned everywhere in small, controlled entry events such as Olympic ones. But of course some people like to keep bibs from their most important races

Another one from me - why are there soooooo many runners in bright orange trainers?

Sponsorships, I suppose.

I have always wondered how pole vaulters can run full pelt and still manage to get the pole in that little hole - or box as Google told me it was called.
And I was blown away by watching the start of the kayak race on the news - I didn’t realise they get released from a kind of trap which drops them all into the water from about two metres up in the air. 😮

But one person can’t be sponsoring nearly all the men and women, surely?

@JandLandG

I said what I said.

The only kindness i can muster is for the unfortunate women who have had to box him.

The canoe cross has been amazing to watch.

I hold my breath as they are dropped into the river 😂

My U17 DS runs in bright pink ones. He didn’t want bright pink spikes, but the particular ones he wanted had sold out across the entire world in any other colour and he valued the technology over the colour.

First race he wore them to, the entire field of about 15 x 15/16 yr old boys were all in bright pink shoes 😁. Their mums said they’d all had similar discussions at home.

are you aware of sex chromosome mosaicisim or chimerism? It is possible to have both XX and XY in one person.

www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/sex-chromosome-mosaicism#:~:text=The%20most%20common%20karyotype%20in,fusion%20of%20two%20fertilized%20eggs.

Is there any chance we could keep the discussion away from the boxing stuff? There's plenty of other threads dedicated to it and this thread is much more fun if it stays on hot topics like "what's it like to peel off the gel stuff the artistic swimmers use on their hair?"

I second this request.