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?

How bored are the lifeguards? 😂

Why can’t gymnasts do their hair neatly? Messy buns, clips everywhere, bits hanging out. Ask any 12 year old ballet dancer and she could do a neater bun with no visible slides or bands.

Guess there is always a chance one of them could tear a muscle or something and end up needing to be fished out.

Why do the photographers get them to bite the gold medal, when it isn't made of gold and if they did so hard they would smash their teeth ?

Ballet dancers’ hair doesn’t come anywhere near to being subject to the same forces that gymnasts’ hair does. It doesn’t matter what the ballet dancers might be able to achieve before they started, it wouldn’t end up like that after the first event!

The lane markers aren't that helpful to backstroke, they have flags above their heads (looks like bunting) 5 metres from the wall.

Agreed.

Mind you, most of the Brazilians had really nice buns during the women's team final (and lovely leotards). Must be all the years of practice during Carnival 🤔

It's called a 'stroke count' - every swimmer learns it once they start competing (even kids). The red markers at the side of the lines, on the barrier on the racing line are indicators, they also usually have something above the five meter line. It'll always be the five meter line (both for the red markers and for the overhang 'flags' above the lane).

Most swimmers average anywhere between 3-5 strokes, depending on the pull of their arms against the water, how much they are kicking. In distance swimming 200 back) it'll be more strokes and in faster events, it's less.

You'll notice that sometimes swimmers are a bit closer/bit further from the wall then they ought to be for a good turn (and often races are lost or won on this) - that will be because they had to 'short' their stroke because their pacing was slightly off etc.

Why, at the start of a BBC session isn't there a button you can press to give you names of the movements and what the judges are looking for.

There are similar penalties in lots of sports though. Just watching the canoeing and if you touch a gate you get 2s added to your time, which is generally enough to count you out of the medals. Same if a horse knocks a bar off a fence. Or a hurdler hits a hurdle. But with the start it's not far to penalise all the athletes for the actions of 1, so they made it such that false starts are very rare indeed.
All elite sport hangs on the finest of margins - look at the rowing races which are won/lost by a single stroke, or a diver slightly over-rotating, or a gymnast putting a foot just outside the edge of the floor. It's just the way it is.

It would be interesting to see how many false starts there are in the athletics. I reckon there must be around 60 track races in total (maybe more), and I'd be willing to bet there will be less than 3 false starts.

My big question is why, when they are such a big part of international sports AND hosted a recent Olympic Games, can none of the BBC presenters get anywhere near a correct pronunciation of Chinese athletes names?

There are a number of surnames which are really common, and multiple athletes have them. And yet no one seems to have bothered to look up the pronunciation of Zhang/ Xiao/ Wang etc. It’s embarrassing.

It is different watching the athletics now with the one false start means your out. Used to do like red and yellow card type things.

Aside from the sweating /not sweating one of the issues with walking dogs in the heat is burnt pads - which obviously isn't an issue for horses.

Anyone think the dressage is being swept under the carpet a bit in light of recent events? I thought I saw on the app that it was due the other day but not seen anything televised?

Ooh, and, the bouldering and climbing? I loved that last time, any idea when it starts?

I realise they're possibly not stupid questions but just asking for opinion and intel 🙏

Thanks to those that answered about the posters. What a lovely keepsake

Usain Bolt was considered an oddity - conventional wisdom was that the fastest sprinters were short as they would be out of the blocks and up to full race speed before a taller athlete was able to be going at full pace.

But Bolt threw the rule book out the window and his huge stride coupled with a much quicker than expected exit from the blocks made him unbeatable.

Don't forget divers it's possible to hit the board and be unconscious before you hot the water.

Why does it matter that someone finishes a race a millionth of a second ( or whatever) before another?

The margins are so infinitesimal it seems entirely meaningless.

To know the exact finishing time in the pool, is there an electronic touch pad on the wall? How are readings taken?

They touch the timing board that then is pushed back to a metal plate behind which closes the circuit and records the time. So if you dont touch it hard enough it doesn't close the circuit straight away and you can lose out even if you actually touched the board first.

Aparantly it's gold edged?

Yikes! I wonder if anyone has lost out this way. It would all be too stressful for me.

@Runningupthecurtains thank you. I note that the current world champion int the 100 m, Noah Lyles, is not short either.

Do marathon runners and triathletes ever have to stop for a wee?

Or silver or bronze depending which medal you have. They get a mascot as well but not until they get back to the village.

Because the point of a race is to see who finishes fastest.