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?

@Littletreefrog My question is if break dancing is an olympic sport (not sure I agree it should be) why isn't other dancing?

It's a demo sport for this year only. It won't be in the Olympics in '28.

Almost all the divers seem to have a coach filming the dive on an iPad, and then the review it afterwards - does this actually help, given that the next dive is going to be a different one? It seems more like a training exercise somehow. But maybe the things that went well/badly about a certain dive are actually transferrable to future dives even if they're different.

Other sports don't seem to have this happen, at least not as obviously and publicly - maybe they do review video footage of the events later on or overnight, before another round/race/apparatus.

I think its because the things they point out are transferable into the next dive even if the dive is bit different.

I'm sure I've seen them do it in high jump and triple jump etc as well but jts not so obvious as the athlete has to make it across the running track to talk to their coach in the stands.

Ah thanks, makes sense if some of it doesn't transfer.

And I have just thought also that perhaps the diver doesn't always have a great sense of what it looked like in the air, although they can tell what the entry was like or how it felt overall etc, so maybe they want to see it to understand what score they got or are about to get.

Lots of things are transferable to other dives - height from board, under or over rotation, body position, entry position, arms loose or locked, legs bent or locked, and so on.

I'm glad others have asked about athletes with long hair. It would drive me nuts apart from anything else. But the event that surprises me above all else is pole vault. Surely there is a risk of pony tails dislodging the pole?

I wondered too if long hair or jewellery impedes an athlete but in the case of the French pole vaulter Anthony Ammirati it wasn’t long hair that knocked his pole off 🫣🤭😬😳🍆

I know channel 4 is the uk broadcaster for the Paralympics but will discovery+ be the official broadcaster like it has been for the Olympics?

He could hardly have that chopped off!

Maybe tighter more supportive underpants or strapping it down might have helped !!

To be honest his predicament did influence my question. I mean I don't want to cast aspersions, but I don't think size wise he is in pony tail territory.

Did we see any of the surfing in Tahiti? I remember I saw windsurfing but that was in France wasn’t it?

I saw a bit of surfing on the BBC. I can't remember when though.

My husband is quite confused when he asks when something happened and I answer between the end of the windsurfing and the start of the BMXing or similar. All times and days have lost meaning it's swim week or athletics weeks now.
And in four years time I'll do it again and to really confuse me I heard the other day the LA are having the athletics in week 1 and the swimming in week 2! 🤯

It was all in the middle of the night. Took me until it was over to think about the time difference being the other side of the world.

Oh was it? I never thought about the time difference actually

Yes - why not cheerleading?

Why not sports acro? (The gymnastics where they stand on top of each other and chuck the little one in the air, they do loads of twists and somersaults and the base pair catch them!) Those are gymnasts just the same as the artistic ones 🤷🏻‍♀️

Link to the Acrobatic Gymnastics World Championships 2022 (hopefully) highlights

Wow! That’s seriously gobsmacking stuff!
Thanks for sharing @GreenShady.
Some of it looks a bit like ice dancing with the ice, or synchronised swimming on land and others like circus acrobatics.
I could see that becoming an Olympic discipline.

It has to be widely practiced in all five Olympic continents. That rules out a lot of things!

Thanks for sharing @GreenShady my DD is a Acro gymnast she is seriously fit and strong trains min-15hrs a week oftern 6d a week before big competitions. Wed love to see it at the Olympics.

@bridgetreilly id be surprised if it isn’t on all five continents as the Worlds have been held all over the place inc Baku.

Ice dancing (Winter Olympics), Break dancing (one off Summer Olympics) but not Ballroom dancing.

Bugger's muddle, really.

Yes - there are regular international competitions so I'd say it meets that criteria.
I'm not sure how popular it is in the US though - so that could be a factor maybe.
Or maybe it's too similar to artistic gymnastics? But then there's volleyball AND beach volleyball so 🤷🏻‍♀️

Amazing! A family member of mine did it for quite a few years - went to Baku a few years ago. But sensibly retired at 16 so she could enjoy being a teenager 🤣