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You are here: Home / Open Threads / Late Night Open Thread: More Olympic Snippets

Late Night Open Thread: More Olympic Snippets

by Anne Laurie|  August 8, 20211:08 am| 22 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads, Sports

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A sumo wrestler statue, whose backside may have rankled the horses, has been removed from the Olympic equestrian ring. https://t.co/LjG5LXRoVD

— AP Sports (@AP_Sports) August 6, 2021

I hope the artist held onto his masterpiece… resculpt the head a bit (use *all* the orange tinter), and he can sell it to the RNC as an official entry test for their next convention. Nobody who won’t enthusiastically kiss the horse-scaring end gets a slot!

PHOTO GALLERY: Braids, shaves and more. Olympians in all disciplines came to #Tokyo2020 coiffed to contend. https://t.co/ZqNu09v1R5

— AP Sports (@AP_Sports) August 2, 2021

In a ballroom in Orlando, the families of U.S. Olympic athletes gather to cheer on their loved ones. Thousands of miles away from Tokyo, the hundreds who accepted Universal Orlando’s offer to watch the Games from there are finding solace in the comradery.https://t.co/HIus5tpWxD

— The Associated Press (@AP) August 3, 2021

From @reuterspictures: Reuters photographers show a behind the scenes look at the #Tokyo2020 Olympics https://t.co/WTbXtAIEeF pic.twitter.com/jmlMDRDotc

— Reuters (@Reuters) August 7, 2021

*Not* a Monty Python sketch…

The couple taking on every Olympic sport in 17 days https://t.co/s0ZkrIk145

— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) August 3, 2021


(TL, DR: They’re doing it as a fundraiser for the Motor Neuron Disease Foundation, which provided ‘invaluable support’ to his brother, ‘a massive Olympics fan’.)

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Reader Interactions

22Comments

  1. 1.

    rikyrah

    August 8, 2021 at 1:15 am

    The couple…. Including the marathon??

  2. 2.

    Jerzy Russian

    August 8, 2021 at 1:19 am

    Is the brother a massive person, or his fandom massive?

    Also, I did not know that statues of sumo wrestlers existed, although upon reflection, I should not be surprised at this. However, why there are such statues in an equestrian ring is still a mystery.

  3. 3.

    smike

    August 8, 2021 at 1:33 am

    @Jerzy Russian:

    However, why there are such statues in an equestrian ring is still a mystery.

    Yeah, that part is a mystery to me as well. Tried to come up with an angle, got nothing.

  4. 4.

    Gin & Tonic

    August 8, 2021 at 1:33 am

    “Comradery”??

  5. 5.

    Another Scott

    August 8, 2021 at 1:45 am

    Sifan Hassan was astounding. Fell in her 1500 m qualifying heat, won the heat, bronze in the final.

    Won the 5000 m gold.

    Won the 10,000 m gold.

    Just astounding, and her kick at the end of the 10k!!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  6. 6.

    Yutsano

    August 8, 2021 at 1:52 am

    @Another Scott:  Her Wiki page left me with one question:

    Did she actually become a nurse?

  7. 7.

    NotMax

    August 8, 2021 at 2:11 am

    Isn’t this mish-mosh over yet?

  8. 8.

    NotMax

    August 8, 2021 at 2:14 am

    @Gin & Tonic

    Synonym for Tovarichness.

    ;)

    (Yes, know it is a bastardization of camaraderie.)

  9. 9.

    Mary G

    August 8, 2021 at 2:52 am

    That Orlando family lounge looks like a superspreader event every bit as much as a rock concert, etc. I hope everyone was vaxxed and only gets minor breakthrough infections. And it seems a bit parsimonious for the US Olympic committee, Universal, Toyota, and NBC to only give athletes free airline tickets, four nights in the hotel, three days in the amusement park etc. for two people and generously allow them to purchase more. AP doesn’t report the price. I’m sure Caeleb Dressel can afford it, but the fifth grade teacher from Inglewood who brought her teen aged daughter, father and mother, who knows? Might have been a bit nicer to eliminate the full open bar and give more tickets.

  10. 10.

    opiejeanne

    August 8, 2021 at 3:11 am

    @Jerzy Russian: The sumo statue was one of the Japanese cultural icons at each jump. There was a kimono at one, and I don’t remember the rest. The sumo statue was only visible after a sharp turn, following the previous jump. It’s life-size and in a crouching position, so even from the back it looks like it’s ready to attack.

    The other, very real problem with the horses was that this is a stupid part of the pentathlon. Participants are not allowed to use their own horse, they are assigned a random horse 20 minutes before they have to be in the ring. 20 minutes to get to know this strange horse, and then you expect it to jump. A rider from Germany was set to win gold, until the horse she got refused to jump, even before it knew about the sumo statue. It ran through one gate, and spent a lot of time just backing up around the ring, as the rider struggled to gain control, but all she could do was cry.

  11. 11.

    Mary G

    August 8, 2021 at 3:20 am

    @opiejeanne: That seems extremely unsafe. Poor horses.

  12. 12.

    Comrade Colette

    August 8, 2021 at 3:34 am

    @Mary G: 
    Modern pentathlon is effin’ stupid anyway.

  13. 13.

    HumboldtBlue

    August 8, 2021 at 4:08 am

    comradery

    The wonders of the English language.

  14. 14.

    prostratedragon

    August 8, 2021 at 4:10 am

    @opiejeanne:  Was that the rider whose coach was DQ’d for punching the horse? Having them use unfamiliar mounts seems unnecessary, since even a cavalry officer in battle would use a familiar one as long as possible.

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    August 8, 2021 at 4:20 am

    @prostratedragon:

    It seems especially strange because I don’t think you get this in other equestrian events, which are understood to be for horse-and-rider teams.

  16. 16.

    prostratedragon

    August 8, 2021 at 4:48 am

    @Amir Khalid:  Yes, in “Eventing” (formerly “Three-Day Event?”) the riders use their own horses, and ordinarily the same horse for all three phases.

  17. 17.

    Mary G

    August 8, 2021 at 5:12 am

    This thread by a woman whose grandfather was in the 1936 Olympics says:

    I learned today that the events of the Modern Pentathlon (running, swimming, fencing, pistol, equestrian) were chosen to simulate the feats of a 19th century cavalry solider fighting behind enemy lines.
    — Kate Starbird (@katestarbird) August 8, 2021

    So it makes sense to use a strange horse because behind enemy lines you’d take whichever you could steal. Not sure this qualifies as modern anymore, though, with the fencing and horseriding not much called for as military skills anymore.

  18. 18.

    NotMax

    August 8, 2021 at 5:15 am

    @smike

    Because they belong to stables.

    Every sumo wrestler belongs to a stable, which is where they live while they are young. A stable is managed by a stable master…. Source

    ;)

  19. 19.

    Geminid

    August 8, 2021 at 6:45 am

    @Mary G: George S. Patton, later to win fame as a general, competed in the “modern” pentathlon at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics. Then a Cavalry Lieutenant, Patton could compete because oficers were gentlemen, and therefore considered to be amateurs. Enlisted men were not eligible for the event.

  20. 20.

    Anne Laurie

    August 8, 2021 at 7:19 am

    @Mary G: Yes, the ‘modern pentathalon’ are rooted in a 19th-century fairy tale, beloved by the founder of today’s Olympics:

    … Coubertin created the contest to simulate the experience of a 19th-century cavalry soldier behind enemy lines: he must ride an unfamiliar horse, fight enemies with pistol and sword, swim, and run to return to his own soldiers. In the 1912 Games as only officers competed, the competitors were permitted to use their own horses. Up to the 1952 Olympics the ordinary cavalry soldier was considered a professional athlete, as he was riding and training horses for a living, while the officer was the amateur. As long as there was no official international federation for Modern Pentathlon an IOC committee was set up for the sport making use of the expertise of IOC members…

    Everyone wants to get rid of it, except for a handful of elderly ‘romantics’.  I kinda doubt it’ll make the cut for 2024…

  21. 21.

    Geminid

    August 8, 2021 at 8:40 am

    @Anne Laurie: Get rid of the Modern Pentathlon?!   Impossible!

    In the immortal words of U.S. Cavalry General Herr:

    “Not one horse I will give up for a tank!”

    General John Herr,1940.

  22. 22.

    Miss Bianca

    August 8, 2021 at 10:46 am

    @smike: Show jumping course designers come up with all kinds of weird shit to put near the jumps. I think it’s supposed to be a test of how under control the rider has their horse. Jumps are almost always decorated in some manner or other – artificial flowers, little windmill things…

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