DNS errors are quite impressive, it's true.
Hop on the landing. Worst tumblr ever.
(Just doing my part to bring social media discourse to unfogged comments.)
And don't think we don't appreciate it.
Apparently you can click on it to make it stop.
but it comes back when you reload -- why doesn't unfogged auto-refresh recent comments lol #oldweb #earlyblogging
For me, her floor routine was the best of the lot. Such precision, strength, and skill.
(Poor thread, not getting spammed by the Bangalore escorts.)
It just all seems so fake now that I know the floor is made out of trampolines. And that the gymnasts are Tigger.
I was expecting her to break her leg at the end.
Floor exercises would be so much better if they had light sabers.
The little arms-in-second, feet in first gesture at the end is totally adorable.
Also the autoplay is making me twitchy. Is there any way to pause it?
It just all seems so fake now that I know the floor is made out of trampolines. And that the gymnasts are Tigger.
Her final jump/bounce is the one that seems unbelievable to me. She barely bends her knees, how is she generating the force?
She's landing from very high up on her last jump -- she doesn't need to add much muscle, just enough to not dampen the bounce her landing gives her. If you dropped an inanimate object her weight from that height, it'd bounce high.
19: Also, on a trampoline, and she's Tigger.
Very limited audience for dropping inanimate objects on mats.
I guess it is good to have a sport for super short people.
They are incredible athletes.
I guess it is good to have a sport for super short people.
Indeed it is! I've been remarking to my housemate when we watch Olympic gymnastics coverage: y'know, the men can't do that kind of stuff, because they're too tall (even if they're not very tall). Their center of gravity is too high, and they're like planks trying to flip around.
Well, but then we stray into discussing why the men don't do the uneven parallel bars, the women don't do rings, the men don't do balance beam, the women don't do the pummel horse. Can they really just not do these things, or would it just be too embarrassing if they tried? (I really like gymnastics.)
21- Don't they do that in rhythmic gymnastics? They have a ball and they sometimes let it bounce. Or sometimes they have these weird ribbon wand things instead.
And anyway, hooray for people who get lots of medals in multiple events in the same discipline, I want to see someone win in a bunch of totally different things. Get Phelps on a vaulting pole or something. I guess triathletes or decathletes or whatever could compete in the individual events but probably would get killed by people who specialize in them.
Did you see that Tim Tebow now thinks he can cut it in MLB?
22: You mean other than baseball?
25: Once Tebow has a minor league deal then he can work out the arrangements for the reality TV show based around his quixotic quest.
He's one of the most popular athletes in the country. It's a market failure if there's not some sports league that will take him.
25, 27: some team will sign him as a favor to a minor-league affiliate in Florida somewhere.
27: really they should just let Tebow go back to playing QB for Florida. That's where he excelled.
He could totally be the creepy old alum who hangs out at the frat house, but the brothers put up with it because he buys all the beer.
I assume horse and rings have to do with upper body strength- certainly women could do some moves on them but not sure how many things wouldn't be possible even for the strongest. Uneven bars, I don't know- maybe men are too tall to fit between them which is why they get a single bar? Balance beam I have no idea- I was good at balance beam in elementary school PE, way to dash my dreams, gymnastics associations.
re: 23.1
Male gymnasts can totally do most of those tumbles.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z-yb2q-PxeU
Check out the quadruple twist.
I suspect the upper body strength for the rings is too much, but I'd not be totally surprised to be wrong. Lots of top free-climbers and in other sports that involve extreme strength to weight are women.
Also, it's not a fucking trampoline.
I want to see a gymnast swinging around on pommel horse on trampoline while Tebow throws Nerd falls at him.
That should be "Nerf balls", but I'm willing to be flexible.
Also, it's not a fucking trampoline.
The gymnasts are much less strong than they appear, due to the magnitude of the spring. It's frankly smoke and mirrors.
They should be honest about it and use a fuckton of drugs, like the Russian Track and Field team.
32: Weighing the utility gained in six packs versus that lost in proselytization would be an excellent exercise for economics majors.
36: Are you also going to point out that Aly Raisman is not Tigger?
The men participate in floor and their passes are at least as tough as the women's. Being smaller helps, but it's about strength-to-weight ratios in addition to being insane enough to do blind double flips.
34: Most of it, I think, is due to the historical development of the sport before raw power was acceptable for women's sports. Beam was more about dance and grace before it was about doing insane things -- no reason men couldn't participate on beam, but it's not contested.
Kristian Thomas (British male gymnast) always looks just too big for floor. He's 5ft 11. So pretty massive by gymnast standards. And yet, European gold medalist on floor.
Plus they wear special shoes that help them get higher.
Also if you watch Martha Karolyi during the routine, she's whispering "wingardium leviosa".
The Russians got disqualified for ordering spring-shoes from Acme.
The looping has stopped. Thank god for restrictive approaches to copyrighted material.