Out of all of the sports, I consider Olympic Boxing to be right at the bottom of the list. The scoring seems to make no sense and it's quite frustrating as a viewer to get a grasp of what's going on during the match. It's also just...not fun or enjoyable to watch. I don't think much of the sport outside of the Olympics anyway, but I feel that way about several other sports and disciplines, such as rowing. Yet, being at the Olympics seems to elevate those sports. I don't feel it does that for boxing. It's utterly bland and boring.
2024 Summer Olympics (Paris)
- Thread starter Samid
- Start date
Cmon Iga
Still better than the horse ballet thing.
It's called dressage I know, I'm being needlessly demeaning about it.
That one is the worst yes
Fecking hell Zheng will win this now
Iga Swiatek on the verge of losing semi final against Zheng.
Zheng breaks Iga.
To be honest it's the same with football for me. Adds very little to the games in it's amputated form (well I suppose it brings good money in attendances) and you cannot let it come in it's ultimate form because it would blow the other sports away in media attention and attendance.
Why not substitute it with futsal?
How is squash still not in Olympics?
Iga was really bad today, so many unforced errors. Not to take anything from Zheng, she’s a great player
Brazilian women smashing Japanese women in volleyball.
100% agree. I would ditch football from the Olympics in a heartbeat and wouldn't even feel the slightest bit bad about it. The sport already gets tons of press, coverage, attendance and money. There are already a vast number of competitions at various different levels for the sport, both nationally and internationally. There are other lesser-followed sports which could do with some recognition and coverage. I feel this way even more so after watching one of the my least favourite ever international football competitions in this year's euros.
I read something yesterday (about the golf, funnily enough), and it said that no sport should be in the Olympics if winning gold isn't the pinnacle of achievement in that sport.
I can get behind that and think that it makes complete sense.
Seemed sensible to me too. The fact that the men's football is essentially a glorified youth competition is a bit of a joke, really.
So disappointing from Iga, she’s still the greatest but today it really went all wrong
GB medal hope Wightman pulls out due to injury.
Great point. That would definitely mean football, golf and tennis out. But what about basketball? An NBA championship is for a club and the individual so maybe one could argue that olympic gold is still the pinnacle for countries (the average player doesn't care about the world championship).
On the "never been punched so hard" thing, that didn't stop Ireland's Kelly Harrington beating the same fighter in the last Olympics. I'm sure all the controversy leading up to this was a much bigger factor in the Italian's decision than the power in any punch.
Not a competition to decide the best in the world (no matter how much the US pretends it is) so an easy call, basketball stays in the olympics.
This is something also in regards to the situation...the Algerian isn't undefeatable. They have a 9-5 record.
I probably wouldn't go quite as far as it being the absolute pinnacle of the sport, but you want at least every competing nation to take it seriously. For a lot of nations, the (men's) football is a complete aside. Team GB in 2012 was basically "let's given Ryan Giggs a major international tournament appearance".
You essentially want the Olympics to operate as a world title, so I think basketball is probably alright in that regard.
Yup. Although you can understand why the Italian girl did what she did. If the whole world is telling you the contest is rigged against you there will be a huge temptation to quit at the first hint of adversity. Even more so if you think walking away is making some sort of important political point.
I hate the "world champs" as much as the next guy but it de facto is.
Although the likes of Doncic have already said that they'd rather win the Olympics than an NBA title, so no qualms with basketball as an Olympic sport at all.
It's definitely not. Any more than the CL trumps the world cup. The standard might be higher but it's not an international tournament.
Weird to give up after you get punched in the face once. Khelif was born a woman wasn't she?
From an outside perspective, the IOC and IBA have handled this in a very confusing manner. It just doesn't look like a very transparent process and the situation hasn't looked like it's been resolved prior to the athlete coming to the Olympics.
If I am either one of these athletes, I would expect the IOC to come out and put this one to bed by either standing by their decision to let this athlete compete, or not. If nothing is said, the controversy is going to grow and it'll affect the next fight.
It's probably in the IOC's best interest if Khelif loses the next fight. They'll want this situation to go away. I'm interested to see what will happen if she wins a medal.
CL vs World Cup is not an apt comparison. You said the NBA is not a competition to decide who's the best basketball team in the world, I said it de facto is. We can't say the same for football because the Copa Libertadores winner stands a chance against the CL winner.
But it's not an international tournament indeed.
Khelif was born with XY chromosomes.
I think it’s about as apt as you can get. The team that wins the CL is, without doubt, the best football team on the planet (assuming you can decide that in a knock out competition) because the Copa Libertadores winners inevitably lose in that silly world trophy thingy that follows. Same with the NBA champions. But both competitions don’t include teams based all over the world and neither competition includes national teams.
Just tuned into the sailing as very little else on and have no idea what's going on 
It isn't a hard rule, it's not like they always go faster in the relay. It's just not uncommon for anchors(usually the fastest on the team) in winning teams to swim below individual event winning times. We had Chalmers swim below the world record(well, the previous one) in the 4×100, which is really impressive but also a time that was only possible due to the nature of the relay
I’m convinced even the sailors have no clue and they just make it up as they get along depending on wind and waves.Just tuned into the sailing as very little else on and have no idea what's going on
No test results were ever made public for this and the Russian iba chairman was talking about "pretending to be women", which doesnt instill a lot of confidence over his impartiality. Khelif has always been a woman. She also has a rather average win/loss record.
That's the thing - the team that wins the CL isn't even the best team on the planet half of the times, let alone "without doubt". However it can be said about the NBA champs.
Just tuned into the sailing as very little else on and have no idea what's going on
Yeah it's impossible to understand. My coverage cut from the start to a live view. It was all how poor Spain have started and were in trouble and how great Britain had smashed it. 2 seconds later Britain in 6th and Spain 1st
I've got it on in the background while I do a training course, why have they all stopped? How do they pick up where they were?
