London 2012 Paralympic Competition

Are you fecking kidding me? How the feck did he manage that? I was watching the first 3/4 of the race thinking "look at the shape of that guy" coz his legs were going sort of sideways rather than forward. That is feckin incredible.
 
An Icelander just set an OL and WR in 200m swimming. Think it's called crawl in English.
 
Bit of a hullabaloo in the 200m tonight when the big favourite, our man Oscar, got beat. He's claiming his opponent used longer blades. Could get messy. One thing everyone says about Pretorius is that he's a gent who is always gracious to his opponents, so he must have good reason to complain methinks.
 
Gold medal! That was incredible from David Weir!

I've just got that Mo Farah feeling again. That was pretty much the Paralympics equivalent of that race. That 5000m race had all the tactics and drama you could imagine.
 
Badunk said:
Bit of a hullabaloo in the 200m tonight when the big favourite, our man Oscar, got beat. He's claiming his opponent used longer blades. Could get messy. One thing everyone says about Pretorius is that he's a gent who is always gracious to his opponents, so he must have good reason to complain methinks.
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What's the deal with those blades? I know Pistorius had a long battle to compete in the Olympics with his blades, but in the Paralympics is there any restriction on the length of the blades you can use? I guess there must be i.e. you can't be wearing any that would make you 8' tall.

Paralympics are great, and I've nothing but admiration for all the athletes, but I do think it's impossible to make it completely fair in a lot of the events. Only the wheelchair sports or the blind sports are on a level playing field really.
 
eric le roi said:
What's the deal with those blades? I know Pistorius had a long battle to compete in the Olympics with his blades, but in the Paralympics is there any restriction on the length of the blades you can use? I guess there must be i.e. you can't be wearing any that would make you 8' tall.

Paralympics are great, and I've nothing but admiration for all the athletes, but I do think it's impossible to make it completely fair in a lot of the events. Only the wheelchair sports or the blind sports are on a level playing field really.
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To be honest, how can any race be 100% fair? For example when you have Usain Bolt who is a 6-5 footer who can be one foot taller than other Olympians, can we say Usain has an unfair advantage? I don't think so.

It's the same with Paralympics. As long as the competitors' prosthesis specifications are within the rules, there should not be complaints. If there is a flaw in the rules after some scientific analysis, then the IPC (International Paralympics Committee) should revise them to address such issues. In my opinion though, longer blades in fact might be harder to operate, and hence I can't see how they are having advantage.

In my view, if Pistorius has such complaint, it should have been lodged BEFORE the race (and by his coaching staff, not him because he's just an athlete, not an expert). You can't complain when you lost and stay silent when you win. It's not fair to the opponent.

Pistorius has apologised since about the timing of complaint though. It remains to be seen if the complaint is legitimate.
 
Oscar needs to make his mind up, whether technology plays a part in track sprinting or its down to ability.

Working with these guys is truly inspiration, with Richard Whitehead, he refuses to wear the "new" prosthetic legs, and you can see why, his technique is unique and his upper body strength is unreal. That's the reason he catches his opponents, its all through his upper body strength.

David Weir's win was up there with Mo's.

I definitely recommend watching Wheelchair Rugby, which starts today. A brutal sport!
 
A very lightly trafficked thread, why is that?

I have to admit I haven't been following the Paralymics at all. We tried to get tickets to the stadium because we wanted to see inside it but there were none left. It's not that I'm actively disinterested in them it's more that I'm not particularly interested, if that makes sense.

That Pistorius thing where he went through all the effort of pitting his springs against muscle & bone & now he's complaining that someone has bigger springs than him.
 
Colin129 said:
A very lightly trafficked thread, why is that?

I have to admit I haven't been following the Paralymics at all. We tried to get tickets to the stadium because we wanted to see inside it but there were none left. It's not that I'm actively disinterested in them it's more that I'm not particularly interested, if that makes sense.

That Pistorius thing where he went through all the effort of pitting his springs against muscle & bone & now he's complaining that someone has bigger springs than him.
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I must admit that I was the same has you at first, but after watching it I am glad I did there is some fantastic athletes in it.
 
pauldyson1uk said:
I must admit that I was the same has you at first, but after watching it I am glad I did there is some fantastic athletes in it.
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Anyone should be watching as much as possible, as practicable as possible. It's once in a life time experience for sure. These athletes deserve alot of our respect because of the hurdles and difficulties they experience to get where they are now. It's very emotional watching them though so be warned. They inspire people showing everything is possible if you put your minds and efforts at it.
 
redevil2 said:
Anyone should be watching as much as possible, as practicable as possible. It's once in a life time experience for sure. These athletes deserve alot of our respect because of the hurdles and difficulties they experience to get where they are now. It's very emotional watching them though so be warned. They inspire people showing everything is possible if you put your minds and efforts at it.
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Alex Zanardi, the ex-F1 driver who lost both is legs in a crash now hand cycling at the Paralympics:

http://paralympic.org/feature/italian-passion-drive-zanardi-pole-position
 
Can't agree more with sir Mathew's tweet regarding Oscar P

"@matthewcpinsent: Oscar has to choose - either he was beaten fair and square by a better athlete or blade design CAN radically affect your performance level."
 
redevil2 said:
Can't agree more with sir Mathew's tweet regarding Oscar P

"@matthewcpinsent: Oscar has to choose - either he was beaten fair and square by a better athlete or blade design CAN radically affect your performance level."
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Why does he have to choose? Those two statements are not mutually exclusive as far as I can see.

Did Pistorious ever say that blade design has no impact on performance?
 
I must say as a South African and Oscar fan, I was disappointed in his remarks. Sure he's apologised for them, but prosthesis experts have since said longer blades actually make it tougher to run as you need put more energy into them. One of the experts makes the blades for the athletes and she said that it is made according to your 'natural' leg profile. So it is not 'out of proportion'.

Oscar was simply beaten by a younger upcoming talent. He can't win forever and he needs to accept that and move on.

Oh and PS: Sir Matthew's tweet doesn't hold up. Oscar was questioned by able bodied athletes arguing his blades gave him an advantage over them. So to be fair to Oscar, this situation is different. Remember the court ruled in Oscar's favour after several tests and expert testimony showing the design of his blades gave him no unfair advantage.
 
Oscar was just being a sore loser, he ran faster in the semi final than the winning time in the final. He failed and couldn't accept it.
 
Saw some tonight- is good stuff but can border on the bizarre. The British archer who won had a right old rack on her, one of the swimmers who won gold was a dead spit of Rebecca Adlington and on a side note, the blind football was peculiar. They never pass, just go on mad dribbles all the time and loads of fouls in the game.
The Russian who run the winning last leg in the women's cerebral palsy 4x100m relay final was actually quite fit. Not a sentence you type every day.
 
Jippy said:
Saw some tonight- is good stuff but can border on the bizarre. The British archer who won had a right old rack on her, one of the swimmers who won gold was a dead spit of Rebecca Adlington and on a side note, the blind football was peculiar. They never pass, just go on mad dribbles all the time and loads of fouls in the game.
The Russian who run the winning last leg in the women's cerebral palsy 4x100m relay final was actually quite fit. Not a sentence you type every day.
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I think there are special websites for people like you...
 
duffer said:
Why does he have to choose? Those two statements are not mutually exclusive as far as I can see.

Did Pistorious ever say that blade design has no impact on performance?
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When Pistorious competed in the "abled" Olympics, there were objections that he's at an advantage as his blades are an enhancement. He's apparently not agreeing with that.

You can't really argue only when it suits your case.
 
Stretch said:
I must say as a South African and Oscar fan, I was disappointed in his remarks. Sure he's apologised for them, but prosthesis experts have since said longer blades actually make it tougher to run as you need put more energy into them. One of the experts makes the blades for the athletes and she said that it is made according to your 'natural' leg profile. So it is not 'out of proportion'.

Oscar was simply beaten by a younger upcoming talent. He can't win forever and he needs to accept that and move on.

Oh and PS: Sir Matthew's tweet doesn't hold up. Oscar was questioned by able bodied athletes arguing his blades gave him an advantage over them. So to be fair to Oscar, this situation is different. Remember the court ruled in Oscar's favour after several tests and expert testimony showing the design of his blades gave him no unfair advantage.
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That's exactly the flaw of Oscar's objection when he complained about somene else's blades. He needs to be consistent in his belief, not just when the case suits him. If he believed those blades of his opponent gained an advantage, then he had to accept that he gained an advantage over the "abled" athletes when he ran with blades. Like you said if there was a ruling his blades gave him no advantage before, how legitimate is his complaint now? It's a bit hyprocritical.
 
Colin129 said:
I think there are special websites for people like you...
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Hey, I'm not embarrassed to admit that I have seen the odd paralympian that I would bang. Disablist.
 
I'm very happy for Zanardi's gold. Was just reviewing his horrific accident in youtube (lost 70% of his blood volume).

Glad that he kept on living and giving his best. Inspirational.
 
Just watched some of the Brazil v Argentina 5a side Blind football and there was pretty impressive skill being shown.
It went to a penalty shootout and Brazil won, there first pen was a cracker
 
I think I've found myself another favourite sport. Wheelchair rugby looks really awesome, and that Batt guy from Australia is a beast of a player. Very impressive.
 
The wheelchair basketballer is a very good presenter from what I've seen.

Balding's been good in both Olympic games.
 
Badunk said:
The wheelchair basketballer is a very good presenter from what I've seen.

Balding's been good in both Olympic games.
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not just Balding but C4 has a whole have done a cracking job, did not expect them to clear there schedules to show has much of the games has they can.
Easily on a par with the BBC coverage of the main Olympic Games.
 
Medal table Top 10, per head of population:

1 Iceland
2 Ireland (9 golds behind Iceland)
3 Fiji (2)
4 New Zealand (9)
5 Australia (46)
6 Cuba (28)
7 Ukraine (115)
8 Tunisia (28)
9 Finland (14)
10 Great Britain (163)
 
Chuffed to bits watching peacock beating everybody including Oscar! Well done Jonnie!!!!
 
Was there last night, what an atmosphere. Jonnie Peacock blitzed his way through the field
 
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