2020 Tokyo Olympics

[Nick]

Now that the Olympics are finally here, use this thread to discuss the Olympic Games!

 

[Nick]

Great opponent for the US to get back on the right track against, but damn if it wasn't tough to watch. I mean, the score was 6-1, but NZ had two own goals and FOUR goals were disallowed for offside penalties in the opening 35 minutes. Was nice to see the USWNT back in a groove, but even looking at the goal they gave up, that was pretty sloppy so there's still a lot of room to grow, especially when they go against the actual good teams. Sweden is looking like they are definitely going to be a tough out right now.

 

[Skold]

I love watching sports that are not usually televised, like Handball and Badminton. Crazy!

Comcast, this stuff should be on all year!

 

[Nick]

I love watching sports that are not usually televised, like Handball and Badminton. Crazy!

Comcast, this stuff should be on all year!

Archery oddly enough is probably my favorite thing to watch out of the more niche sports. Water Polo always astounds me though. The amount of physicality and conditioning a sport like that takes is ridiculous.

 

[Skold]

Archery oddly enough is probably my favorite thing to watch out of the more niche sports. Water Polo always astounds me though. The amount of physicality and conditioning a sport like that takes is ridiculous.

Yep, exactly! Some of these sports are insane, and it is crazy to imagine how hard these people train their whole lives for sports we rarely see.

Then, they gotta sell used cars or insurance on the side because this stuff isn't televised. Curling, looking at you.

 

[Legacy]

Great opponent for the US to get back on the right track against, but damn if it wasn't tough to watch. I mean, the score was 6-1, but NZ had two own goals and FOUR goals were disallowed for offside penalties in the opening 35 minutes. Was nice to see the USWNT back in a groove, but even looking at the goal they gave up, that was pretty sloppy so there's still a lot of room to grow, especially when they go against the actual good teams. Sweden is looking like they are definitely going to be a tough out right now.

I haven’t been watching soccer (the games come on a 4am in California so we basically wake up spoiled), but the poor showing by New Zealand isn’t that surprising. They hadn’t played together since 2019 (until the Olympic camp), and then the NWSL (women’s pro league in the US) refused to release New Zealand’s players until like two weeks after releasing the US women for their camp (made even more egregious by the fact that New Zealand’s coach used to coach the Orlando Pride).

New Zealand got a bit hosed in the prep for this tourney.

 

[Nick]

After losing to Nigeria and Australia in exhibitions and now losing to France (and imo Australia and France are the two best teams behind USA normally), I have little hope as of this moment that we'll see a Gold medal from this team.

But they lost to France by giving up a 16-2 run to end the game which is simply inexcusable and honestly they just looked like an all-star team out there trying to win the game. A bunch of people thrown together without much practice and just playing for themselves and trying to win the game so they could have the big moment rather than playing as a team.

 

[Viator]

Watching Olympic Skateboarding is definitely...a weird thing to say. Like, really weird.

 

[Nick]

Watching Olympic Skateboarding is definitely...a weird thing to say. Like, really weird.

I heard some things with Skateboarding were wacky last night. It's insane that it was the judging considering that's how these guys get medals is based on those scores. And yeah, as someone who isn't well versed in skateboarding, that first trick looks way harder than the second one.

 

[Legacy]

They did a terrible job of explaining the elements of skateboarding considering it’s a new Olympic sport. Considering how good gymnastics commentators are at talking through specifics moves, skateboarding really needed something like that.

Frankly, the only reason I could follow it was because I played a lot Tony Hawk Pro Skater. So I could recognize a lot of the tricks.

But that 2nd trick is both harder and riskier, because it’s on a 12-step rail instead of the 7-step.

 

[Nick]

I thought it was incredibly interesting that the Japan/USA Softball Final was an exact rematch (sort of) of the 2008 final (the last time Softball was in the Olympics) with both pitchers who started that game starting in this game as well. Was too bad to see the US lose to Japan, but overall, i'm not necessarily rooting for country here as much as I just want to see good, fun games.

With that said, it was still nice to see the USWNT limp on the the knockout round and for the US Women's Basketball team to get a win last night, although something must be going around because they "only" won by 9 points, which makes it only the second time (2004 vs. Russia) they've won by less than ten points since their last Olympic loss in 1992.

In other observations that are more... worldly, the entire South Korean team are absolute snipers in archery and the Chinese table tennis players are crazy good. Also, the 3x3 Basketball is really fun to watch. I'm guessing Serbia will win on the Men's side and US on Women's. I was a little surprised the US didn't qualify for 3x3 on the Men's side, then I looked at the roster and... yeah.

 

[Legacy]

I actually stayed up to watch the USWNT, but went ahead and went to sleep at halftime.

Knock-outs will be rough.

 

[Nick]

I actually stayed up to watch the USWNT, but went ahead and went to sleep at halftime.

Knock-outs will be rough.

Especially if they can figure out how to score. They've been held scoreless against both teams not named New Zealand. If it comes to another regulation draw, then all it takes is for a country to get into a groove during a shootout and they could be out as early as the quarterfinals like 2016. They play the Netherlands on June 30th to start knockout play.

If you had to have me pick who's going to win right now, I think i'd probably say Sweden (which would be a potential Gold Medal matchup for the USWNT if they make it that far).

 

[Legacy]

Especially if they can figure out how to score. They've been held scoreless against both teams not named New Zealand. If it comes to another regulation draw, then all it takes is for a country to get into a groove during a shootout and they could be out as early as the quarterfinals like 2016. They play the Netherlands on June 30th to start knockout play.

If you had to have me pick who's going to win right now, I think i'd probably say Sweden (which would be a potential Gold Medal matchup for the USWNT if they make it that far).

The (lack of) scoring is more a symptom than the cause. Sweden and Australia match pretty well athletically with the US, but have a lesser overall talent level. What Australia did was press high at the point of transition (when there’s a turnover). The US kept trying to play through the press, but Australia’s athleticism stopped them almost every time. Frankly, the US kinda escaped with a tie. Sam Kerr is the best striker in the world right now. She had an off day against us.

The US is good enough to play through a high press, but it’s tough. You have to pass quickly and accurately. Everyone does. If a couple of players are a step slow on a turn, the press will get you (which is what we kept seeing). If that quality isn’t where it needs to be, then you play “direct.” Long-ball soccer. What’s frustrating is that is such a viable option for us because of the overall quality of Morgan and Press. Skip the high press entirely, kick it to those two, and hope for a moment of individual brilliance. But we never made that adjustment.

The athleticism of the opponents in the knock-outs will ramp up. Worse, Sweden and Australia have established the game plan on how these athletic teams can slow (if not stop) the US. If the US doesn’t get that spark they need to improve their cleanliness, they need to change their strategy. If they don’t, we may not even make the finals.

 

[Nick]

This was an absolutely incredible Table Tennis match. Went the full 7 rounds and both players scored the same amount of points (75-75 combined). Only one of the seven rounds was decided by more than 3 points and five were decided by 2 points or less.


EDIT:
So happy for Suni Lee!

 

[Nick]

The US/Netherlands game right now keeping me on the edge of my seat. Holy crap. Lots of action in this second half, lots of missed opportunities on both sides, but it's been a fun game to watch. Looks like we may be headed to extra time unless someone can score in these added 5 minutes.

 

[Nick]

As good as that game was, once it got to penalties, I pretty much just assumed the US would win pretty easily, which they did. I know the US lost on penalties to Sweden in the 2016 Olympics, but Netherlands after watching 120 minutes of them playing, I didn't expect them to win in penalties and sure enough they struggled from the start.

For a team that was making their Olympics debut though, they gave the US all they could handle.


Alyssa Naeher was huge though, especially with blocking the PK at around the 80’ mark.

 

[Legacy]

Lots of crazy PKs yesterday .

US men advanced to the Gold Cup final because of a savage Qatar PK miss and Canada had a fantastic PK save against Mexico that, unfortunately, didn’t change the outcome.

 

[Nick]

What Bobby Finke just did was super human:

 

[Nick]

As much as it sucks that the only goal was scored on a PK that was called after VAR review and that Alyssa Naeher got injured early, this USWNT got shutout in 3 of their 5 games so far. I'm certainly not confident they'll even take the Bronze.

But really, even with the USWNT struggling this Olympics, they were in control for most of the game and were really in many ways dominating just prior to the PK putting a lot of pressure on Canada.