I really appreciate your effort on this forum. I barely thought about Lemmy as a resource for the Olympics until it was too late, which looking back a huge bummer. I also didn’t watch nearly enough…
I am already looking forward to 2026. Going to approach it very differently.
It’s the big one today! Can Eliud Kipchoge become the first man to win 3 Olympic marathons?
A bunch of the competitors are wearing these weird headband things. Apparently they help with cooling somehow?
That gold medal match in Beach Volleyball was maybe more of a procession than a tense thriller, but god damn I think Åhman and Hellvig (and their coaches!) deserve it. Always cool to see a sport being innovated, and they’ve been amazing to watch all tournament - well, after rallying from their two group stage losses. Which is also a feat to celebrate, I think. They looked terrible against Italy, and were dejected afterwards. Very strong to come back from that mentally, and especially at only 22 years old.
Will be very interesting to see other teams adapt and adopt this style of play going forward.
Interesting. I didn’t see very much of the beach volleyball. What was it about their style that was innovative?
That’s unfortunate, beach volleyball is a really fun sport to watch.
The overall idea behind the style is introducing systematic two-touch attacks to their game (normal beach volleyball is pretty much always played on three touches). This lets them create uncertainty on the second touch - as player 2 jumps as if to spike on the second touch he can choose whether to follow through or do a jumping set-up pass to his teammate (hence jump-set). With the opposing team forced to consider two simultaneous angles of attack, it’s much easier to find openings.
You can read more about it here.
Oh, tragic. Kipchoge completely out of it. Seems to have a stitch or even a hip injury or something.
An Italian way out in front as Ethiopia’s Tola pushes to cross the gap from the main group to him.
Tola easily caught the Italian, Faniel, and now an American has bridged the gap. Faniel managing to keep on Tola’s heels down the hill.
What an incredible race this has been. From a pack, to one breakaway, to a small group at the front, to another pack. If he doesn’t blow up, Ethiopia’s Tamirat Tola is gonna earn Ethiopia their first gold this Olympics. The race for second is a little tighter, probably a Belgian, maybe Kenyan or another Ethiopian.
Gold medal water polo match. Possibly the last chance Australia has for a gold medal.
Ah well. A last-minute comeback from Australia, but it’s still going to end 11–9 to Spain.
