Field Theory by Hadyn Green

It has been a long and sleepless weekend. A weekend of tremendous feats, where black became gold and inspiration was only a gnat's whisker away. The kiwis have dug deep and showed the entire world that we are indeed a sleeping giant. They come from a small town and the heart they show is part of an immense effort from that big engine they have in them.

Or something; I'm on a TVNZ commentator-overload at the moment.

But let's start with an American

Michael Phelps…for the last time

I called this blog Field Theory not only for the clever pun but also because I wanted to bring the science. And science is what helped Phelps win his medals (well science and freakishly large feet).

We all know about the NASA developed Speedo LZR suits, but what about Tim Wei? Tim Wei, a mechanical and aerospace engineer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, worked with members of the US swimming team and forced bubbles over their bodies in order to determine how fast and hard a swimmer pushes the water as they move through it (at least that's what he said he was doing).

"Wei uses a tracking technique called digital particle image velocimetry, commonly used to measure the flow of small particles around an airplane or small fish"

He also measures the amount of water forced backwards by the swimmers' kicks and can tell individual swimmers how to kick "better".

But what may have helped Mr Phelps a little bit more was measurement error (or rather measurement precision).

In his 100m Butterfly race Phelps beat Serbian Milorad Cavic by .01 seconds (50.58 to 50.59), the smallest unit of time on the clock. It was too close to call by sight and when the times came up I called the race a tie.

You would've heard of measurement error in statistical surveys (like political polls) but with measurement instruments it's a little different. If you have a ruler marked out in centimetres then you can only be accurate to the nearest centimetre. Hence the error in your measurement is (in a rough rule of thumb) one centimetre. So if your measurement tool measures time to .01seconds then your margin of error is (in a rough rule of thumb) .01seconds.

So the Serbs protested, and quite frankly, you'd be a fool not to. However, that's where my faith in science was (slightly) restored.

The Serbians were led into the Omega Timing Room where they were shown the two independent timing systems that measure the swimmers' times to .0001seconds. Beyond that they also have a "video monitor in there that blows any HD plasma out of the water". I'm dying to see the official pictures, but they have yet to surface (sorry couldn't resist the pun, and by the way check out the stills of frames two and three on this site and tell me who you think won)

But is there something slightly fishy about Phelps winning due to an infallible Omega timing system?

Lastly on the historic haul by Michael Phelps, nearly everyone is saying that "no one will ever repeat this feat" and I'm wondering why that is. At the very least there could be a female version.

I think we all worked hard for their gold

We are all very proud of our medallists and many of us stayed up to watch them do their thing. Yelling at the tv, scaring the pets and lamenting the awful announcing (all the bad bits have since been edited out of the replays).

Note that Evers-Swindell twins won by .01seconds as well. In their case I felt that the time was given to them artificially to somehow fit what the photo showed: that they won by a tiny, tiny section of their bow.

The pair with the perfect teeth scrapped hard with the competition and won at the end of a thrilling race that took guts and determination. Afterwards, they told TVNZ, they were in a state of "disbelief". They were shocked at being able to defend their Olympic gold after a recent slump in form.

Whereas the fantastic and supremely confident Valerie Vili won with her first throw (although four of her five throws would have secured gold). Vili yelled defiantly at the camera and made hand gestures (scroll down that page), she leaped about with pure joy when she won and she challenged the establishment when she tried to retrieve a New Zealand flag from the crowd.

So, which gold medallist do you think best represented New Zealand?

By the way, wasn't good that Mahe Drysdale faked all that illness, weight-loss, memory loss* and finally vomiting just to break New Zealand's bronze medal drought?

*I love the opening line of that story: "Mahe Drysdale was so out of it…" All they needed was a "bro".

The actual sport

• Various athletes have already been thrown out of the games for various reasons. The Swedish bronze medallist in the wrestling was thrown out and stripped of his medal for… throwing away his medal.

• Kim Jong Su of North Korea was thrown out after he tested positive for propanolol. Su had won the silver medal in the 50m pistol and bronze in the 10m air pistol. Propanolol is a drug that can be used to suppress trembling. This makes Su the first medal-winner to have been found cheating.
• Vili's gold medal was our first in Athletics since John Walker in Montreal and our first in the field events since Yvette Williams in Helsinki
• Gizmodo may just help us view those foreign broadcasts we all want to have a gander at
• Only on a day where we win five Olympic medals can the All Blacks blanking the Springboks in South Africa (for the first time ever) be second page news. And that was a great game by the way, featuring Captain Tackles at his best. Also Bay of Plenty is unbeaten, just saying.
• Finally, the coolest things at the Olympics are often the sideshows. The volleyball cheerleaders, Ms. Bug Catcher and the Sandbonies, the water-drum girls. But my favourite is the Jaws theme music, which is played as the waterpolo players race out to get the ball at the restart.

There's a reason why TVNZ showed plenty of the beach volleyball and why articles like this exist on nearly every sports website in the world. It's because you dirty buggers want to see girls rolling about in bikinis. And there's nothing wrong with that.

The problem comes when the men come out for their matches – in singlets. "O Noes!" cry the laydeez, "we can haz beefcake?!"

So, where can red-blooded women, and men with similar tastes, go to see the amount of skin they need, at the games of the 29th Olympiad?

After a discussion of some length at my local café the other day it was decided that the swimming pool was not the place.

While the men are tall and muscular and have enormous feet and wear skin tight LZR suits, the particular muscle alignment that makes a man a great swimmer does not necessarily make him an attractive one. Young Mr Phelps' chest seems to curve back in well before it naturally should. And if I must nitpick, his ears stick out.

The divers are different type of fish. Toned and sleek, they are the beautiful dolphins to the swimmer's tuna. I'm not entirely sure why they need all those muscles, but from a pervert's spectator's viewpoint, at least they only wear speedos not bodysuits.

But really, if you've ever seen a gentleman exit a swimming pool you know the results are not always as … interesting … as they could be. So thank goodness the athletics start today (then again, maybe some of them are stuffing).

And for the guys? I recommend the indoor volleyball or the pole vault, while Deadspin and Yahoo, suggest watching the Paraguayan javelin thrower.

Update: the girls and boys at GayNZ seemed to have the same idea as me.

How are you watching the games?

If you live in the States the answer is apparently: on television. I know; it's a big shock.

But according to NBC's research (pdf with a poorly drawn pyramid) anywhere between 92 and 95% of the Olympic viewing audience are watching the games on the television. By the way, according to Nielsen, the average US household has a television on for eight hours and 25 minutes each day.

Of course this may also have to do with the tight grip NBC is keeping on its web coverage.

NBC's broadcast and cable networks will air 700 hours of live events that will not be Webcast. And even more frustrating to some, another 700 hours of the contests will be taped and shown hours later on television, with no legal way for people in the United States to watch them before the broadcast. (All of the broadcast events are available to replay on the Internet after they are aired.)

The Actual Sport

• The women's 200m butterfly final was a fantastic race! Both the Chinese swimmers (Liu Zige and Jiao Liuyang) were trailing the Australian favourite (Jessicah Schipper) for 150m then, like Phelps, they came out of the turn ahead and just stayed there. Liu, Jiao and Schipper were all under world record pace but the Chinese were a full second ahead of the Aussie at the end.
• I'm getting the feeling that this is going to be a "bad" games for the Aussies
• Roger Federer is having one of those anus horibilii (feel free to correct my "Latin"). He just lost to American James Blake in the quarterfinals. But it's not all good for the Americans as both Williams sisters have also been knocked out.

• The "Worst Loser" award goes to the Swedish Wrestler who threw away his bronze medal in protest of the referee who "robbed" him of a shot a gold.
• The American team is looking forward to the athletics to start so they can start to pull back the Chinese advantage in the medal table (of course that assumes they will win some gold). I'm also looking forward to it as the men's 100m contest may be the best we've seen in years: Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell and Tyson Homosexual.
• I've said before that the Olympics Village is just sex, drugs and rock & roll, and it seems the Chinese officials agree with me. They have given 100,000 to athletes for their time in Beijing, and the condom manufacturers are getting in on the act too with some great ads.
• And in case you were wondering, yes, it is going to be a giant weekend of sport

Olympic Scandal!
The Olympics are a hoax! Oh my God, the calamity. CALAMITY!

First the fireworks display of the giant runner's footsteps were fake (well actually they weren't, the footage was faked because the organisers were a bit worried/embarrassed about the visibility of the Beijing air and whether the helicopter might just get hit with those explosives).

And then the little girl who melted our hearts singing, whatever it was she was singing, while the army men were carrying the Chinese flag, was not the same person who was actually singing! I feel just like I did when I had to tear down my Milli Vanilli posters: a little bit annoyed, then bemused, and then I got over it. After all, the opening ceremony is just a show.

Shows are fake; almost, by the nature of the word itself. Other “revelations" from the opening ceremony include: the whale floating around the stadium was just a projection; Li Ning needed wires to fly into the sky to light the flame; and Sarah Brighton has totally had work done.

Actually all of the things they faked pale in comparison to what the Dropkicks made up envisioned for the opening.

Now, if I found out that the timing devices in the athletics were incorrect; or that the diving board wasn't the correct height; or that some athletes were using performance enhancing drugs: then I would become headline-writing angry.

But until something of that magnitude happens we don't need a front page story on the DomPost and a big piece on the television news about this?

Michael Phelps

…this victory takes Phelps into the record books with his 10th Olympic gold medal, passing a special group including compatriots Spitz and Carl Lewis, "Flying Finn" distance runner Paavo Nurmi and Soviet gymnast Larysa Latynina.

At least that's what Stuff thought.

In my opinion, Phelps is easily the best swimmer of all time. The best Olympian though?

I will say though, this is the best headline I've seen on Phelps: Two Jews and a Black Man Help Phelps Fulfil Olympic Dream

What an interesting, and stupid, idea
Stuff Beijing blogger Michael Donaldson asks: Should gold medals be decided by judges? He then answers: “no".

I can't see the authorities ever wanting to get rid of the very popular gymnastics and diving events, but I would. And I would create a new event, the Artistic Olympics.

And what an event that would be!

It would feature: diving (single and synchronised), gymnastics (artistic and rhythmic), equestrian, synchronised swimming, and trampoline.

Oh and of course: soccer, basketball, volleyball, tennis, beach volleyball, weightlifting, wrestling, boxing, fencing, yachting, badminton, baseball, softball, handball, judo, taekwondo, and waterpolo.

Yes those are all the events that have some kind of judging component to them.

Don't think sports like hockey can hinge on an umpire's call? Ask the Black Sticks. Don't think basketball umpires could be bribed? Ask the NBA about Tim Donaghy. Don't think baseball should be at the Olympics? Yeah, I'd actually agree with that, especially if they don't have cricket or rugby.

The actual sports

• Watching the replays of the women's gymnastics this afternoon TVNZ played the floor routine of Deng Linlin and followed that with…the floor routine of Deng Linlin. Hey TVNZ, check your editing
• The synchronised divers are amazing, when I saw the Chinese women's team, from the side, I couldn't see the far diver as they were that synchronised

• the best injury so far award is now with Janos Baranyai of Hungary in the 77kg snatch. He dislocated his shoulder AND the bar hit him on the way down
• the rowing is getting tense now, and Pete Montgomery's commentary isn't helping
• the interviews with the athletes would be better if they didn't talk to them straight after an event, like poor Moss Burmester, and didn't expect to much of athletes, like our white-water kayaker, who don't normally talk to the media
• the competitors in the lightest weight division for the wrestling look like the world's most muscular midgets.

I've been here a few days already and I haven't really introduced myself. Hi, I'm Hadyn. Please note the spelling.

You've may have seen me around the traps (by which I mean the internet) at my other blogs:

• Grabthar's Hammer
• The Wellingtonista
• The Dropkicks, which is also a podcast

You may have even read my stuff here during the rugby world cup.

I also have a couple of "creative" blogs: The Adventures of Hadyn Green and The Blog of the Bat. The latter got me down a little when I realised that me pretending to be Batman was getting more readers than any of my other stuff.

I have written the occasional (one) screenplay that has gained international kudos.

My partner is the co-creator of the PrettyPrettyPretty beauty blog that seems to be all the rage with the laydeez.

And finally I work for "the man". I'm living in Wellington, so that should've given you a clue. As such, here is my legally required disclaimer:

Views or opinions expressed in this blog and in the subsequent discussion forums are not necessarily endorsed by the Ministry of Education, and their publication via the blog and forum must not be taken as an endorsement of any kind.

Got that? Besides, I'm here to talk sport not education. Expressions like "taken to school" notwithstanding

With this out of the way I'll get back to the Olympics later today.

Last time I extolled the wonders of the future. The vast and seemingly unending array of images available to view from the quadrennial sporting spectacular that is the Olympics. Well, if you can consider four to be a seemingly unending number.

I tried again to access NBC’s footage (through nefarious means) but was still shown the “we’re sorry but we can’t show you this if you’re not from America" message.

“Why not!" I bellowed across my lounge, scaring the cat. Well the answer is simple, as I have been told by my friend in broadcasting:

It's IOC rules that mean the video won't work overseas. Basically, when you sign up for the rights, you agree that nothing you broadcast will be accessible overseas. Because then they make less money selling the rights to other countries

And I suppose that makes sense. If you go to the games homepage on the left there is a dropdown box to watch the videos. If you pick New Zealand it opens up the TVNZ live feeds. If you pick Belgium it takes you to Eurovision Sports. If you pick Oman it takes you to YouTube.

The Olympic website has a list of the events that are on at any time. If you see that TVNZ is showing replays of badminton men’s’ singles heats between Taiwan and Malaysia instead of, say, the women’s weightlifting finals then I think you’ve got every right to complain. Or any time any one of the four channels is showing nothing, then also complain. There’s a lot of sport going on, show us replays if you have to but we want to see it all!

But when we do get to see the events, my goodness, don’t they look good!? I could watch those underwater tracking shots of Michael Phelps, with the Water Cube’s bubbly roof above him, for ages.

In fact there are a lot of great shots at the pool and plenty of slow-mo cameras. My favourite camera though, is that camera on a wire that flies over the rowers. It’s fantastic! The first time I saw it I had to take a second to figure out what was going on, after all this wasn’t some guy on a motorbike like the cycling. The last time I asked the “how’d they do that" question was when I was watching the Superbowl a few years back and in the replays they were able to freeze the action and rotate around the player, just like the Matrix. The people I was watching the game with said: “What? It’s just tv". To which I responded: “No, it’s live sport, and that is amazing."

And I still love that world-record green line zooming along the pool, and the country names on the lanes (in the rowing too).

Other cool shots I’ve seen so far include the various angles on the synchronised diving and the behind-target shot of the archery (OMG they’re shooting right at me!). But the swimming seems to have the most cameras, including the one on the arm that catches the swimmer in lane five turning at the 50m mark and always looks like it’ll be in the way for the swimmer in lane four.

I’m not sure what the high-definition shots are going to show once we get to the men’s sprinting, but the New Zealand women’s hockey team were made to wear their light-blue alternates because games officials were worried that their white tops would become see-though in the rain (and yet for some reason the beach volleyball girls still have to wear bikinis).

By the way, it's nice to know I'm not the only one who is jonesing for the footage. My friend Mike emailed to say:

Haven't been to bed before 1am the last four nights! I'm tired, but I'm lovin' it!

Actual sport notes: The swimming is really exciting at the moment, almost every race breaks the world record --- I pick the Cubans to meet the Italians in the finals of the Women’s Volleyball --- The Fencing uniforms haven’t actually changed too much, they still have the mesh, but the eyes are covered in Perspex and the helmets have lights and (as Lucy pointed out in the comments of my last post) wires for fencers have been around for a while. They still have the shorts with the high socks though. I just wish the suits had some kind of lights in them to show where the strike was, it’s a bloody tough sport for spectators. --- My yachting enthusiast friend was annoyed that there was no coverage of the yachting. She lamented yesterday that we wouldn’t see any until Barbara Kendall started. Lo! And Behold! Barbara did sail and the television goblins showed us yachting footage. --- Some yachting coverage can also be found on the net at the ISAF site --- It had to happen sometime, sadly. Spanish cyclist Maria Isabel Moreno has become the first athlete of the games found to be using performance enhancing drugs (although the test was two weeks before the games began and she was not I medal contention) --- With everyone plugged into the Olympics is anyone feeling a little bit sorry for Tasman and Northland? I'm not. --- Finally, I don’t want to offend anyone in just my second post, but, badminton may just be the most boring sport to be played at high speed.

UPDATE: links fixed, sorry for that.