Posts by Bob Munro
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and it's brilliant and it's fun and you know what if it's not your cup of tea, why not say your peace and leave it at that.
I think the discussion was about hyperbole in sports writng in general and Craig's point about it in the Peter Bills quote. Not anything from this fine post.
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And ditto to the point about sports writing in general. Couldn't agree more.
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I had to look ‘coruscating’ up in the dictionary.
I had to buy one with laminated, wipe-clean pages. :)
I think that's a fair point Craig. In all sports you have to buy into the importance of it to care about it. If you don't care it does look a bit silly. One thing about the Olympics is the level of skill on display. It's hard not to be impressed by a gymnast doing back flips on a beam, or two divers hitting the water simultaneously, even if the 'why' of it is remote. Same with the nationalism. If you care, Valerie's near tears on the dais brings a lump to your throat, if you don't care it all looks rather contrived.
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Oh, and Stephen Jones, still a cock:
Peter Bills for the Independent does much better.
A towering mountain overlooks the beautiful Newlands ground in the Cape, and a towering rugby player graced it yesterday. Richie McCaw gave one of the greatest displays in rugby history to shatter the new world champions in their own backyard. South Africa finished a fumbling, broken outfit, laid to waste by the genius of McCaw on the floor and his brilliant reading of the game, allied to coruscating tackling.
The Kiwi flanker and captain gave Schalk Burger a lesson in accuracy and precision. The Springbok lacks nothing in courage and commitment but when it came to detail, McCaw was in a class of his own. He won the loose ball constantly, cleverly slowed it down when the situation required it, and made tackle after tackle. No other player on the field was remotely in his class.I had to look ‘coruscating’ up in the dictionary.
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Scheunemann pops up in The Bag's image analysis 14 August.
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I think we can spread the faking accusations around a bit.
US audiences were subjected to further trickery when NBC changed the order in which the athletes were shown marching in, presumably to keep viewers from switching off once the Americans had arrived. They were caught out when the "live" telecast inadvertently showed American athletes gathered in the centre of the arena before they had been shown marching in.
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Even in the ancient Olympics jumping the gun or whatever they used was punished by a flogging. Perhaps NBC could decide some of the new 'edgy' rules, based on expected increased viewing.
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There's certainly a lot of fun to be had comparing the ancient Olympics with the modern.
I wonder what ancient HDTV owners would have made of this?
Nearly all scenes depicted on pottery show runners competing nude, except for select pieces of armor during the hoplitodromia. Some accounts say early runners wore something similar to a loin cloth, and there are two versions for why the garment was abandoned. In the first, a runner competing at Athens was in the lead when his shorts fell down and he tripped over them. In the second, Orsippos of Megara won the stadion in 720 B.C. at Olympia, but he lost his shorts in the process, thereby starting a new trend.
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There's a slightly longer historical view at the bottom of the comments section of Fordyce's article.
Now for some perspective. The modern Olympic Games have been going since 1896. That means there have been 28 (25 in fact, as Wars happened). The actual Olympics did, of course, start around 786 BC. The Ancient Olympics came to an end somewhere between 393 and 435 AD. 'Our' Olympics are just a small fraction of that total.
Which is where I bring us on to Leonidas of Rhodes. Born 188 BC, he was 24 when he competed in his first Olympics and won at the stadion (200 yard sprint), the diaulos (400 yard spring), and the hoplitodromos (a race in armour). Our hero Leonidas won again at these three events in 160 BC, 156 BC and 152 BC. Bringing us to a grand total of 12 Olympic crowns/golds/wins.
Chew on that, Mr. Phelps.
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In my opinion, Phelps is easily the best swimmer of all time. The best Olympian though?
Tom Fordyce at the BBC gives this issue a good workout. As do the comments.