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Warning: graphic footage of the ref showing off how bad his injuries are
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At the time there was a joke making the rounds about how a boycott wouldn’t be necessary because the Soviet Union had cancelled the Olympic Games on their own accord after the paperwork showed that China had nominated a team numbering 5 million for the small arms events.
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When do the olympics start? I’m only interested in this and Simone Biles, honestly… Also, in case there are sharks in the Seine…
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I love horsey sports, of course, but they’re all but impossible to find, and when you do they’re on at like 3:07AM.
I’ve lost my appetite for dressage: the riders are all behind the motion instead of with it (leaning back, some to an absurd degree [pun intended]); it’s obvious AF whenever the rider asks the horse to do something, instead of staying as still as poss, so it looks like it was done by magic or it was the horse’s idea; the riders’ legs are flapping around instead of being still; and the poor horses are all so overbent (instead of the top of the neck being the highest point), one expects to soon see them with their chins against their chests. Being overbent makes it hard for them to breathe, FFS.
Alois Podhajsky, former head of Vienna’s Spanish Riding School, who kept the Lipizzans safe during and after WWII
The thumbnail says it all, well, other than the rider’s flapping legs.
I’m still really freaked out that a great eventing rider (dressage + cross country galloping/jumping + show jumping) recently died of injuries while going cross country at a big show. The horse was and is fine, which isn’t aways the case.
Dunno if I wanna watch that sport, either.
Polo is sadly not an olympic sport, so that leaves only the show jumping. 
I like most of the track and field events, and I love watching archery, esp the women.
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I’ve competed at the college level at the (Track & Field) steeplechase. It’s wild and sometimes scary. I was a weirdo and did the water jump like a hurdle. It was fast, but very ■■■■■.
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That is certainly one of the more curious T&F events, and I love watching it 
I am so surprised to learn you’ve done anything like a weirdo would 
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One of the weirder bits of WW II.
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Well, fuck if that didn’t make me cry happy tears.
Vielen Dank!
The “Flying Horse”: Neapolitano Santuzza in a capriole in hand
Podhajsky says of this magnificent little beastie:
… I admit, I felt sorry for the little chap who looked at everybody with such gentle eyes and of whose presence nobody took any notice. What had been mere pity at first slowly developed into a deep affection, which made me protect him…I assigned him to a rider of very modest ambitions who demanded very little from his horses and consequently would not do any harm to him. In this respect he led a quiet life but also progressed so slowly in his training that as a twelve-year-old he was still not advanced enough to appear in a performance. Again it was suggested we get rid of him and sell him to some private stable. But he had become so dear to my heart that I was reluctant to make any decision and wanted to give him one more chance…
In 1949 I decided to work him personally in hand…I tried to teach him caprioles and was very pleased with his reaction to my aids.* Although he was of a very calm disposition he possessed an extraordinary gift for this spectacular school jump. It was surprising to everybody who had followed his training to see how quickly he understood what I wanted, which was yet another proof of the importance of sympathy and mutual understanding for any successful cooperation…
A year later, in 1950, Neapolitano Santuzza appeared in public for the first time…[his] debut was a great success and the beginning of a brilliant career. From 1951 on there was no performance in which he did not take part. He received the name “the flying horse” and pictures of his capriole in hand circulated throughout the world. Our relationship became closer all the time; he never let me down and it seemed in all those years as if nature had endowed him with everlasting youth. He never declined in his abilities and his performance remained unaltered in beauty and exactness.
*The methods by which one asks the horse to do something. The natural aids are the hands, legs, seat/shifting one’s weight, and voice. Artificial aids include things like spurs and crops/whips.
The term is also used for the specific combination of movements made by the rider to ask the horse to do something. Ferinstance: the aids for asking a horse to canter when going to the left involve slightly turning the horse’s head to the right, placing the right leg at the girth with some pressure, and moving the left leg behind the girth with some pressure. All is reversed when going to the right.
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Friday, July 26.
A lot of the niche sports are available on demand via NBC (at least in the US).
I was able to watch 100% of the climbing competitions last Olympics that way.
The regular broadcast had less than 20 minutes of coverage.
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Yeah, that sounds about right…
Having to jump thru hoops to get at coverage of our faves is so wrong.
Thanks for the info!
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Agreed. But even as a little kid, I realized what I liked wasn’t the same as what the masses liked. If I enjoyed a tv pilot, I knew it would never become a show. I’m grateful there is a method to catch my favorite stuff nowadays.
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Agreed 100%!
Bonus:
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Others in the US delegation are Casey Wasserman, chairperson of the LA28 Olympic and Paralympic Games, Brian Boitano, a three-time Olympian and Olympic gold medalist in figure skating and Dawn Staley, a three-time Olympic gold medalist in women’s basketball.
Or the DVDA version…
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Partick Thistle (who were 3rd in last seasons Scottish Championship) just lost their Scottish League Cup game against Clyde (who came second last in Scottish League Two), thanks to an own goal and two goals from a defender who is being retrained as a target forward.
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Hey look, the IOC came up with a clever new bribe. Lighten up on the anti-doping prosecutions or you’ll lose the Salt Lake City games.
Corrupt motherfuckers
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Ooooh Ooooh is there anyway the US can annoy them into taking 2028 away from L.A.? Pretty pretty please?
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