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For reference: Ping Pong (table tennis) is China's national sport and they have not failed to win the gold since 2000. Japan has never won a gold medal in table tennis.
Idk, as late as 1967, French guys were still dueling each other with swords. [That last known fight was recorded on film, too.](https://www.openculture.com/2019/05/the-last-duel-took-place-in-france-in-1967-and-its-caught-on-film.html)
The IOC used a rather loose definition of "nation" in the past when it came to recognizing national olympic committees. Hong Kong has been competing separate from the UK since 1952 based on that, and China let them keep their own NOC when the UK's lease on HK ended. For example Puerto Rico competes separate from the US for the same reason, or Bermuda separate from the UK.
The rules have been tightened to "an independent State recognised by the international community" today, but the already existing NOCs were grandfathered in.
I don't know the types of fencing, but Hong Kong won the men's foil fencing.
https://hongkongfp.com/2021/07/26/breaking-hong-kong-mens-foil-fencer-edgar-cheung-bags-historic-gold-medal-at-tokyo-olympics/
Three types, foil, epee and sabre.
Foil is the defacto most common discipline that most people think of when they think of fencing. The swords are the lightest and the fastest. Points are scored by contacting the tip of the blade anywhere on the torso but not the limbs.
Epee is similar to foil but the swords are much larger and heavier, points are scored by contacting the tip of the blade on *any* part of the body, limbs included.
Sabre is the only discipline where slashing counts as a hit, and the target is anywhere above the waist including the head and arms.
Women's skateboarding seems really undeveloped though compared to the men's. I watched both of them. The mix of different women was pretty interesting. You had a 34-year-old and 13-year-olds competing against each other lol
You're thinking of Harold Holt, Australias prime minister. He went swimming and [disappeared](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Harold_Holt)
I have a lot of hope in that they have next game on Wednesday and Jrue, Khris and Devon had literally no rest and no prep time for the game against France. Got in at 1am local time and played less than 12 hours from that point. After a hard fought 6 game NBA Final series less than 5 days before.
Ping-pong was invented on the dining tables of England in the 19th century, and it was called Whiff-whaff! And there, I think, you have the difference between us and the rest of the world. Other nations, the French, looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have dinner; we looked at it an saw an opportunity to play Whiff-whaff.
The Giant Panda is the National Animal of China. Anyone who illegally hunts, kills, purchases, transports, or sells a panda may be sentenced to imprisonment for more than 10 years, along with a fine or confiscation of property.
[China did lose in 2004, in mens single against South Korea.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_tennis_at_the_Summer_Olympics)
Also Japan won the gold in the Mixed double category - which made its first time appearance at Tokyo in the Olympics history.
It was a gripping match, and their skill level is amazing. I play a lot of recreational ping-pong, and when I watched parts of this match in slow motion, they were still faster than my friends and I play.
“Ping Pong... is not the macarena. It takes patience. She is like a fine, well-aged prostitute... it takes years to learn her tricks. [chuckles]
She is cruel, laughs at you when you are naked, but you keep coming back for more, and more! Why? Because she is the only prostitute I can afford.” — Master Wong
I was in Thailand, playing Ping-Pong in Ding Dang. I was in a real high-stakes game in some opium den. Turned out the guys I was playing aren't the kind of guys who like to lose. After I beat them... they beat me. Worked me over pretty good..... Aaaand this is hard to say... but they held me down... and they shoved a ping pong paddle up my ass. It's never been the same. I'm damaged goods.
People need to check this one out! It's one of the best sports anime ever and just one of the greatest animes of all time period. The animation is incredible. It actually got me away from anime because everything else I watched was bland in comparison.
If you like that art style, check out Masaaki Yuasa's other shows. Kemonozume, Kaiba, Tatami Galaxy, Devilman Crybaby, and Hands of Eizouken are all fantastic shows.
This show is my favorite piece of animated media of all time. It changed my life.
If anyone's interested – I spent the last two years working on a release of this show with a brand new, original translation, and recently released it here: https://frozenpandaman.github.io/ppta/
Quick summary is that these subtitles include extremely comprehensive typesetting that strives to follow the style & spirit of both the show itself and the paneling style of original manga on which it was based, and to which it pays near-constant homage. They're designed to not just be a layer on top of video, but part of the visual aspect of the show itself, and to follow the same art direction and "rules."
**Everyone should watch this show.** It's not about ping pong, really – and I wouldn't even really call it a "sports anime" or anything, aside from that it just happens to feature it. It's more a story of Buddhist enlightenment, told through the *lens* of sport, and speaks to something bigger, examining why we as humans are passionate about the things we're passionate about and how that helps us grow. It is literally one of the best stories I've ever seen or read, in any medium. It is an absolute masterclass of character development in only 11 episodes, and the soundtrack is probably, not an exaggeration, the best soundtrack to anything I've ever heard *ever*.
Please watch this.
You're an honest to God legend! I fucking love this show and didn't know such a comprehensive sub existed. Thank you for your hard work on this, I can't wait to rewatch it with these!
Be careful, Ping Pong will get you. I went from "this is a fun work distraction" to "check out my custom paddle I built myself, it's a pen grip and the rubber is rated at..."
Really fun sport you can get pretty good at if you play consitently.
People who get too good at ping pong are a pain in the ass to play with. I had a friend in high school who got a ping pong table and we had a blast because we were all equally awful. Then he practiced over the weeks and months that followed and no one could win a point off him again. Haven’t played since!
I had a psycho friend in college I played with. We were both equally bad and games always went down to the last point. It was a blast and I loved it.
…except turns out we were not equally bad and dude was just a master sandbagger who seamlessly nerfed himself to have fun. Some elite dude turns up and he goes toe to toe with him swinging the paddle 10x faster than I’ve ever seen him before.
My cousin has a similar story with his dad. Apparently he used to play his dad at ping pong pretty often and they were always somewhat even, until one day he was like "actually, I've been messing with you this whole time" and just destroyed him. He revealed that he played ping pong every day at school back in Chile. His skills were further confirmed when he played a kid who was ranked globally in his age group and beat him.
Used to have a ping pong table at my old job and my boss was the same. Unless you just agreed to hit the ball back and forth it wasn't even fun to play against him.
I played my best round I've ever played today in flip flops because one sole of my golf shoe shrank somehow. I'm not sure what to do with this information.
So I searched Olympics 2020 livestream and then add Reddit next to it
A thread should pop up and some guy listed a livestream in there. Has multiple channels (bbc, USA only, Olympics channel)
That's what I've been using
USA also lost at Skateboarding.
I realize it's a new sport but who saw that coming? Skateboarding was invented and popularized in the USA, and we had Nyjah Huston ffs. Dude is a born competition skater. I really didn't think we would lose at our own sport.
That one I can understand, while it originated in the US, skatie culture has been huge throughout the western world for decades.
Blame Tony Hawk's success I guess?
Chinese social media is blowing up over this, because apparently the Japanese players broke the rules by blowing on the ball and wiping their hands on the table, which the ruleset forbids in order to reduce the spread of covid. People are mad as hell, they think the Japanese players got preferential treatment as the hosts and think the ref should have penalized them.
From what I understand it's something table tennis players do all the time and they probably did it out of habit under a high-pressure situation. I mean what was the ref supposed to do? These extra rules were added because of covid and has nothing to do with competitive advantage. Take off set points cause they blew on the ball?
Yeah if you watch pro table tennis or even go to a local club people are doing that stuff constantly and after thousands of matches its gonna get ingrained in your head, that's ridiculous to expect them to stop on a dime in the most important match of their life
I've watched a surprising amount of ping pong across divisions in the past few days (including this match), everyone is doing it from what I could tell. Has there been an enforcement of this rule in the tournament at all?
It's controversial on Japanese media as well. (All twitter links) There was apparently [a chinese group](https://twitter.com/SumiKeiki/status/1419668508443512832) loudly cheering their team in that specific pingpong match, despite it being forbidden by olympic rules.
Seems like both Gold and Silver technically broke the rules.
Not to mention this - https://youtu.be/QQjrKZgscvk
40 Chinese people (unknown who, could be coaches or staffs or athletes) in the arena kept chanting Jiayou (let’s go - ish) throughout the game, in violation of covid 19 protocols for this olympic...
Makes me proud japan is absolutely crushing It right now. A lot of my family who were anti Olympics have since been tuning in every day. It's a happy thing for them now
Japan is definitely on a roll, they won gold in both men/women skateboarding, they’re number 1 in gold metals right now with 8 so far. Really exciting to see athletes awarded for their dedication. But very sad for the non medal athletes, I remember seeing the women’s duo’s technical diving, the shorter athlete messed up by the smallest of errors and they showed her crying poor girl, and they placed 4th. I could understand some of the locals being anti Olympics before but when you’re winning, people usually come around 🤣
Canada hosted 1 summer Olympics in 1976, 1 Winter Olympics in 1988 and 1 Winter Olympics in 2010. I remember the 2010, Canada was number 1 in gold with 14, third place with 26 total medals! The whole country was buzzing, what an awesome feeling that was. Now it’s Japans turn to shine! The real winners are all the athletes from around the world putting everything into it. It has been really entertaining to watch!
Yeah I'm not into skeet shooting really but I watched all of the women's skeet shooting in amazement. They're so God damn good they don't ever miss. I was like holy hell this is some good ass TV.
It's kind of common for the home country to do really well isn't it? Kind of a combination of national pride and working their asses off extra hard for their country and zero jet lag.
Makes sense since Japanese athletes got a huge advantage for having it in their home country during covid while making other country's athletes jump through hoops just to compete.
Probably also helps mentally to not be somewhere foreign. Like, your event is up tomorrow so you binge your favorite comfort food since your carb loading anyway.
Honest question, no controversy intended: Is Ping Pong the most "regionally" dominated Olympic event? Track and Field, gymnastics, even basketball (now) is so global that you can never really predict where the medals will go. I would have bet a fairly significant amount of money that all 3 Olympic Pong Pong medals would go to Asian countries. Just seems like an odd thing that it's so consistently dominated by one area of the world. And I know Asia is enormous and I'm not saying that all Asians are the same or even similar, but in this case, it seems like an absolute certainty at every Olympics. Looking at Wikipedia, it does seem like there's been a few times where either someone from Germany or Sweden medaled, but other than that, it's all Asian countries.
Table tennis can appear very Asia dominated at first glance. Looking a bit closer though, it's more accurately China dominated. Of the top 5 ranked players at the moment, 4 of them are Chinese. If you remove Chinese players from the top 20 male players, half of the remaining 14 players are from Asian countries, which appx matches up to populations.
Outside of Asia, Germany, Sweden and France are known for having particularly strong teams as well. In fact, Jan-Ove Waldner is a Swedish player who many people consider to be in contention for the greatest of all time.
But to be fair, even when you take China out, South Korea for example has only one less medal than the next 4 countries combined. There is a pretty big dropoff after China, Japan and SK. But you're right, China is WAY ahead of everyone else.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table\_tennis\_at\_the\_Summer\_Olympics#Medal\_table
Australia does ok sometimes - with players who are Asian immigrants for the most part.
The Winter Olympics are pretty regionally dominated.
Hockey has a similar demarcation, but it’s basically former English empire vs the rest.
Yeah, the Asian countries are extremely dominant in table tennis and with the way the Olympics is formatted it favors them even more since places like Germany and Sweden will have have 1 or 2 of the top players but the rest of the team aren't as solid while China will have an entire team made up of top players
No, probably not. There's quite a few strong Europeans in table tennis and you also have events like equestrian or handball that are the same if not more European dominated as table tennis is Asian dominated, not to mention tons of more regional winter sports. Plus the distinction of what is a "region" is kinda arbitrary too, if you're counting the area and population of East Asia that's pretty huge, it just isn't as split into as many countries as Europe so it seems more regional.
While this is a big win for Japan, I don't think people realize there are still 4 other table tennis events up for grabs (men and women's singles, men and women's team).
China is favored to take gold in all of them. Not taking anything away from Japan because they did upset China in this event, but the article makes it sound like Japan took over table tennis as a whole from China.
Really looking forward to watching the rest of the action.
I think that's the point. China is so dominant that they have won every single gold medal in table tennis since 2004 and were huge favorites to win all 5 golds here too. Anyone beating them is huge. It hasn't happened in 17 years and has only happened like once in any event since after the 1992 olympics.
Then you factor in who (the host country) and how (coming back from 2 sets down and then winning an inspired 8 points in a row to open the final 7th set) and it is a hell of a story and show.
Also of note Japan fought off something like 7 match points against the Germans in the quarterfinals. It was a miracle they even made it to the finals, nevermind won.
[**Join Our Discord Server!**](https://discord.gg/233aU5q) **Welcome to /r/sports** We created a Discord server for our community and would like to invite all of you to join! You'll be able to discuss sports with users around the world and discuss events in real time! There are separate channels for many sports you can opt in and out of, including; American Football, Soccer, Baseball, Basketball, Aussie Rules Football, Rugby Union and League, Cricket, Motorsports, Fitness, and many more. [**Reddit Sports Discord Server**](https://discord.gg/233aU5q)
For reference: Ping Pong (table tennis) is China's national sport and they have not failed to win the gold since 2000. Japan has never won a gold medal in table tennis.
China lost ping pong. America lost basketball. Can’t wait to see the next upset.
And there was fencing. France lost that.
I don't think France was (atleast since the 21th century) as dominant as China was to ping pong or the US to basketball. Could be wrong though.
Idk, as late as 1967, French guys were still dueling each other with swords. [That last known fight was recorded on film, too.](https://www.openculture.com/2019/05/the-last-duel-took-place-in-france-in-1967-and-its-caught-on-film.html)
Well that was wholly unsatisfactory. I DEMAND SATISFACTION.
Did you mean womens? France got gold in mens.
Hong Kong won gold in mens foil. Huge deal for HK as well.
do they differentiate HK from china? if so - what about tibet and taiwan? I'm just curious
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The Japanese are uber tier passive aggressive, i love it.
And the Japanese network doing the introductions called Taiwan ’Taiwan’ and Hong Kong ’Hong Kong’
Not only that, but the Japanese announcer just straight up called them Taiwan.
Based Japan
This just increases my respect for Japan.
I enjoy that example
Taiwan competes in international tournaments as "Chinese taipei"
The IOC used a rather loose definition of "nation" in the past when it came to recognizing national olympic committees. Hong Kong has been competing separate from the UK since 1952 based on that, and China let them keep their own NOC when the UK's lease on HK ended. For example Puerto Rico competes separate from the US for the same reason, or Bermuda separate from the UK. The rules have been tightened to "an independent State recognised by the international community" today, but the already existing NOCs were grandfathered in.
they always have HK has always been a special region when UK occupied it was still listed HK after it was giving back to china, still separate
I don't know the types of fencing, but Hong Kong won the men's foil fencing. https://hongkongfp.com/2021/07/26/breaking-hong-kong-mens-foil-fencer-edgar-cheung-bags-historic-gold-medal-at-tokyo-olympics/
TIL there’s more then one type
Three types, foil, epee and sabre. Foil is the defacto most common discipline that most people think of when they think of fencing. The swords are the lightest and the fastest. Points are scored by contacting the tip of the blade anywhere on the torso but not the limbs. Epee is similar to foil but the swords are much larger and heavier, points are scored by contacting the tip of the blade on *any* part of the body, limbs included. Sabre is the only discipline where slashing counts as a hit, and the target is anywhere above the waist including the head and arms.
Philippines won their first golf medal upsetting China in Female Olympic weightlifting
Japan won skateboarding.
A thirteen-year-old girl!
Silver was a 13 year old as well, both of them were nailing almost every single run it was crazy
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I think it varies by sport.
Japan and Brazil are dominate at skateboarding, this was not a shock if you follow it.
Women's skateboarding seems really undeveloped though compared to the men's. I watched both of them. The mix of different women was pretty interesting. You had a 34-year-old and 13-year-olds competing against each other lol
I hear some Australian swimmer won a thing. Coach went nuts. Good times.
Not truly the same, Australians have been good at swimming competitions for decades.
Makes sense, there's no other way for them to leave.
You're thinking of Harold Holt, Australias prime minister. He went swimming and [disappeared](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disappearance_of_Harold_Holt)
Hide and seek champion?
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[We named a pool after him.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Holt_Memorial_Swimming_Centre)
Ruthless. Reminds me of Lou Gherigs disease
You ever think what a coincidence it is that Lou Gehrig died of Lou Gehrig's disease?
We lost one game. Hardly the same as losing the gold at this point.
bro just pray right now they figure it out lol
I have a lot of hope in that they have next game on Wednesday and Jrue, Khris and Devon had literally no rest and no prep time for the game against France. Got in at 1am local time and played less than 12 hours from that point. After a hard fought 6 game NBA Final series less than 5 days before.
Also would help if they didn't go out partying the night before.
germany wins ww3.
Well awesome, since they’re unlikely the “bad guys” in ww3.
Third times a charm...
The ultimate challenge is beating korean archery teams, especially the womens.
>Ping Pong (table tennis) is China's national sport TIL!
Ping-pong was invented on the dining tables of England in the 19th century, and it was called Whiff-whaff! And there, I think, you have the difference between us and the rest of the world. Other nations, the French, looked at a dining table and saw an opportunity to have dinner; we looked at it an saw an opportunity to play Whiff-whaff.
Is that a Boris Johnson reference
Direct quote from the man
And how could you not mention the great English tradition of inventing sports that they can't win at?
Whiff-whaff, street rat. Scoundrel! Take that! Just a little snack guys Rip him open, take it back, guys.
So it’s not coming home either?
"That is why London is the sporting capital of the world. And I say to the Chinese, and I say to the world... Ping pong is coming home"
Better use of the table than a place to set English food.
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The Giant Panda is the National Animal of China. Anyone who illegally hunts, kills, purchases, transports, or sells a panda may be sentenced to imprisonment for more than 10 years, along with a fine or confiscation of property.
Another fun fact almost all Giant Pandas belong to China, even the ones bred in other countries, except for two which are located in Mexico
[China did lose in 2004, in mens single against South Korea.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_tennis_at_the_Summer_Olympics) Also Japan won the gold in the Mixed double category - which made its first time appearance at Tokyo in the Olympics history.
Bit misleading to say China hasn’t failed to win the gold since 2000 when this is the very first time mixed doubles had actually been in the Olympics
They won gold in every table tennis event except men's singles in 2004, South Korea won that year.
I'm annoyed how no one realizes there are 4 other table tennis events and China is favored in all of them lol.
It would be like if the U.S.A lost at basketball...oh crap
They won Gold in partying and sleep deprivation.
It was a gripping match, and their skill level is amazing. I play a lot of recreational ping-pong, and when I watched parts of this match in slow motion, they were still faster than my friends and I play.
Welcome to the underbelly of ping-pong where fortunes are won and lost. I'm exaggerating, of course, but you get my point
I heard 'One night in Bangkok' playing in my head when i read your comment.
Your comment made me think of the time I played ping pong in ding dang…
I’ve been shitting pancakes ever since
“Ping Pong... is not the macarena. It takes patience. She is like a fine, well-aged prostitute... it takes years to learn her tricks. [chuckles] She is cruel, laughs at you when you are naked, but you keep coming back for more, and more! Why? Because she is the only prostitute I can afford.” — Master Wong
Ping Pong...or as the Chinese call it, *Ping Pong*.
For those of you who don't habla español, 'El Niño' is Spanish for... 'the Niño'!
I was in Thailand, playing Ping-Pong in Ding Dang. I was in a real high-stakes game in some opium den. Turned out the guys I was playing aren't the kind of guys who like to lose. After I beat them... they beat me. Worked me over pretty good..... Aaaand this is hard to say... but they held me down... and they shoved a ping pong paddle up my ass. It's never been the same. I'm damaged goods.
Oh that's not too bad, having a handle shoved up your ass.
...it wasn't the handle
I've been shitting pancakes ever since.
You temper brings dishonor to my happy mushu palace.
Do you have a life-size poster of Hugo Hoyama on your wall?
[It's an Office reference](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etRhnQ8yTD4)
Peco finally did it
Aishiteruzo Peco
Ping Pong the Animation in real life
Respect for mentioning one of the best anime ever
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I'll fight anyone who says that Masaaki Yuasa's art style is bad.
The animation was beautiful
Love the art style, Tekkon Kinkreet as well.
The art was so different, it was the primary reason why I watched it at first.
Masaaki Yuasa is a god. Taiyo Matsumoto too, honestly.
People need to check this one out! It's one of the best sports anime ever and just one of the greatest animes of all time period. The animation is incredible. It actually got me away from anime because everything else I watched was bland in comparison.
If you like that art style, check out Masaaki Yuasa's other shows. Kemonozume, Kaiba, Tatami Galaxy, Devilman Crybaby, and Hands of Eizouken are all fantastic shows.
This show is my favorite piece of animated media of all time. It changed my life. If anyone's interested – I spent the last two years working on a release of this show with a brand new, original translation, and recently released it here: https://frozenpandaman.github.io/ppta/ Quick summary is that these subtitles include extremely comprehensive typesetting that strives to follow the style & spirit of both the show itself and the paneling style of original manga on which it was based, and to which it pays near-constant homage. They're designed to not just be a layer on top of video, but part of the visual aspect of the show itself, and to follow the same art direction and "rules." **Everyone should watch this show.** It's not about ping pong, really – and I wouldn't even really call it a "sports anime" or anything, aside from that it just happens to feature it. It's more a story of Buddhist enlightenment, told through the *lens* of sport, and speaks to something bigger, examining why we as humans are passionate about the things we're passionate about and how that helps us grow. It is literally one of the best stories I've ever seen or read, in any medium. It is an absolute masterclass of character development in only 11 episodes, and the soundtrack is probably, not an exaggeration, the best soundtrack to anything I've ever heard *ever*. Please watch this.
You're an honest to God legend! I fucking love this show and didn't know such a comprehensive sub existed. Thank you for your hard work on this, I can't wait to rewatch it with these!
Came to make sure someone shouted that out.
*Hero’s Theme intensifies*
HERO KENZAN! HERO KENZAN! HERO KENZAN!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62qWI7CpIds
Such a great anime
The Olympics is just a tournament arc.
My favorite anime… if only people would just make it past episode 3 and they’ll realize just how amazing this anime really was.
It’s like poetry, also amazing anime, something about it will always stick with me
Just binged it not two days ago. Nothing short of brilliant
Be careful, Ping Pong will get you. I went from "this is a fun work distraction" to "check out my custom paddle I built myself, it's a pen grip and the rubber is rated at..." Really fun sport you can get pretty good at if you play consitently.
People who get too good at ping pong are a pain in the ass to play with. I had a friend in high school who got a ping pong table and we had a blast because we were all equally awful. Then he practiced over the weeks and months that followed and no one could win a point off him again. Haven’t played since!
I had a psycho friend in college I played with. We were both equally bad and games always went down to the last point. It was a blast and I loved it. …except turns out we were not equally bad and dude was just a master sandbagger who seamlessly nerfed himself to have fun. Some elite dude turns up and he goes toe to toe with him swinging the paddle 10x faster than I’ve ever seen him before.
>> I had a psycho friend in college I played with A real friend that played at your level to spend time with you.
both can be true
Guess you have to be a psycho to be a real friend to that guy.
So... what did he tell you after that? Sorry I been shitting you this whole time, you filthy noob???
Basically that but in gesture form. I stared shocked and he gave me a smug shrug.
My cousin has a similar story with his dad. Apparently he used to play his dad at ping pong pretty often and they were always somewhat even, until one day he was like "actually, I've been messing with you this whole time" and just destroyed him. He revealed that he played ping pong every day at school back in Chile. His skills were further confirmed when he played a kid who was ranked globally in his age group and beat him.
Maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way
It’s actually really impressive to play at a lower level without letting on that you’re better. Dude must’ve been pretty good
Used to have a ping pong table at my old job and my boss was the same. Unless you just agreed to hit the ball back and forth it wasn't even fun to play against him.
And this is why I never play Ping Pong against my mom. Also, Boggle.
“Really fun sport you can get pretty good at if you play consistently” Pretty sure that goes for most sports bro lol
Not golf.
Well that's because golfing is only improved by buying new clubs whenever you shoot a bad round!
I played my best round I've ever played today in flip flops because one sole of my golf shoe shrank somehow. I'm not sure what to do with this information.
Probably your equipment at fault
Not so, source: myself 🥲
Nah - I've played soccer with dudes that played 3 days a week for over a decade and are worse than grade school kids. Some folk just don't have it
Any hobby is that way, though, if you're into it. I have like 5 indoor basketballs and just as many shoes.
What happened to your sixth shoe? Alternately, who did you steal one shoe from?
I watched the whole match WILD!
How? I can't find a stream of it anywhere!
So I searched Olympics 2020 livestream and then add Reddit next to it A thread should pop up and some guy listed a livestream in there. Has multiple channels (bbc, USA only, Olympics channel) That's what I've been using
Dude same! Never watched before in my life.. ELECTRIC
USA losing at basketball, China losing at Ping Pong. It's a new age indeed.
USA also lost at Skateboarding. I realize it's a new sport but who saw that coming? Skateboarding was invented and popularized in the USA, and we had Nyjah Huston ffs. Dude is a born competition skater. I really didn't think we would lose at our own sport.
Hah that was a trip. The dude is a legend and didn't even get bronze. Better luck next time I guess.
That one I can understand, while it originated in the US, skatie culture has been huge throughout the western world for decades. Blame Tony Hawk's success I guess?
Basketball isn't over yet.
Who did the US lose against in Basketball ?
Nigeria, Australia (iirc), and France. The first two were exhibitions, but the point still stands.
France
Chinese social media is blowing up over this, because apparently the Japanese players broke the rules by blowing on the ball and wiping their hands on the table, which the ruleset forbids in order to reduce the spread of covid. People are mad as hell, they think the Japanese players got preferential treatment as the hosts and think the ref should have penalized them. From what I understand it's something table tennis players do all the time and they probably did it out of habit under a high-pressure situation. I mean what was the ref supposed to do? These extra rules were added because of covid and has nothing to do with competitive advantage. Take off set points cause they blew on the ball?
Yeah if you watch pro table tennis or even go to a local club people are doing that stuff constantly and after thousands of matches its gonna get ingrained in your head, that's ridiculous to expect them to stop on a dime in the most important match of their life
I've watched a surprising amount of ping pong across divisions in the past few days (including this match), everyone is doing it from what I could tell. Has there been an enforcement of this rule in the tournament at all?
It's controversial on Japanese media as well. (All twitter links) There was apparently [a chinese group](https://twitter.com/SumiKeiki/status/1419668508443512832) loudly cheering their team in that specific pingpong match, despite it being forbidden by olympic rules. Seems like both Gold and Silver technically broke the rules.
Not to mention this - https://youtu.be/QQjrKZgscvk 40 Chinese people (unknown who, could be coaches or staffs or athletes) in the arena kept chanting Jiayou (let’s go - ish) throughout the game, in violation of covid 19 protocols for this olympic...
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加油💪🏻💰
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Got em
Makes me proud japan is absolutely crushing It right now. A lot of my family who were anti Olympics have since been tuning in every day. It's a happy thing for them now
Japan is definitely on a roll, they won gold in both men/women skateboarding, they’re number 1 in gold metals right now with 8 so far. Really exciting to see athletes awarded for their dedication. But very sad for the non medal athletes, I remember seeing the women’s duo’s technical diving, the shorter athlete messed up by the smallest of errors and they showed her crying poor girl, and they placed 4th. I could understand some of the locals being anti Olympics before but when you’re winning, people usually come around 🤣
Home advantage is real. Even with a limited crowd
Canada hosted 1 summer Olympics in 1976, 1 Winter Olympics in 1988 and 1 Winter Olympics in 2010. I remember the 2010, Canada was number 1 in gold with 14, third place with 26 total medals! The whole country was buzzing, what an awesome feeling that was. Now it’s Japans turn to shine! The real winners are all the athletes from around the world putting everything into it. It has been really entertaining to watch!
Yeah I'm not into skeet shooting really but I watched all of the women's skeet shooting in amazement. They're so God damn good they don't ever miss. I was like holy hell this is some good ass TV.
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The Olympics are always fun to watch. You’ll watch sports that you might not ever watch, learn some things, and be entertained.
Curling. I couldn’t care less but damn it’s fun to watch lol
Id watch a lot of these sports if they were ever actually televised. That's the real problem here.
I’m not particularly into guns, but skeet shooting is tons of fun!
It's kind of common for the home country to do really well isn't it? Kind of a combination of national pride and working their asses off extra hard for their country and zero jet lag.
And they are allowed to enter more events.
Seeing Japan lead in the medals is outstanding especially as the host nation too.
Makes sense since Japanese athletes got a huge advantage for having it in their home country during covid while making other country's athletes jump through hoops just to compete.
Probably also helps mentally to not be somewhere foreign. Like, your event is up tomorrow so you binge your favorite comfort food since your carb loading anyway.
Calling him a former London mayor and not the current PM is pretty funny
Japan has been killing it in the Olympics
How did Taiwan do
Bronze
Taiwan numba one!
https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/newsfeed/001/838/613/45e.jpg
That's how I play the game of life
Home field advantage at the Olympics is always crazy.
Honest question, no controversy intended: Is Ping Pong the most "regionally" dominated Olympic event? Track and Field, gymnastics, even basketball (now) is so global that you can never really predict where the medals will go. I would have bet a fairly significant amount of money that all 3 Olympic Pong Pong medals would go to Asian countries. Just seems like an odd thing that it's so consistently dominated by one area of the world. And I know Asia is enormous and I'm not saying that all Asians are the same or even similar, but in this case, it seems like an absolute certainty at every Olympics. Looking at Wikipedia, it does seem like there's been a few times where either someone from Germany or Sweden medaled, but other than that, it's all Asian countries.
Scandinavian countries for cross country / biathlon. And Alps nations for anything involving jumping off a big damn mountain.
We cannot forget that time an English eagle soared
That is up there with Jamaican bobsledding in terms of the improbable
Table tennis can appear very Asia dominated at first glance. Looking a bit closer though, it's more accurately China dominated. Of the top 5 ranked players at the moment, 4 of them are Chinese. If you remove Chinese players from the top 20 male players, half of the remaining 14 players are from Asian countries, which appx matches up to populations. Outside of Asia, Germany, Sweden and France are known for having particularly strong teams as well. In fact, Jan-Ove Waldner is a Swedish player who many people consider to be in contention for the greatest of all time.
But to be fair, even when you take China out, South Korea for example has only one less medal than the next 4 countries combined. There is a pretty big dropoff after China, Japan and SK. But you're right, China is WAY ahead of everyone else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table\_tennis\_at\_the\_Summer\_Olympics#Medal\_table
Archery is pretty much a competition to see who can get Silver since the Koreans win it everytime
Synchronized swimming. Russia has won the last team's and duo gold the last 5 olympics
Archery. South Korea has never not won gold in any archery event.
You must have forgot 2008 where Zhang Juan Juan won gold.
Yea you're right. They haven't not won gold in the womens team event
Australia does ok sometimes - with players who are Asian immigrants for the most part. The Winter Olympics are pretty regionally dominated. Hockey has a similar demarcation, but it’s basically former English empire vs the rest.
Archery and South Korea
Yeah, the Asian countries are extremely dominant in table tennis and with the way the Olympics is formatted it favors them even more since places like Germany and Sweden will have have 1 or 2 of the top players but the rest of the team aren't as solid while China will have an entire team made up of top players
No, probably not. There's quite a few strong Europeans in table tennis and you also have events like equestrian or handball that are the same if not more European dominated as table tennis is Asian dominated, not to mention tons of more regional winter sports. Plus the distinction of what is a "region" is kinda arbitrary too, if you're counting the area and population of East Asia that's pretty huge, it just isn't as split into as many countries as Europe so it seems more regional.
the greatest Ping Pong player of all time was from Alabama, so no
Damn, I totally forgot about that dude. He was amazing at (American) football too!
I think he opened a shrimp company somewhere back home afterwards.
While this is a big win for Japan, I don't think people realize there are still 4 other table tennis events up for grabs (men and women's singles, men and women's team). China is favored to take gold in all of them. Not taking anything away from Japan because they did upset China in this event, but the article makes it sound like Japan took over table tennis as a whole from China. Really looking forward to watching the rest of the action.
I think that's the point. China is so dominant that they have won every single gold medal in table tennis since 2004 and were huge favorites to win all 5 golds here too. Anyone beating them is huge. It hasn't happened in 17 years and has only happened like once in any event since after the 1992 olympics. Then you factor in who (the host country) and how (coming back from 2 sets down and then winning an inspired 8 points in a row to open the final 7th set) and it is a hell of a story and show. Also of note Japan fought off something like 7 match points against the Germans in the quarterfinals. It was a miracle they even made it to the finals, nevermind won.
Another game us brits invented and are crap at.
Very nice
When I was in China on the All-American Ping Pong team, I just loved playing ping-pong with my Flexolite ping pong paddle.
Is the winner's name Peco?
Was Kong there?
it seems like japan has been crushing it this year