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Apparently, you can pair a player who can't serve with a player who can't volley and reach the final of women's double! Well... you can also say it's a pairing of the best net player in the world with one of the best baseline player in the world... Anyway, Bacsinszky and Hingis reached the final...

There is a romanian tennis player who will not sleep so well for a while: Mergea. In the men's double final, when his buddy Tecau was serving to bring the score to 5-5 in the decider, he put a relatively easy smash in the net a deuce and then, on match point, he put another relatively easy smash...

I was wondering what strange part of my brain I invented the koka, but it actually used to exist, but disappeared in 2009 (so twenty years after my brother stopped Judo for Basketball!).

Meh. Bellucci broke back in the 2nd set when Nadal was serving for it, but then could not hold. He then had the first opportunities in the decider, but could not convert, as he could not convert those he got once he got behind. Nadal through (and he will play the double's final too!).

I saw a dozen of these Judo fights and I feel like 8 of them finished with 0-0 and a guy having more penalties for lack of combativeness than the other. That's very underwhelming. Couldn't they get rid of these penalties and just fight until someone actually scores? I am pretty sure I also never...

It's a case where the athlete is caught between the hammer and the anvil. There is a tunisian player in Tennis who is forbidden by his federation to play against israeli opponents (I guess the logic is that they think it would be a kind of recognition of the legitimacy of the state of Israel?)...

I love these kind of movies/shows and I'm sure I haven't seen them all. From Groundhog Day, to Looper, to Edge of tomorrow. What else have you seen? I think there is a recent anime as well but can't find the name.

Nadal in a bit of trouble against brazilian Bellucci as he lost the first set 6-2 in front of a very boisterous crowd that does not hesitate to copiously boo the spaniard if he celebrates one of his good shot too loudly! As a reminder Bellucci is a lefty with a big forhand with a lot of spin...

Aaaaah Johnson redeems an unforced error with an amazing on the run, from far back, top spin, one handed back hand passing shot (something he probably tried 5 times in his career and always missed), but just after that he brain cramps and makes a mess of a drop shot :( Murray is through to the semi.

A decisive tie-break in Tennis between Murray (World N°2) and american Steve Johnson (a big underdog in this particular fight) for a spot in the [edit] SEMI final.

It's pretty funny that on the home it looks like this every time the thread is bumped: Latest: When was the last time you had sex? Noodleface, 7 minutes ago

Gah I missed it (I was watching the only swiss competitor in Badminton, Sabrina Jaquet, falling just a bit short against World N°15 and European N°2 Kirsty Glimour from England). I think I can catch it up in VOD though. On a sad note, the preliminary round is over in Beach Volleyball and...

Something I don't get about gymnastics is why there are differences in the events between the men and women, like why men don't do asymmetrical bars and women don't do rings?

Sieranevada (9/10): A romanian family gathers for a religious ceremony in remembrance of the dead father/husband/step-brother/uncle/friend in the appartement of the mother/widow/sister/aunt/friend. Cram 16 hungry people in a small appartement, add some alcohol and see how every discussion turns...

Did people call themselves southerners before the civil war? If yes, did people in Kentucky identify as southerners before the civil war?

His hungarian opponent was not exactly a rookie too as the 41 year old won the bronze medal in 1996! At the time Park was not even 1 year old!

There is already a very good remake of Ocean's 11, it's a HK/Korea movie called The Thieves.

Team USA got saved by offensive rebounding on this one, not by teamplay.

The number of things that can go wrong with an ankle is astronomical and can require totally opposite procedures for recovery. To the doctor you go. Thanks Obama.

Spitz record was 7 gold in a single Olympiad (Phelps brought that to 8). The funny part is that Spitz competed in 'only' 2 Olympiads (equaling the record of 9 gold medals, but faaaar from the 18 medals total of Larisa Latynina) and retired from competitive swimming at 22! PS: Sorry for the...

I agree, but the counter example is the aforementioned Oksana Chusovitina who at 41 is competing in her 7th games! She won a team gold medal in 1992 and a vault silver medal in 2008! That said, for a gymnast to have this extremely rare longevity AND being dominant throughout seems nigh impossible.

From a purely numerical standpoint, it can only be a swimmer or possibly a total freak of a gymnast (on paper a male gymnast can win 8 gold medal in a single Olympic - in practice, the best I could find with my Google-Fu is that in 1980 the russian Dityatin managed to get 3 gold, 4 silver and 1...

I noticed the thread enjoys a number of swiss female athletes, so congratulation to Heidi Dithelm Gerber who beat the world N°1 in the bronze medal match! Oh that was in 25m Pistol Shooting and she is 47! An impressive achievement when you consider the oldest female medalist in an...

Women's single officially turned into a free for all: Svitolina managed a high quality performance with good court coverage and a good balance maintained from start to finish between aggressiveness and regularity, Williams' erratic play could not withstand it and so the World N°1 got ousted in...

Told me, told me, you were saying they tweaked the rules to favor japanese judokas! :D

In Judo, 8 out of 14 events are done and Japan got "just" the one gold and 6(!) bronze medals. Only Russia won two gold medals so far. Pretty international sport after all!

Table tennis: North Korean Kim Song I turning her opponent ranked 40 places above her bonkers with her defensive style. Leading 3 games to 1 currently (need 4 to win the match).

It should be mentioned there are 96 medals awarded in swimming, without counting the 6 for endurance swimming in open water (usually it's 10km, but maybe this time it will be the ones that go the further without puking?). That being said, the US won 14 of the 37 medals awarded so far (4 out of...

Djokovic-Zimonjic got kicked by the experienced brazlians Melo-Soares out of the men's double, so no medal for Djokovic this time around (he got the bronze in 2008). Good luck guessing who will win that event though, look at these quarter-finals: JOHNSON-SOCK vs BAUTISTA-FERRER (8) Sock has...

I'll forward that to my miniature gamer friend. I wonder if he knows the guy this documentary is about.

Japan will possibly maybe win the gold in men's team gymnastic. If you have the opportunity to catch world champion Kenzo Shirai's exercise on the floor, it is pretty insane.

In the early 2000 there was a very famous french soccer coach, Guy Roux, who also commented some matches on TV and he said that defenses in soccer are now so well organized and the passing game so precise that the sport was about to become handball played with the feet, where you move the ball...

I have a pile of DVD to watch and several film I want to see in theaters but the 'oh what is this?' effect when flipping through the TV guide made me watch: Gambling Lady (5/10): A 1934 film by Archie Mayo with Barbara Stanwyck as a street-wise professional card player who does not cheat who...

You probably expected american handball, a variant of gaelic handball which is one of the many 'hit ball against wall(s) with your hand' sport (see also Basque pelota). None of these are Olympic sports as there are very few practitioners with minimal geographic spread. Apparently, the world map...

The french pair Mladenovic-Garcia also lost in the first round of the women's double, so that draw is pretty open. The men's double also saw some massive seedicide with the Murray brothers losing as well as Herbert-Mahut. Honestly, with very few people monopolizing titles, it's pretty cool that...

Well... high five all around at the Federer estate: Del Potro beat Djokovic 7-6 7-6 in the first round of the Olympic tournament, landing 30 forehand winners in the process and, I believe, without facing a break point.

On the tennis front there is a Djokovic (world N°1) vs Del Potro (former US Open winner who struggled with injuries this past three years) match that is pretty damn intense. Del Potro won the first set and is clobbering the ball with his forehand like in the good old days.

There is a number of team sports in these Olympics...

Btw, the dutch cyclist is alive, concious and speaking. I assume that if she was paralyzed from the neck down they would also mention it...

Could it be because it works differently in international basketball like intentional fouls being called technical fouls?