Be Excellent To Each Other

I thought Wayne Sleep had retired.

Anyone who managed to stay awake through all four hours of that deserves a gold medal.

It was great. I watched every minute.

I just tuned in to check it wasn't Cram, to avoid an 80s idol being tarnished! Not that I'd expect anything 'off' of Cotter, either, though he's kind of sardonic. I trust you more than either of them, though - and surely, less is always more in a ceremony. Hush!

Warhead owes you a medal.

Does that mean I’ve won the first medal of the Olympic Games?

This really cheered me up this morning!!

I only said “deserves,” not that I’d supply it.

And we have a medal!

Gold!

Gold rush!

Went to bed after watching Adam Peaty win in the pool (how dominant is he, not having lost a race in 7 years!) Woke up just in time to see Tom Daley's final dive, and just watched Tom Pidcock dominate the mountain bikes. What a 4 hours!

It looks like Lauren Williams is doing pretty good in the Taekwondo and the GB men were solid in the rugby 7s (I thought their game against Japan was supposed to be on now, but I can't find it)

2-0 uk-nl

Peary always wins but we had some hope. Wel silver ok. And in the cycling MTB we had really hoped for a peacock vd poel battle. But vd poel made a stupid
Mistake… (he forgot that a plank would be removed in the final event). Combined with the missed gold on the women road cycling race this isn’t going well…

The pictograms bit of the ceremony was awesome, cleverly done and fun too, i really liked it, and a great recovery from a fumble part way through too.

I enjoyed the swimming today, the Aussie females are incredibly good at it.

Skateboarding seemed a bit hit and miss, I don't think it worked too well although there was a lady from the Philippines that was clearly having a great time, which was pretty cool.

The skateboarding is a bit.... wooly?

I don’t know anything about skateboarding so I have no idea if it’s good or not, but I did watch a little. There was a chap having his go in a blue shell suit and short sleeved V-neck shirt. It looked like her was wearing hospital scrubs. But aesthetics aside it was very baggy, and he was wearing a baseball cap. Backwards. The baseball cap kept slipping down and he had to keep adjusting it so it didn’t slip over his face. He also had to keep on yanking his trousers up because they were very baggy, and so his arse was hanging out. despite the fact that he looked like someone wearing his dad’s hospital scrubs in the 90s, his clothes were actively hampering his performance, and it just felt a bit crap. I’ve seen a few similar things with the snowboarders in the last couple of Winter Olympics.

Yeah, the event I was watching seemed that way. It was a single-trick run, in the skatepark (although I think they call that 'street' as it had rails and ramps and stuff), and seemed to go like this:

- Skater stands around a bit waving
- Skates down a ramp
- Attempts a trick
- Nails it / falls off (it seemed like there was a lot of falling off)
- End of attempt - skater rolls or walks off, does a bit of waving
- Camera pans around a bit and not much happens until the next skater is ready to stand around a bit and wave before they begin

It wasn't terribly exciting overall, it didn't feel like there was a flow or any radical x-treme coolness. A different skating event, where tricks and moves can be chained together, would probably be more fun to watch.

Edit - fuxache I've edited this post a few times

So you didn't watch the two 45 second runs but just the best trick contest at the end? It was all very weird and sterile, though. Bit like this whole Olympics except doubly so.

It's also pretty hard to explain the difficulty of what some of them were doing, not that long ago some of these tricks down a pretty massive rail could have been highlights from a decent video part. i.e. something they might have battled to make over dozens of attempts. Any one of those skaters could have rolled up and thrown something down that rail first try but a best trick contest is designed as far as possible to show within the limited confines of a contest what skateboarding is about, failing and falling over a lot.

It was the part of the event that the tv station were showing at the time I flicked over to it, so there was no method or reason in my choice. No comment from me on the difficulty or ability of the skaters as I really don't know much if anything about it, but it just didn't seem to work too well on the telly, for me,compared to the other events I'd seen.

I think that having a crowd presence would have changed the feel of it a fair bit. Possibly also if I'd seen them doing the longer runs.

What a triathlon mixed relay!

Just wow!

Nice to see a lot of mixed relays

This Olympics has been my introduction to rugby 7s. Only caught a couple of games and some highlights but loved the pace. Just watched the women's final and found it gripping. Definitely something I'm going to follow in future.

Wasn’t it great. I love the relays.

Commonwealth games ticket ballot opens to the general public from tomorrow, it's in Birmingham next year. I've applied for Rugby 7s tickets.

I will look at that. Cheers.

It's my favourite form of rugby to watch

Shame about Dina Asher Smith, absoloutley devastated for her.

I did like her interview. Such passion. ‘Is my blue running ‘.

If you are injured she needs to get fit.

Those of us nearby have been able to apply for the early ballot.
We're trying for athletics, swimming & diving but I might have a look at the Rugby as well

Noted, thanks!

I've gone for athletics, rugby 7s and the opening ceremony.

Sprinting not going well for team GB

However, the BMX. Once again wow!

To mess up a trick that no one has ever successfully done in tournament before, and then to try it again and pretty much nail it. That takes some guts! Amazing.

I always thought the B in BMX stood for British! Now I know it does!

Huh, we were talking about what the B stood for last night, and I thought it was ‘British’ too.

Bicycle Moto X

Yeah, Russell said it was that and then checked.

Bountiful Mango eXplosion

That high jump, though. Even intermittent coverage couldn't spoil it. Phenomenal - and the ending, fantastic. Making it a celebration of excellence, rather than a jump-off test of endurance and who is least bad in the moment.

That backflip to 360 backflip was fucking amazing. Jesus Christ.

Just watched it. Mind-blowing stuff.

Huge shout out to our local lad Declan too. Lovely kid.



Nice to see Effraim on the news tonight too ! guy is a legend.

The high jump was outstanding, and when they said to them: do you want to fight for gold/silver or share the gold. Their response was amazing, especially the Italian.

He was box office throughout, wasn't he - I didn't know what was going on at that point, so had Chiellini champ vibes when he started jumping on Bashim. But no! Just "I love you! You are champion! I am champion!"

(If anyone hasn't seen it - both jumped perfectly, no faults, till the last height, 2.39m, and both failed 3 times. So identical records. You can then have a jump off, where you, I think, try that height again, then go down if no one clears, or something like that. But it turns out you don't have to:

https://twitter.com/BBCSport/status/142 ... 53569?s=20)

Watching that again, mind, Backley is *utterly* clueless as a commentator. Kept suggesting that clearing lower heights would have put someone on the podium, said they had two more attempts when they had one, and then the chance to spot what was going on there and clear it up - nope, not a clue.

This one's better - you can hear the official, and it's short:

https://twitter.com/Eurosport_UK/status ... 05317?s=20

Sorry, seems to be 8th September the general ballot opens!

Wow Sky Brown can skate!

Although it's a little weird how some competitors are not getting any air (and end up with less than 10 points) at all. How did they qualify?

Mixed feelings watching Nafi doing the high jump. She is amazing to watch, but every successful jump increases her lead over KJT

Bronze for Sky, very tenacious to nail the trick after two failures, although I can't help thinking if she'd got it on the first/second attempt. She would have upped the difficulty on the final run.

Still not many 13 year olds have an Olympic medal!

I'm all for achievement, but I can't help but feel 13 might be too young to be subject to the pressures of sport on the highest of stages.

I thought that at the start, but the girls all seemed to be friends, and were cheering each other along. However, the Japanese girl who finished 4th was distraught. So maybe you are right.

Why are the athletes so young? Are the men’s skateboarders the same age?