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Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - 82 Card - 08-13-2016

(08-13-2016, 10:27 AM)CompSci87 link Wrote:[quote author=82 Card link=topic=15401.msg167592#msg167592 date=1471061651]
a local kids swim [glow=red,2,300]meat[/glow] where the one serious swimmer turns around to watch the other swimmers for a while.

Serious swimmer or shark?
[/quote]

Eh. Back in my day, spelling was considered unimportant. Can't expect me to spell after the third beer or is that bear.

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - 82 Card - 08-13-2016

Congratulations to Elle Logan '11 and the rest of the USA women's coxed eight on their gold medal performance.

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - JJJ - 08-13-2016

This was a nice recap of Maya DiRado's final race:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/how-maya-dirado-overcame-the-iron-lady-to-end-her-olympic-career-072304620.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - terry - 08-13-2016

(08-13-2016, 02:46 PM)JJJ link Wrote:This was a nice recap of Maya DiRado's final race:

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/how-maya-dirado-overcame-the-iron-lady-to-end-her-olympic-career-072304620.html?soc_src=social-sh&soc_trk=fb


Good article.


The video includes some comments from Summer Sanders about Maya DiRado.

And who was that running in the rear contingent... - Redrum - 08-13-2016

...In the 100 meter prelims? Cal's former golden boy Jahvid Best representing St. Lucia.  Who knew he was from the islands mon?  Smart boy to retire early from the NFL.

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - DC 86 - 08-13-2016

Best: born and raised in the East Bay but his father is from Sta. Lucia. Unfortunately he is still suffering from post-concussion syndrome which ended his NFL career. It was cool that he was in the same heat as Usain Bolt.

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - BostonCard - 08-13-2016

Simone Manuel wins another gold and silver today: gold in the 4 x 100 medley relay, anchoring the team on freestyle and a silver in the 50m freestyle.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4WpgnsECQ0

So the Stanford women in the pool:
Katie Ledecky 4 gold, 1 silver
Maya Dirado 2 gold, 1 silver, 1 bronze
Simone Manuel 2 gold, 1 silver

Did I miss any?

Add: forgot that Lia Neal also got a silver in the 4x100 relay

BC

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - DC 86 - 08-13-2016

Simone Manuel is 2 gold, 2 silver.

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - BostonCard - 08-13-2016

(08-12-2016, 07:02 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:I wonder if Ledecky will swim an under-8 minute 800 by the time she is done.  Two more Stanford golds for DiRado and Ledecky.

BC

Evidently I wasn't the only one speculating.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/can-katie-ledecky-break-the-8-minute-barrier/

BC

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - M T - 08-14-2016

(08-12-2016, 07:02 PM)Boston Card link Wrote:I wonder if Ledecky will swim an under-8 minute 800 by the time she is done.

She dropped 8 seconds in the last 4 years, with 2.6 seconds drop in the last year.  Just 4.8 seconds more...  I think it is likely, barring injury or some other negative factor.

She speaks of setting really big goals.  A really big goal is whether she can drop the 25 seconds in the 1500 to break 15 minutes.  A year ago, she swam 15:25.  She dropped her 800 by 2.6 seconds, so I'd think she could have gone a 15:20 if it was in the 2016 Olympics.    I  would not say breaking 15:00 is likely, but she's an amazing swimmer.


Greg Meehan is obviously a very good coach.  Whether he can pull the best out of Katie is yet to be seen.  Stanford women's swimming did not have an All-American distance swimmer this year (which doesn't mean that he can't coach it well, just that I don't see any evidence one way or the other).  Richard Quick was a world-class coach (many championships, multiple Olympics head coach), but apparently Janet Evans didn't feel he helped her enough.

Stanford Men's swimming had one NCAA All American distance swimmer, Liam Egan (he will be a senior), but his 800m was only 5 seconds faster than Katie's.  Maybe they'll train together.


Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - M T - 08-14-2016

Unfortunately, Kassidy Cook didn't make the finals on the springboard.  One bad dive did her in, leaving her < 4 points short.  It seems Kassidy was a favorite of the announcers.

(In the diving, I thought the judges were over-scoring the Canadian diver & under-scoring the Chinese divers.)

Did you notice the frown on Simone's face at the end of the 4x100 Medley Relay?  I think she was hoping for a world record, but they were 1.08 behind.  Comparing to the WR of the 2012 US Team:
StrokeFinals timeIndiv. Swim2012 WR
BakerBack59.0058.7558.50
KingBreast1:05.701:04.931:04.82
VolmerFly56.0056.6355.48
ManuelFree52.4352.7053.25

Simone obviously did a great time, consistent with her individual performance, with a relay start.  If King had gone the kind of time she would have been expected to go with a relay start (1:04.93 - 0.25), they would have been 0.06 behind the WR.  If Baker had done her 58.75, they would have had the world record.

While King had a very cautious start (reasonably so), it was her swim that really was slow.

I don't know what Coach Bob Bowman was talking about when he indicated he thought the swimming team was near some kind of medal record.  It made no sense to me.  The announcers then had to scramble to compare this team to previous teams.  Total medals compares to 16 years ago.  Gold medals compares to 4 years ago.  Good, but not historic numbers.


Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - Farm93 - 08-14-2016

(08-14-2016, 07:52 AM)MT link Wrote:Did you notice the frown on Simone's face at the end of the 4x100 Medley Relay?  I think she was hoping for a world record, but they were 1.08 behind.  Comparing to the WR of the 2012 US Team:

King had an impossibly "safe" start to her leg.  I think more than going for the WR, they were told to swim safe and win.  And since the 1000th gold medal for USA was in the realm on Saturday night try to get that medal in the pool.  May not have been the historic time or the history meet, but was still historic thanks to getting #1000.

http://www.teamusa.org/News/2016/August/13/US-Swimmers-Win-Historic-1000th-Olympic-Gold-Medal-For-Team-USA

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - dabigv13 - 08-14-2016

Help me understand since I didn't see the race- why wouldn't you go all out for a 100 medley? That's a sprint distance. How would you swim that "safely"?

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - rudruff - 08-14-2016

Mainly the start. Jump early and a gold becomes a dq.

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - DC 86 - 08-14-2016

(08-14-2016, 07:52 AM)MT link Wrote:I don't know what Coach Bob Bowman was talking about when he indicated he thought the swimming team was near some kind of medal record.  It made no sense to me.  The announcers then had to scramble to compare this team to previous teams.  Total medals compares to 16 years ago.  Gold medals compares to 4 years ago.  Good, but not historic numbers.

I agree that Bowman was somewhat hyperbolic, but this was objectively the best performance (numerically) in the 2-max era. The US ended with 16 gold and 33 total metals. It's true that in 2012 the US also won 16 gold, but only 31 total. It's also true that in 2000 the US won 33 medals but only 14 were gold.

So this year was far better than "good". It would be accurate to say it was historic in being the best gold/total medal result, even though it wasn't dramatically different from the last six Olympics which have been dominated by the US in swimming.

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - DC 86 - 08-14-2016

(08-12-2016, 04:50 PM)paloalto link Wrote:[quote author=fullmetal link=topic=15401.msg167572#msg167572 date=1471031610]
Foluke and the USA vball WNT beat Italy, 3-1 in pool play!

I might be slightly biased.  Thus far I would vote Foluke MVP for the USA team.
[/quote]

You may be biased, but not necessarily wrong. Thus far Foluke leads the the US team in scoring (55) and blocks (0.50 per set), although Alisha Glass and Kim Hill have also played great.

On the men's side, Erik Shoji has looked fantastic, which is borne out by the stats. He leads the tournament with 2.00 digs/set, the next three best (among all teams) have 1.57, 1.56 and 1.54 which shows how much of an outlier his play has been.



Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - M T - 08-14-2016

(08-14-2016, 09:42 AM)DC 86 link Wrote:it wasn't dramatically different from the last six Olympics which have been dominated by the US in swimming.

I can agree with that.

But  Bowman said (during the 1500) "It's going to go down as one of the all-time great Olympic performances.  I think we can break the modern record for medals won."  (At that point, the US could have won 1 more gold and 1 more overall medals than it eventually did.)

In 2016, the US pool swimmers won 16 of 33 gold medals awarded (48%), 8 of 33 silvers, 9 of 33 bronzes, 33 of 98 medals awarded (34%).  [Comparing medals vs events doesn't work well because of ties, so I'm comparing medals won vs medals awarded.]

In 1960 & 1964 (and perhaps before that, I didn't look and I don't remember the earlier Olympics), the US dominated the swimming but there were far fewer events (18 in 1964 became 29 in 1968).  Current "domination" pales in comparison.

In 1968, the US won 21 of 29 gold medals (72%), 15 of 29 silvers, 16 of 29 bronzes, 52 of 87 medals (60%).  If you think it is appropriate to multiply those results by 2/3 (to discount that fact that all countries could send 3 swimmers), go ahead and see what you get compared to 2016.

In 1984, after the limit of 2 entries per individual event per country, and with 3 fewer events, the US got 21 of 31 gold medals  (68%),  14 of 29 silvers,  35 of 90 medals awarded (39%).

The US results for the next few Olympics were impacted by what most feel was the influence of performance enhancing drugs.

One of the announcers mentioned that only one competitor didn't make it out of the prelims at least once.  One feature I haven't heard anyone comment on was that there were only 3 events in which the US had no medal.  That's the best since 1972. (In 1968, we had medalists in all events.)

2016 was a good year, but not "all-time great".  Bowman could have said something accurate, like it being the best production in the last few Olympics. His choice of the word "modern" was unfortunate, since that has a specific meaning for the Olympics (ie, 1896 & newer).  If he prefaced his remark by saying "modern" means all Olympics since Rowdy Gaines swam, then he could have made his point.

Interesting factoids: 
  1960 Men's 4x200 Free Relay gold medal time: 8:10.2
  2012 Katie Ledecky 800 Free:  8:04.79

  The only other woman to win the 200, 400, and 800 Free in an Olympics was Debbie Meyer in 1968.  Debbie's 200 was 2:10.5.  Ledecky's average 200 in her 800:  2:01.2

  2012 Katie Ledecky 400 Free: 3:56.46 is better than the 1972 men's 400 Free gold medal time (4:00.27)

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - DC 86 - 08-15-2016

I appreciate (sincerely) the statistical analysis although it doesn't fundamentally alter my view.

As I said in my earlier post, I thought Bowman was hyperbolic and that the US performance was more or less (though numerically slightly better) than its performance in the last six games. However, in both of your posts you characterize the results as merely "good" which is my main objection. Perhaps the US has performed so well historically that we are spoiled, but as your own data shows the US team performance this year is best characterized as "excellent" or "dominant" relative to its competitors. The US won 16 golds medals (next best country won 3) and 5/6 relays (silver in the other).

You are correct that "modern Olympics" generally refers to 1896 - present, but its disingenuous to believe that Bowman was using that definition. Swimming wasn't even part of the ancient games, so surely Bowman wasn't comparing to that era. I assumed he meant the 2-max period. As your data shows, if you apply any reasonable meet scoring system, 1984 was the highest scoring US team in this period and 2016 was the second highest. However, given the widespread eastern bloc boycott in 1984 an apples-to-apples comparison is not appropriate (this year former Soviet republics won 6 medals, Hungary won 7 medals, etc.)

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - fullmetal - 08-15-2016

Elle Logan becomes the first American women's rower to win three gold medals.  Pretty remarkable accomplishment!

http://www.gostanford.com/news/2016/8/13/womens-rowing-logan-is-golden-again.aspx

The women's eights final was a study in patience as the US allowed itself to sit in the pack while a couple of other boats jumped out for the lead.  In the second half of the race, the US women maintained their pace (as did a couple of other boats who hadn't sold out for an early lead) while the leaders faltered, and then the US finally unleashed their fastest 500m split in the last 500m to seal the victory by open water.  Tellingly, the CAN and NED boats who had been 1st and 2nd through the first half of the race finished 5th and 6th, respectively. (That's second-to-last and last.)  GBR and ROU finished 2nd and 3rd, respectively, after being 5th and 6th at the halfway mark (respectively).

I think the inverse of that happened in Luczak's pairs race, where USA tried to keep pace with the world record-holders in the GBR boat but could not maintain as NZL and DEN came through them later.  Rowing is an unforgiving sport in the second half of 2000m racing.

Austin Hack and the US men's eight hung with the pack through 500m but could not keep up with the medaling boats as they separated themselves.  The US boat was in 4th, 4th, 5th, and 4th at the 500m, 1000m, 1500m, and finish positions.  Though it was a repeat of the London 2012 US men's eight's finish, the London eight finished very close to the bronze; this quadrennial, the US eight found themselves out of the medals by about 2.7 seconds, a solid margin.

We're celebrating the W1x silver (to the credit of Gevvie Stone and the Boston Rowing Federation) and the W8+ gold (women's priority boat), but we'll later have to hold USRowing to task for failing to medal in the men's priority boat (M4-) and in the W2x and W4x.  The LM2x did well to make their A-final, but theirs was not a USRowing camp boat, and USRowing gets no credit for their performance.  Of note, the USRowing national team coaches all had their contracts renewed about a month before Rio.  The men's team coaches are not exactly the tenured achievers that the women's team coaches are.

Re: Stanford athletes schedules & performances in the Olympics - Durty Nelly - 08-15-2016

Lots of analysis on the US rowing, maybe just having 2 arms and 2  legs and rowing like a dog is what the team needs.  Listen to the Irish Silver medalists.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1MqHK_ladk