Womens' beach volleyball: revenge is sweet...
US beat the other Brazil team (who was ranked #1) to get the bronze. No way, should Walsh Jennings retire. She just had one bad match last night. Though 42 is a lot older than 38.
Yes, their playing against Brazil on the 14th did not appear to me to be at the level we saw in their other matches in the Olympics. USA couldn't get it together in that match, and Brazil did.
But yesterday, against the #1 ranked Brazil team, they played much better. Still it was close much of the way, they didn't dominate.
So it's all relative. Walsh may be having some issues, but they ranked 3 going in and took bronze. But 4 more years after all these shoulder operations, it might be too much, and maybe the motivation just isn't there to do it again? Interesting to me that the ranks 1-4 made it to the semi- finals, no upsets at all. Though I watched the Brazil #1 rank play the #24 ranked Russian team, and it was no run-away.
I need to make a point of watching Beach Volleyball outside the Olympics. I just don't follow sports, but this one gets to me. Players are involved every micro-second of play, and for me, just the right combination of mostly skill, with a little randomness/luck thrown in to make it interesting. Fast, but not always so fast that you can't follow (I did need the replays to catch some details), and the ball is big enough to see easily! And the scoring seems right - high enough for randomness/luck to average out, low enough that every point matters.
In other matters:
Olympics is sport... this thread is on the Olympics... if we want to have a thread on Brazil's social ills then start another thread and we'll see how many posts that attracts.
Well, I actually agree with
bUU on this one (may be a first for me?). The thread is titled "Olympics anyone?", so that seems open to all aspects of the Olympics, including Rio's readiness to handle it, financials, safety for visitors, etc. Overall all social ills of a country might be going a bit too far to link to the Olympics?
And if you look back at the first 20 posts or so, you'll see a fair amount of some of those sorts of comments/questions.
But since this thread has now turned mostly to analysis of
what happens at the events themselves, a discussion of the "Effects of the Olympics" might work better in a separate thread? Just my two cents.
-ERD50