MrsT1 comments

I wish they would televise more equestrian events on TV here in Japan... This guy is inspiring for an ageing country, and there are a lot of 50yrs+ athletes competing in equestrian.

Bad luck for Kei. When you look at the game stats he was in that game for sure.

^ totally agree that the back patting is the media not the athletes! I've been impressed with Japan's swimmers and their reaction to medals. There's another way of measuring medals (which NZ ran an article on) - by medals per population. If you do that China is nowhere near the top. Top 3 were like NZ, Slovenia and some other obscure country haha

She did a great job! Beautiful to watch. Also the first black & African American woman to win individual gold. When she opens her mouth you realize how young she is though. But nothing like sulky Komova, too many tears! She should have stuck her vault then gold was hers.

I just wonder why you are not a fan of his. He showed he was human in the prelims and team finals, and much smarter to make mistakes in quals than the final like team USA did. I represented my country for Gymnastics then spent many years coaching & judging - not to international brevet judge level but enough to recognize a sporting legend which he is in this arena.

Pukey

Congratulations. Not a fan of his, but credit has to be given where it's due. He was the only Japanese I could think of who was very likely to strike gold. A shame that his team's silver will always be stained by the controversy of his pommel horse performance.

He's the reigning world champ for 3 years in a row and was the obvious pick for the gold, barring uncharacteristic mistakes. Many in the sport rate him as the top male gymnast of all time and he's absolutely dedicated to his sport, what's not to like?

Now the Aussie basketball coach has come out and said that it's common in b-ball (especially European teams) to include this type of "strategy" in their tournaments and it's not necessarily bad. But she also said its "not Australian" so her team won't be doing it to avoid playing team USA in the quarters

Well innocent until proven guilty should be the case at least... It's unfair how other sporting sensations from (Western) countries just get hailed as super-athletes but she gets the guilt by association... Shame on the US official who first voiced this

Is her boyfriend also Nigerian? I couldn't see that from the article

I really want to see the American doco "Bully" doing the film festival rounds right now. Would like to see a Japan version too.

There aren't enough details here for me. Driving a car with drugs in it means responsibility/guilt for the drugs? I can think of so many explanations for this (picking up the wrong travel mate to carpool for example). But the boyfriend fleeing is suspicious I guess.

The London Games = full of controversy! And people need to stop alleging that certain countries have undue influence over the results/appeals. It's getting tiring.

He is such a snake - WHO would vote for this guy?!

@daijoboots not sure why you are quotings the code of conduct which comes from the international BADMINTON Body (not IOC). IOC said they would leave the discipline up to the sports bodies themselves so go complain to Fifa.

Sooo sad and I agree with the baby hatch idea. But adoption in Japan is not so popular... I've had so many Japanese friends/family tell me they would never adopt a baby that was given up/parents unknown because "who knows what weird flaws that person had and passed onto the child"? Bizarre logic. Maybe the state doesn't want to care for these unwanted babies either...

That was the best day of competition! Uchimura truly is superman and the fight at the end for the other medals made for great viewing. Tanaka did so well too, shame he couldn't finish cleanly on those last two apparatus

I thought the crowd was much more distracting in the men's team event. At least women have the floor exercise music coming on and off, so there is less obvious switch from silence to chaos. China really looked out of sorts last night.

Come on... He is a young and extremely talented guy who is just doing what is best for himself in a sports career which won't last forever. But he's the guy everyone loves to hate.

They need to review the way the draws work to stop this happening but I'm not sure how it would work. I'm sure it happens in a lot of sports/games but surely not as blatant as these games were. I feel sorry for the crowd, making the effort to go watch some games where both teams wanted to lose.

What an amazing athlete. And it just shows how hard (impossible) it is to stay at the top for years on end.

Where does the public (and media) get off with their condemnation of athletes for underperforming? I don't see them out there!!

Lowly, the panel judges assessed his dismount as a fall and deducted/didn't credit for a dismount. Japan successfully appealed on the basis that he landed with two feet together (ie dismounted) and also I think the angle of his handstand pre-dismount was sufficient to credit. It's just unfortunate that the judges made such a mistake on the very last routine/score of the meet which led to a confused and disappointed crowd/teams. But ANY coach for any team would have made an inquiry on that call, regardless of which stage of the competition it happened.

Jmk why on earth would boos from the crowd have any influence on the outcome? China was 100% deserved first place, almost error-free without. Japan had 3 obvious misses (and if Yamamuro didn't fracture his foot he would have been on pommel and likely one less error), but the rest of their work was excellent and they deserved 2nd place for sure. GB had similar "accidents" like fall from bars, plus got lucky to hit floor as last apparatus when scores can get a little inflated. But I am really stoked for them to medal and they are thrilled as well. From the team on BBC article:

“We said to each other: ’The crowd shouldn’t boo.’ If the judges have got something wrong and they deserve to get a silver medal, they get a silver medal,” Smith said.

My only gripe with the whole thing was how rowdy the crowd was, would have been so distracting with no background music, just silence then into massive roars. Maybe they need some crowd etiquette like they have in the tennis.

Lowly, negative much? Every country will focus their Olympic coverage on the home athletes, it's what most the locals want and it's also respectful to give your home athletes this coverage. Also, I'm kind of disappointed the Romanian disqualified herself before Matsumoto could beat her. Matsumoto was clearly the stronger and more aggressive player in that match and she was out to win it. Love it!

Perfect timing for me to be on maternity leave! Can't sleep anyway!