GrandOlm

Well you're wrong because I was on a swim team in my youth for about 3 years. Not that it really matters because you couldn't bother to figure out that olympians have been winning multiple medals in the different styles for years.

I think speed walking is ridiculous. No defense from me there. But it doesn't get one iota the attention that swimmers do. Well hurdles are a different skill set. It's not a suboptimal way of racing like the swimming styles are. It's adding jumping obstacles. Which I'd argue isn't that contrived (ever run and have tree branches, puddles, or rocks in the way). It also looks like specialists are the ones winning hurdles. So it's not like swimming, where it's another medal for Phelps and friends to pick up. High jump isn't a race, ditto long jump. It just gets grouped with track because it occurs outside and is individual. How far or high a person can jump is so universal and true to the appreciation of human athletic excellence that it absolutely belongs in the games. The ancients had myths of their amazing heroes that could out jump farther and higher than all their peers. Pole vault is almost a gymnastics event. It's niche and definitely specialized, has been around forever. It gets grouped with track and field, but it isn't that closely related to the races. I think steeple is outdated. It's apparent origins are in fox hunting? But again like speed walking, they don't get the attention that swimmers do. Swimmers collect medals like baseball cards. It's clear that the styles and distances either aren't unique enough to require enough specialization (in which case just make it all freestyle) or the swimming talent pool is too low to properly delineate the stroke styles among competitors. It's always some swimmers with boatloads of medals, this doesn't happen in track or other sports.

There could easily be a world though where the only type of event is "freestyle" (use whatever technique you want to get from a to b fastest) with a sprint, middle distance, and something long for 3 events. Perfectly logical. It just so happens that in our timelines, that's not the case. If track were like swimming, you could have hop on one leg, hop on two legs, skipping, backwards running, side running, spinning races. That's the kingmaker position swimming has found itself in.

I did here a comment about how wrestling fans need to get over being interested in more than #1 v #2. That's a problem almost every individual sport has. Team sports in theory represent more than the individual, as in a school, neighborhood, village/town/city, region, or nation (yes that's a farce a lot of the time with these differently colored logos pulling and trading among the same pool of vagrant athletes, but the pretense is still there). So yeah people will watch even if it's not the best of the best, because they gave the something else in common. A big part of college wrestling's appeal, over generic senior level freestyle, is the shared identify of going to the same school.

It's also the sport that, for whatever reason, gets their athletes turned into national heroes. Even if swimming is almost as niche as wrestling. The French went gaga over that swimmer at the last Olympics. Phelps became a household name. Maybe it is because they offer 500 potential medals for every swimmer to win at the games. 50 meter fly, 100 fly, 120 fly, backstroke, front stroke, relay, team, individual, mixed.

Went back and saw some of Taz's matches. He does sometimes muscle-athleticism his way to some scores, but there is artistry to his game. Impressed that Baranowski wrestled him that tough. Never managed to score, but you could tell that he's still a high level grappler and a formidable human. Poland might not even have a 1,000 active wrestlers across all age groups. For them to produce a 97 kg wrestler like that and have a couple of other quality guys is commendable in an age of America, Dagestan and the likes.

This whole episode has got me thinking about perspectives. There's a lot of happiness that Ben had a successful lung transplant, but it also mean that some unknown person definitely died (probably young and probably tragically).

His takes that irk me the most are his unabashed prisoner of the moment stands (his job is to be a hype man so that colors his views) and his general refusal to acknowledge most of wrestling before the 2000s.

Didn't see the matches but from the score lines it looks like Taz wiped the floor with the field. That Hushtyn guy he beat is actually one of Sadulaev's bad matchups. He's wrestled Sad close a number of times and has scored wrestling moves on him on multiple occasions. Not that it really matters, but just a tid bit. I'm a little surprised that people like Baran are still wrestling, and that he hasn't retired yet. There is a slim chance that a 36 year old him will win an Olympic medal. Maybe it's just the economic situation has been improved

It will be interesting to here what his thoughts are on that it appears that it was hobby and lifelong passion that nearly took his life ( a staph infection from grappling?). These moments can radically change people, I'd like to hear what Ben thinks about this whole thing once he's stronger and collected his thoughts.

The Ghasempour comparisons that they're bringing up are not valid. Ghasempour can wrestle at another weight class like 92 kg at worlds. Even for the olympics, he has the option of trying out 86 or 97 kg. So it's not like it's one guy stopping him. Masoumi is 6 ft 6. There is no other weight he can make. You know who is a good comparison, Yasmani Acosta. He could have stayed put and not had a career behind Lopez and Oscar. Acosta transferred and now he's an Olympic Silver and World Bronze medalist.

Yousefi is puzzling. He destroyed Semenov. The same Semenov who is winning major silverware and having a wonderful career, while Yousefi rots on the bench.

Why would he do that? The competition so much fiercer at 97. 86 might be better than the good old Punia and Amine days, but it's still a weak weight. A 5 ft 11 man can't make 190 lbs anymore after years of weighing that much? Nonsense.

Geno is better than Mesh. Geno is not retired yet, as far as I'm aware. Though he might be retired by the time Masoumi is eligible to compete post transfer. Gable is also better than Mesh, but he's not an active wrestler for now. I don't think we know where Hendrickson stands yet. Yes he pulled off a nail biter of a major upset in another ruleset. But he also just gave up a million points to someone who wouldn't have medaled at worlds. For all we know, he might not be able to beat someone like Deng.

The extreme weight loss has made him look younger since his face was so puffy and wrinkly before. Blond fro is gone, he looks like a man who time traveled from a bygone decade ( a Seinfeld set or even the 70s). He is very weak. Hopefully the worst is past him.