I always assumed the Paralympics meant wheelchairs and prosthetics. It doesn't make a lot of sense to be kept out of an Olympic foot race because of a visual impairment.
I was wondering about that. There must be some sort of rules-adjustment to accommodate the visual impairment that isn't allowed in the conventional Olympics? Maybe? I can't think of what it would be, though.
The dog would get in the way of the other runners.
From a quick look at the pictures, it doesn't look like the T13 race has special features, so the runners would be able to try to qualify for the Olympics I'd think. (Oscar Pistorius tried, didn't he?)
The Paralympics are fairly popular here - people know the names of para-athletes. Channel 4 are showing the games every evening, and The Last Leg (comedy chat show, two disabled presenters, started for the London Paralympics, but took on a life of its own independently since) is entertaining and about the only place on tv where people with disabilities can be laughed at like 'normal' people rather than being brave or pitiful.
Also, we do well at the Para games, so that helps!
C and I were wondering last night why the USA doesn't do better - a lot of our athletes are blown-up soldiers, of which presumably you also have a steady supply. I guess it just boils down to funding.
If you haven't watched any yet, have a look at Liam Malone, a Kiwi, not an ex-soldier. Silver in the T44 100m, gold in the 200m, and the 400 is tomorrow, and his interviews are very funny.
Guide runners, apparently.
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/guides-blind-athletes-share-struggle-072242529--spt.html
Alas, not "seeing-eye greyhounds".
Disabled people (including blind runners) have competed in the Olympics before- the issue isn't that the Olympics is keeping them out, so much as accessibility and team selection at the national level. I think.
6: wiki has a list:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_athletes_who_have_competed_in_the_Paralympics_and_Olympics
Including a gymnast with a wooden leg, a water polo player with one leg, and a paraplegic archer.
"The Paralympics does not cater for deaf swimmers", it notes, which seems fair enough.
Deaf people are too snobby to mix with anyone else. They have their own special games.
(Deaf swimmers have competed in the regular Olympics, I think)
Deaf people are too snobby to mix with anyone else.
Ha! I knew all this "oh sorry I didn't hear you talking" thing was just a pose!
I also would not be surprised if many disabled athletes would rather compete in the Paralympics than the Olympics.
5 - yeah, but that's T11 who are more impaired. No guides for T13 runners.
Sorry, but Deaflympics is a terrible name.
Because they are deaf, but they don't limp.
That's a nice hook for a story, but it's misleading. The 1500 is a tactical race. The winning time in any given race doesnt necessarily match how fast the runners could have gone. Better to compare season's best or personal bests, and there's about a 20 second difference between para and non if you do that.
Impaired mobility athletes could compete in the Limplympics.
I didn't know 1,500 was tactical. It's not even far enough to hatch the weakest Pokemon egg.
I thought it was like a dog running -- balls out.
The emoticon for "balls out" is )(.
15- they just call it the Paralympics.
YOU'RE NOT ALLOWED TO TALK ABOUT DOG BALLS!
19: there are quite a few limping Paras in the Paralympics these days.
I know, I just didn't think your joke was funny.
I thought it worked quite well. Its an analogy with the Deaflympics, you see.
Yeah, the olympic gold medal time was 3:50, the slowest time since the 1932 Olympics. The fastest time in 2016 was 3:29. This is meaningless, though that's not to say that the Paralympic runners aren't still impressively fast.
Why was this the slowest time since pre-Hitler Olympics?
Who knows? The winner himself turned in a 3:34 earlier this year, and the Gold Medal time wasn't even in the top 200 times this year.
It seems bizarre. That's a 9% difference between the gold medal time and the fast time of the year.
Even if all the runners had Zika, I'd expect a smaller difference.
Maybe the Russians took so many drugs there were none left for anybody else and then got themselves banned?
What does it mean that it's a tactical race? It's just a qualifying heat and there are strategic reasons to hold back?
2nd fastest time wins the gold, fastest gets silver.
In this race, the goal is only to beat everyone else while expending as little energy as possible, so you start losing points for being too far ahead.
It's long enough that if you try to sprint it, you're going to be winded and not make it. It's better to be with the pack while conserving energy for a last minute sprint. You could try to run faster but I guess it's tricky to determine if you're over-doing it.
I can see that, but what I can't see is how that process can explain a 9% drop in times compared to four years prior.
A (relatively) slow pace-setter psychologically limits the other runners? The risk of breaking away early is high.
More golds for Team GB today. Ukraine are third in the medal table - the Chernobyl effect???
Championship races are often way slower than regular meet races and this Olympic 1500 took that to the extreme. There's no pacer, there's no bonus for a fast time, and there's a lot of downside to going out hard at the front the whole way unless you know you're so much better than everyone else that it would be a huge upset if you lost. No one in this year's 1500 field is that good. Centrowitz ran a 50 second last lap, which is extremely fast for a 1500, after the previous laps were so slow.
This was really unusual to be so slow, but not that different than when Fermin Cacho won in a slow time in Barcelona.
35: The risk is not breaking away, pacing others to a fast time, and getting outkicked at the end, like El Guerrouj in 2000.
American announcers don't often give enough information about the splits for you to see the tactics in middle-distance and distance races. Sometimes people run middle laps fast to try to break the field up.
So it's a collective action problem. If the runners weren't all in cahoots, we'd see more punishing effort.
You mean more 1500 meter runners would be blinded by their peers?
I am very politely starting shit with our school superintendent, who wants to say that by participating in the anniversary of the national anthem like they always do, our local school children are teaching the NFL how to respect the flag. If I'm really lucky, this will disqualify me from ever getting elected to school board.
Maybe suggest that if she does that, for equal time reasons, she also needs to have somebody from BLM as well as the British consulate.
39: This could surely be solved by making running a free market.
If I'm really lucky, this will disqualify me from ever getting elected to school board.
Not everyone is as canny as you.
Anyway, respecting inanimate objects is idolatry.
Lots of races were really slow. The women's 1500 was slow enough that back when I was in shape I could have run the first 400 with them, which really should not be the case at the Olympic level.
But also, lots of the top athletes are running multiple races, so conservation of energy is really important. No point winning the 1500 by 6 seconds and then bombing in the 3000 if you can win the 1500 by 0.6 seconds and then also win the 3000.
Wasn't there some incident a few years ago where a woman broke a world record at a distance race, and it was disallowed because there was a male pace runner?
The explanation of the tactics is really interesting, thanks all.
44 sounds like the right explanation. Most of the running athletes compete in multiple events, after all.
I don't think there was much overlap between the 1500 runners and other events this year. Also, women haven't run the 3000 at championships for quite some time. The main 1500 double is with the 800.
There were runners doubling the 5000/10000 this year and on the women's side the 10000 winner went too hard to start in the 5000 and it cost her. Both races were very fast. On the men's side the races weren't particularly fast, which favored Farah, who can run fast but is a better kicker than others off of slower paces.
37 is right. Race meets employ pacemakers as "rabbits" to lead for the first couple of laps and then drop out, resulting in faster times for the winners. No-one who's reached an Olympic final is going to take on that role. So the first laps in championships are usually slow, as everyone tries to position themselves on the shoulder of the leader rather than leading themselves.
There's a good explanation of the rabbit's role in Runner's World :
First, physiologically, it is easier to run from behind than to run in front. The advantages of drafting might not be quite as dramatic as they are in, say, cycling, but they are there. "A good estimate is that it takes 15 percent less effort to run behind somebody," says David Krummenacker, a former 800-meter world champion who is now one of the world's premier track rabbits.
Second, psychologically, it is easier to run from behind, too. Yes, some elite athletes prefer jumping to the front and staying there--that was the calling card of the late Steve Prefontaine--but the majority would rather have a target than be a target. "The odds of you winning a race if you're leading from start to finish," says Khadevis Robinson, still a national-class 800-meter runner who took to rabbiting mile races last year as he rehabbed various injuries, "are slim to none."
Do runners brag about the slowest time that won a gold the way scientists brag about the lowest IQ that won a grant?
One of my summer program friends was on the US Paralympic soccer team for a while. I don't think he went to the actual Paralympics, but played in some smaller events. He really enjoyed it. The number rating thing (team must have a certain total disability points) must lead to some weird tactics in team selection, but I never asked about how much skill vs skill/points mattered in making the team.
I guess Makhloufi did the 800/1500 double (second in both) and so did another guy but 1) the 800 was pretty fast and 2) it came before the 1500 so there was no reason to take it easy anyway. None of the women appear to have had a chance at winning another event, although one of the top 6 ran a heat in the 800.
Most Paralympians, while elite athletes, wouldn't medal in the Olympics, and it's already hard enough for disabled athletes to get attention and funding; I can't see talent development money favoring disabled contenders over non-disabled contenders. Would be nice to see the Paralympics get primetime coverage.
41 astonishes me. I had imagined the principal and teachers as Black, do I have that wrong?
The link in 43 is funny.
Most of the Paralympians (the snobby deaf excluded) are awe-inspiring. At the other place, I post a video of a one arm, no-legged girl swimming. It brought me to tears.
55: Jesus, no. We've had very little luck hiring black teachers and I don't think there are any black administrators at the moment, one school board member. Some of the ESL teachers are Latina as is one of the kindergarten teacher's aides, but the underrepresentation is even worse on that front. It's a majority-white school district, but this is ridiculous.