Olympic Games #2: How the older female athletes fare against the younger ones

This continues my ‘reporting’ on the Rio Olympics (5-21 August). It differs from the usual cryptocurrency and app threads that people write on Steemit. The idea is that if content actually drives Steemit, as many people on Steemit have said, then more diverse content is needed. Thus, this series. So, if you like my Olympics commentary, please send a vote, join in with comments, add your Olympics story, etc.

Ok, so here’s my basic thesis in round 2: Women who make it to the Olympics in their late 20s or early 30s for an athletic sport (e.g. not archery or shooting) are more amazing physical specimens (as athletes) than men the same age. And I'm not going to produce evidence for the claim, just let it flap on the page like that. =D

Aga! What prompts it? Today I watched Kuznetsova (31) vs. Konta (25) in the tennis event. It’s Konta’s 1st Olympics & Kuznetsova’s last. Kuznetsova's a phenomenal athlete (I met her personally a couple of times). What a great battle for over 3 hours, a roller-coaster match with Konta finally victorious.

While awaiting some kind of charge of (reverse) sexism, one may simply note the lower average age of female Olympic competitors and that the youngest are almost always women (while in this Olympics, the oldest is a woman too, Uzbekistan gymnast Oksana Chusovitina). I guess that makes this report a kind of global sociology of sports aging at the Olympics? Some interesting data on the ages of Olympic athletes, including gender – youngest athletes in swimming & gymnastics, older athletes in track and field: https://venngage.com/blog/olympics/

Back to the mosaic reporting, some might wonder: why watch tennis when you can watch it 8 months of the year professionally? The amateur/professional line is too easily blurred in some sports. I think the Olympics counts differently than any other tournament for these players. Proof of this when #1 ranked Djokovic left the court in tears bounced after the 1st round, perhaps never to win an Olympic medal (losing in London to the same del Potro for bronze!).

Last night I spoke with a friend in Sweden, former coach and player, who also noted he has been jaded by the Olympic Movement in recent years. (It's not just the professional/amateur thing, but also the corruption and the neoliberal marketisation of the Olympics.) But he added that he watched volleyball (Canada vs. USA) for the 1st time in years and quite enjoyed it.

The opportunity to see the top level athletes in the world in such a variety of sports really does fuel the human imagination (for those who don’t prefer music or art instead). And frankly, I don’t pause for a moment to think if any of the athletes are doping or not (odds are that a ‘small few’ of them do). I just enjoy the competitions themselves and the unpredictability of the Olympic experience, e.g. when someone tries to break the world record and valiantly fails, like the Chinese weightlifter Zhiyong Shi, who still won gold at 69kg.

And it sure helps to watch channels in different languages from various countries, which reinforces the quasi-universality of the Olympic Games. To me that's what makes the Olympics one of the great celebrations of humanity. (And don't worry, Afrophiles, the African medals will grow when Athletics - Track and Field starts.)

Medal table by region (Middle of Day 2, Middle of Day 4)

Watching the men’s team gymnastics yesterday (G-Japan, S-China, B-Russia), I’m always struck with how amazingly strong those guys are when they are doing the rings, e.g. the iron cross. The women don’t have the rings, the horizontal bar, parallel bars, or the pommel horse; they have the uneven bars and balance beam. But why do the women (many girls) get music when they do their floor exercise while the men don’t? What’s with this quite obvious double-standard? Don’t the men like music too? Is this reverse discrimination pay-back for having 2 less disciplines? Are men’s & women’s artistic gymnastics intentionally “not equal”?!

Well, and then I briefly watched Serena Williams (34) today too. The game I saw, she served a stunning 5 double-faults en route to the round 3 loss! Oh, the poetic justice global friends that she was knocked out by Ukrainian (not Russian hating!) Elina Svitolina (21) for the biggest win of her life. I guess sometimes the young ones, incredible athletes that they are to make it to the Olympics, can serve up big upsets too.

Top-5 All-Name Team (Days 3-4):
Nivaldo Nadhir Diaz Gomez (Cuba)
Dieudonne Wilfred Seyi Ntsengue (Cameroon)
Kinga Kolosinska (Poland)
Vaidas Kariniauskas (Lithuania)
Bernardin Ledoux Kingue Matam (France)