London Olympics Panic! - Britain's Useless Athletes Unable to Win Gold

espanola

Useless bogus post!Probably this person is not even British but here we go....22 GOLD medals by now and 53 in total!!! 3rd best country in the olympics table and more to come...just deal with it

Out,_Vile_Jelly

RenovationMan wrote: »

Er, no. Nick Skelton said that one of his rivals could have got on one of those shiny horses and won a Gold medal.

I didn't see the interview, but I'm fairly confident he didn't say exactly that. He is a modest bloke and was more likely deflecting praise to the horse, a common response in equestrian events.

You are showing your lack of knowledge by comparing horses to expensive equipment. Horses are NOT machines; otherwise the "best horse" would win every race and bookies would no longer be in business. Horses are frustrating, finickity creatures who don't care about their price tag; they go well at one show, but they might not the next. Some definitely go better for one rider than for others. They have off days. They get bored. They get over-excited. The offspring of two champions is often a dud. Cheap, unfashionably bred horses turn up and win millions. A famous saying amongst racing folk is "horses make fools of us all."

There used to be showjumping events in which the riders all rode each other's horses in the final round, which is indeed a skill. Perhaps they no longer do it for insurance reasons.

chewmylegoff

ruggedtoast wrote: »

How about they just have a pool of horses and everyone is assigned a random horse?

that would be good, especially if they just threw a few randoms in there, like an unbroken mustang, and perhaps a donkey. i would pay good money to see a saudi prince trying to get a donkey to jump fences. in fact i would probably opt for the £750 category AA tickets for that.

RenovationMan

chewmylegoff wrote: »

that would be good, especially if they just threw a few randoms in there, like an unbroken mustang, and perhaps a donkey. i would pay good money to see a saudi prince trying to get a donkey to jump fences. in fact i would probably opt for the £750 category AA tickets for that.

Lordy, that made laugh! :rotfl::rotfl:

RenovationMan

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

I didn't see the interview, but I'm fairly confident he didn't say exactly that. He is a modest bloke and was more likely deflecting praise to the horse, a common response in equestrian events.

You are showing your lack of knowledge by comparing horses to expensive equipment. Horses are NOT machines; otherwise the "best horse" would win every race and bookies would no longer be in business. Horses are frustrating, finickity creatures who don't care about their price tag; they go well at one show, but they might not the next. Some definitely go better for one rider than for others. They have off days. They get bored. They get over-excited. The offspring of two champions is often a dud. Cheap, unfashionably bred horses turn up and win millions. A famous saying amongst racing folk is "horses make fools of us all."

There used to be showjumping events in which the riders all rode each other's horses in the final round, which is indeed a skill. Perhaps they no longer do it for insurance reasons.

If you didn't see the interview then how can you know what he said?

I didn't compare horses with other equipment, someone else did to make a point about elitism in cycling.

chewmylegoff

RenovationMan wrote: »

If you didn't see the interview then how can you know what he said?

I didn't compare horses with other equipment, someone else did to make a point about elitism in cycling.

i didn't say that horses were like bikes, i just said that we spend loads of money on cycling and that is the only reason that we win so many medals in it, and therefore it is arguably an elitist sport as you have to have the necessary money and resources to dominate.

even as we speak, britain have just shot to the top of the horse dancing after performing the running man and the lawnmower in time to some lion king music.

the stupidiest thing about horse dancing isn't the spectacle in of itself, but the ludicrous commentary. "horse and rider have such charisma". the bloke is literally sitting as still as he can showing no emotion or expression (presumably because that's what you're supposed to do) and that gets termed "charismatic".

Out,_Vile_Jelly

RenovationMan wrote: »

If you didn't see the interview then how can you know what he said?

I didn't compare horses with other equipment, someone else did to make a point about elitism in cycling.

That's why I said it was "most likely" his response praising the horse was a typical equestrian gesture.

You seem to think that the "best horse" always wins. Unfortunately it's not that simple. You'd be hard pressed to find two experts who even agree on which the best horse is before adding the rider factor.

Jennifer_Jane

The rider is not literally sitting as still as he can. He's asking a horse to do some complicated manoeuvres in as invisible way as possible. All of which also use some muscles in the human body that if you haven't ridden for some time, make themselves known for several days after.

Well I'm loving it (also didn't get the 'charisma' thing, but you can see they know their stuff, so that's all good then).

PS - I DID see the Nick Skelton interview, and of course, he was meaning to be self-deprecating and congratulating the horse. That's just being sportsmanlike. Like the showjumper who pointed to his horse. Just being appreciative, but I couldn't get a horse even of that quality to jump those things.

lostinrates

Ifnick skeltons rivals could have won gold on his horse he should have picked up individual gold as well as team gold.

Fwiw, imo its easie to ride an advanced horse than train one...we tend to ge it backwards in thios country in that there are very, very few true school masters and most certainly do not learn on them. Howver riding an advanced horse and getting a great clear round or dressage score on won are two different things.

~Chameleon~

RenovationMan wrote: »

....Makes you wonder why the humans get a medal for just managing not to fall of a horse while it jumps over some stuff or prances about.

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Do you honestly think the rider just jumps on and sits there whilst the horse does all the work??? :rotfl: