1. Sexism and the Olympics. Sigh.
Eighteen-year-old British weightlifter Zoe Smith – who can lift 121 kilos, just FYI – has responded to a series of sexist tweets from men (and women) who said she wasn’t womanly enough or that she was ‘manly’. She wrote on her blog:
[We] don’t lift weights in order to look hot, especially for the likes of men like that. What makes them think that we even WANT them to find us attractive? If you do, thanks very much, we’re flattered. But if you don’t, why do you really need to voice this opinion in the first place, and what makes you think we actually give a toss that you, personally, do not find us attractive?What do you want us to do? Shall we stop weightlifting, amend our diet in order to completely get rid of our ‘manly’ muscles, and become housewives in the sheer hope that one day you will look more favourably upon us and we might actually have a shot with you?! Cause you are clearly the kindest, most attractive type of man to grace the earth with your presence.
Who else was on the edge of their seat this morning? James “The Missile” Magnussen went for gold in the 100m freestyle and was beaten by American swimmer Nathan Adrian by just 1/100th of a second. Ouch.
Twenty-one-year-old Magnussen qualified fastest for the final and was the favourite to take gold. After the race he said: “It hurts… I did my best tonight and and it was not quite good enough… To lose by that amount stings but I’ve had a lot of great support the last few days from people from back in Australia.”
Meanwhile, the women’s 200m freestyle team of Bronte Barratt, Melanie Schlanger, Kylie Palmer and Alicia Coutts also won a silver medal.
In other Olympic news, Sam Stosur and Lleyton Hewitt advanced to the next round of the mixed-doubles tennis, Australia’s women’s water polo team beat Great Britain, the Opals beat Brazil 67-61 (and Lauren Jackson became the highest scorer in women’s basketball history) and Aussie rowers Kate Hornsey and Sarah Tait won a silver in the women’s pairs.
The Tunisian basketball team lost to the US by 50 points in their recent match. But it wasn’t all disappointment. This Tunisian player approached Kobe Bryant (who’s probably the best player in the world) after the game and asked for his autograph – great to see that there’s still room for a bit of hero worship at the Games, even amongst the athletes themselves.
4. Drama on the badminton court.
Four teams in the women’s badminton have been disqualified for ‘throwing’ their matches. Two Chinese top seeds, four South Korean athletes and an Indonesian pair were dismissed from the competition for deliberately losing by making simple errors.
Sorry, what? Why would you deliberately lose an Olympic match? We’re asking the same question. Apparently they did it in an effort to get an easier match-up for their quarter final games.
The disqualifications meant that the Australian women’s team of Renuga Veeran and Leanne Choo were given a second chance in the place of one of the disqualified teams. But they unfortunately lost against Canada.
5. And finally, just because they’re awesome.
It’s Olympic nail art. Impressive. Can you do one better? Show us by uploading a pic of your Olympic nail art in the comments.
What have you been watching?
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Top Comments
Don't forget the battlers! Women's under 78 kg judo was a magnificent competition. Gemma Gibbons (UK), world ranking #57 prior to the Olympics was the giantkiller of the day.To put that in perspective, you had to be in the top 15 to directly qualify. Daughter of a single Mum with no Dad in the picture, raised in a council flat, had to support herself after her Mum died of leukemia in 2004. In a sport that does not have a huge following in the Commonwealth. And she made it to the final.
Kayla Harrison from the US who has survived depression after being sexually abused by a former judo coach, who has worked her way up to world champion and totally dominates the division.
The absolute favourite meets the home country underdog in the final. Kayla wins but its a full 5 minute match. Both women are fantastic and everyone is a winner because this is judo at its best. You have to love stories of athletes surviving adversity to become champions.
Did you just take photos of the tv and screenshots of the computer screen instead of using media images for the photos in this post? Why is that?
Also, can you please make sure that you correctly code your images. Titles such as "photo-5" and alt text which is the title of the page but nothing to do with the actual image is not very accessible for people who are using alternate methods of reading your website such as a screen reader. Accessibility may not directly impact you but it may impact many of your readers and your website should be as accessible to as many people as possible. Thanks.
No response... Typical.