Brazil 2016 Summer Olympics

[BanzaiCat]

[bayonetbrant]

Maybe, instead of trying to teach dolphins to plant mines on moving subs, the Navy should just start cloning Phelps.

And what, chase enemy subs down?

[OJsDad]

Six Olympics in a row winning a medal!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/kim-rhode-wins-bronze-makes-olympic-history/ar-BBvyHO7?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

RIO DE JANEIRO — Make it six straight for Kim Rhode.

The 37-year-old American won a medal for her sixth consecutive Olympics on Friday, capturing bronze in the skeet shooting event at the Olympic Shooting Center.

It's a stunning accomplishment from Rhode, who becomes the first female Olympian to medal in six consecutive games, and the first summer Olympian as well. Only Italian luger Armin Zoeggeler has done it on the men's side.

Rhode's bronze medal match ended in a shoot-off, after both she and China's Meng Wei hit 15 of 16 clays. Rhode missed a clay in her first round of the shoot-off, but Meng followed by missing one of her own. Three rounds later, Meng missed her final clay to hand the bronze to Rhode.

Rhode lifted her arm to the sky when she realized she'd done it. She then walked over to the stands, where her husband handed her their 3-year-old son for a long hug.

"Being a mom, having a son here, it's amazing," she said. "I hope that he remembers this. We've taken tons of pictures trying to capture the moment."

Afterward, she said history was on her mind as she was shooting.

"Most definitely," she said. "When you're in that bronze medal match, and you know you can walk away going for Olympic history or [nothing], yes, that was definitely on my mind."

The crowd rose to give Rhode a standing ovation after the announcer told them history had just been made.

Italians Chiara Cainero and Diana Bacosi won silver and gold, respectively.

Rhode's Olympic history has been nothing short of dominant. She won gold in the 1996 Games in double trap at the age of 17, then followed up with bronze in Sydney, gold in Athens, silver in Beijing, and then gold in London.

"Standing up there on the podium, it's addicting," Rhode said. "It keeps me coming back for more."

IOC president Thomas Bach was in the crowd for the event, catching a seat for history.

American Morgan Craft, 23,  also competed in the event, but was eliminated in a semifinal shoot-off.

Craft said after the final that she respected Rhode's longevity, but doesn't see herself competing in that many Olympics – her dream is to become a physician's assistant.

Rhode has become an outspoken defendant of the second amendment in the United States. In a news conference before the start of the Games, Rhode spoke out about what it meant to her.

"We should have the right to keep and bear arms, to protect ourselves and our family," she said. "The second amendment was put in there not just so we can go shoot skeet or go shoot trap. It was put in so we could defend our first amendment, the freedom of speech, and also to defend ourselves against our own government."

[Staggerwing]

Maybe, instead of trying to teach dolphins to plant mines on moving subs, the Navy should just start cloning Phelps.

And what, chase enemy subs down?

Carrying a mine or two won't slow him down much.

[bayonetbrant]

Six Olympics in a row winning a medal!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/kim-rhode-wins-bronze-makes-olympic-history/ar-BBvyHO7?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

w00t!

More American chicks with guns!

[OJsDad]

Six Olympics in a row winning a medal!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/kim-rhode-wins-bronze-makes-olympic-history/ar-BBvyHO7?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

w00t!

More American chicks with guns!

And she shoot better than most guys!

[bayonetbrant]

Ledecky gets her gold medal for the 800m freestyle.
The other swimmers haven't finished yet

[mirth]

^ha!

[bayonetbrant]

Click to REALLY enlarge

[Staggerwing]

That guy is a force of nature or something. The look on his face almost says "Toying with them like this is just cruel... but fun!"

[bayonetbrant]

Ledecky's swim, sped up...

Katie Ledecky in an 800m race

[bayonetbrant]

http://ftw.usatoday.com/2016/08/olympics-rio-katie-ledecky-freestyle-gold-twitter-reaction

[bayonetbrant]

Not photoshopped

[bayonetbrant]

More Phelps-ness, from ESPN

So let's get this out of the way now: Michael Phelps is the greatest American athlete of all time. He's the greatest Olympian of all time and it's not particularly close: Phelps has 23 gold medals and nobody else has more than nine. The idea that the number of events in swimming inflates Phelps' statistics doesn't really hold much muster. If it were that easy, why haven't any swimmers before or after Phelps come close to matching his totals? Ian Thorpe, the best swimmer in the world in the era immediately preceding Phelps, won five golds. Matt Biondi ended up with eight. Jenny Thompson, the most decorated Olympic female swimmer in history, also won eight. Spitz won nine. He might have won more had he kept swimming after the 1972 Olympics, but he didn't.

If Phelps was narrowly ahead of the competition -- if he had 10 or 11 gold medals -- maybe the inflation case would hold up. But 23 to nine is a landslide. Nobody else has won four gold medals in a single Olympics more than once. Phelps has done it four times. Nobody won eight medals in a boycott-free Olympics before Phelps. He did it twice, both in these 2004 Olympics and again in 2008. To the extent that we can compare athletes across different sports, Phelps has dominated swimming in a way that no other American athlete has dominated his or her sport at the highest level over a longer period of time. And if you're not picking Phelps because it's impossible to make those kinds of comparisons, you can't pick anybody else.

and

Phelps won eight gold medals in Beijing, setting six world records and a seventh Olympic record during a meet noted for the prevalence of the LZR Racer swimsuit. This was the most successful single Olympiad for an athlete in the history of the modern competition, and if you just pretend it never happened, Phelps would still be the most decorated athlete in Olympics history.

[airboy]

Six Olympics in a row winning a medal!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/kim-rhode-wins-bronze-makes-olympic-history/ar-BBvyHO7?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartanntp

RIO DE JANEIRO — Make it six straight for Kim Rhode.

The 37-year-old American won a medal for her sixth consecutive Olympics on Friday, capturing bronze in the skeet shooting event at the Olympic Shooting Center.

It's a stunning accomplishment from Rhode, who becomes the first female Olympian to medal in six consecutive games, and the first summer Olympian as well. Only Italian luger Armin Zoeggeler has done it on the men's side.

Rhode's bronze medal match ended in a shoot-off, after both she and China's Meng Wei hit 15 of 16 clays. Rhode missed a clay in her first round of the shoot-off, but Meng followed by missing one of her own. Three rounds later, Meng missed her final clay to hand the bronze to Rhode.

Rhode lifted her arm to the sky when she realized she'd done it. She then walked over to the stands, where her husband handed her their 3-year-old son for a long hug.

"Being a mom, having a son here, it's amazing," she said. "I hope that he remembers this. We've taken tons of pictures trying to capture the moment."

Afterward, she said history was on her mind as she was shooting.

"Most definitely," she said. "When you're in that bronze medal match, and you know you can walk away going for Olympic history or [nothing], yes, that was definitely on my mind."

The crowd rose to give Rhode a standing ovation after the announcer told them history had just been made.

Italians Chiara Cainero and Diana Bacosi won silver and gold, respectively.

Rhode's Olympic history has been nothing short of dominant. She won gold in the 1996 Games in double trap at the age of 17, then followed up with bronze in Sydney, gold in Athens, silver in Beijing, and then gold in London.

"Standing up there on the podium, it's addicting," Rhode said. "It keeps me coming back for more."

IOC president Thomas Bach was in the crowd for the event, catching a seat for history.

American Morgan Craft, 23,  also competed in the event, but was eliminated in a semifinal shoot-off.

Craft said after the final that she respected Rhode's longevity, but doesn't see herself competing in that many Olympics – her dream is to become a physician's assistant.

Rhode has become an outspoken defendant of the second amendment in the United States. In a news conference before the start of the Games, Rhode spoke out about what it meant to her.

"We should have the right to keep and bear arms, to protect ourselves and our family," she said. "The second amendment was put in there not just so we can go shoot skeet or go shoot trap. It was put in so we could defend our first amendment, the freedom of speech, and also to defend ourselves against our own government."

No other American has won metals at 6 different Olympic games.  She is virtually unreported in most of the mainstream press.  The Wall St. Journal did a story on her before the games and a follow-up after she won.  They also had an editorial about how her accomplishments were virtually ignored by the rest of the press.

In the USA, how many millions of people shoot skeet or trap annually versus many of the other sports?  On the clays courses I've been on in Alabama and Georgia about 10% of the shooters are female.  I've taught almost as many females as males to shoot shotguns.

She is a big draw at shooting competition and outdoor trade shows.

At competitive levels, skeet becomes an endurance contest.  Really good shooters can hit multiple hundreds in a row (a complete course is 25 shots).  I've made 24 out of 25 several times.  I never could get 25 - my concentration would break or I would think too much about a shot and miss it.