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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   2943 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for August 9, 2024

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Breakdancing (or "breaking" as they call it) is new to the Olympics this year. The Australian contestant is Rachell Gunn, AKA Raygun, a communications professor who specializes in "the cultural politics of breaking". Lets see how she does.

How the hell did this happen?

Japan winning a gold medal in breakdancing is somehow more hilarious than breakdancing in olympics.

A Japanese guy went to a stone skipping competition in the UK and won. Japanese people are really good at anything fun and quirky (quirky in a good way). They've got moxie!

There's also Kobiyashi, the competitive eater. It wasn't just natural talent and determination, he studied competitive eating and found out that he could eat more hot dog buns if they were dipped in water.

And in the 1920 Olympics (or some year, I forget) Japan won a bunch of swimming medals because they built a glass-bottomed pool and set up film cameras along the sides to analyze different swimming techniques. And they apparently made some discoveries which were adopted by everyone four years later.

Etcetera etcetera. I'm surprised you're surprised!

Didn't they change the breaststroke rules because the Japanese found out a more efficient way to do it that wasn't spectator-friendly? Or was that something my swim coach made up/I made up my swim coach making up?

That's basically why the butterfly stroke exists. A handful of swimmers (none Japanese, as far as I can recall) in the 1930s independently figured out the dolphin kick as an improvement to the breaststroke, then someone combined it with the above-water recovery. This all technically fit within the official definitions of a breaststroke at the time and completely broke the meta of the sport. Within a couple years, the classic breastroke was completely obsolete and officials had to make butterfly its own separate event in order to save it.

Oh right, that was it! In '04 Kosuke Kitajima started adding butterfly kicks back into the breaststroke pull out, causing some controversy and rule changes.

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