OT: General Off Topic Thread [NO Politics, Race, Religion, etc.]

[MikeIsGood]

McLaughlin's 400m best would have qualified her first by a full second.

[JEIS]

I do quite a bit of exercising, heavy lifting and marathons, and all the suggestions here are good ones for recovery. I don't really have too many issues recovering and mostly just stick to simple stretches post runs and massage guns for my legs, also making sure I warm up really well. At this point, I can pretty easily tell when I don't warm up enough.

I've strained my back a few times pretty badly from deadlifting, I've since all but cut out deadlifting from my normal routine after my last strain almost 2 years ago. For me, I definitely dedicated more time to core training and have recently tried to incorporate more functional leg exercises. Just simple body weight/low stuff and trying to get into weird or different positions than normal. With my back, I've found that super man stretches do wonders when it's not feeling right and just simple hangs from a pull up bar, for example, really gives a nice stretch to everything in the upper body.

Got any marathons planned or ones you would recommend?

I've only done 3, and I live in okc right now which was in april, so I'm still in maintenance/golf mode atm.

Would love to do any of the majors or a destination one like Hawaii.

Went to Hawaii a couple years back and saw folks training for the Iron man... That was wild to watch. Some people are just built different between the ears. The mental strength to get through that kind of thing is nuts... Physical strength obviously as well. I just hiked Captain Cooks trail when I was there and tought I was going to be with the Lord... Granted, I am a Wisconsin sized male, was at an all you could drink luau the night before and only brought 1 small ass water bottle.

[MikeIsGood]

Athing Mu fell. Best in the world is missing the Olympics. God I hate when **** like this happens. Part of what makes it so high-stakes and exciting, but feels unrepresentative.

[ReginaldDwight]

Athing Mu fell. Best in the world is missing the Olympics. God I hate when **** like this happens. Part of what makes it so high-stakes and exciting, but feels unrepresentative.

She runs silly races no reason to not be out in front in the final when you are that much better then the rest of the field. The womens team looks pretty average compared to what they usually are.

[MikeIsGood]

Athing Mu fell. Best in the world is missing the Olympics. God I hate when **** like this happens. Part of what makes it so high-stakes and exciting, but feels unrepresentative.

She runs silly races no reason to not be out in front in the final when you are that much better then the rest of the field. The womens team looks pretty average compared to what they usually are.

I do generally agree, and it's not the first time it's happened to her. I think it's part of what gives her such a powerful kick, but even if she's not the front runner on lap one, it's risky to be pushing to the inside with how long her stride is. Much safer on the outside and utilizing her far superior athleticism to still dominate the second lap.

Doesn't change that it sucks. She IS the best, and it's not remotely close. She's 2-3 seconds faster than these girls.

[ReginaldDwight]

Athing Mu fell. Best in the world is missing the Olympics. God I hate when **** like this happens. Part of what makes it so high-stakes and exciting, but feels unrepresentative.

She runs silly races no reason to not be out in front in the final when you are that much better then the rest of the field. The womens team looks pretty average compared to what they usually are.

I do generally agree, and it's not the first time it's happened to her. I think it's part of what gives her such a powerful kick, but even if she's not the front runner on lap one, it's risky to be pushing to the inside with how long her stride is. Much safer on the outside and utilizing her far superior athleticism to still dominate the second lap.

Doesn't change that it sucks. She IS the best, and it's not remotely close. She's 2-3 seconds faster than these girls.

Well she never races and has always has poor racecraft so I’m not surprised. She’s either hurt or out for vague reasons. Women’s team looks so soft thankfully Richardson made it.

[humanrefutation]

Athing Mu fell. Best in the world is missing the Olympics. God I hate when **** like this happens. Part of what makes it so high-stakes and exciting, but feels unrepresentative.

I know that other countries and sports have different rules about qualifying - some will take a more holistic approach and consider their run of form and previous accomplishments. But as much as I hate what happened to Mu, I like it this way more. For every Athing Mu, you'll have a breakout star who might have not made it to the Olympics but for these kinds of do-or-die trials.

[MickeyDavis]

I'm sure Michaels made some good $$$ to sign off but who thought viewers wanted this ?

An A.I. version of Al Michaels is coming to Peacock next month.

NBCU announced on Wednesday during an Olympic presentation in New York City that as part of its Paris Olympic coverage, Peacock will use A.I. technology to offer a personalized recap experience for Olympic fans. “Your Daily Olympic Recap on Peacock,” will use generative A.I. and A.I. voice synthesis technology to offer Olympic fans a customized recap of highlights and events from the Games. Each compilation will feature clips from the Olympics coverage and be narrated by an A.I. re-creation of Michaels’ voice. Peacock said the voice comes from using Michaels’ past appearances on NBC. The broadcaster signed off on the use of his voice. Earlier in the week, the company held a brief demonstration for reporters of the Daily Olympic recap, and it certainly sounds like Michaels voice.

“This is the first, personalized sports highlights powered by Gen A.I., featuring a legendary voice, in this case the great Al Michaels,” said Brian Roberts, chairman and CEO of Comcast, said on Wednesday. “To make this happen, we combined the latest advancements in voice synthesis and Generative A.I. with our sports expertise — and the Peacock platform to create a brand new way for our customers to experience the biggest moments from Paris.”

The recap will be available to Peacock subscribers starting July 27 at www.peacocktv.com/olympics on all supported web browsers as well as on the Peacock app on select mobile and tablet devices. There is a brief set of questions to set up an individual recap based on a consumer’s preferences about the sports they like and highlights they want. (Michaels greets you by name.) The technology uses hundreds of NBC Sports-produced clips each day to generate a playlist of around 10 minutes highlighting the most relevant moments from the prior day for each user. NBCU said a team of editors will review all content, including audio and clips, for quality assurance and accuracy before recaps are made available to users. NBCU said there are seven million variants for the clips.

“When I was approached about this, I was skeptical but obviously curious,” said Michaels, in a statement. “Then I saw a demonstration detailing what they had in mind. I said, ‘I’m in.’”

Peacock is the streaming home of the Olympics and will stream every sport and event, including all 329 medal events. It will air 5,000 hours of coverage. The company hopes the Olympics will be a significant sub driver. Peacock said it had 34 million paying subscribers as of March. Per Variety: It has lost roughly $8.5 billion since its launch.

When contacted by The Athletic on his new gig, Michaels cheekily signed off as “Al (or maybe A.I.).”

[MoreTrife]

I live near an intersection with a ChikFilet, a Wingstop, a Dave's hot chicken that went in less than 6 months ago and a Raising Cane's opening shortly. Can an intersection support this much fried chicken or did someone make a mistake in building plans??

[Matches Malone]

The way the NHL is doing their draft in the Sphere is so much cooler than the NBA draft. And their production is far and above ESPN. Wish Wisconsin had an NHL team.

[crkone]

I live near an intersection with a ChikFilet, a Wingstop, a Dave's hot chicken that went in less than 6 months ago and a Raising Cane's opening shortly. Can an intersection support this much fried chicken or did someone make a mistake in building plans??

Sounds like it's missing Culver's delicious chicken sandwiches. Unless you're talking about 124th and Capitol then you also have one of those down the block too.

[DingleJerry]

The way the NHL is doing their draft in the Sphere is so much cooler than the NBA draft. And their production is far and above ESPN. Wish Wisconsin had an NHL team.

Random topic brought up a few days ago about hockey. IF they dropped an NHL team in say Appleton/Oshkosh right in the middle of all those small cities, would it get good enough attendance in the near sellout area? We were all aware it would never happen and the TV market issues would never allow it. Just in general, an area that loves hockey would they get 15K+ per game since there's really no other game in town after packers are done (and even still they're 8 days a year).

[MickeyDavis]

Read on Twitter

[ReasonablySober]

That looks awful.

[Matches Malone]

It wasn't like that the whole night. There were some really cool shots like being inside the hockey net. The less cluttered backdrops looked much better.

Read on Twitter

[ReasonablySober]

It wasn't like that the whole night. There were some really cool shots like being inside the hockey net. The less cluttered backdrops looked much better.

Read on Twitter

Okay that shot definitely looks cool.

[MickeyDavis]

I saw U2 in the Sphere. It was amazing. Hard to capture on a video or pics.

[crkone]

I mean we already knew this but it might be a rude awakening for Raptor fans.

[MikeIsGood]

That's pretty cool. Personally feel like Hong Kong should be runaway #1 but AD being based in NYC probably doesn't help the chances there (and Manhattan's is also objectively beautiful, of course).

[trwi7]

I mean we already knew this but it might be a rude awakening for Raptor fans.

They used a hysterically outdated picture in their article.



https://www.architecturaldigest.com/gallery/the-most-beautiful-skylines-in-the-world