Before I get started, I'm just gonna say Kamila Valieva is absolutely breathtaking. I'm out of words to describe how beautiful and enjoyable her routines are and her ability to withstand pressure and recover from errors are beyond imagination. Amazing strength, flexibility, and mental fortitude. This girl has completely won over Chinese social media and was crowned the new queen Czarina. If you haven't seen her routine yet, go watch it on your local Olympic broadcast network now. You will not regret it.

In contrast, we have the Chinese figure skater who fell on her butt in both her short program and freestyle program. It was terrible. And then she broke down in the middle of her routine, which only speaks to her fragile mental state.

So predictably, Chinese social media lost all sense of scale.

And then CNN fucked things up even further by completely misrepresenting the nature of the grievances.

( Things cannot possibly get worse than this, right? )

And that's where we're at. On top of this dumpster fire, I saw a netizen who decided to make a video essay to chew out Zhu. Except, said video essayist didn't even have the confidence to show her own face without a beautifying filter slapped over it. Anyone who doesn't have the confidence to show their face without digitally enhancing their features do not deserve to criticize another person (athlete or otherwise) for their perceived lack of metal fortitude. Kindly fuck off.

Nothing destroys the good-natured fun of shit talking your sports rivals than stupid media treating the shit talking seriously. And reading media getting full of themselves and failing to honestly assess the situation makes me want to bang my head.

For example, the situation with the medal rankings: China has been leading the gold medal count up until the last day in this iteration of the Olympics. However, realistically, the U.S. will probably shoot past China's numbers since Team USA has managed to get into finals of numerous events held on the last day, while events where China could obtain gold have already finished. Which means China has more or less maxed out their gold medal possibilities, with one last long shot at women's boxing, which is a very long shot. Anyone reasonable wouldn't count on it. Meanwhile, the U.S. is still the favorites for at least three or four events, with another one that's 50-50.

So, if we're honestly assessing the situation, Team USA will most likely top the gold medal chart once the last events wrap up. However, unlike previous iterations where the U.S.'s golds completely overshadow everyone else, this year, the gap will only be 1 or 2 apart.

We (the Chinese) should be happy for the improved results. Why is it necessary to pretend that China is going to be able to take the #1 position? If China somehow remains #1 in gold medal ranking at the end of the day, of course I'll be pleasantly surprised. But taking #2 while being only a few medals behind the U.S. is still an epic improvement over the usual 10+ gold difference.

Given the difference in GDP and comprehensive national power of the two nations, it's nonsense to think that China "ought" to gain more gold medals than the U.S. If it happens, it's because we got lucky, not because our comprehensive athletic capabilities have exceeded the U.S. Surely this is obvious?

Shit talking is for fans who are bantering. It's fucking annoying seeing it in the media. And that goes for the United States' media, too. I don't need to see you dehumanizing Chinese athletes either. Especially when you pretend to be concerned about anti-Asian hate. Fuck off.

I crawled up in the morning for the women's, and now for the men's. I'm basically dying, but worth it.

Currently, Team China men's leading the double's round by 2-0 in sets won. Am seriously worried one of our athletes is going to dive head-first into the surrounding boards. I can see why the coach was so concerned about the small court size.

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Time out: Ah yes, trying to shift the momentum. I'm honestly not that sure about beating Germany. They've been giving China a lot of problems recently. And, as I've said before, the cramped arena is not in China's favor.

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The other thing that concerns me is that China's wearing their black jersey. Psychologically, this is disadvantageous, as studies have shown that, when controlling for skill, wearing red gives an increased win rate compared to the cooler colors (blue/black).

And Germany's wearing red this time.

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First match in hand. Yes! Things are gonna get a little easier from now on. Hopefully. 🤞

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Heh. 樊振东 (Fan Zhendong)'s nickname is “小胖” (little fatty). LOL.

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OK, I know the coach warned that one of the matches might be lost, but this is not giving me any confidence when the first game of the second match is lost by 11-3. Augh!

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Team China catches up! Game 1-1!

Now why is it that when the German team blows on the ball they don't get a warning for breaking the rules?

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I've said this when China played Japan, I'll say it again now against Germany: Defeat the Axis powers!

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3-2! China defeats Germany once more! Only one more match left to win, c'mon China! Do it!

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Two more matches. Two more matches. Go Go Team China! (I'm getting stomach cramps from now nerve wracking things are getting.)

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Just one more! Just one more! Gold is within touching distance! Defeat the Axis!

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Augh! Germany takes one at 13-11. (T_T) The torture continues.

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We did it! Finally! 4 golds, 3 silvers from a total of 5 finals. China continues to dominate table tennis.

Me (on the 28th of July): At this point, I'm pretty sure the gold is going to be a toss-up between Brazil and Spain...

Today:

I'm starting to get pretty good at this sports prediction thing.

Currently, am leaning towards Spain winning gold, but we'll see. Brazil might surprise us.

United States' women's soccer team knocked out by Canada.

Finally, the US's choke hold on women's soccer has ended. Am seriously getting tired of the US getting involved too much in soccer given how little respect they have for this sport. It'd be one thing if they actually seemed to care, but they just want to dominate so they can boss everyone around with zero respect for how the rest of the world view this sport. So yeah, finally, the US pundits can shut the fuck up.

So, all my blathering about doubles is meaningless because men's and women's doubles are no longer a thing! Wow, I have not been keeping up with table tennis development.

Instead of doubles, it's now a team event, which means three out of five athletes need to win their singles match. Hm...I can't tell if this favors or disadvantages China.

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In other Olympic news, China won two more swimming golds! So...Tokyo's shitty Olympic Village housing is basically improving China's chances at some of their weaker sports, because it's fucking with the usual dominance by other nations.

Eh, you win some, you lose some, I guess.

I'm not even surprised Argentina couldn't get past the group stages in men's fútbol. That 2-0 loss to Australia was just too much.

LOL @ Messi watching the game:

I'm sorry, Mochiball, the youths on Argentina are shit.

OK, to be completely fair, Argentina did valiantly fight to the end and equalized with Spain. They were knocked out by Egypt on goal differentials. But they really shouldn't have lost to Australia in the first place and should've gone through with at least 6 points. And Spain didn't help things by drawing to Egypt when they really should've been able to win.

Welp, now Pedri and Eric García goes on for who knows how much longer and will miss the entire pre-season. Meanwhile, I can imagine Messi sulking, since his Argentina got the Olympic gold back in 2008.

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In other fútbol groups: Germany's out of groups because of Côte d’Ivoire, and Japan beats Mexico. (=.=) What is even happening anymore?

At this point, I'm pretty sure the gold is going to be a toss-up between Brazil and Spain, because these are the only two countries that seem to be taking the Olympics seriously. I can't decide who I want to get this. On the one hand, Dani Alves does not need any more titles. On the other hand, Pedri hype is going to go on forever if Spain wins. Both outcomes are horrifying.

And under no circumstances is Japan winning gold an acceptable outcome. NO.

Meanwhile, Piqué is having some kind of midlife crisis meltdown:
( Are you OK, Piqué? Did Shakira say something? )

He's been posting pictures of himself for days on end and tagging it "Forever young". („ಡωಡ„)

I was not following the table tennis news, but apparently there's been some serious kerfluffle over the Tokyo Olympic's table tennis court size.

According to the head coach of the Chinese table tennis team, the athletes complained about the small size of the courts during warm-ups last week (July 21st). The coach, Liu Guoliang, then measured the courts and confirmed that it is indeed smaller than regulation. Table tennis courts use the "ratio" system (number of dividing boards used to encircle the court), with non-finals games played on 7x14 courts and finals played on 8x16 court size. The measurement for the Tokyo Olympic table tennis courts were 6x11.

The smaller court size means that Chinese athletes cannot accelerate at their usual pace safely due to the lack of space. This heavily impacts Chinese table tennis tactics, as one of their strong points is using the full width and depth of the court through their higher acceleration. This especially affects the men's team's performance due to the high reliance on this acceleration in their strategies. This acceleration is the meta which allowed Chinese table tennis athletes to dominate over foreign athletes, as this strategy has yet to be widely adopted by other countries.

Liu has lodged an official complaint, but it was too late to change the venue size.

As I have seen, the male Chinese table tennis athlete had played poorly through out the mix doubles tournament, as Liu said he would be the most impacted.

Remember, all of this was complained about five days ago. Well before the competition began.

So, that does help explain a bit more about why the performance was so terrible.

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And that reminds me that the crew team complained about the water for sculls (rowing) was not properly desalinated, which changed the friction coefficient and buoyancy on their tiny boats. This complaint was lodged by multiple teams, as sculls teams practice and compete in fresh water.

Just another example of the arena being very poorly regulated in this Olympics.

I woke up to shocking news.

I'm not sure I've completely digested the news yet.

But, this is a case of no complaints. The fourth dive was terrible. There was no recovering from that with the kind of margins that exists at the Olympic level. It doesn't matter if the rest of the dives were still heads and shoulders above everyone else, the error on the fourth dive was absolutely horrifying. Honestly, the fact that they were still able to get silver despite the terrible error (the synchronization was completely off, it was like watching Americans dive) tells you the quality of the rest of the dives.

The thing I'm not happy about are people complaining that the athletes didn't have the right mental resilience to win, which is bullshit. These two were previous Olympic gold medalists and have won the international championship in synchronized diving. They've more than proved their mental mettle. What the team needs to do now is figure out why the error occurred and how to prevent this from happening ever again.

And the trend of Chinese men's failing at getting golds that they should be able to get continues. Air pistol, air rifle, now synchronized diving? What's next? Gymnastics? Table tennis? This is a horror show. 😱 Someone get these athletes a sports psychologist and fix this problem.

I still can't get over that fourth dive. Seriously, what is going on in the Chinese diving camp?

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Edit to add: OK, you know what? I think I'm getting over it. Even Messi misses penalties. Sometimes, disasters happen. Even more so in sports. The fact that China has managed to win men's 10m platform synchronized diving gold medal in four Olympics in a row is already an achievement. And the dream of winning all of the diving golds was always a long shot. We'll come back 3 years later and be stronger. 💪

中国跳水队加油！

Another gold in the bag. Yes, I'm updating before the game even ends, that's how ahead the team is.

What cracks me up is the commentator criticizing the US duo for trying too hard to get the individual execution points and not paying enough attention to the synchronization...y'know, the most important bit for synchronized diving.

Not gonna lie, the US team was shit. I'm not usually one to shit on athletes, but there's a good reason the US duo came in last in the finals. The quality difference between the other nations and the US was...shockingly huge. And it was amazing how confident the two of them seemed to be, as if they didn't realize they're falling behind. I've just never seen that kind of confidence on athletes when they're at the bottom of the pack. Color me stunned.