The Olympics

A selection of the very best posts and/or most memorable threads on KUMB since the current Forum launched in 2002.

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Hambrosia Stu
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Hambrosia Stu »

inter me nan wrote:bolt,s personality is there for everyone to see, joking with the people before the race,the twinkle in his eye, your comparisons with ali are spot on, they both share/shared a inner confidence bordering on arrogance, but it never seemed to spill over, i have seen many lesser athletes, try and fail miserably at the same thing.....you can see the lie in there eyes, they cant pull it off.....i remember prince naseem trying to do the ali thing with a sneer instead of a smile......it was embarrassing.
I couldn't agree more with you there (the whole of your post, not just the bit I've quoted), and you make a great point about Bolt (as did mcan with his Ali comparison)

Anyone else, and his confidence could start to grate. But as you say, he has the talent to back it up, and it never comes across as serious arrogance but more a jokey acknowledgement of his undoubted talent


Up the Junction wrote:Here's a bit of a coup... a KUMB.com Q&A with the marvellous Mark Hunter MBE:

http://www.kumb.com/qa.php?id=36" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
A great read that, and what a great guy. Cheers! :thup:
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inter me nan
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Re: The Olympics

Post by inter me nan »

stu .....how many boxers do you know mate? i take it you have met loads to form that opinion.
or is it just some of the few you have seen on the T.V that you are basing this on.
you are stereotyping even more than D.C.
i accept that D.C ,s comments were innocent, i dont believe he meant any harm.
and i understand you having his back and, and explaining how his comment was made,
very noble.
I understand i may have overreacted slightly, and i thought explained myself in an earlier post, i said i would like to draw a line under it......maybe you didn,t read it....maybe you did, and thought it wise to carry on. so i will indulge you.

stu.. i,ve met hundreds of boxers, mostly amateurs, plenty ,of white collar fellas...city boys, lawyers, one or two doctors..all enjoying the sport.....get yourself down your local gym fella, meet some of these people that you think are all imbeciles, unfortunately you are one of the people that have an outdated view on boxing, sure it does attract plenty of kids off the beaten track, that are academically underdeveloped, but there are also plenty of smart sporty kids that take up boxing.
try telling carl froch that he is stupid, or nathan cleverley..who are both smart eloquent boxers, that attended university and got degrees, or even the klitchko brothers who both have Phd,s or marco antonio barrera who has a degree in law, i could go on but i wont, because i dont want to bore you.sadly for every froch i suppose there is a chisora......and that is who the media seems to think it is better focusing on.
i accept this doesn,t do it any favours.and hasn,t improved the image of boxing.
but i dont agree with your views at all.
but it,s not your fault because as i mentioned earlier the ones who catch the headlines are the ones that misbehave the most, same as football..the bartons, terry,s hayes , chisoras.
i hope i,m wrong and you know loads of boxers that have trouble tying there own laces, therefore you made your call on that :D



...
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Hambrosia Stu
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Hambrosia Stu »

Inter, mate, I'm not having a pop, nor have I got DC's back. I was just trying to explain a point.
I'm not having a dig at boxers either. I can't say I know many these days, gym's in general are places I tend to avoid, but I've known a few. My mate was schoolboy champion around here at one of the very light weights, and his brother was a beast, but that's by the by...

I think you made the point yourself about what boxing can do for the local community, how it can set kids back on the straight and narrow having fallen in with the wrong crowd etc. Often such kids are ones who didn't do well at school, weren't academically brilliant, so school didn't really engage with them, and they find themselves kind of out on a limb having slipped through the school system

All of which is a generalisation of course. In much the same way I could say a lot of our rowers and horsey types tend to be well educated public school boys. As such, it tends to be the case that a lot of our rowers are very well spoken. A lot of them have probably had public speaking lessons whilst at some posh school. Generalisation again, but bear with me...

Football is traditionally the working classes sport. As such, (and combined with the point I made earlier that to become that good at football something has to make way, often academic study) many footballers aren't massively intelligent or well spoken. But that's not really the point. The point is that, imo, a lot of footballers come across as spoilt, arrogant, ignorant, ungrateful, rude, etc

The obvious comparison, imo, with the sort of background you get a lot in football, would be boxing. A proper working class game. Far more than say tennis, rowing, equestrian events. Yet the difference, when you hear someone like Nicola Adams being interviewed, compared to your average footballer, was massive. She was eloquent, bright, a joy to listen to. That was the point that was being made. That our olympians, across the board, even those who might not have had a brilliant schooling (as is perhaps more likely in boxing than a lot of other olympic sports), didn't in any way come across as arrogant, rude, or any of those things. Nicola was used as an example, but the same could have been said of Agogo, Joshua or Campbell

Sure it is a generalisation. Maybe Nicola Adams went to Eton, I don't know. Maybe some of our equestrian team got kicked out of their comprehensive schools for smoking crack behind the bike sheds. I don't know. But that's not really the point that was being made

It's not about the background, but about how you conduct yourself, and our olympic boxers were used as an example of that
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inter me nan
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Re: The Olympics

Post by inter me nan »

Stu I know you were not having a pop fella it's all good.
Truth is boxing attracts all sorts.
Some of the lads I boxed with as a teen, ended up in prison, some it kept out of prison.
I know a few who were attracted to the violence, that carried it on into there proffesional lives, bouncers, security, police etc......some were not violent in the slightest, some just loved the chess match of hitting and not getting hit, kinda like a game of tag.

I suppose its more of. Working class sport nowadays.....it never used to be ,it was once the sport of the gentrified classes, boxers were known as men of the "fancy".
But times change I guess, and so do people that watch the sport.
Terrestrial T.V stopped showing boxing, audleys deal with the bbc put paid to that.
Boxers relied on sky sports and pay per view audiences, and started to play up more, gain more publicity to sell their fights and line their pockets.
Gone are he days where the general public know who the British champions are, the days of Bruno, benn , eubank etc are gone.
The fact that the gb Olympic boxers done so well, shows that kids have been inspired, eight years ago khan was our only boxer that qualified for the Olympics, four years later we had success with degale, price,etc.
Now we have this new lot ready to inspire a new generation, hopefully these guys and girls can be positive role models down the line.......we need them to be , as there are already more enough arseholes , and bad role models in sports. :thup:
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Hammer Laffers
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Hammer Laffers »

*sitting back with popcorn* I love these kind of threads to entertain me on a night shift.

I actually thought it was impossible for DC to offend anyone :lol:
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Bend it like Repka »

Hammer Laffers wrote: I actually thought it was impossible for DC to offend anyone :lol:
His crap horse tips always piss me right off.
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Re: The Olympics

Post by delbert »

This thread is in danger of losing the Olympic spirit....... :lol:
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Sweeney Bod »

delbert wrote:This thread is in danger of losing the Olympic spirit....... :lol:
Tell me about it. A week ago, this thread was a joy to be a part of. Sporting chat without hostility and bickering, then DC comes along with his fascist bullyboy stereotypes and stomps, no doubt in jackboots, all over the Olympian spirit.

Forget Safe Mode, his comments show he was in Nazi Mode.

SHAME
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Clucking Bell »

Sweeney Bod wrote:. A week ago, this thread was a joy to be a part of. Sporting chat without hostility and bickering........
Just think of our enjoyment of the Olympics like Christmas Day 1914 in the trenches ....... a nice, friendly kick-about with goodwill to all mankind ..... before we get back to the serious business of machine- gunning each other :D
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Re: The Olympics

Post by mcan »

Looks like Sheffield Utd's number one fan wasn't too impressed about being overlooked for the Opening Ceremony -

" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Yes, it's back. :lol:
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Re: The Olympics

Post by mcan »

Just read the interview with Mark Hunter, didn't know he was a Hammer let alone from East Ham, top piece KUMB and well done Mark if you ever come on here (unlikely, most of us are useless couch potatos).

Oddly this was still one of my highlights, yes that interview. John Inverdale sums it up perfectly - you let nobody down.

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Hambrosia Stu
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Hambrosia Stu »

mcan wrote:Just read the interview with Mark Hunter, didn't know he was a Hammer let alone from East Ham, top piece KUMB and well done Mark if you ever come on here (unlikely, most of us are useless couch potatos).
Agreed, it was a really good read that

And I fully agree about Inverdale. Before the Olympics, I really despised the bloke. But credit where it's due, he was pretty good most of the time, and was excellent on more than a few ocassions. The "you let nobody down" moment was top drawer
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Re: The Olympics

Post by mcan »

Each to his own, always rated Inverdale as one of the best and most underused presenters on the BBC. Their 6 nations coverage is one of the best sports they do (allbeit they don't cover that much these days) and I always think Inverdale's easy going style is part of that.
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Denbighammer »

I see in todays Sun that The X Factor are doing an 'Olympics Special' soon. God help us.

Tom Daley, Jess Ennis etc signed up.

I really hoped the Olympics would be the antidote to such rampant fuckwittery as the The X-Factor, perhaps show people theres more to life than 'bein faymus' but no, even the bloody Olympians are getting in on the act and endorsing **** like this. What a shame. :thdn:
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Philosophical Dan »

TBH, if I was an Olympian, with a demonstrably short career, I'd be doing my damndest to cash in when the opportunity presented itself. Raise my profile as much as possible, take every endorsement offered, scrape together as much money as possible, then try not to lose it all through bad investment.
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Re: The Olympics

Post by warp »

and i thought only evil footballers would do that...
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Clucking Bell »

Philosophical Dan wrote:TBH, if I was an Olympian, with a demonstrably short career, I'd be doing my damndest to cash in when the opportunity presented itself. Raise my profile as much as possible, take every endorsement offered, scrape together as much money as possible, then try not to lose it all through bad investment.
Fair point, particularly if you compete in one of those sports that have a pretty low profile outside of the Olympics. Not sure that this applies to Jess Ennis or Tom Daley though: I'd imagine that they have pretty decent sponsorship and endorsement deals as it is.
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Philosophical Dan »

Aye - that matey who won the Long Jump, for example. Give it a few years and there'll be some furrowed brows when Barker asks Tufnell who won Gold in 2012. If he's sensible, from a financial position at least, he'll cash the f*ck in now.

At least, in their cases, they've done something to justify selling out.
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Re: The Olympics

Post by mcan »

I don't have a problem with 'selling out', in fact I wouldn't term it as that, more maximising their incomes, After all, they won't earn huge amounts for very long. If Jess or Vicky P want to sell their wedding to ok in this instance I wouldn't begrudge it one bit.

But the X Factor? To many who were enthralled by the Games it's the antithesis of what we enjoyed. Then again I'm looking forward to seeing Vicky on SCD (if the rumours are true), but at least she'll be competing in something there than acting as a pointless 'mentor'.
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Re: The Olympics

Post by Clacton-ammer »

What is SCD Mcan?
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