Remember when the Olympics was about sending ordinary people who were good at a skill to compete, instead of a life-long career pushing body and tech to the edge to see who would win the arms race of a sport?
I don't either, it's been a while. As a 70s kid it was the same as it is now, just less knowledge of how to squeeze everything out of an athlete.
And best of all, in a ton of countries, once these athletes have competed, they STILL won't make much money to make up for the years of hardcore work to reach this level and make their country proud.
There's nothing wrong with his poise. He's not wearing headgear besides his glasses, but otherwise he's standing pretty much the same as other shooters. A lot of shooters wear eye shades or visors, but most of them stand like that. You place your off hand in your pocket, and lean back slightly to align the sights. It's not the first time a shooter's pose has gone viral for looking like a casual badass gangster.
It is such a perfect example of the internet that the woman in this pose is treated like a fool and the man with the exact same pose is some kind of badass.
This has nothing to do with male or female. It all started with the Korean women shooter looking badass with all her kit and pose. Then this middle age dad showed up with no kit, regular glasses and shot incredibly well looking like, yeah no big deal.
During the Tokyo games in 2021, an image of the 2016 Rio games gold medal winner was posted on Twitter (erroneously being labelled as being from the Tokyo games), and she became a meme for women not knowing how to shoot because of her casual stance, and the subsequent meme for armchair experts trying to mansplain shooting to a gold medalist. At the time, it was a popular meme.
I think my problem is that so many of the mews don't even reference him being in every man, or not using specialized equipment, they just have a picture of him with no context or caption
I find it to be an extremely stupid meme. He lost to someone using high tech shit. I don't get why people are trying to make him into something more than he was.
To be fair though the fancy equipment isn’t giving any sort of advantage or anything. It’s just applying prescription eyeglasses to shooting. Apart from that no difference with other competitors.
It’s intended to replace prescription eyeglasses because they are inconvenient to shoot with.
It has the same function, except tailored to shooting (only one eye). So you aren’t getting a noticeable advantage vs someone with perfect eyesight (otherwise it wouldnt be legal at olympics).
They also let you adjust the aperture size with an iris and/or apply colored filters! The filters help with the harsh lighting, and the aperture helps reduce strain on your eye. It's a bit like having a supportive insole for your face.
That they even allow acuity correction is different from all other sports. For example my vision is very far from human perfect. 20/20 is average but some people have natural 20/10 vision. Similarly some people are naturally stronger than me but I wouldn't be allowed to use a passive device (like an arm extension that would give mechanical advantage to throwing) to compensate for my natural average strength.
Right, I mean what sport would use an arm extension for mechanical advantage like a cricket bat, a field hockey stick, a badminton racket, a ping pong paddle, a lacrosse stick, a vaulting pole, a tennis racket, a golf club, ski poles, ice hockey sticks, or curling brooms?
If the equipment is available to all, it's not creating an unfair advantage.
Everyone has the same equipment in those games. That equipment is carefully regulated.
Regulating how much a human can be enhanced isn't a weird concept. Nike shoes and shark swimsuits were also banned. Here's a science YouTuber that covers the issue and specifically mentions the glasses that shooters are allowed.
It does provide an advantage. One side of the headgear obfuscates vision from that eye so that they can shoot with both eyes open, but don't have to learn how to block out input from the non targeting eye. The shooting eye lens can be prescription, but the main purpose is to narrow their field of vision, providing increased focus, and essentially becoming a 3rd sighting aperture. They're legal because all of the shooters have the option to use them, and most do, because they provide an advantage. The Turkish shooter doesn't use them because he's trained a lifetime without them and has learned to ignore input from his non-sighting eye. That, combined with his T-shirt as a uniform, and his casual demeanor, is what people find appealing.