A lot of catching up to do ... this weekend, we took our 11-month-old to his first camping trip, which also meant being screenless and unplugged, of course. I haven't even had a chance yet to watch the complete Opening Ceremony, just enough to know that director Danny Boyle letting loose NHS nurses and a multitude of Mary Poppinses to defeat Lord Voldemort, all set to Mike Oldfield's haunting (Tubular Bells) and at the same time uplifting (In Dulci Jubilo) soundtrack, was so positively zany that it instantly warmed the heart of this lifelong Mike Oldfield fan. (For the curious, the NHS is classed in 362.10941 Health services—Great Britain, built with 362.1 [Social services to] People with physical illnesses plus T2—41 British Isles [United Kingdom is in a class-here note].)
The first gold medal, which went to China, was awarded in the women's 10m air rifle event. Because (a long time ago in a galaxy far far away) I used to compete in this sport myself (never advanced above the state [that is, the German Land] level, however) I still try to watch at least the finals of the air rifle events. The finals consist of 10 shots with each one to be delivered within 75 seconds. If you have ever seen a final score of such an event, you might wonder how on earth it can amount to something like 502.9 "rings" after 50 shots when the target consists of 9 concentric rings and a 0.5 mm Ø "dot" for the 10 ring in the center; shouldn't the maximum potential score be 500 rings? Well, after the qualifying first 40 (women) or 60 (men) shots, it is not uncommon for most contestants to score the maximum 10 rings on all but two or three of their shots. In order to differentiate more finely for the final 10 shots, the accuracy of a 10 ring score is then also taken into account, i.e., 10.0 for barely scratching the 10 ring, 10.9 for a perfect shot in the center of the target. So the maximum score for the women's event is therefore 509 rings, which has never been achieved as of yet.
Road cycling has only four events, separated in road races and individual time-trials, so it is already half-over! The two road race medals were awarded this weekend to Alexandr Vinokurov competing for Kazakhstan and to Marianne Vos competing for the Netherlands. All four events are classed in the same number, i.e., 796.626 Road cycling, which is an expansion from 796.62 Bicycle racing for Edition 23 of the DDC. The reason these events are classed in the same number is that time trials are also regarded to be races; the athletes race against the clock instead of against human opponents.
Also, the women's hockey tournament got started yesterday. Although this may confuse some North American readers, hockey in Olympic terms doesn't automatically mean ice hockey, but rather field hockey! (Hockey being a summer event may be an additional tip-off.) This will be a topic for a future post, but for DDC 23 we took a fresh look at our provisions for all sports related to hockey. Until we have a chance to discuss this more in-depth when the medals are awarded, please have a look at the new development yourselves in WebDewey or dewey.info. The new interdisciplinary number for hockey (796.356) is a good place to start.
And please remember to follow us on Twitter (@DeweyTeam) to stay on top of all things Dewey.
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