The Olympic Games

[Mr Doug]

Hopefully, Ukraine will never split, or we'll have Team NUK and Team SUK!!

 

[Mr Doug]

Did Zara also get dispensation, albeit she is not an official royal being female offspring of a commoner?

Lincoln, my guess is she had her "pre-Oympics physical examination" during the 2011 RWC!

 

[Scotty]

How can you qualify if you do not finish?
Maybe a few more sets of springs was needed

They were coming last in their heat when they got taken out. Lodged a protest and somehow that meant they got added to the 8 already in the final. Beats me how that works?!

 

[AngrySeahorse]

Watched Matt Mitcham do a perfect dive, can't remember the difficulty but it was brilliant. Stayed together, great entry to the water with the barest of splashes & he gets just over 90. Another diver goes in, similar difficulty, not as well held together, more splash, gets over 95. WTF???

It's a conspiracy I tell ya!

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Woman's Elliot class sailing. 15 races, and the Gold Medal comes down to one bad tactical decision near the leeward mark in the final race where the Spaniards caught us on starboard.

Sailing used to be as boring as Competitive Lawn Mowing, but the 3D graphics and short racing formats have introduced a lot of tension and excitement into the mix.

Well done to our Ladies Crew on winning Silver, and how good were the Spanish crew at the end? All three of them abandoned ship in celebration!

 

[Mr Doug]

Woman's Elliot class sailing. 15 races, and the Gold Medal comes down to one bad tactical decision near the leeward mark in the final race where the Spaniards caught us on starboard.

Sailing used to be as boring as Competitive Lawn Mowing, but the 3D graphics and short racing formats have introduced a lot of tension and excitement into the mix.

Well done to our Ladies Crew on winning Silver, and how good were the Spanish crew at the end? All three of them abandoned ship in celebration!

Hugh, have you watched any footage of ride-on mower racing? Plenty of noise and plenty of dust, it's certainly not boring!

 

[Hugh Jarse]

I should have used the more traditional "boring as bat shit" or "watching the grass grow". In trying to add a competitive Olympics like edge to my metaphor, it would appear I have outsmarted my good self.

 

[Baldric]

Watching the marathon, please Eddie can you shut up.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

Watching the marathon, please Eddie can you shut up.

In the pantheon of annoying nuffies employed by Ch Nein at these games, he'd have to be near the zenith of nuffydom. That bloke Stefanic is on par. It's hard to split them.

 

[Baldric]

It's hard to split them.

I would love to split them, with and axe!

 

[Scotty]

http://www.smh.com.au/olympics/news...to-olympics-sports-bosses-20120813-2436p.html

Coates, not really thinking before he speaks.

In a calmly delivered yet pointed assessment of the national team's results, the Australian Olympic Committee said: "I wouldn't point the finger at our athletes, I couldn't do that. I leave a question mark on whether the attitude and the ownership is as good as it could be in the management of some of some of the sports.
"Any corporation is only as good as its CEO or chairman and the direction that's coming from there."

 

[barbarian]

Craddock's report card:

ARCHERY: Elisa Barnard crashed out in the preliminary rounds but Taylor Worth, 21, upstaged the world No.1 and reached the quarter-finals where he lost in a tense shoot-out. RATING: C+

ATHLETICS: A Sally Pearson gold and silvers to Mitchell Watt (long jump) and Jarred Talent (50km walk) tidies up the bottom line and hoisted Australia to 10th place on the athletics medal table, but behind the scenes the sport is in a mess. Rating: B.

​

BADMINTON: After an early food-poisoning scare, never really got the taste for it. Australia got a second chance in the quarter-finals after the Chinese 'tanking' scandal. Renuga Veeran and Leanne Choo were recalled but lost to Canada. Rating: D

BASKETBALL: Men's team went down fighting in the quarter-final to the Dream Team. Opals won bronze but wanted to be in the gold medal match. Early loss cost them and pitted them against the US in the semi-final. Rating: C

​

BEACH VOLLEYBALL: Great venue, terrific fan support but no medals. Nat Cook and Tamsin Hinchley, and Louise Bawden and Becchara Palmer both missed finals. Rating: D+

BOXING: High hopes were KO'd again. Gold medal hope Damien Hooper went out in the second round after beating a US fighter in the first round while Jeff Horn made it to the third. Rating: D+

​

CYCLING: Anna Meares' memorable gold medal highlighted a steady effort featuring three silver and a bronze. Great Britain ruled the cycle track but no other team got more than Australia's one gold. Rating: B+

​

KAYAK-CANOE: They planned for it, prioritised it and they got the gold medal in the K4 1000 with Jacob Clear, Tait Smith, Murray Stewart and Dave Smith saluting. Jess Fox's stunning silver medal in the white water kayaking should be the start of a lengthy career. The rest generally struggled, but in the context of Australia's poor Games, this was a top result. Rating: A-

DIVING: Brittany Broben, 16, from the Gold Coast, won a spectacular silver on debut in the Olympic 10m platform. Melissa Wu finished fourth while gold medallist from Beijing Matt Mitcham did not make the final. Rating: B-

​

EQUESTRIAN: Edwina Tops-Alexander and Julia Hargreaves made the final of the individual showjumping. Australia didn't make an impact in eventing, the traditionally strong discipline for us. More was expected. Dressage was a wipe-out. Rating: D

GYMNASTICS: Josh Jefferis surprisingly made the men's all-round final, making him Australia's greatest all-round gymnast. World championship medallist Lauren Mitchell failed to win a medal in the women's individual floor but injury hampered her. Rating: C-

JUDO: Not our forte and struggled accordingly. Arnie Dickens was eliminated in the first round. Rating: D

HOCKEY: A disappointing bronze to the Kookaburras, who were gold medal favourites. They played timidly for much of the tournament. Cheeky yet unlucky performance by the Hockeyroos who only conceded two goals before the semi-finals yet missed out on a spot on goal difference. Rating: C

​

MODERN PENTATHLON: Ed Fernon ranked 27th of 36 while Chloe Esposito finished seventh. Not our go. Rating: D

ROWING: Unlike Beijing, where they chipped in with two golds, could not find the top of the dais despite an honourable group return of two silvers and three bronze and the discovery of poster girl Kim Crow, who defied history by winning two medals. Rating: C

SAILING: Stunning effort. The stars of the show. Saved the entire team with three gold medals from Tom Slingsby (laser), 49ers Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen and 470s Matthew Belcher and Malcolm Page, plus a silver in the women's Elliot 6m. Rating: A+

​

SHOOTING: Michael Diamond led all day, was going to win gold, but blew it in the last five of 200 shots to miss a medal. The rest blew it as well. Russell Mark is finished in the double trap and his wife Lauryn was well out of sorts in the skeet. Rating: D+

​

SWIMMING: One women's relay gold, six silver and three bronze gave Australia a flat pass mark on the medal volume scale, but the lack of a golden sheen had a telling effect on the overall team total and that will be how these Games are remembered. Alicia Coutts' five medals were outstanding, while James Magnussen's near miss in the 100m was one of the most dramatic events of the Games for Australia. Rating: C-

SYNCRONISED SWIMMING: Did very well to essentially fund their own effort to get here, but never looked like making the podium which was beyond expectations anyway. Rating: D

​

TABLE TENNIS: As expected, did not make a major impression and even the enchantingly named Miao Miao got done by a whisker. Rating: D

TAEKWONDO: Safwan Khalil made the bronze medal match but missed out as did his fiance Carmen Marton. Rating: C

TENNIS: Sam Stosur was eliminated in the first round and Lleyton Hewitt missed a medal, despite troubling Novak Djokovic. Doubles were poor. Rating: D-

​

TRIATHLON: The women again pulled their weight with a medal, with Erin Densham taking bronze. The men are well off the pace on the world scene and need to unearth new talent. Rating: B-

VOLLEYBALL: Australia's best effort, upsetting Poland in the early rounds but failing to make the quarter-final. Given the sport a boost. Rating: C+

WATERPOLO: Disappointing finish with the Stingers finishing with a bronze and the Sharks getting knocked out in the quarter-finals, but they took Serbia to the wire and lived up to expectations. Rating: C

WEIGHTLIFTING: Only sent two lifters and Damon Kelly can be proud of his 16th in the super heavyweight. Rating: C

WRESTLING: Not our forte and never likely to win a medal in future Games. Farzad Tarash's campaign lasted four minutes. Rating: D

Think he's a bit harsh on some of the minor sports who produced good efforts- William Henzel in the Table Tennis reaching the 3rd round (1st time ever for an Australian), Chloe Esposito coming 7th in the Pentathlon (not a traditional strength), the Men's Volleyballers.

But fair enough other than that I reckon.
.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

I tend to look at our Olympic performance in terms of the sports where we are traditionally pretty strong, like swimming, cycling, sailing, rowing, canoeing/kayaking, equestrian, triathlon and hockey. You could also add athletics, but our glory days are well and truly behind us. In those sports, there is usually an expectation that we'll win medals and quite a few of them gold.

Swimming definitely under performed for mine. They are the best funded, best equiped and generally best looked after of all our athletes. To win only one gold I think is below expectations and with the way a few of them carried on, a bit of a reality check is in order. Much work to be done before 2016 I think.

You could say the same for our hockey teams. The women's team did pretty well and weren't favoured to win gold, but they'd be a bit disappointed to have not made the medal round. You need to score to win hockey games and they couldn't. The blokes choked, pure and simple. Just like they have on so many other occasions.

In the sailing and paddling events, great stuff. To win the medals we did was outstanding and much credit should go to those teams. The rowers would be wishing for more, but a couple of those crews ran into some red-hot Brits peaking at the right time. They'll be back I reckon. Same goes for the triathletes. The juniors coming up through that sport mean we'll always be there or there abouts.

Equestrian fizzled after a very promising start, but I reckon that any sport involving animals is little better than a lottery. Athletics was slightly off where we expected too. Watt will be gutted that the shortest jump in 40 years won gold and it wasn't him up on the top step of the dias. Sally Pearson did what she set out to do and I didn't really expect Steve Hooker to figure in the medals after his massive attack of the yips this season.

If I were to score it out of 10, I'd give our Olympics a 6.5 or 7 -- not bad, but probably short of where we thought we'd be. With that said, the last 12 years have spoiled the sporting public here. No way we were going to scale the lofty heights of Sydney and Athens again.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

To quote Andrew Denton, "At least we beat the kiwis"


Edit: Phew. Only just.......Thanks Drug Cheats!

 

[Sully]

Well a quick calculation shows me that we kicked arse. Check this out.
USA 105 medals 311 million punters. Nearly 3 million per medal.
Australia 35 medals 25 million punters. 700000 per medal.
Too easy the games are now an aussie success story.

Sent using Tapatalk

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

How about the Poms, Sully?

Forgot cycling: not bad, but could have been better. We had a couple of world champions going into the games only one of them truly fired. The Poms caned everyone.

 

[Bullrush]

Well a quick calculation shows me that we kicked arse. Check this out.
USA 105 medals 311 million punters. Nearly 3 million per medal.
Australia 35 medals 25 million punters. 700000 per medal.
Too easy the games are now an aussie success story.

Sent using Tapatalk

Australia were apparently 17th on population based medal tally. NZ was 4th. Before we got our 6th Gold Medal awarded tonite to Valerie Adams in the women's shot-put....oh yeah!

 

[Scotty]

Australia were apparently 17th on population based medal tally. NZ was 4th. Before we got our 6th Gold Medal awarded tonite to Valerie Adams in the women's shot-put..oh yeah!

On the gold vs population table kiwis did well and Aussies average, but we will conveniently ignore gold and calculate on overall medals where I believe we are the top!

But in reality we know our athletes under performed, but I will that up to them to worry about because they are the ones making all the effort while I just sit on my arse in front of the tv every 4 years!

 

[Dan54]

Yep and isn't it great Scotty, we are experts and critics every 4 years and then we all go back to ignoring most of these sports again.

 

[Nusadan]

Yep and isn't it great Scotty, we are experts and critics every 4 years and then we all go back to ignoring most of these sports again.

Except rugby here after the next Olympics!