The Olympic Games

[Ash]

Bit of justice in the lightweight men's double sculls.

More "game playing" frm team GB after they get a bad start and struggle, the guy pulls off his seat and demand a restart. There looked to be no technical issue, the guy just slipped off his seat.

Luckily Denmark pipped them on the line.

This after team GB did the same in the cycling last night. Pretty pathetic sportsmanship from Team GB so far. You'd have to be naive to call it a coincidence now.

The French, who had a flyer in the first race before GB neutralized it, came fourth and have appealed after struggling at the start the second time around. Hope it the appeal is successful.

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Angry Seahorse.

This is a forum called Green and Gold Rugby, not Green and Gold Rugby Followers (Backs).

Rugby players do not sprint, 'cause they it has been banned in the ancient scrolls.

Backs sprint, 'cause they can. This is why they are not Rugby players. It is against the commandments of the Rugby Gods.
Commandment the First: If thou needest sprint, it musteth be from no more than 5 metres frometh the Try line, otherwise thou willest be known as a back and not a rugby player.

Sprinting, schminting.

 

[Bullrush]

Lol, you're getting soft Bullrush

I love the joke my mate Kenny (a fellow Wallaby & Crusader supporter) put up on Facebook today, maybe you guys have heard it:

We woulda done better in the rowing but Tony Abbott was running along the bank yelling, "Stop The Boats" "Stop The Boats"

I saw a variation of this on Q&A the other night with David Pocock. It came thru on the tweets:

BREAKING NEWS - Tony Abbott banned from the rowing venue for stopping the boats.....yes, I did laugh

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Bit of justice in the lightweight men's double sculls.

More "game playing" frm team GB after they get a bad start and struggle, the guy pulls off his seat and demand a restart. There looked to be no technical issue, the guy just slipped off his seat.

Luckily Denmark pipped them on the line.

This after team GB did the same in the cycling last night. Pretty pathetic sportsmanship from Team GB so far. You'd have to be naive to call it a coincidence now.

The French, who had a flyer in the first race before GB neutralized it, came fourth and have appealed after struggling at the start the second time around. Hope it the appeal is successful.

Poor form by the Soap Dodgers in both instances.

IIRC we did bowl a perfectly legitimate delivery underarm to the Sheep Shaggers Cricketers back in '81. We will never live that down, neither should the Soap Dodgers be allowed to forget their "legitimate" restarts. As said earlier How must the banned Badminton players feel now given what has been allowed in other sports?

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

I can see through Liesel Jones' comments like grandmas undies. Leisel is not a "la-di-da, it is all about the fun & atmosphere" type of person. She is a dead set pit bull - I say that as a compliment. I'm guessing here but I'm sure deep down she's actually annoyed with her & the swim teams performance but remember back in the day when she actually wore her heart on her sleeve & expressed how genuinely disappointed she was not to win? A lot of people labelled her as having an attitude problem, for me I call BS. I think she was convinced by those around her to change - which is crap, not everyone is the same type of competitor & people should understand that. I'd rather see one of our athletes be pissed off & demanding more rather than just accepting it. Sure if you medal less than Gold or don't even get a medal then there are limits to dummy spits but damn I'd prefer someone going off their tit in disappointment rather than 'oh well, this is the Olympics, yay!'.

That's what I thought too. She's always been such a competitor and outward about it too. Something's different this time.

 

[AngrySeahorse]

Angry Seahorse.

This is a forum called Green and Gold Rugby, not Green and Gold Rugby Followers (Backs).

Rugby players do not sprint, 'cause they it has been banned in the ancient scrolls.

Backs sprint, 'cause they can. This is why they are not Rugby players. It is against the commandments of the Rugby Gods.
Commandment the First: If thou needest sprint, it musteth be from no more than 5 metres frometh the Try line, otherwise thou willest be known as a back and not a rugby player.

Sprinting, schminting.

LMAO, whoa! Hold up! I cop enough given I love playing in the backrow "Pseudo-forward" I get called (being a former winger in my teen years does not help).

Tonights game here in Newcastle took the cake. You would have loved it. I turn up expecting to play 2nd row & the coach pulls me to the side & says "We are up the creek. We are a back or two down. You're one of the faster forwards. Could you do a job for me & play blind side winger but rove like Ioane & play like you normally do as a loose forward & hover around the backs - I also want you to hit rucks when we are in attack & pilfer in defence". I felt like saying "So you mean you want me to play like Higgers, not Diggers?" but I just nodded. Anyhow, went out there & got more touches on the ball & felt more f**ked after the game then when I play in the tight five - WTF is up with that? It must be a women's Rugby thing . Even worse our Fullback went off for a bit with injury & we had no back up so I played at Fullback - which I've only done twice, that was stressful! We won which was great - wrapped up the minor premiership!

Apparently the coach only wanted me to do this for the one game so hopefully I'll be back to 5m efforts soon

Poor form by the Soap Dodgers in both instances.

IIRC we did bowl a perfectly legitimate delivery underarm to the Sheep Shaggers Cricketers back in '81. We will never live that down, neither should the Soap Dodgers be allowed to forget their "legitimate" restarts. As said earlier How must the banned Badminton players feel now given what has been allowed in other sports?

True, the good thing to come out of this is that whenever our poor showing at the Olympics comes up I can always retort that the Poms cheated their way to victory - on more than one occasion too. Leans more support to the idea that the Olympics was rigged to favour the Poms (I don't seriously believe that though). I don't like what the Badminton players did but the Poms did the same thing, where is the consistency. The only consistent thing that sticks out like dogs balls here is that the ones that got away with it the most were the Poms.

That's what I thought too. She's always been such a competitor and outward about it too. Something's different this time.

Probably doesn't help that people like Dawn Fraser come out & scold her. Dawn should know better, she was hardly an easy going character herself - easy to say just about anything after you retire isn't it?

In addition Steven Solomon doing a PB in the 400m justifies his selection over Steffensen IMO.

 

[Mr Doug]

Lol, you're getting soft Bullrush

I love the joke my mate Kenny (a fellow Wallaby & Crusader supporter) put up on Facebook today, maybe you guys have heard it:

We woulda done better in the rowing but Tony Abbott was running along the bank yelling, "Stop The Boats" "Stop The Boats"

Tony would have been cycling along the track // the rowing course wearing the full lycra kit!

 

[AngrySeahorse]

Tony would have been cycling along the track // the rowing course wearing the full lycra kit!

I'm sure you'll understand why I can't 'like' anything about that post Mr Doug. The thought of Abbott doing that is enough to give me nightmares!

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Would Tony have red undies under the lycra?

The Lucky Red Jocks (LRJ) worked for the first couple of days, but were unfortunately in the wash on the day of the the Cycling Time Trial. The Soap Dodgers got a couple of Golds that night proving the power of the jinx in the LRJ's.

The problem is that they can't be worn on all occasions.

To get the focus right, when is your mate paddling in the K1? The Jarses will ensure that all LRJ are cleaned and worn ready that night.

 

[Mr Doug]

I'm sure you'll understand why I can't 'like' anything about that post Mr Doug. The thought of Abbott doing that is enough to give me nightmares!

Don't you mean "nightstallions" AS?

 

[AngrySeahorse]

Don't you mean "nightstallions" AS?

Funny that. I'm watching the equestrian right now!

 

[Mr Doug]

Funny that. I'm watching the equestrian right now!

Ditto!

 

[Hugh Jarse]

Female triathlon- Erin Densham has a red hot chance.
Mens 4- Will be a match race vs the Brits, they edged us in the semi though
Kim Crow- Female sculler, outside chance at gold

Those three all race tomorrow I think. How are our cyclists looking? Other than that it's Pearson and Watt in the athletics, our BMXers and then the team sports.
.

1. In with a chance but blown away in the last 500m.
2. Sliver
3. Bronze.

I suspect our golden "glory" will come from unexpected sports. Sailors are looking good for a couple.

 

[AngrySeahorse]

God I can't stand those Com bank ads.

The more I see the German Olympians the more I'm convinced I've inherited my competitiveness from my German grand mother. Have a look at them, they are f**king intense. Now I can't discount my Irish side, it is competitive too, it is just that we're only good for drinking & Irish Martial Arts which basically involves head butting then stamping on someone's neck while they are on the ground.

Being born Aussie helps

Here we go, use this to influence the Oz Olympic teams next time:

PS. Go Paddy Barnes (IRL) in the boxing! - he won, just seeing the replay now (even though I think Olympic boxing is a bit suss).

 

[AngrySeahorse]

Women's 3m Springboard - both Aussie women have qualified for the final tomorrow.

 

[lily]

Is Ray Hadley fucking blind? The Fox swimming commentary was atrocious.

 

[fatprop]

For those who may have missed it, the Aus "failure" to win golds in London was predicted in 2008 because the aus government had started to reduce our investment in elite sport while the UK et al actually bought a load of our sport scientists and increased investment

Kevin Norton: Sport at the elite level is expensive, and becoming more expensive. So we estimated for example back in 2000 that it was about $40-million per gold medal that we won. I imagine that with inflation that cost of the Olympic gold, if you like, has increased. That's just general inflation. But it also inflates at a faster rate because other countries, like China and the UK as we've mentioned, are putting in so much money. So it's like an international sporting war, where it's going to cost a lot more to stay in the same relative position on that international league table.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/sports-wars/3282794

There is a transcript of the whole piece or you can listen to it, well worth a look

 

[AngrySeahorse]

For those who may have missed it, the Aus "failure" to win golds in London was predicted in 2008 because the aus government had started to reduce our investment in elite sport while the UK et al actually bought a load of our sport scientists and increased investment




There is a transcript of the whole piece or you can listen to it, well worth a look

I'll def listen to this later sounds good.

Read a story on silver medalist rower Drew Ginn. I like his statement.

"It is disappointing we feel like we have let Australia and the rowing fraternity and our families down," Ginn said.

In addition the article makes a good point of how people can feel when they get different to Gold. "Some silver medals are sublime surprises but others feel like consolation prizes and this was one of them." (not Ginn just the writer).

This point in the article is interesting "Race morning contained an early plot twist when strong cross breezes forced a reallocation of lanes in which Great Britain were given the most sheltered lane - six - and Australia to four. An an hour before the race the heavens opened with London's biggest storm of the week." Is there a reason the Poms got the most favourable lane? isnt it supposed to be based on who was fastest? Bit like the swimming, fastest end up in the middle lanes?

Disappointed for Watt in the long jump I thought he was a real good chance of Gold.

I don't think I'll put the mockers on anyone left.

 

[The_Brown_Hornet]

For those who may have missed it, the Aus "failure" to win golds in London was predicted in 2008 because the aus government had started to reduce our investment in elite sport while the UK et al actually bought a load of our sport scientists and increased investment




There is a transcript of the whole piece or you can listen to it, well worth a look

That was great reading, thanks FP. Here are some other things to chew on:


The Crawford Review, saying that more emphasis should be put on the general population than elite Olympic athletes

http://www.health.gov.au/internet/m...DD4CA257671000E4C45/$File/Crawford_Report.pdf

Some key paragraphs:

First, the funding imbalance between Olympic and non-Olympic sports should be questioned.
More emphasis should be given to sports that are popular with many Australians. There are 19
Australian teams which hold ‘Top Three’ world rankings and more than half of these are in non Olympic sports.
The bias towards funding Olympic sports leads to outcomes that make little strategic sense for
Australia.

For example, more government funds are provided for archery than cricket which has
more than 100 times the number of participants according to unpublished ASC data. Water polo
receives as much high performance and Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) funding as golf, tennis
and lawn bowls combined—even though these sports can rightly claim to be ‘whole of lifetime’
sports and significant contributors to the Australian Governments preventative health agenda.
Second, the quantum of spending needs to be more rigorously assessed. The Panel was advised
that calculating the ‘costs of medals’ is difficult and any conclusion would be problematic. The
Panel understand this but some effort needs to be made because without this information,
investment decisions cannot be made on a rational basis.

What we do know is that the sustained level of funding required over four years to win Olympic
and Commonwealth games medals is very high. Australia’s medal ranking in Beijing was sixth—a
very creditable result and our third best performance in 30 years. This resulted in 14 gold
medals and 46 medals in total and whichever way the math is done, the result is very expensive.
The ASC’s funding to Olympic sports for their elite programs runs at over $60 million per year
and this does not include state and territory funding or Australian Olympic Committee (AOC)
contributions. Over four year cycles, it is easy to derive figures in the order of $15 million per gold
medal or $4 million per medal. Higher figures are routinely raised in the national media.

and the response of the AOC to that report:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/l...-london-olympics/story-fn9dheyx-1226190375559

In Canberra this morning to address the National Elite Sports Council, Mr Coates said three of Australia's biggest competitors - the UK, France and Germany - were each pouring up to $1.2 billion over four years into their Olympic sports.
Australia is spending around $700 million.

If you look at it on a per capita or per medal basis, I'd say the Brits, Germans and French are getting better bang for the buck than we are.

 

[AngrySeahorse]

So, how's that medal board looking today folks??

Looking great T&B. You know everybody has the rivalries all wrong. Our Olympic rivalry is not with NZ or GB it is with our old sparring partners Uzbekistan who currently sit with just 1 Bronze to our 1 Gold 12 Silvers & 7 Bronze - take that Uzbekistan!