Olympic Games - How are you doing?

[L'irlandais]

Not trying a wind up at all. Her dad is Jamaican. She has a Jamaican face.

Here's a list of the 50-odd Jamaican Athletes at the Games.

 

[Lee Lifeson-Peart]

Here's a list of the 50-odd Jamaican Athletes at the Games.

Are they all siblings? They look so alike.

 

[didds]

see? running, jumping and throwing. the proper olympics. none of this horse poncing nonsense

tho it wins a gold too!


standing up golds include heptathlon, long jump (they only lay down right at the end ;-), running, judo, tennis, shooting, pommeling, offset bars, gymnastics (bot of laying on the floor aesthetically involved?)

where does swimming fit in - its laying down but it is a "vertical" sport wrt the medium it is held in?

didds
didds

 

[didds]

Maybe neither United nor Great?

well, as a UNITED team they've gained a GREAT amount of medals!



didds

 

[Toby Warren]

Not trying a wind up at all. Her dad is Jamaican. She has a Jamaican face.

She sums up modern Britain quite nicely for me.

I think she's British and along with many others are very proud of her performance.

 

[andyscott]

How come women athletes are doing it for all women etc etc yawn.

How about they are doing it for themselves and because they are pretty good at it?

 

[andyscott]

She sums up modern Britain quite nicely for me.

What doesnt work, sponges off the state, has a stinking attitude, blames her childhood for everything............ That would sum up modern Britain.

 

[Agustin]

Are they all siblings? They look so alike.

Huh?


.

 

[Dickie E]

well, as a UNITED team they've gained a GREAT amount of medals!



didds

nice how you can coalesce into a United Kingdom and disperse into component Principalities as & when it suits you:

"Cricket's a bit patchy - better drag Wales in"

"Going all right at rugger - piss the Welsh, Scots & Irish off"

"Farck, gotta do well at Olympics. All hands on deck - yeah, you too, Gibraltar"

 

[Lee Lifeson-Peart]

What doesnt work, sponges off the state, has a stinking attitude, blames her childhood for everything............ That would sum up modern Britain.

Modern Middlesbrough maybe.

 

[The Fat]

Australia perfectly positioned to deliver the biggest load of egg to the faces of many of our officials.
A couple of years ago a report on sport within Australia was completed and as usual was named after its author to be known as The Crawford Report.
Basically it was saying that the funding for the Australian Olympic Committee should remain at current levels and that the grassroots of sports needed much greater assistance and attention.
"BLASPHEMY!!!" cried John Coates (President of the AOC). "We need $100m more for our top athletes. Anything less than 5th in London will be a failure."
Now with our "Superstars" underachieving and our "No-names" either grabbing silver, bronze or PB's, and head coaches and officials jockeying to save their fat-cat salaries and perks heading towards 2016, (that's right, we are only up to Day 10 of the current games and our AOC President has dissed the team and is already talking about 2016), John Coates is now saying that we should be looking at the findings and recommendations of the Crawford Report (the same one he wanted to burn a couple of years ago when he wanted more money for his "elite" athletes) and we must invest heavily in grassroots sport for the long term good of Australian sport. HELLOOOOOO!!!
If it takes an 11th, 24th or 52nd place at these games to prove to the government that you need to concentrate on and fund sport from the bottom of the pyramid, then I am more than happy to watch the interviews of the "No-names" who produced PBs against the world's best rather than watch Stephanie Rice jockeying for photo ops.
Rant over.

Now for me, the highlights of the games so far have been watching
*Usain Bolt actually having to put in right to the finish in the 100m,
*the Aussie athletes who were stoked with their perfomances even if they didn't medal,
*the emotion on the faces of the 2 GB women "reversing" at the end of their race,
*the 46 year old chubby Sweedish guy who won bronze in the double-trap at the shooting and his sheer elation during the medal ceremony and of course
***the women's beach volley ball.

 

[Davet]

Originally Posted by barker14610 Not trying a wind up at all. Her dad is Jamaican. She has a Jamaican face

If its not a wind up then what is your point? That she has a Jamaican father and an English mother means .. what?

Modern Britain has people from all around the world, a legacy perhaps of an Imperial past - but also a recognition that it is a great place to live, with hundreds of thousamds of people wanting to make a home here every year.

Modern USA also has a mixed population - to a far greater degree than the UK; a legacy of the huddled masses from all over the world who were invited to go there for a better life. Australia, and to a lesser extent New Zealand also.

So - what, is your point?

 

[L'irlandais]

What doesnt work, sponges off the state, has a stinking attitude, blames her childhood for everything............ That would sum up modern Britain.

Tut, tut andy,
Can't be speaking about the same Jessica Ennis then. Sweet girl, thanking the home crowd for their support. (Click on "Crowd helped us, say gold medal winners " video for details.)

Spot on Dickie. Ireland has a dismal medal haul, since 1924. Yet more Irish born athletes have won medals for Team GB, than for their home country in the history of the modern games. (That and quite a few medal-winners have exiled themselves to Team USA, Team Canada, Team South Africa, we'd have a respectable haul for such a tiny country, if only...) Also read a story about one Irishman who has coached 5 Kenyan gold medalists, which must make him one of the top coaches in his disicipline. How's about teams based on the individual Sporting Associations, who are left to their own devices when it's not an Olympic year.

I agree with The Fat Someone mentionned that money had little to do with winning Gold : read this article before making your mind up on that point.

 

[Davet]

For me the picture of the games so far was Kate Copelands face when she and Sophie Hoskin won Gold in the rowing



Not sure if it's elation or pure terror....

 

[Womble]

For me the picture of the games so far was Kate Copelands face when she and Sophie Hoskin won Gold in the rowing

View attachment 2184

Not sure if it's elation or pure terror....

And her first words " we are on a stamp" priceless

 

[L'irlandais]

How come women athletes are doing it for all women etc etc yawn.

How about they are doing it for themselves and because they are pretty good at it?

Hullo again andy,
Dispell some more the sterotypes on here : Jessica Ennis admits she's not done very well on the "beep" test at school. Doesn't come across as being feminist.

 

[Toby Warren]

What doesnt work, sponges off the state, has a stinking attitude, blames her childhood for everything............ That would sum up modern Britain.

Dear Santa

I know you are busy but please could you arrange for a 12 month subscription to the Daily Mail to be sent to Mr A Scott. Thank you.

:horse:

You clearly ahve a different expsosure to life than I do - my work means I look after +/- 2000 from Oxbridge grads who came via the top public schools to people who can only be described as coming from the other end of soceity. Yes there are 'wrong uns' but on the whole the picture you paint is very different to the relaity I see.

 

[Simon Thomas]

I agree with The Fat Someone mentionned that money had little to do with winning Gold : read this article before making your mind up on that point.

Great article and agree with much of it. At the Elite level you have to invest to get medals returns, with few exceptions. And it is a 4 years phased process, building on each cycle.

It is all about the investment, but only when that investment is applied correctly to elite sport across the athletes, performance directors, coaches and the admin - you have to get it all correct from talent identification to the final medal delivery. Clive Woodward did it with England in RWC 2003 and now as part of the GB Olympic team. Money on its own does not buy Gold Medals.

GB has done well but one sport stands out as a poor ROI (return on investment) and that is swimming. Watch for heads to roll and a new management team to come in there.

Plus despite all the Ben Ainslie sailing has under-performed compared to it's funding level.

 

[Toby Warren]

Swimming needs a serious look - it is hugely over represented - Name any other sport where one person can get 20+ medals or 5+ in a single games? (Not detracting from their skill just pointing out the lopside nature of it).

What this does is highlight an oppurtunity to up the medal take. Just need to deal with China's child swimmers!

 

[Davet]

Lets not get complacent - in terms of population to gold medals we are only 7th.

Mind you Aus is at least 14th as the following (partial table) shows

Country	Population	Golds	Total	Heads per gold	Heads per medal
Jamaica	2,705,827	2	4	1,352,914	676,457
New Zealand	4,434,400	3	8	1,478,133	554,300
Hungary	9,962,000	4	8	2,490,500	1,245,250
Denmark	5,584,758	2	8	2,792,379	698,095
Kazakstan	16,776,000	6	7	2,796,000	2,396,571
UK	62,262,000	18	40	3,459,000	1,556,550
Cuba	11,247,925	3	7	3,749,308	1,606,846
South Korea	48,580,000	11	22	4,416,364	2,208,182
Netherlands	16,738,836	3	10	5,579,612	1,673,884
North Korea	24,554,000	4	5	6,138,500	4,910,800
Romania	19,042,936	2	8	9,521,468	2,380,367
USA	314,059,000	29	63	10,829,621	4,985,063
Australia	22,692,531	2	22	11,346,266	1,031,479
South Africa	50,586,757	3	4	16,862,252	12,646,689
China	1,346,350,000	31	64	43,430,645	21,036,719