Olympics 2012 - London

[Super Nova]

That is the explaination.

The UK as host nation is doing well.

The shock is Australia's performance in the league table.

[mantra]

Alll our great talents seem to have retired - so why haven't we got any new ones? There seems to be an inertia which has settled into our country and now our athletes. They seem to be more enthusiastic about the after parties.

THEIR lives have been under public scrutiny for four years but with their Olympics campaign over, Aussie swimmers partied yesterday like there was no tomorrow.

"We just want to be normal again," silver medallist James Magnussen said over the thumping disco beat and din as he led his teammates into the Aussie Olympics hotspot The Last Lap.

Most of the Aussie swim team turned out to blow off some Games steam, joined by hundreds of athletes from all nations, some wearing their Olympic medals and others showing off freshly inked Olympic tattoos.

Some Aussies were reflective about their Games effort and shared the public disappointment in the medal tally, but all just wanted to forget their tough training regimens for a while and the effort they had put into competition.

Magnussen said many of the Australians hadn't appreciated how hard the Olympics were going to be and it had been a "long week".

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entert ... 6443430020" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Super Nova]

What is the news from home on why Australia is not performing at the top level in the Olympics.

It has been noticed over here.

[Neferti]

Most of the Aussies are "outraged", you should read some of the comments! All the usual online papers have different articles and lots of people posting comments. Here is just one and the view is the same, no matter which paper you read. We are not happy little vegemites.

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/olympic ... 23ogh.html

[boxy]

Anyone who's outraged needs to get over themselves (once they've got around to getting off the lounge, of course).

[boxy]

The Plus sports page: The home advantage

If these results are to be believed, there will be more misery for Australia in 2012, who will be beaten quite easily by the UK. If the Poms increase their medal share by a factor of 1.5, then they will claim around 7.4% of all medals on offer in London. Judging by past results, this will put them either in 3rd place, if they can sneak past the Russians, or 4th place in the overall medal tally. The UK should also increase their gold medal share.

The 2012 Olympic programme features 26 sports in a total of 39 disciplines. It's difficult to determine in advance how many medals will be awarded in a Games, but going on the Beijing numbers (302 gold, 303 silver and 353 bronze medals awarded — 958 in total), our bold prediction for the British team is...
...70 medals, including 30 golds.

Submitted by plusadmin on February 3, 2009

[Neferti]

Anyone who's outraged needs to get over themselves (once they've got around to getting off the lounge, of course).

I didn't say that I was "outraged", read the 65+ comments by people on the link I posted and see what the average Aussie says.

I even said early in this thread that I doubted that we would get many gold medals. The media carries on about gold, gold, gold and some people believe what they read/hear from that lot.

I tend to watch the events with the sound OFF so I don't hear what the commentators are saying ... I have eyes, I can see how our Aussie competitor is doing!

There is a lot more to the Olympics than swimming!

[Super Nova]

Anyone who's outraged needs to get over themselves (once they've got around to getting off the lounge, of course).

That is funny. We give the impression of a country where everyone is a sportman.

We have punched above our weight for a few olympics now. I guess there is an expectation home and abroad that this would continue. Clearly this time we have not.

We used to get a lot of gold in the swimming where we dominated. Clearly we don't dominate now and I recon that's where the big difference is in the count. A single star can get multiples golds were in other sports there is only one gold on offer.

[Super Nova]

There is a lot more to the Olympics than swimming!

Precisely.... we used to win so many it was an imbalance of our winnign rate.

The table is scewd to be a total count... many the league table needs tio be a little more representative with each sport get a whole point and the number of medals get a prorata percentage of that point.

[Neferti]

The ABC site has a Medal Tally that lists every Olympics back to 1896! You can list the medals by gold, silver, bronze and total to see where the various countries come under each section ... interesting .... look here:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/sport/olympi ... ly/#2012-0