The 2012 London Olympics Sports Thread

[The Larch]

Edit:  Also Bolt is awesome.  But I love his interactions with the volunteers and their coy, really excited smiles.  He's great

When he was being interviewed for Spanish tv the US anthem started playing, as they had just given the gold medal to a female athlete, and he asked for the interview to stop while the cerimony lasted, and stood up in respect of it. Classy.

[Sheilbh]

Is this inference or a statement of fact?

It's a statement of fact.  To train in Australia with Australian pro-swimming coaches she has to participate in Australian anti-doping regulations.

Mo Farris trained in the US.  The Russian basketball coach is American.  You think that means the US OC is now responsible for guaranteeing they don't dope or otherwise cheat?

Do you mean Mo Farrah?  The US OC isn't responsible for anything but enforcing their anti-doping regulations, that probably means that Mo Farrah had to be tested by the US OC as well as GB OC.

The Russian basketball comparison I don't get.  Do they train in the US too?

Some drunk threw an empty bottle onto the field before the 100m.  Apparently he was sat next to Dutch Judo champ Edith Bosch who punched him  

Then security kicked him out.

[Sheilbh]

And the Police near the stadium got excited too:



The one on the left has never run 100m.

[Admiral Yi]

It's a statement of fact.  To train in Australia with Australian pro-swimming coaches she has to participate in Australian anti-doping regulations.

OK then.  Josephus is off the hook for his Maoist sympathies. 

[DGuller]

Course China wins all the lameass diving medals.

Yeah, that's a head-scratcher.  You'd think Italians would sweep those events.

[katmai]

America is letting us down. The Czechs, Germans & Spanish all have better looking beach volleyball teams then ours.

[dps]

Amusing that the Australians are doing so badly and the Kiwis are winning so much more than them. 

What is it with New Zealand performing so well, what with only have 3-4 million people.

Just saw on Yahoo!Sports that apparantly Aussie TV was censoring the NZ medal totals when they Kiwis were ahead of them.

[Josephus]

It's a statement of fact.  To train in Australia with Australian pro-swimming coaches she has to participate in Australian anti-doping regulations.

OK then.  Josephus is off the hook for his Maoist sympathies. 

Thanks Sheilbh.

[Josephus]

America is letting us down. The Czechs, Germans & Spanish all have better looking beach volleyball teams then ours.

Hard to tell. Generally I been cheering for the team that wears the bikinis. The whole full body suits suck.

[Richard Hakluyt]

Amusing that the Australians are doing so badly and the Kiwis are winning so much more than them. 

What is it with New Zealand performing so well, what with only have 3-4 million people.

Just saw on Yahoo!Sports that apparantly Aussie TV was censoring the NZ medal totals when they Kiwis were ahead of them.

The Aussies are having a appalling games, one is tempted to feel sorry for them, which would be inconceivable back in the old days.

I like this new habit that the British team seems to be developing, that of grabbing rather a lot of medals, keep it up boys and girls 

[Richard Hakluyt]

America is letting us down. The Czechs, Germans & Spanish all have better looking beach volleyball teams then ours.

It might seem unimportant now, but future historians will undoubtedly identify this as the moment that the USA lost its position as sole super-power and started an irrevocable decline 

[Valdemar]

Nah, the US will just go for having a super heavy weight category added to all events 

On the medal note, if you go by number of medals relative to population then NZ is leading, with Slovenia second and Denmark third.

US is then no 30 and China no 45

V

[Admiral Yi]

I like this new habit that the British team seems to be developing, that of grabbing rather a lot of medals, keep it up boys and girls 

Have the Brits always been this strong in rowing?  Not a sport I've usually paid tons of attention to.

[Richard Hakluyt]

There is a list of their Olympic record over here :

http://www.britishrowing.org/gb-rowing-team/events/olympic-games

Notice the poor record in the period 1950-84. I think that may be due to many countries relaxing the rules on amateurism and Britain still applying them. Since 1997 money from the National Lottery has been used to improve British sports and all talk of amateurism has been ditched. The money is quite modest, perhaps £60m a year for the Olympic sports, but it allows promising athletes the luxury of not having to earn a living and access to decent training.

[Octavian]

Medal count:
http://www.london2012.com/medals/medal-count/