Games of the XXX Olympiad - London 2012

[ArdeeBhoy]

Even if you only count those representing Britain, two medals is reasonable. Four (ie those for all the competitors from NI) is quite good, don't ye think?

Except 2 of those 'four' never had any intention of representing Britain, the North or any variations thereof.

Of the six NI competitors in the GB team, all bar table tennis's Na Liu were expected to win medals or get close. Cyclist Houvenaghel was reserve on the gold winning team and for all her flounces was probably a bit unlucky. Hockey defender Lewers came fourth.

Except that everyone else who just missed out would say just the same...
Not as if any of them missed out by a close margin in actual competition.

Did you miss the bit where I made clear I was happy to be in the minority? I'd just call the team Britain, but GB is better than UK or any other clunking alternative.

Er, yes.
And if you want to be part of an Ugly K, why not support its football team...
And the concept of its other, er, 'united' teams!

Good post Sam, but surprised you didn't mention rowing- Ireland as a whole's second most successful sport at the 2012 Games. There must be a chance that three guys from the same small town school and club will inspire others across the island. Even if potential stars have to train in England or Germany.

Yes, they were so 'Irish' they represented Britain, GB, whatever...

West Africa got one medal in the whole games.

Yes, Olympic medals in European (or 'white culture'), often elitist sports are a major priority....

[SkStu]

George Michael's new release?

[dahamsta]

ArdeeBhoy, you have 10 infractions. There won't be an 11th. If you want to rant about politics, find a political forum. I won't warn you in this thread again.

[Wolfman]

To be fair by their standards on here, that's just banter by these two.
Nothing political really by either.

[DannyInvincible]

Here's one for ArdeeBhoy: http://www.independent.ie/opinion/co...o-3202195.html

The coincidence was poetic. As the curtain fell on London’s glorious Games, Rory McIlroy enjoyed his coronation at Kiawah Island in the knowledge that in four years’ time he, too, could be an Olympian.

Even if the 23 year-old might not, with his £20m fortune, represent quite the noble amateur that Baron de Coubertin envisaged, the prospect of competing under the five rings still galvanised a golfer fast redrawing the boundaries of his sport.

“I’d love to win an Olympic gold medal,” McIlroy told this newspaper in 2009, when golf was accepted as part the 2016 Games in Rio de Janeiro. In a remark that risked provoking a firestorm of sectarian sniping, the Ulsterman added: “I’d probably play for Great Britain.” To date, it was his only substantive comment on the subject of his twin allegiance to Britain and the Republic of Ireland — the vexed question that, in an Olympic context, dare not speak its name.

[peadar1987]

I'm just back from competing (poorly) in a sailing world championship, and it's really underlined the difference between sport in the UK and here.

The scene in the UK is completely different to Ireland. The market is so much bigger, and everything else stems from that. It means there is a huge market for sailing stuff, first of all. In Ireland, there are three adult dinghy classes with any sort of decent fleet size, GP14s (my class), Fireballs, and Lasers. In the UK, there are twenty that I can think of offhand. All of the classes need gear, sailmakers, boatbuilders, sailing shops, all of these are making money. They can then give out sponsorship to established sailors and up-and-coming youths. Out of the 130 boat fleet (one of 20+, remember), there were ten professional sailmakers from the UK, and probably ten to fifteen more people who are semi-professional or professional sailors, paying the bills with sponsorship and coaching.

In Ireland, there are no professionals. Not one. We have no big sail manufacturers. Our boat builders are one-man bands working in sheds. They build damn good boats, but they're not in any position to go sponsoring people.

And even the UK amateurs are ending up better than ours. It was never going to be any other way, when the top guys can go out training every day because that's what they're paid to do, it pulls up the standard of the entire fleet. The young hopefuls at 15 or 16 are growing up learning from professionals. When I was 15 we'd have maybe one training camp a year, and I was the only person from my club actively racing at a national level. In the UK, anyone who shows the slightest promise would have a club coach, a zone coach, a regional coach, and a national one. Money is thrown at them.

I know sailing is a bit of a special case, being a bit of an "elitist" sport. Still, there's absolutely no way we can compete against the Brits with the structures they have in place, the official ones, and the non-official. Annalise's best hope is that she gets a sponsorship deal over in the UK, and can use that to fund her campaigns. And even then she won't have access to the sort of coaching and support that the Team GB guys have.

I'd imagine it's similar to other sports in many ways though, if there was a really promising Tae-Kwon Do fighter over here, they'd hit the performance ceiling long before a similar athlete in the UK. No sponsorship, no people of similar ability to spar against, no structure in place to become full time, unless they leave the country, and bite the bullet in a way that no young person in the UK would ever have to do.

Anyway, sorry about the ramble, it's been a long week, and I'm feeling a little disjointed! I'm sure some of it made at least a little sense!

[peadar1987]

Just to clarify, the whole point of that wasn't a rant at the Olympic Council of Ireland or anything, it's just to show the amount of money we'd have to spend to keep up with the Brits, in just one sport. For Beijing, the British budget for sailing was larger than that for the entire Irish Olympic team. If we want medals, we'd be best off pumping all of our money into one or two sports, and try to give them a structure like the Brits do for their sailing team, much of which has emerged over there naturally due to the larger population and different culture. I think the money is probably better spent elsewhere

[Real ale Madrid]

Well the 2012 Paralympics are getting underway in London at the moment.

We have a pretty strong team this year with Micheal McKillop and Jason Smyth looking to retain their paralympic titles. Looks like we have lots of chances in the track cycling as well. Good luck to them, let's hope they can add to the 178 medals won by Ireland, and improve on the 5 medals from Beijing.
Channel 4 have a couple of channels while Setanta's coverage is Free to air if you have it.

[horton]

4 minute film about Jason Smyth by Topaz:

Sound fella, came pretty close to qualifying for the Olympics so hopefully he'll do well.

[DannyInvincible]

Bethany Firth has just claimed a gold medal for Ireland in the S14 100m backstroke.

[DannyInvincible]

4 minute film about Jason Smyth by Topaz:

Sound fella, came pretty close to qualifying for the Olympics so hopefully he'll do well.

Smyth broke his own world record after winning his 100m T13 heat this evening. The 100m T13 final is scheduled for tomorrow at 7:15PM.

[ArdeeBhoy]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-19374015

[Schumi]

Smyth broke his own world record after winning his 100m T13 heat this evening.

But not his PB oddly.

[DannyInvincible]

Just won gold there with another world record-breaking time of 10.46:



Amazing running!

[Charlie Darwin]

Jesus, he's miles ahead.

[horton]

http://www.london2012.com/paralympic...s/medal-count/

We are currently 10th in the medal rankings thanks to Gold Medals from Smyth, Michael McKillop, Darragh McDonald and Bethany Firth

[osarusan]

Kind of a nice story: Alex Zanardi, who lost both legs and 3/4 of his blood in a F1 crash 11 years ago, won Olympic handcycling gold today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/disability-sport/19493510

[passinginterest]

Zanardi is one of the many truly inspiring stories coming out of these games. Great to see so many Irish medals too.

[pineapple stu]

The high jump was fairly spectacular too -



Only about two foot under the "regular" world record. (Pun not intended...)

[tricky_colour]

http://www.london2012.com/paralympic...s/medal-count/

We are currently 10th in the medal rankings thanks to Gold Medals from Smyth, Michael McKillop, Darragh McDonald and Bethany Firth

Just been looking at the medal table, Ireland got more medals per head of population than any other country.


If Ireland had the population of the UK they would have got 135 golds ( actual number UK got was 34)

So

UK would have got 135, ( actual number UK got was 34)
USA would have got 600 (actual number USA got was 31)
China would have got 2,000 (actual number China got was 95)

So Ireland did 4 times better than the UK and 20 times better than the USA and China.