The Official Athens 2004 Olympics Thread

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Salome said:
they should do a medal ranking per citizen of the competing countries instead of just per country

I wonder by how much australia would win that one :hmm:

Yes this is so true, per capita, Australia is the most successful sporting nation in the world. Currently we are sitting at third on the medal tally behind 1.America: with a pop of more than 240million, 2.China: pop of 1 billion and then there is Australia: pop 20million...............

yes we are very cool, but I think it has a lot to do with our climate, look at the sports that we do well in swimming, our climate is designed for swimming and every child does swimming lessons in primary school and shit where I live, which has a population of about 200 000 there are 5 olympic size swimming pools and close to 20, 25metre pools, all of which are outdoor pools and then in the cycling, there are loads of open roads in Australia to go cycling on. We usually do well in sports that are outdoors, like tennis, cricket, rugby, cycling and water sports, but we seem to be not so great at the indoor ones....I think it is great how good we are, but then again anyone will atest to how much of a sports mad nation we are:wink:
 
I may get mobbed for this one, but I am actually quite glad Jana Pitmann didn't win (and I know I'm not the only person who feels this way). I don't like her attitude - she seems to be quite a drama queen, and kinda arrogant.

I remember reading something about the per capita medal thing for the Sydney Olympics, with Australia coming second. First went to some little nation like the United Arab Emirates!!

There was also this thing on Roy & HG, where if Australia had the population of USA we'd have won something like 480 medals!!! :lol:
 
Luthien Black said:


There was also this thing on Roy & HG, where if Australia had the population of USA we'd have won something like 480 medals!!! :lol:

Looks like Oz would also take the gold in linear algebra.... If this holds true, then the five "2's" I dated in college could be considered a "10"??


USA 102
ESP 94

I guess we decided to play after all.
 
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Salome said:
they should do a medal ranking per citizen of the competing countries instead of just per country

Then we might as well do it by GDP, since Australia spends disproportionate amounts of money on sports compared to other nations. It would be nice to finally see the African nations sitting on top of the rest of us.

You could do it in so many ways, come to think of it.
 
Some of those African athletes do well on raw talent even without the training other countries give. They win a decent amount of medals for poor nations.
 
That's true, most American kids are on their own, the families have to pay for training and if it's far from home they have to pay for travel. When someone gets really good they usually pick up sponsors, but nobody starts out that way.
 
Lilac said:
That's true, most American kids are on their own, the families have to pay for training and if it's far from home they have to pay for travel. When someone gets really good they usually pick up sponsors, but nobody starts out that way.

It's the same in the UK. The saddest thing about is the number of talented athletes who have to give up their sport because they and their family just can't afford it anymore, not to mention the number of people who never get the opportunity to participate in sport because it's too expensive. :sad:
 
anitram said:
You could do it in so many ways, come to think of it.
you could yes, but in no way would the netherlands end up being on top

come to think of it, no matter which way you pick there's always just one country that ends on top
 
Lilac said:
That's true, most American kids are on their own, the families have to pay for training and if it's far from home they have to pay for travel.
except for the distances probably being smaller I don't think there's much of a difference with europe though
 
who gives a crap about medal counts. it's the performances of the individual athletes that really "makes" the Olympics for me. As for Africa, just imagine what their athletes could do if they had the training opportunities and funding that more developed parts of the world have.

Anyways, just to put it in perspective, here in the lovely but poor country of Mali, we have 0 medals to show for (not even some lowly bronze or silvers) but people are still happy because the football team went in and got into the quarter finals, against all odds. So again, it's all about sportmanship and the honor of competing, not how much metal you bring home, imho.

:)
 
sulawesigirl4 said:
who gives a crap about medal counts. it's the performances of the individual athletes that really "makes" the Olympics for me.

Indeed, it's the individual performance that counts. For one, I always think an athlete has done excellent if he/she has improved his/her personal record. And they are at the Olympics.

In that respect, there is this nice website celebrating the last-placed athletes of the 2004 Olympics:
http://www.mcwetboy.net/dfl/
Notice the motto of the site Celebrating last-place finishes at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. Because they're there, and you're not.

I mean, the last placed athlete in the men's long jump reached 7.32 metres. I won't reach it unless I start training 24/7 from tomorrow on (and probably not even then).

As they say, to compete is more important than to win.


Although winning gold is always nice. ;)

C ya!

Marty
 
Australia is coming fifth in the Last Place Finisher tally :up:

Country #LPF #Ath
1 Greece 8 518
2 Poland 6 215
3 France 5 342
4 China 5 416
5 Australia 5 513
6 Kyrgyzstan 4 32
7 Bulgaria 4 102
8 Switzerland 4 125
9 Great Britain 4 278
10 Italy 4 448
11 United States 4 614
12 Slovakia 3 66
13 Uzbekistan 3 70
14 Slovenia 3 82
15 Egypt 3 106
16 Hungary 3 266
17 Canada 3 302
18 Germany 3 512
19 Russia 3 514
20 Somalia 2 2
21 Samoa 2 3
22 Palestine * 2 4
23 Burundi 2 8
24 Macedonia 2 10
25 Mongolia 2 20
26 Venezuela 2 51
27 Algeria 2 64
28 Denmark 2 96
29 Kazakhstan 2 128
30 Mexico 2 134
31 Belarus 2 153
32 New Zealand 2 154
33 Ukraine 2 255
34 Brunei Darussalam 1 1
35 S?o Tom? & Pr?ncipe 1 2
36 American Samoa 1 3
? Liberia 1 3
? Nauru 1 3
39 Aruba 1 4
40 Benin 1 4
? Cent. African Rep. 1 4
? Guyana 1 4
? Malawi 1 4
? Maldives 1 4
? Niger 1 4
? Palau 1 4
? St. Lucia 1 4
48 Laos 1 5
? Rwanda 1 5
50 Albania 1 6
? Nepal 1 6
? Syria 1 6
53 Bolivia 1 7
? Malta 1 7
? U.S. Virgin Islands 1 7
56 Andorra 1 8
? El Salvador 1 8
? Fiji 1 8
? Jordan 1 8
? Libya 1 8
? Namibia 1 8
62 Mauritius 1 9
? Turkmenistan 1 9
64 Bahrain 1 10
65 Vietnam 1 11
66 Peru 1 12
67 Uganda 1 15
68 Philippines 1 16
69 Senegal 1 17
70 Armenia 1 18
71 Cyprus 1 23
72 Saudi Arabia 1 28
73 Hong Kong 1 34
74 North Korea 1 36
75 Moldova 1 37
76 Azerbaijan 1 39
77 Iran 1 40
78 Estonia 1 44
? Puerto Rico 1 44
80 Kenya 1 51
81 Lithuania 1 70
82 Morocco 1 74
83 India 1 78
84 Austria 1 79
85 Finland 1 85
86 South Africa 1 117
87 Romania 1 118
88 Sweden 1 131
89 Czech Republic 1 146
90 Cuba 1 160
91 Argentina 1 179
92 Brazil 1 271
93 South Korea 1 279
94 Japan 1 331
95 Spain 1 372


*thanks marty :hug:*
 
I'm upset Paul Hamm is being asked to return his gold medal by the International Gymnastics committee (not the OIC)

It is not his fault a mistake was made. If a complaint had been made in time it could have been corrected. I just saw an interview with a former gymnast who pointed out that the south Korean who allegedly should have beaten Hamm made a major error, 4 handstand holds instead of 3, which, if the facts were reviewed fairly he would have gotten a .2 deduction taking away his chance at any medal! A lot of mistakes are probably being made, but they are not the fault of the gymnast, and if the judges did not cheat intentionally, and if no one lodges a complaint in time, I would say you have to let it go and watch out more carefully next time.
 
Lilac said:
I'm upset Paul Hamm is being asked to return his gold medal by the International Gymnastics committee (not the OIC)

It is not his fault a mistake was made. I would say you have to let it go and watch out more carefully next time.

Tell that to the Korean who lost out on an Olympic gold medal.

I would be losing it if I was the Korean, and if I was Hamm I'd never be able to live with my conscience knowing that I didn't truly win that medal.

I say at the very least a double gold should be awarded.
 
Scratch ?milie Heymans as my new love...

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Logan Tom is. :drool:

I do not honestly (seriously) think I have seen a hotter photo in my entire life. Seriously.

:faint:
 
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DaveC said:


Tell that to the Korean who lost out on an Olympic gold medal.

I would be losing it if I was the Korean, and if I was Hamm I'd never be able to live with my conscience knowing that I didn't truly win that medal.

I say at the very least a double gold should be awarded.

No, like I said, in a further scrutinizing of the Korean's program, it was noticed by several former gymnasts that he did 4 handstand holds instead of the allowed 3, and though this was clear on the videotape it was not caught by the judges. If that deduction was taken, he would have lost .2 and not have recieved ANY medal at all! So if you're going to go back and pick on the start value thing, you're going to have to be fair and review the whole thing, in which case he loses his bronze!

I'm sure a lot of mistakes were made if yoiu went back and checked everything. But the game is over. It's like in American football, you have chance to challenge a call before the next play is called, but once the final whistle blows it's too late EVEN if you can go back and see blantant errors were made, it's TOO LATE! Tell that to the teams that lost, but it's too late. You can't keep going back and changing everything once the results are over. There is a time to challenge and a time when the time has passed. But again in this case, they waited THREE DAYS, and besides, a review would actually take away the bronze he won and he'd even be worse off!
 
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But we all know that if the Korean had won and the American gotten bronze, you'd be screaming bloody murder right now.
 
DaveC said:
But we all know that if the Korean had won and the American gotten bronze, you'd be screaming bloody murder right now.

Oh please :rolleyes:

I get so sick of people in other countries making such judgements of Americans. I was not happy about Nancy Kerrigan losing the gold to a girl who was later on tape shown to have made two two footed landings which if noted would have taken her out of the medals and given Nancy the gold. I have not been happy over my football teams losing when replays clearly show a call that cost them the game was wrong. It is a sore thing to swallow, but it happens, and it usually equals out, I have had favorites win and lose due to bad calls. I'm not even a Paul Hamm fan. I think he looks like a dweeb. I just think if they were so upset they shouldn't have waited 3 days. And since he did make the other error, he'd better just keep quiet and hold onto that bronze. Or is the guy in fourth place screaming bloody murder now?

One more thing: If judges were found to PURPOSELY cheat, such as the way the Canadian skaters were cheated in the winter olympics, yes, there should be duplicate medals. But not if it was only a mistake. (and again if it's reviewed he'lll get no medal so he'd best just drop it)
 
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Lilac said:
No, like I said, in a further scrutinizing of the Korean's program, it was noticed by several former gymnasts that he did 4 handstand holds instead of the allowed 3, and though this was clear on the videotape it was not caught by the judges. If that deduction was taken, he would have lost .2 and not have recieved ANY medal at all! So if you're going to go back and pick on the start value thing, you're going to have to be fair and review the whole thing, in which case he loses his bronze!

Isn't this just ex post facto judging? If tomorrow it's declared that driving on the right side of the road is illegal in the United States, you can't review tape of me doing so last week and arrest me for it.
I realize rules of law in the U.S. don't transfer over into gymnastics, but it's not like the IOC or FIG can go review tape from the event finals in Sydney and go "whoops, we didn't notice that Liu Xuan took two steps on her beam dismount instead of the one we deducted her for, someone call Ekaterina Lobazniouk and tell her she gets the gold."

It seems to me that if Yang Tae Young's start value was originally lowered because of the fact that he had 4 holds then the officials should have been able to say that from the beginning instead of scurrying around trying to come up with an excuse.



That said, I don't think it's fair of the president of FIG to make it seem like it's Hamm's fault or his responsibility to come up with a fix for things(Federation Requests Hamm Give Up Gold ), but I certainly don't think I'd want to keep a medal I know I didn't earn.
 
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