Excuse me if I’m a little excited, but that was British sport’s greatest ever day. I don’t expect that to be matched in my lifetime. Well do I remember the 1996 Atlanta games, where we won a single gold medal in the entire Olympics. After it was announced that London had won the Olympic bid in 2005, our haul at the World Athletics Championships was one gold and two bronze, behind Belarus, Bahrain and Estonia.
Both Jessica Ennis and Mo Farah were beaten at the 2011 World Championships. Given that, I was amazed how relaxed and happy Farah was at the start line. His wife watching in the stands is seven months pregnant, hope she felt the same way. Ennis missed Beijing with a stress fracture, and as a result had to re-learn the long-jump to take off from the other foot.
We’re looking at another good day today, as we’re in contention in tennis, sailing and cycling. It would take a perfect storm to convert more than half of those opportunities into golds though. After that, we can expect our results to tail off a bit. We don’t have a particularly strong athletics team. Farah will challenge for gold in the 5000m. Dai Greene is world champion in the 400m hurdles, but not the fastest this year.
Nice spot. I enjoyed holidaying in Cyprus, and hope to go back there someday.
They have really peaked at the right time. They dominated in Beijing, so much so that the rules were changed to only allow one competitor from each nation per event, but it’s been a mixed bag since then.
There is an interesting thread taking shape here which helps put Phelp’s achievements into perspective. Medal totals are not a great indicator of performance, but being the best swimmer at three successive games puts him in company with the greatest Olympians in history.
Embarrassing. As a nation we’d developed quite a fame over the past 5-6 years as the “World’s Best” in sports per capita, what with being dominant in many a sport – fútbol, of course, at the top of the list. Going into London, “reasonable” expectations spoke of 18-22 medals.
We’re at the point where 10-14 would be an incredible crop – we stand at three as we speak.
“Humility” a word that needs to become ingrained in the Spanish vocabulary.
Often said in this, the Golden Age of Spanish sports: Soy Español, en que quieres que te gane?*
*The cocky saying of the past few years: “I am a Spaniard, what would you like me to beat you at?” Fútbol, at top level, still stands as does my pride – barely.
Apart from football (soccer), in what other sports have the Spanish kicked ass? That’s a genuine question - I mean, if I didn’t already know, I don’t think I’d be aware that the British were really good at track cycling, for example. In what events should I be watching out for Spanish competitors?
Yep, THREE golds in the rowing now, FOUR bronzes so far - and we’re still in contention in the sailing 470s, our female shotputter is the world’s number one, and on top of that there is still the triathlon where we must be rated as very serious medal contenders.
GO NEW ZEALAND!!
last I say we were heading the “medals per capita” table.
We were even beating Australia on golds at one point over the weekend (which probably caused some serious sledging on both sides of the Tasman.
There was also John Inverdale telling Colin Jackson “There’s a reason you’re a pundit and not a commentator - during the race you were shouting ‘Here comes what’s-his-name!’.”
I’ve got two countries to root for and both are doing well - the US seems to be largely keeping ahead of China and of course Team GB are having the Best Olympics Ever. I think I rather prefer actively supporting Team GB as they’re more likely to be pleased just to get a bronze in some events, whereas teams like China and the US seem to consider anything less than gold as a failure.
Before the games I hoped Australia wouldn’t do well. I really had had a gutful of the prima donnas in the Olympic movement and the selfishness shining through.
I got my wish. I’m not sure it is a good thing. Predictably, those in charge of the athletes are now squealing for more funding. Which of course will need to come from the public purse.
I was less critical than others. To me his start was pretty much on par for him. He never explodes out of the blocks, there is a lot of him to unfold! Plus he was next to Gatlin (disgraceful that he was even allowed in the stadium) who is a fast starter and made Bolt look slower than he was. In fact Bolt’s reaction time was on a par with Blake and Gay.
Plus, after his DQ last year he was never going to push his luck here.
I said to my wife after 20 metres “that’s all the start he needed, he’s got this!”
As long as he was within a metre after 20 he was going to be the favourite and he was well within that.
I do love the fact that we have the super slo-mo’s from multiple angles so we can savour that 9.63. So elegant for such a big lad.
Yes, Australia have a perfectly respectable 20 medals, but with only 1 gold they are languishing in 24th in the medal table. The other countries suffering from a lack of golds are Russia (4 golds from 35 medals, 9th overall) and Japan (2 golds from 27, 15th).
The countries with the best ratio of golds are South Africa (3 golds from 4 medals, 75%, 13th), North Korea (4 golds from 5, 80%, 11th) and mighty-mighty-Kazakhstan-all-other-countries-run-by little-girls (6 golds from 6, 100%, 7th).
This is why the traditional medal table is a bit pants. I prefer to count total medals.
That’s the thing. With the one-strike-you’re-out policy it made no sense for Bolt to try to get the best start; he is a last-half sprinter, so as long as he gets a clean start he can catch anyone. Why risk a DQ?
I could tell in the semis he was going to win. He took it easy in the semi, and still looked like a man among boys. All he had to do was turn it on and the gold was his.
Traditionally, we’ve been pretty good at different sailing disciplines, as well as road cycling, handball & basketball (men’s), canoeing, tennis, field hockey & the occasional odd medal in other disciplines – I’ll also point out that outside of the Africans, Spanish 1,500 meter athletes have done very well over time & yet, this year all three of our runners were out in their first heat. Point being, ever since the '92 Barcelona Olympics a (highish) double digit count in medals was taken for granted – don’t see it happening this time around. So again, epic fail.
