We’ve got a gold.
Katie you’re a national hero now.
Wow, what a way to make me feel old. 
Sure, in Montreal I was only a teenager. But for the Calgary games I was a working adult. It doesn’t seem that long ago to me.
Yay! We rule at circus pony acts!!!
Now if they could be combined…that is an event I would pay to see.
Nice to see Nicola Adams, who I believe hasn’t had much in the way of sponsorship, win the boxing gold and do so decisively and with panache. She made it look positively easy, knocking her opponent (who is the current world #1) to the mat once in the second round. 16 points to 7 in the end.
And she’s from Yorkshire too. What are they putting in the water up there? Whatever it is, start bottling it and selling it now.
There’s nowt int’watter lad. It’s all down to Theakstons, tea and lard. The holy trinity.
Just randomly turned on the olympics gold zone iPhone app, and saw the medal ceremony for (I believe) men’s 65 kg Tae Kwan Do… Gold to Turkey, Silver to Iran, and two Bronzes, to Afghanistan and USA. Now there’s a medal stand fraught with potential political turmoil…
(And how do you end up with two bronzes in a martial art? Wouldn’t there be a bronze medal fight?)
Repechage…or loser’s bracket*. In the Olympics they usually use the repechage bracket with two third place finishers in some contact sports.
Don’t ask.
ETA: AKA “double elimination tournaments” as in many a racquetball tourney.
Hold on a sec – did you remember to subtract the medals for Rebecca Adlington and Michael Jamieson?
The US 4x400m relay team qualified for the final despite Manteo Mitchellbreaking his leg in the first 200m of the first lap.
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As of right now, Holland (where I’m from) has 18 medals, and Canada (where I live) has 17. Canada only has one gold, though, whereas Holland’s got 5 of them. That number might rise to 7, as the Dutch are in both the men’s and the women’s field hockey finals. This means there’ll be at least 20 medals for us, which is second only to our 2000 haul when the Dutch olympians brought back something like 25 medals. I’d expected Canada to do a bit better than they did - I’m actually surprised they did worse than the Dutch seeing as there’s twice as many Canadians.
Rather amazing turn in the past 4/5 days – we were sadly lagging in medals as compared to Beijing 18 to 7 as of Tuesday and are now up to 13, with an additional assured silver in B-ball & a shot at four more between canoeing & sailing. Thus although the five golds in China appear out of the question, the overall haul should be close to the last Olympics.
Still far from were we’d like to be, but on track to stay were we were.
Not bad, not bad at all considering how poorly we* started.
*Speaking of the Spanish team.
Gooooo Mexico!!!
We just got gold in Men’s Soccer!
We also have 3 silvers and 2 bronze. But we all know that soccer is the one that really counts.
Congrats guy – I can understand just how huge an Olympic gold over Brazil in footie is. Specially as that’s still the only major football title La Canarinha have yet to win and you just know how bad they wanted it.
Enjoy!
Canada does better in the Winter Games, for obvious reasons; that’s where the effort and funding is somewhat more concentrated. In 2010 Canada won 26 medals, 14 of them gold; the Netherlands won eight, four gold.
That said, a straight medal-to-population ratio just doesn’t work, or else you’d have to conclude the Chinese and Americans actually suck at sports. I’d get into the math but it’s boring. The upshot is that you an only have so many elite athletes, and only so many events, and the difference among the very elite is so tiny that it’s just not within statistical likelihood that the medals will distribute evenly. You also have the problem that concentration on some sports means more medals than others; a country that is exceptionally good at soccer can’t win more than two medals at it, while a country that is really good at swimming could in theory win 102 medals in swimming. (34 events, 3 medals in each.) India excels at cricket and can win no medals at all in it. In Canada so many elite male athletes are put into the hockey development stream that it takes away from the talent available in other sports; here, talented hockey players often play hockey 12 months a year.
I feel pretty damn good today.
Why?
Because my country has the most medals which makes it the best country in the world bar none, and by extension that makes me one of the best people on the planet.
Thank you Olympics.
FWIW we had tickets for the Senegal-Mexico Qtr Final at Wembley last Saturday and we had a great time. The little ones took Mexico as their side to win and are very pleased tonight.
And heck, you deserve it. Better team on the day last week, better team tonight.
OK, with Jaime Espinal in the freestyle wrestling, PUR’s final total for the Games is one bronze (Culson, 400m hurdles) and one silver (Espinal), both in sports where we had not made it before. This one was specially fun because it was entirely unhyped - he was one of the “new guys” in our squad and not expected to make it to the final (Franlin Gomez was, as World #2 in his weight, but in the very first round the #1 and #2 seeds drew one another and he washed out) and he now has our highest ever medal in an Olympic Games. Besides being nobody’s golden boy, Espinal is also an immigrant, born in the neighboring Dominican Republic, and he has shut the mouth of many who were mocking that.
It’s worth noting that three of The Netherlands’ medals are from one person, Kromojidiwjojo, in swimming, where one dominant athlete can make a big impact in the medal count. Not that I’m complaining - Canada had just as much chance to train a dominant swimmer. But it’s one of those things you have to take in context, and shows how focusing on certain sports can pay dividends.