Olympics London 2012 - Drug Festival? Sporting Event? Major Military Exercise ?

[C. Flower]

It was definitely a very successful Olympics for Ireland. 5 medals for a country with a population of between 4.5m and 6.3m depending on how the individuals and their sporting organisations of NI fit into the GB/Ireland split. That's roughly one medal per million population, close to the Team GB result of 65 medals for 62.7m and they threw everything they had at this Olympics.

Compare.

Germany pop 81m 44 medals.

France 63.5m 34 medals.

Italy 61m 44 medals.

Spain 46.7m 17 medals.

Poland 38m 10 medals.

An excellent result for a country that's not exactly Olympic sports crazy and which puts so much into the GAA, Rugby and Soccer..

We're just not quite up to standard in the track and field anymore, Athletics has become unbelievably competitive, realistically we shouldn't expect too much of our track and field competitors.

Ive heard people from the Irish Olympics body say that too, but I don't understand why.

Ireland has a long tradition of runners who have won Olympic medals.

Apart from having to compete with people who have better medical teams , I can't see why we shouldn't continue.

[Shaadi]

Ive heard people from the Irish Olympics body say that too, but I don't understand why.

Ireland has a long tradition of runners who have won Olympic medals.

Apart from having to compete with people who have better medical teams , I can't see why we shouldn't continue.

Times have changed, we should keep competing but be realistic about what we can achieve. We had a great history of middle distance and long distance running but it seems to have come to an end, we had a good run at the 400metres for a while and Derval O'Rourke showed we can sprint, but even Derval never got an Olympic medal. We're still not too bad at the walking and Marathon.

The Africans seem to have the distance running almost sewn up, and those of West African Stock seem to have the sprint field to themselves. The rise of Chinese Athletics and the eventual arrival of India at some stage with it's huge population means there's going to be no let up in the competition.

Then there's the medical teams and the politics that goes with that. We're small fry, best to figure out what we can be competitive at and concentrate on that. We can always throw our weight behind any promising individual fairly quickly if they're coming through, one of the advantages of being a small country is you can turn the ship around fairly quickly.

[Slim Buddha]

It was definitely a very successful Olympics for Ireland. 5 medals for a country with a population of between 4.5m and 6.3m depending on how the individuals and their sporting organisations of NI fit into the GB/Ireland split. That's roughly one medal per million population, close to the Team GB result of 65 medals for 62.7m and they threw everything they had at this Olympics.

Compare.

Germany pop 81m 44 medals.

France 63.5m 34 medals.

Italy 61m 44 medals.

Spain 46.7m 17 medals.

Poland 38m 10 medals.

An excellent result for a country that's not exactly Olympic sports crazy and which puts so much into the GAA, Rugby and Soccer..

We're just not quite up to standard in the track and field anymore, Athletics has become unbelievably competitive, realistically we shouldn't expect too much of our track and field competitors.

I am not sure whether this sort of analysis clarifies anything. Take the former Habsburg imperium

HUNGARY

8 GOLD
4 SILVER
5 BRONZE

17 TOTAL

AUSTRIA

ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

Similar populations

[Baron von Biffo]

Heffernan finishing fourth was hardly a poor performance.

Would finishing 5th have been a poor performance? How about 12th? 20th? Not getting out of the heats?

Where's the line between performing well and performing poorly?

Overall it was a successful Olympics for Ireland. Some athletes were not at their best and some were.

We finished 20 in the world (per capita) which I think is reasonable.

Wouldn't it have made more sense to concentrate on the few who had a chance rather than wasting money on the other 60 no-hopers?

[Baron von Biffo]

We're just not quite up to standard in the track and field anymore, Athletics has become unbelievably competitive, realistically we shouldn't expect too much of our track and field competitors.

Perhaps 'chemical' would have been a better word.

[fluffybiscuits]

It was definitely a very successful Olympics for Ireland. 5 medals for a country with a population of between 4.5m and 6.3m depending on how the individuals and their sporting organisations of NI fit into the GB/Ireland split. That's roughly one medal per million population, close to the Team GB result of 65 medals for 62.7m and they threw everything they had at this Olympics.

Compare.

Germany pop 81m 44 medals.

France 63.5m 34 medals.

Italy 61m 44 medals.

Spain 46.7m 17 medals.

Poland 38m 10 medals.

An excellent result for a country that's not exactly Olympic sports crazy and which puts so much into the GAA, Rugby and Soccer..

We're just not quite up to standard in the track and field anymore, Athletics has become unbelievably competitive, realistically we shouldn't expect too much of our track and field competitors.

Not that much has gone into soccer in fairness . The rugby fraternity D4 heads ensure the rugger money flows in and the GAA are minted but the LoI has not seen much in terms of money, look at Monaghan Utd sadly going to the wall. The medals we got at the Olympics were perfect and golf and rugby sevens are going to be sports in Rio 2016, I can see us getting lots more medals now with these sports being promoted.

In other news a British man is on trial for spying on the Chinese swimming team getting changed...

http://thescore.thejournal.ie/man-sp...58719-Aug2012/

And Michael Ring proves he is a pain in the ring with these ridiculous comments

http://www.thejournal.ie/michael-rin...57735-Aug2012/

Money spent on sport; it’s better than putting it into hospitals, into consultants, into doctors and the more it can get people participating in sport, the better.

[Baron von Biffo]

And Michael Ring proves he is a pain in the ring with these ridiculous comments

http://www.thejournal.ie/michael-rin...57735-Aug2012/

Pee, The (low)Class Act, Gump, Ring and Mad Mish - The bar is not set high in Mayo politics.

[C. Flower]

Tourism down 10% in the UK.

Apparently the Olympics scare people off.

[DUB]

Tourism down 10% in the UK.

Apparently the Olympics scare people off.

It was always going to scare a lot off from going to London. But they hope with the media attention that people would want to come to England in the years to come.

[DUB]

[QUOTE=fluffybiscuits;268631]Not that much has gone into soccer in fairness . The rugby fraternity D4 heads ensure the rugger money flows in and the GAA are minted but the LoI has not seen much in terms of money, look at Monaghan Utd sadly going to the wall. The medals we got at the Olympics were perfect and golf and rugby sevens are going to be sports in Rio 2016, I can see us getting lots more medals now with these sports being promoted.]


I'm not sure about that, the IRFU have never put any effort into the Rugby 7s and with it being more competitive than the 15 a side game, we would definitely be up against it.

Now Golf, well we can win a medal, but I'm not sure the format. Will it be 2 players per team like the World Cup in Golf, if so who will represent us. I just looked at the rankings and they are as follows;

Ranking Name
01 McIlroy
13 McDowell
61 Harrington
95 Clarke
106 Hoey
121 Lowry

Considering 4 of the top 5 are from the North, it could leaves us with the current 61 & 121 ranked, hard to get a medal from that. However from interviews that these players have had on the topic, I could see Clarke as a probable, with McDowell not far behind, I can't see McIlroy representing Ireland at the Olympics (I know he has at the world cup, but the teams there are Scotland, Wales, England & Ireland) and he has indicated that he would like to represent the UK at the Olympics. I hope i'm wrong with McIlroy and I don't have a clue about how Hoey would feel about playing under the tri colour at the olympics.

[BARNEYKX]

Britain's Olympic champions have been recognised with golden postboxes and special stamps. In America, new champions have been given a healthy $25,000 cash bonus.

But none of that can hold a candle to the prizes lavished upon Trinidad and Tobago's champion Keshorn Walcott.

The 19-year-old was a shock winner of the javelin, taking advantage of the world's best all having off-days as he came through to claim victory with a relatively unremarkable throw of 84.58m.

But while his throw was rather modest by Olympic standards (it was the shortest winning effort since 1988), the prizes it brought him are anything but: on his return to his home country Walcott was given £100,000 in cash, a luxury home, 20,000 acres of land and - best of all - a free lighthouse!

As if that weren't enough, Walcott - who is the first athlete from outside Europe to win the javelin in 20 years - will also have a yet-to-be-determined national landmark named in his honour, while Caribbean Airlines will name a plane after him.

The scale of the prizes reflect the rarity of the achievement for a Trinidadian: Walcott is only the second gold medallist ever from Trinidad and Tobago, with the first being sprinter Hasley Crawford, who won the 100m back in 1976.

It wasn't only Walcott who benefited from his throw, however: everyone in the country got a day off work to mark his achievement, thanks to Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Biessessar declaring a national holiday.

No wonder so many turned out to welcome him home: thousands of people turned up at the airport to welcome him home, all decked out in the national colours of red and black.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!!

I wonder what he would have been given had he broken the record

[C. Flower]

Looked like a wet and dreary Dawson Street today with more athletes than members of the public.

Then on to Farmleigh State Guest House to shake Enda's hand.

The nation was definitely upstaged by Bray.

[Baron von Biffo]

Looked like a wet and dreary Dawson Street today with more athletes than members of the public.

Then on to Farmleigh State Guest House to shake Enda's hand.

The nation was definitely upstaged by Bray.

Huge crowd to welcome the winner, meh to parade for 'team' Ireland.

Maybe I'm not so much in the minority as I thought.

[BARNEYKX]

Katie song by Asian kids for charity

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB3pzhbCh9Y&feature=youtube_gdata_player"]Katie Taylor Song, by the Thai Tims- YouTube[/ame]

[fluffybiscuits]

[quote=DUB;268744]

Not that much has gone into soccer in fairness . The rugby fraternity D4 heads ensure the rugger money flows in and the GAA are minted but the LoI has not seen much in terms of money, look at Monaghan Utd sadly going to the wall. The medals we got at the Olympics were perfect and golf and rugby sevens are going to be sports in Rio 2016, I can see us getting lots more medals now with these sports being promoted.]


I'm not sure about that, the IRFU have never put any effort into the Rugby 7s and with it being more competitive than the 15 a side game, we would definitely be up against it.

Now Golf, well we can win a medal, but I'm not sure the format. Will it be 2 players per team like the World Cup in Golf, if so who will represent us. I just looked at the rankings and they are as follows;

Ranking Name
01 McIlroy
13 McDowell
61 Harrington
95 Clarke
106 Hoey
121 Lowry

Considering 4 of the top 5 are from the North, it could leaves us with the current 61 & 121 ranked, hard to get a medal from that. However from interviews that these players have had on the topic, I could see Clarke as a probable, with McDowell not far behind, I can't see McIlroy representing Ireland at the Olympics (I know he has at the world cup, but the teams there are Scotland, Wales, England & Ireland) and he has indicated that he would like to represent the UK at the Olympics. I hope i'm wrong with McIlroy and I don't have a clue about how Hoey would feel about playing under the tri colour at the olympics.

That would enrage a lot of the nationalist community and alienate a lot of his support if he did choose to represent the UK. Most of his victories have seen him don a tricolour havent they? Still Mc Dowell could do a job for us and give us a bronze. Not sure if we are going to ahve any of the pros go the rugby sevens, what do you think?