The POMS will put up a great fight Paddy.

They have Olympic Men's Individual Pursuit champion Bradley Wiggins in their team and set a new British record to get to the final.

Well the aussies bounced back after their 5-0 drubbing by the yanks, to beat Japan 3-0.

Aussies to meet the Yanks once again in the grand final. Think we need a miracle to beat the Yanks, but silver doesn't look all that bad around your neck.

Not a great reward for their win against Japan.... another thrashing by the U.S. I hope I'm wrong, but i really can't see us getting close to them. It'll be a minor miracle to even get one run! Still, as you said, a silver medal isn't bad, is it? :smile:

[ This Message was edited by: sportznut on 2004-08-23 12:11 ]

Lets not forget the Womens 20K walk.
Russia and China do look to have a very strong contingent. Russian girls Yelena Nikolayeva and Olimpiada Ivanova favourites to quinella the race.

Sisters Jane and Natalie Saville and Cheryl Webb representing Oz, with Jane the most favoured to get amongst the medals.

Can Jane (who was disqualified in the 20km walk in Sydney) get revenge? Would be nice :smile:

ITS ************ 120pm in athens and im sure theres something happening at the olympics All im getting is ************ re runs . I havent been impressed with the coverage channel 7 is giving us and all you get on sbs is volleyball table tennis and ************ badminton wine wine wine

You mean there is something else!.:eek:


[ This Message was edited by: moeee on 2004-08-23 20:49 ]

We're on 13 right now with a few good chances left.

1 USA 23 25 17 65
2 CHN 23 15 12 50
3 JPN 15 8 8 31
4 AUS 13 9 13 35
5 FRA 9 7 9 25
6 GER 8 10 11 29

What's happened to Russia at these Olympics? Wierd.

The most important medal tally:

Australia 13 9 13 35
Gt Britain 7 8 7 22
New Zealand 2 0 0 2

Per head of population our sporting achievments over the years has been sensational.and as Andrew denton says we have to beat new zealand ..... Go you good things....

Yeh right!

Yeh Right What Squirtz........
Oh I just seen the NZ under you nic ...Its a bit of fun ....our rivalry with NZ has always been friendly .


[ This Message was edited by: Floydyboy on 2004-08-24 07:48 ]

Wow, there WAS a minor miracle. We scored one run. Never looked like winning though.

Anyone also notice that we are the only country in the top 7 with less than 50 million?

The countries ahead of us also have around 280 million, 1.2 billion (or so, who knows!!), and 130 or so million.

Hell, the other countries in the top 7 have 100x our population (33% of world population), yet only have 6x the amount of medals as us.

If the Olympics were run on a relative scale of population to performance we would be miles in front. We only have 20 million in this top nation, obviously, we're all pretty good at sport.
The Chinese who are currently leading have 2 billion people.

If we had over a billion people,is anyone suggesting that we would have won more gold medals?
What is Indias medal tally?
This is why we keep losing at gambling.We mis-interpolate the data and come up with the wrong delusional conclusion.

Taken a double on Halkia to win the 400 metres with Italy to win the mens soccer at $8.50 and a small saver on Halkia to win with Iraq to win the soccer at $13.50.
Could be a bit of value.

The Australian govt. made a concerted effort to invest in sports programs after Australia's disasterous showing at the Montreal Olympics. We are reaping the benifits of this.

Latest market Women's 400m Hurdles Final - Gold Medal (25/8)

Fani Halkia (GRE) - $1.80 (was $1.95)
Yuliya Pechenkina (RUS) - $2.60 (was $2.45)
Jana Pittman (AUS) - $6.50 (was $6.00)
Sheena Johnson (USA) - $21.00 (same)
Ionela Tirlea-Manolache (ROM) - $31.00 (was $26.00)
Tetyana Tereshcuk-Antipova (UKR) - $41 (was $34.00)
Yekaterina Bikert (RUS) - $101 (was $67.00)
Brenda Taylor (USA) - $101.00 (same)

Here's the latest medal tally


United States 25 27 19 Total 71
China 24 15 12 Total 51
Japan 15 8 9 Total 32
Australia 14 9 14 Total 37
France 9 7 9 Total 27
Russia 8 17 21 46
Germany 8 10 13 Total 31


Great Britain 7 8 7 Total 22
NZ 2 0 0 Total 2

"Chinese who are currently leading have 2 billion people"

No, 1.2 to 1.3 billion.

"If we had over a billion people,is anyone suggesting that we would have won more gold medals?"

Of course. Sports is a big part of our culture which is what gives us the medals. With the same culture but a larger population, you would expect more medals.

Our medals per capita wouldn't increase in direct proportion though, since we're obviously good at some sports and bad at others. We'd saturate swimming, most team sports etc, but we still would be behind in athletics, gymnastics etc. To get twice as many medals we'd probally need 60-80 million.

Better idea is to go 'head hunting'.
Oz such a lucky country, great lifestyle. Convince a dozen or so o/s good potential gold medal winners and go on an import drive. I'm sure some of the big sponsors would get involved :smile:

Getting off the forum subject matter Mr J,but if Australia could support over 60 million people at the standard we are accustomed to,then that is what our population would be.
If not,maybe the Government could redirect some of the Sports revenue funding to the welfare budget.

Excellent idea whiterhino. Go on a recruitment drive!

Don’t forget to include coaches / trainers on the list.

Channel 7's Sunrise program puts up what they call the 'real' medal tally based on population size. At the moment it's:
1 Australia
2 New Zealand
3 Greece
4 Norway

As for that idea of 'buying' gold medals, I am all for champion athletes coming here if it's because this is where they want to live, but we should never go so far as paying them. I was extremely pleased with the result of the womens 5000m yesterday. The favourite was an Ethiopian woman who had been basically bought by a Turkish company to go and compete for Turkey and win them a gold medal. She was the world record holder but after leading early, she collapsed and finished 12th, while the gold medal was won by another Ethiopian. Justice!

As far as I'm concerned, there's no doubt that a larger population gives you more chance of unearthing a champion athlete. The Americans have 280 million people, so they obviously stand a greater chance of producing someone special than we do with our 20 million. They can also have much greater depth across a whole lot of sports.

Out of all the countries involved, the USA would be competitive at the largest number of sports, but we're probably second as far as that is concerned. Take the Baseball for example. We beat Japan to get to the final. Now, Japan has a population about 6 or 7 times ours and Baseball is basically their number one sport, while it's a very minor sport here. Beating Japan at Baseball should be just like Japan beating Australia at Cricket. We'll be playing Cuba in the final, and again they are just so incredibly strong at Baseball, so it's hard to see us winning the gold. Silver would still be a great performance though.


[ This Message was edited by: sportznut on 2004-08-25 09:50 ]

Does anyone rate Pitmann in the 400m hurdles
I think she'll get the bronze behind the greek and russian in that order
cheers

Love your workz sportz.

tab sportsbet are betting $1.90 the quinella for the russian and greek girls. I reckon its money for jam

The tall russian girlie didnt seem to be out of puff the other day (pulled up well ) but I had a patriotic $6 on Jana at $11.50 with B/F its supposed to be on at 4.55am our time tomorrow.... spose ill have to get up and watch it now my freights gunna be running round

I feel really sorry for Loretta Harrop. That was terrible watching that. Apparently, the winner is going to get a million bucks and a house from the Austrian government! No wonder she finished so damn fast!!!

I must say that I think the Greek runner's performance is a little bit dubious. I know that athletes can perform above expectations in front of their home fans, but she was almost unheard of until a few days ago.

Sportz, heard yesterday when the aussies beat japan in the baseball that the japanese team salary was $100 million while ours was $300,000 so it goes to show money isnt everything.

Channel 7's Sunrise program 'real' medal tally based on population size. Current ranking.

1 Bahamas
2 Australia
3 New Zealand
4 Greece

Yeh. Just goes to show.

The great Dulcify started at 330-1 at its first start win.

I didnt know dulcify was greek mo
Maybe the greeks are feeding their athletes a bit more than kalamata olives and tzaziki
Two things the country who has the olympics invariably does well and secondly they have been able to acclimatise but with the two sprinters being banned,maybe their is something shady going on
cheers

Do the aussie opals have any hope of knocking over the yanks for gold. I've been watching and backing our girls and they keep easily beating the spreads and are playing great bb. The $4 seems good value, but, how good are the seppos?

Damn good! Australia is the only team with a chance of beating them, but they'll have to play at their absolute best. I reckon we'd beat them maybe 1 game in 5, so I guess you have to take the gamble that the final is going to be that one game.

[ This Message was edited by: sportznut on 2004-08-26 16:24 ]

I'd say 1 in 3 sportz :wink:

I wish I was that confident Mr J.

Here's the latest medal tally


United States 25 29 23 Total 77
China 25 17 12 Total 54
Australia 16 11 15 Total 42
Russia 15 19 23 57
Japan 15 9 10 Total 34
Germany 10 11 13 Total 34
France 10 7 9 Total 26
Italy 9 6 8 Total 23


Great Britain 7 8 10 Total 25
NZ 3 1 0 Total 4

WOMENS BASKETBALL GOLD

USA - $1.33
AUSTRALIA - $4.00
RUSSIA - $14.00
BRAZIL - $28.00