What are these more amazing things? And you just confirmed what I said about the 4x2. Obvious British failure is obvious

 

Welcome to Tip.it.

 

Other amazing Olympians:

 

Carl Lewis: Won multiple Golds, in both sprinting and Long jump.

Birgit Fischer: 8 Golds over 6 different Olympics, even missing out one due to the Eastern Bloc Boycott.

Aladar Gerevich: 6 medals with two golds 28 years apart.

 

Swimming has so many medals available with 4 different strokes of varying lengths meaning a dominant swimmer can win multiple golds in one games. Other athletes can be just as dominant, but because their sport doesn't have so many variants, they cannot possibly gain as many medals even though they may be just as good if not better. Compare it to the Heptathlon, which is a single event. The athletes there are imo the best in the world (along with triathletes) due to not only being world class in one sport, but in multiple.

 

Now i'm taking nothing away from Phelps, he is a dominant swimmer, but to call him the best Olympian is like calling the american basket-ballers the best footballers in the world. It's comparing apples to oranges.

Essentially, read this article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/olympics/19073234

 

Obvious Low_Levelled failure is obvious.

We are gonna have to agree to disagree. So I will make a statement that you can't refute.

 

Congratulations to phelps for becoming the most decorated olympian in history. Oh, and he just won the 200 im. So now its

 

20 medals, and 16 GOLDS.

 

HMD

Wiggins wasn't an underdog. He's the best time trialist in the world and one of the best cyclists in the world full stop. There's little-to-no debate about that; he's proven it twice already this year in the TdF on a far more difficult stage. It's a shame he broke his collarbone last year because the result of that TdF would probably have told us the pecking order between the Schlecks, Contador, Evans and Wiggins. From what I understand of the two rowers, they've dominated that event for the past four years, so there was little doubt about that either.

 

I think what Wiggins hasn't had, unlike Daley, is a media circus following his every move through some voyeuristic obsession with his "life story" since he was aged nine. I can't imagine what ungodly amount of pressure he must have felt on top of that diving board.

 

Wiggins isn't, but he's only one example. Think of all the underdogs from Beijing who won gold and haven't thus far been able to replicate their success at home - that swimmer in particular, I forget her name but she has a large nose, who won bronze. As for Glover and Stanning, they were not underdogs but their winning gold was not a dead cert as far as I know; this was their first Games, and on the world stage they have never won more than silver before. To say they dominated is not really true.

 

I don't really include Daley as an underdog, just a media darling, and because of this I agree the pressure must have been unbearable.

 

@Phelps fans: he's not really the greatest Olympian when you take into account the potential number of medals that can be won in swimming compared to other sports. It's massively over-represented at an Olympic level.

 

That would be Rebecca Adlington.

 

Obvious Phelps is an amazing athlete. Best ever debates will always ring out: there is no right or wrong answer really. Also it's clear he's not the dominant athlete he was four years ago, but that's not to say he's not still an amazing athlete.

 

Also, stop doubling posting Low_leveled.

 

Also, NZ finally has it's first gold, could be in for two more tonight !

 

Rebecca Adlington it was indeed. Thank you.

 

Off to the Olympic Stadium for some athletics event tomorrow, and saw badminton on Monday, which essentially consisted of Chinese players beating Occidental players of Chinese descent (and a few others). One-sided is an understatement.

Woo Team GB :) Third in the medals table right now

Woo team Canada! Doing poorly as always :P

 

Oh well, we do fine in winter...

Kiwis doing steady with three gold now. Nick Willis is looking like a good medal chance in the 1500, cruising into the finals. Valerie Adams also looking to defend her Gold in the Shot put, plus a couple of Kiwi sailors in alright position, so we should have a few more medals in us yet! Oh and Triathlon tomorrow night, yeeeah buddy!

Bolt was actually tested, slightly. I'm amazed the other guys are still trying sometimes.

I feel very lucky to have watched Jess Ennis begin her heptathlon victory on Friday at the hurdling. By far the best of the sports I saw at four hours at the Olympic Stadium - shot put and hammer throw are rather boring to watch in a stadium, and some of the longer races tend to drag on. Other than that, the 400m sprints and hurdles were equally enjoyable. Saw Ohorugu (or however it's spelt), too, in her heat.

 

I completely forgot to post this at the time.

Even though the U.S. and China are quite large I heard that they're both running out of room to put their medals. Rest of the world, are you even trying?

The bad thing about the US medals are that they are still half swimming related, we don't really have quite as good of a spread throughout all the sports. We still have some more golds that should come somewhat easily (Men's Basketball, Women's Beach Volleyball) but I'm not sure which others we are going to be getting from now on...

Kiwis doing steady with three gold now. Nick Willis is looking like a good medal chance in the 1500, cruising into the finals. Valerie Adams also looking to defend her Gold in the Shot put, plus a couple of Kiwi sailors in alright position, so we should have a few more medals in us yet! Oh and Triathlon tomorrow night, yeeeah buddy!

It makes me angry NZ is beating Flopstralia

Looking forward to the women's football semi-finals tomorrow. I'd love to see Canada pull off a win.

This was pretty good: http://vimeo.com/46824253

http://vimeo.com/46824253

Ireland are rocking out in the boxing :D

Australia have done well today, even though you managed to beat us in one of the Cycling events a little unfairly imo (i think Pendleton was unfairly penalised).

 

UK are really coming along in the medals, and i'm really surprised China and the US aren't doing as well as they usually do. For coutnries with such huge populations and money to put into sports, neither have dominated as they should. Then a tiny country like the UK (and South Korea) can dominate in some of the sports and gain a much higher medal proportion than the population proportions would make you think.

All I can say is the Uk has thrown some serious coin at its Olympic programme, So many of their athletes are winning stuff these games. NZ has fared disappointingly , one gold medal favorite doing well below her best in the shotput, and Nick Willis looked awful in the 1500, especially after the ease in which he coasted though the heats and the semis.

Australia have done well today, even though you managed to beat us in one of the Cycling events a little unfairly imo (i think Pendleton was unfairly penalised).

 

UK are really coming along in the medals, and i'm really surprised China and the US aren't doing as well as they usually do. For coutnries with such huge populations and money to put into sports, neither have dominated as they should. Then a tiny country like the UK (and South Korea) can dominate in some of the sports and gain a much higher medal proportion than the population proportions would make you think.

 

You also have to take into account the limit on the amount of competitors per country that can enter.

Yeah kiwi, four golds. It's nearly 2am here, staying up to watch the bmx finals, then the women's hockey Bronze medal match. Yeeeah come at me coffee!

UK are really coming along in the medals, and i'm really surprised China and the US aren't doing as well as they usually do. For coutnries with such huge populations and money to put into sports, neither have dominated as they should. Then a tiny country like the UK (and South Korea) can dominate in some of the sports and gain a much higher medal proportion than the population proportions would make you think.

Developing elite athletes has never been an issue for the UK.

 

Our amateur participation rates are far too low, however. I'd go as far to say pathetic, given our relative economic strength, vast sports tradition and our near total faith in socialised medicine. That's why it's so vital that these Games really do get more people involved.

Team GB are finally doing well, 3rd in the rankings is decent finish for the host nation. We have done well in some events I really didn't expect us to, and have a nice spread of medals across multiple disciplines.

Yeah, we did quite well. I'm quite surprised how well South Korea have done tbh. I don't see them as a big sporting nation but they really seem to be up there.

 

Watched the Basketball final today, and as per all Olympics, I had to ask myself why it is even in the Olympics. It wouldn't be as bad if it wasn't that the US was the only country that really plays it in a major way. It really doesn't surprise me at all they they always win it.

final medals table

our best performance in 104 years apparently

EDIT: biggest surprises on there for me are GB & South Korea tbh

Well good to see them blowing the bloody doors off a reliant robin I thought that there was a serious lack of Michael Caine from the opening ceremony.

haha agreed, closing ceremony has a lot more pace and purpose than our opening ceremony. thoroughly impressed so far