Unofficial Olympics Thread

[nik0tine]

America does rule the sports world. We have all the steroids we'll ever need!

[Dingo Jellybean]

Jealous of the USA team?

Congratulations to the Great Britain 4x100 Sprint team. Rank outsiders to take the Gold away from the Americans. Excellent display and good luck to Amir Khan today.

Britain cannot compete with the USA for total medals, to say that is utter nonsense, since the first Olypmpics I watched in Seoul, the Brits have never come close. You obviously have a problem with other peoples opinions, all you have done is throw stats at me. Statistically Claus Jensen was the highest scoring midfield player in the Premiership last season, we was sold for a million pounds, peanuts in football terms. Statistics don't do all the talking in sport, the 4x100 result should tell you that. The gold Britain won in the Equestrianism should tell you that. Carl Lewis upgrading to gold should tell you that. There are thousands of variables in sport that cannot be accounted for by statistics. The Americans have sent more athletes to every Olympic games I have watched since 1988, I think you have already stated that. And they have won them all. Do you have a job by the way?

The olympics is the only major sporting event that America have any dominance over. They can't play rugby, they can't play cricket, and despite their high FIFA ranking, they are a long way off being dominant in world Soccer. In fact their high world ranking is another example of stats in sport not working. Pretty good at Tennis though, in fact America tends to excel in individual events only (with the exception of the sports they invented so they would be the best at.). To say other countries are jealous is just an example of an egotistical American, don't be a sterotype man! I don't need help researching anything, get over yourself! I have a full time job and a degree to think about, I'm not gonna waste my time researching, at length, an arguement with an arrogant "we're the best, we're the best" american. What's the point, you've made up your mind that America rule the sporting world, who am I to argue?

Oh God, now you're throwing insults at me because I've proven my point? The US can't compete in Rugby, cricket, etc because _THEY DON'T PLAY_ those sports.

Carl Lewis won the gold, gasp, why? Because Ben Johnson was found guilty of steroid use. Don't even bring his name up in this matter, to do so would disgrace the best track athlete to grace international grounds.

Great Britain won that 4x100 meter relay, big deal. It was a fair victory, I'll give you that...but only because of a botched handoff...not because Britain was faster. If you're going to bring up small tidbits of Great Britain's victories, I can fill up a whole book with the victories the US have had. Not only do you not read what I say, you put words in my mouth by me saying that I said all people are jealous. I said <i>some</i> are jealous. I never once said everyone hated the US, but you act like I claim I did. I could say you're that stereotypical European that hates all things American. You're doing that now, trying to criticize the US' high FIFA ranking...trying to claim that we only dominate American-origin sports.

Sports like basketball are Canadian in origin, not American. Surely you cannot say swimming and track and field are American in origin, because their origin have not been accurately accounted for.

Also, you said _AFTER_ 1988 the US had the most athletes. So you discount whatever the United States did prior to the Seoul Olympics. That's just ignorance right there.

As for you saying you have a job, I suppose, why would you bother to reply in the first place? Don't you have a "degree" to "work" on? If you are so concentrated on your degree and job, why bother typing up lengthy replies?

If you don't agree with me, fine...don't look like a hypocrite and accuse people of not having jobs and degrees while you look the other way just because people don't agree with you.

[Rinoabella]

Alas the Olympics are over! I am eagerly awaiting the Commonwealth Games

[Loony BoB]

You guys can go on and on about jealousy and winning and what they win etc, but I'm pretty confident that NZ had a higher gold-medal-per-capita than a large amount of the countries ranked above 'em. 3 golds, 4 million people. That's one gold for every 1.3 million. For the US to do that, they'd need to have over 190 golds. I think only Aussie can beat us on those grounds, actually, although I'm not entirely sure about the populations of some of the other countries.

US is good, yes, as is China and Russia and UK and whatnot. But going by the standards of smaller countries who produce more successful athletes per capita, they aren't "dominant" for any reason besides sheer numbers. So you can all shut your pie holes already. There is possibly a country with less than a million people that has a gold medal - those countries/nations would likely have produced a better result than any of us.

EDIT: Woah, I just read some posts in this thread. Dingo, calm down, man... you're taking some sentences by people I know are very relaxed and don't really watch sport that intensely and thinking that they're implying so much more than they are. Keep in mind that for most people, Olympics are something you watch and go "Ooh, yay, we won! I'm so happy for my country!" or "Aww, we didn't win, bummer. Oh well, maybe next time." and that's about it. Try to keep in mind that a lot of the people who will post in this thread don't really care to do much more than celebrate the wins of their own country, and how much other countries win doesn't mean much at all. Especially for small nations like us NZ'ers, we don't care about who beats us unless it's Aussie, and that's nothing to do with jealousy. Sandy and Kelly are both NZ'ers, so I doubt they'd even care about how many medals are won by the other nations, they'd concentrate on NZ's victories. To the average NZ'er, nothing else matters.

[Dingo Jellybean]

EDIT: Woah, I just read some posts in this thread. Dingo, calm down, man... you're taking some sentences by people I know are very relaxed and don't really watch sport that intensely and thinking that they're implying so much more than they are. Keep in mind that for most people, Olympics are something you watch and go "Ooh, yay, we won! I'm so happy for my country!" or "Aww, we didn't win, bummer. Oh well, maybe next time." and that's about it. Try to keep in mind that a lot of the people who will post in this thread don't really care to do much more than celebrate the wins of their own country, and how much other countries win doesn't mean much at all. Especially for small nations like us NZ'ers, we don't care about who beats us unless it's Aussie, and that's nothing to do with jealousy. Sandy and Kelly are both NZ'ers, so I doubt they'd even care about how many medals are won by the other nations, they'd concentrate on NZ's victories. To the average NZ'er, nothing else matters.

BoB, before I go on, I respect your opinions and I have nothing against you after/before/during this post. But this is where you're wrong.

I never lashed out at anyone(unless someone lashed at me), if you carefully read the posts...I explained my side of the story.

People always criticize the US about the most number of athletes means most number of medals. I've always defended that side of it and my factual stats prove it, I even offered proof. We can go on and on about quantity vs. quality. 24 athletes were tested positive for these olympics for steroid use, none of them American...that should speak volumes. Only 1/4 athletes in these Olympics were tested, but even the cheaters were kept out of the olympics by the US. So many of the gold medals won by the US were not even favorites to win.

I never said everyone was jealous, I said <u>some</u> are jealous. I don't know why people overlook that. <b>Some != all.</b> If you want to go through Gold medals per capita, I can go through gold medals per event. Gold per capita is useless in this case because a more accurate measure is gold per number of athletes. The USOC recognizes just over 2 million athletes this past year. I'm not sure how much other countries OC recognize, but still...just 2 million participating in the olympics(whether it's in the world championships, trials, etc.) out of a population of about 293 mil isn't exactly sheer(if you want to go on relative terms).

I know there are people who don't care, that's not what's at dispute. What I'm saying is that I'm sick of people saying the US wins just because they have more athletes. Funny how those people(like BoB, and Doc) never have lived in the US. I've been near these athletes and seen how hard they work. I can't imagine why people would criticize the US like that other than jealousy. Am I saying everyone is jealous? No. That's an ignorant comment. You can't deny there is <u>some</u> jealousy.

People tend to "false praise" the US athletes. They say the US has the best athletes...(they should stop here)...but then go on to say they wouldn't be so great if they didn't dominate their "own" sports and that they just have the most athletes. That's pretty much an insult in disguise.

Bottom line: The US has better athletes(overall) simply by being better. That's it. Don't go on to criticize the athletes who worked their whole lives only to be shot down with ignorant comments like "more athletes means more medals." They are good because they worked hard, trained smart, and often are monetarily rewarded.

[Loony BoB]

I disagree that you have the best athletes as it's impossible to compare them with overseas people. Just because they don't have as fancy a facility doesn't mean anything, as you said it's how hard you train, and Russians or Cubans or Romanians, they all train just as hard.

I don't know how many people train to be athletes in other countries but I can't see it being too far in difference when it comes to per capita. I won't say there is no jealousy, though, I can see what you mean there. I just think that you accused (or questioned) people who were posting nothing to do with being jealous or against US, y'no.

Otherwise I can pretty much agree with everything else you said, I think, so yay.

EDIT: When you say you have better athletes overall, you overlook the fact that in countries outside NZ, most of the sports that are #1, #2 and #3 - possibly even #4 - are all not played in the Olympics, and therefore Olympics isn't any way to judge overall ability. I don't think anyone can honestly say who has the overall better athletes (per population or per athlete). NZ, for example - Cricket? Rugby? Rugby League? Netball? Maybe Netball, if any of them, but I don't think it was there. I don't know what comes after that but I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't played at the Olympics either. I'm not saying NZ is the best in the world, I'm just saying you have to take into consideration that most US Sports are played there and therefore most US athletes are competing. A lot of countries, like NZ, do not have their top athletes performing at the Olympics.

[Rinoabella]

Especially for small nations like us NZ'ers, we don't care about who beats us unless it's Aussie, and that's nothing to do with jealousy. Sandy and Kelly are both NZ'ers, so I doubt they'd even care about how many medals are won by the other nations, they'd concentrate on NZ's victories. To the average NZ'er, nothing else matters.

Quite right, mate!

edit: Might I add that NZ could not afford to send many of their atheletes to Athens. I'm sure a lot of other (small) countries couldn't either!

[Skogs]

Basically, I'd say that for a country to do well (meaning win stacks of medals) at the Olympics it needs at least two of:

1) a large population.
2) a strong economy.
3) a large fanbase.

USA wins because it has a quarter billion people, and has stacks of money to throw at athletes. As far as China is concerned, they aren't as rich as the US, but they have five times the population - so there will be more people who have the potential to be of Olympic standard. Russia is a smaller than the US, and has a pretty wonky economy, but it'll still have much of the Soviet sports infrastructure left over so the legacy still perists. Australia, although very small in comparison, throws stacks and stacks of money at our athletes - and in addition we are a sports-mad country - so naturally we do well. Japan in fifth is pretty big and also boasts a strong economy.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that there is no single factor that should determine the Olympic success of a certain country. No counrty is 'just that good'. There are a variety of reasons why this may be.

And I tip China to top the medal table at Beijing. Home advantage, I imagine, will play strongly into their hands.

[Imperia]

I think everyone is good in at the Olympics in one way or another. There's no reason we should argue about who's better.