The Official Olympic Games 2008 thread

[Skeptic]

awwww... that hurts tim

 

[El Freako]

It is a valid argument. Thorpe contested the hardest events with the most outstanding competition in it. He didn't line up for several events he usually had a couple. He qualified to compete in the 50, 100, 200 and 400m freestyle and only contested two. There was no doubt at the time that he would have won three of those 4 (50m was anyone's). That's without any of the relay's which are kinda an excuse to give away medals.

I do admire Phelps though, as he is taking a wide range of medley distances and doing well. Would not be an easy ask to perform well in so many events.

Another thing you have to consider about Thorpe is that he pretty much dominated his event from the age of 15/16 until what was effectively his retirement in 2004 at the age of 21. It makes you wonder how much further he could have gone considering another of our Olympic swimming greats, Kieren Perkins, competed until he was 28, only just being usurped in his pet event by newcomer Grant Hackett.

I'm not trying to take anything away from Phelps though, the man is a freak!

 

[tim290280]

awwww... that hurts tim

I fucked up the post originally :methman:
I'm the one that swims like a brick. I do get better the more regularly I go swimming though, I go from brick to river stone.

Another thing you have to consider about Thorpe is that he pretty much dominated his event from the age of 15/16 until what was effectively his retirement in 2004 at the age of 21. It makes you wonder how much further he could have gone considering another of our Olympic swimming greats, Kieren Perkins, competed until he was 28, only just being usurped in his pet event by newcomer Grant Hackett.

I'm not trying to take anything away from Phelps though, the man is a freak!

Thorpe dominated whatever event he decided to turn his hand to. Apparently he had freaked out a few guys doing some backstroke.

He really was a human porpoise.

 

[Skeptic]

hehe im a pretty competent swimmer, if i actually ocntinued with swimming training when i was a kid i reckon i could have done pretty well

 

[tim290280]

^^ I have my bronze medalion and silver star but still battle to look anything like a smooth gliding swimmer. I really battle through the water and use up a lot of energy.

 

[Skeptic]

shit ey, im usually pretty smoothe... but im not that fit currently hehe, so i to struggle to look smoothe in the water

 

[chadcruz]

^ The reason they font show it live is because they air it when it is more convenient to everyone in the U.S.A

The whole reason NBC pressured the Beijing Olympic Committee to change from the traditional nightime finals to morning finals was so that the finals would be on LIVE for prime-time US tv (ie the highest rating period for tv viewing). Going to all that effort then supposedly not being bothered to show the races live and instead replacing them with ridiculous celebrity gossip shows seemed to me to be crazy.
A lot of other countries, including Australia were seriously pissed off by the decision to change finals to the morning.

 

[chadcruz]

dude i have no idea whay you're talking about. all i have is NBC's main channel (4) and they've broadcasted every one of phelps's events. i don't even have cable and i've been able to watch them all. you must have your times or something wrong because they are definately being broadcasted.


and i'm pretty sure that when it's nightfall where i live (primetime for viewing) it's the morning in china. so that would make sense that they would want the events to be done in the AM in china.

Dont shoot the messenger bro, I was just presenting what was published in the article I posted. It never said they werent being broadcast, they said that they werent being shown live.

And yes you are right about the time difference. The point was NBC paid an absolute shitload to be the US host broadcaster and have over 5000 people working in Beijing to cover the Olympics. They put a ton of pressure to change the finals from evening to morning, simply so that people in the US could see the finals LIVE in prime time.

 

[tim290280]

The whole reason NBC pressured the Beijing Olympic Committee to change from the traditional nightime finals to morning finals was so that the finals would be on LIVE for prime-time US tv (ie the highest rating period for tv viewing). Going to all that effort then supposedly not being bothered to show the races live and instead replacing them with ridiculous celebrity gossip shows seemed to me to be crazy.
A lot of other countries, including Australia were seriously pissed off by the decision to change finals to the morning.

Were we bloody ever!!!

Stupid Americans

 

[ironheart]

just saw the basketball match between USA and Greece and i gotta say that the USA team looks unstopable. poor Greece was just torn apart.

 

[ironheart]

just checked the medal score

China - gold: 22 - silver: 8 - bronze: 5

USA - gold: 10 - silver: 9 bronze: 15

Germany - gold: 7 - silver: 2 - bronze: 3

China is owning so far in the games.

 

[Tonyk212000]

^ Not really they have one more medal than us. Even though they have more golds big deal their at their home country and I think its a little biased ( expecting some disagreement here )

 

[Maxmonzter]

i think usa will dominate the basketball after seeing thos 2 games. dwayne wade is just insanely good

 

[Tonyk212000]

i think usa will dominate the basketball after seeing thos 2 games.

I could have told you that a year ago.

 

[tim290280]

^ Not really they have one more medal than us. Even though they have more golds big deal their at their home country and I think its a little biased ( expecting some disagreement here )

So you are saying that you have one less medal even though they have double the ones that count, meaning they have kicked ass

Seems to me you have a little double standard when it comes to this medal tally.

 

[El Freako]

^ Not really they have one more medal than us. Even though they have more golds big deal their at their home country and I think its a little biased ( expecting some disagreement here )

I think golds count for a lot more, home country or not. Currently China are WAY AHEAD in the medal tally. However the competition will really heat up once the track and field starts. I don't expect China to be able to compete with the Americans so well there. They've never been strong in those events.

 

[Tonyk212000]

they have double the ones that count

So now no other medals count? If that is the case then Australia isnt doing so good O wait you werent even with the other ones

 

[El Freako]

So now no other medals count? If that is the case then Australia isnt doing so good O wait you werent even with the other ones

Other medals count but a gold is worth more than a silver and a silver is worth more than a bronze. China are well in the lead with over double the number of gold medals that you guys have.

We never said we even had a chance at winning. We usually do well to start off with because of the swimming but pretty soon get left behind. We're 5th at the moment which isn't too bad but our medal counts are nowhere near America and especially not China.

 

[Tonyk212000]

^ I think its funny that the only argument you guys have against USA is to latch onto another countries medals to make an argument because your country is doing so poor. You guys should just give USA the respect it deserves. We are dominate in summer and winter Olympics and give us the respect (not yelling just stating )

 

[El Freako]

Dude nobody here has been disrespecting the USA. If anything you've been tooting your own horn a bit too much and some of us have tried to bring some perspective to the thread. Sure we might be a bit disappointed that our usual swimming medal haul isn't happening this year but maybe our time has passed in the pool. Good on Phelps for getting so many golds, he's an amazing athlete but I still don't think he's the greatest Olympian ever despite his medal tally. He's the most successful definitely.

Currently (note the use of the word "currently") however China are beating everyone by a mile. Whether they will continue to do so I don't know but I'm sure interested to find out. Everyone has always been used to the USA dominating the Olympics from day 1 so its an interesting development.

Please, please, please tone down your nationalistic ego just a little bit.