Athens 2004

[AndersM]

dulce et decorum est, pro patri mori

Translation for those un-educated bastards who don't know latin:
It's sweet and honourable to die for your 'fatherland'

[Darth Mandarb]

Did anybody catch that Track & Field 400 sweep by the US?

I'm not one to rub a victory in the faces of the losers or anything ... I'm just commenting on how cool that was!Ã,  First time since '88 that the US swept that event.

It's also the first time since 1964 that a white American won.Ã,  There's an interesting article about it over at MSNBC.com for any who might be interested.

Other hi-lights (or low-lights) for me:
- Seeing Russian Anastasia Myskina blow a 5-1 lead in the third set to Henin-Hardenne ... what an upset!!
- Seeing Gary Hall win again (he's a cocky bastard but oh well)
- Seeing Phelps (swimmer) step down after winning his seventh medal to let Ian Crocker race in his place (so Crocker could get a gold)
- Seeing the crowd (last night) boo and scream until the judges re-evaluated Nemov's score on the high-bar.Ã,  The man deserved better than he got and the crowd knew it!
- Seeing May/Walsh & McPeak/Young doing so well in beach Volleyball
- 2 words; Logan Tom

I could keep going ... it's been a good Olympics.

[viktor]

Damn right it's been a good Olympics. Slovenia already has 4 medals. Man I happy. I think that this will finaly show the world that slovenians are to be taken seriously (4 years ago we even got 2 gold medals). Shure this year we didn't get any gold (yet) but 4 medals  :o.
Not much for some people but for us slovenians that's some achevment.

[Las Naranjas]

I think it's hilarious that Australia beat Japan in the baseball, the latter being one of the biggest Baseball nation in the world and the former without a currently operating baseball league.

[Andail]

I think that this will finaly show the world that slovenians are to be taken seriously

Don't wanna burst your bubble, but....3 bronze and one silver?
I take Slovenia seriously, but it has little to do with your olympic achievements...

[Ghormak]

So apparently we won the silver medal in skeet shooting.

He would have won the gold medal, but the judges thought he was a "camp0r fag", so they let some Russian or something win instead.

[rodekill]

Haha canader r bettar than sleveniars!!!11!!1!

[MrColossal]

So apparently we won the silver medal in skeet shooting.

He would have won the gold medal, but the judges thought he was a "camp0r fag", so they let some Russian or something win instead.

this took too long to make and it isn't even that funny

[shbaz]

this took too long to make and it isn't even that funny

That, and I don't get it. What's the deal?

[Timosity]

I think it's hilarious that Australia beat Japan in the baseball, the latter being one of the biggest Baseball nation in the world and the former without a currently operating baseball league.

I don't think we'll beat Cuba though, we're pretty lucky to be playing in the Gold/Silver match as Cuba beat Canada, and Canada beat us 11-0, at least it's a garanteed silver.

I haven't physically watched a lot of the Olympics but I usually have it on in the background. And most of the finals are on when I'm asleep.

Over all I think it's Australia's most successful away games.

At the moment an Aussie is leading the womans triathlon...... (waits a few minutes) gets overtaken in the last 5 secs of a race that goes over 2 hours to get silver, it was still a great effort, and the winner came from nowhere (quite extraordinary)

It's good to see how well some of the poor African countries go in Athletics, much better than Australia

[Kinoko]

Interestingly (or not), the woman that overtook the Australian is an Australian too (from Geelong) who didn't qualify with us, so she used her dual citizenship with Austria to get in with them. Pah, I was really cheering for the Aussie girl...

[Las Naranjas]

I should mention the victory was all the more funny because my girl is Japanese.

[Damien]

Croatia has gold in Handball!!!!!

[Czar]

I'll make a new thread!

[Barcik]

A Chinese runner won the 110 metres, instead of big and strong black guy. A Chinese runner won the 10,000 metres, instead of the Ethiopians and Kenyians (sp?). The chinese even won women's volleyball, despite the fact that their tallest player was 20 cms lower than that of the oponnent. Do you realize what that means? The Chinese will win totally everything in Beijing 2008! The moment they found out that they are going to be hosts of the Olympics, they have begun investing in sports. And it has been only two years since. They are going to sweep everything in 4 years.

[Timosity]

Yeah, I agree that the Chinese will kick arse in Beijing, the home team usually does better than usual.

They were only 3 Gold off the USA this time, although the US got a lot more medals in total, but not many more than Russia.

Those 3 teams are generally up there. (usually along with Germany, they're still up there, but have dropped back in recent years)

Australia came 4th by Gold and By Total medals which is pretty good for a small population (same position as last olympics), New Zealand did pretty well with 3 Gold which would put them right up the top in terms of Gold per head of population.

Aust had lots of funding for years leading up to the Sydney games, but it was cut back a lot for these ones and we still got our most Gold ever, 1 better than Sydney.

What a shame about the Brazilian Marathon runner, some damn psychonaut Irish drunk priest jester, pity he didn't get run over the last time at the F1 Grand Prix.

[Nellie]

Now here's something I'd be interested to hear from you guys...

Paula Radcliffe: sympathy or scorn?

[Pumaman]

Don't get me started on Paula Radcliffe, she's totally useless.

She's a professional athlete, she must have trained for months for these olympics, and then she can't even finish the race? What the hell was she doing in her training... prancing around a 100 metre circuit?

Some people blamed it on the heat. What a shock that must have been, Greece is hot. I'm sure she could never have seen that one coming, and God forbid, actually trained in Greece or a similarly hot country.

On the same day that she drops out of the race, Kelly Holmes wins gold in another event. Which of these does the evening news spend more time talking about? The victory, or the drop-out? Ridiculous.

So then, she decides that she hasn't quite been humiliated enough, and enters the 10 km race as well. We were having sweepstakes on how long she'd last for, and I almost won (if only she could have held on for 5 minutes longer!). I just can't understand it ... she's supposed to be a professional athlete yet she can't even finish the race, let alone win it.

I was hearing lately about how she has quite a few commercial sponsorship deals... I'm just waiting for the advert "Right Guard: Gives up as easily as Paula Radcliffe".

Anyway, *ahem*, sorry about that rant, do continue.

[Goldmund]

Poland is 23rd! That's our worst since 1953.
This is, of course, caused by the fact that summer was really cold in Poland and the contrast with Greek weather must've caught our athletes off guard (much like with Paula Radcliffe).

It's a bit humiliating when your country wins something as absurd as "walking very fast to the point of running but you cannot run!"
Contestants in this category look like morons in a hurry, who really don't want to wet their pants, yet it's still a long way to the loo.

Most sports are about breaking boundaries of human possibilities, an athlete looks beautiful when running, swimming, jumping.
What do we have?
A man who walks very fast, but he's not running.
That's our gold medal.
Oh, well.

[Kinoko]

Hehehe, I agree - the walking is a pretty stupid sport. It's like people who couldn't qualify in running made up a new event just so they could participate.

I didn't know who this "Paula Radcliff" was until I read CJ's post and went, "Ohhhh, the stupid whiney cow who didn't finish the race". I agree totally about her. Just because she wasn't winning, it's like she had a spack attack and decided not to bother. That's not what the Olympics is about at ALL and I wasn't sorry for her one little bit.

On the same note, I'm also unhappy about those relay runners who screwed up and then decided not to finish. Firstly, why not just finish the race for the sake of the sport and the spirit and yadda yadda? Secondly, whoever in the relay decides to stop is forcing that decision on all the other runners in their team. I mean, that's pretty selfish in my opinion. I saw on a couple of occasions various relay runners waiting and waiting for their partner to come in vain.

I only heard today about that Irish dickhead. Christ, I don't know where to start on him, but I share your sentiments on wishing he were run over.

While I'm on the downsides of this whole thing, I might as well mention the big hoo-ha we had over here in Australia about our rowing team bitching to the media straight away after one of our rowers stopped. Fair enough that they be disappointed, but they immediately ran to the media and bitched about her, someone they've no doubt been training intensively with for at least 4 years. Another unsportsman-like moment and I was ashamed it was the Australian team.

Other than things like that, I thought it was a great Olympics. I can't WAIT for Beijing (er, in a way... I really -can- wait).

I noticed there was no "Greatest Olympics Ever" in the IOC president's speech. Do you think he was just breaking with tradition since he's new and doesn't want to carry it on, or he really didn't think it was a good Olympics? Was that a tradition Antonio Samaranch started? I only heard about it this year so it's new to me.