No Olympics thread yet?

Horse Riding isn't the most exciting of sports (according to me anyway), but then getting gold three olympics in a row is .... Well done Anky van Grunsven! And on a different horse, too. :)

Can't believe I typed this.
 
so its just an opinion piece, its not trying to be palmed off as news (i hope :) )

personally rankings of medals both methods are wrong.
A/ the total medal method is laughable
B/ golds first, is better but not perfect eg
TUN - Tunisia 1-0-0
HUN - Hungary 0-4-1

C/ a better method is
bronze = 1 points
silver = 2 points
gold = X points (prolly 4->10points)
I thought this ranking method (admittedly from the Athens Olympics) which shows the Bahamas followed by Norway as the top Olympic nations, is quite interesting.

What is scary, though, is the amount of cash that is spent per gold medal by some countries. One of the UK papers showed the enormous ramp up in spending in the UK over the past decade or so and I guess many others do the same. Frankly, I think some of that cash should be sent to 3D graphics programmers/researchers :p
 
I thought this ranking method (admittedly from the Athens Olympics) which shows the Bahamas followed by Norway as the top Olympic nations, is quite interesting.

What is scary, though, is the amount of cash that is spent per gold medal by some countries. One of the UK papers showed the enormous ramp up in spending in the UK over the past decade or so and I guess many others do the same. Frankly, I think some of that cash should be sent to 3D graphics programmers/researchers :p


They should be scaled based on weight.
Gold = 19320 kg/cu.m
Silver = 10490 kg/cu.m
Bronze = 8900 kg/cu.m

Country Gold Silver Bronze Points
China 45 14 20 1194260
USA 26 27 28 1034750
GB 16 10 11 511920
Russia 13 14 18 558220
Australia 11 12 13 454100
Germany 11 11 8 9 376540
South Korea 8 10 6 312860
Japan 8 6 9 297600
Italy 6 7 7 251650
Ukraine 5 5 8 220250
France 4 12 14 327760


Although as that puts Russia ahead of GB it is clearly flawed.:)
 
Usain "lighting" Bolt is pretty damn incredible! Two world records and beating Michael Johnsons record on 200m is something I didn't expect to see in a long time, and Bolt is only 21! so he has many years until he reaches his peak. Absolutely phemenonal athlete.
 
Usain "lighting" Bolt is pretty damn incredible! Two world records and beating Michael Johnsons record on 200m is something I didn't expect to see in a long time, and Bolt is only 21! so he has many years until he reaches his peak. Absolutely phemenonal athlete.

Actually he's 22 now. If you watched the 200 final you might have caught the crowd singing 'happy birthday' to him. He shouldn't reach his peak in terms of strength for a few years yet, if he can stay healthy I expect we'll see some better times yet.
 
Actually he's 22 now. If you watched the 200 final you might have caught the crowd singing 'happy birthday' to him. He shouldn't reach his peak in terms of strength for a few years yet, if he can stay healthy I expect we'll see some better times yet.

Still 21. His birthday is tomorrow. The crowd were probably just getting it in early.
 
Its tomorrow there. (or was, I believe)

Errrm, no. The 200m final was on the 20th. His birthday is on the 21st. Obviously it's the 21st NOW in China, but at the time he won his second gold he was still 21 years old.

Not that it's particularly important.
 
You can't add up the individual countries of Europe, and then say "look, its more than the US".

As individual countries, Europe gets more entries into sports, and you can send more top atheletes to the competition.
You can if it's about gold medals, since only one team/athlete can win the gold in each event. The medals they'd miss out on would be for the runners-up places in team competitions like sailing.

I think the medals table is fine the way it is with countries first ranked by number of events won.
 
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You can if it's about gold medals, since only one team/athlete can win the gold in each event. The medals they'd miss out on would be for the runners-up places in team competitions like sailing.

Not necessarily. For example, suppose that John, Michael, and Dan all have good chance of winning a gold medal on a particular event. If each of them have a 20% chance of winning a gold medal, and all three entered the event (such as that they are Europeans), the chance for Europe winning a gold medal may be about, say, 50%. However, if only one of them can enter the event (such as that they are Americans), the chance for USA winning a gold medal is still about 20%.
 
To me Michael Johnsons old record was pretty impressive considering Bolt just jaunted across the line for the 100m but gritted his teeth for the 200m and only just got it ( though into a headwind of course)

I wonder what Michael Johnson would have done if he was a bit taller ;)

Finally, Bolt runs normally, Johnson had that weird style like he had a pole down his back, makes him more unique in my book.

Bolts good but make him the same size as the rest of them and he would not be so far out. Johnson was the same size and was far out.....
 
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