Olympics - does anyone actually care anymore?

[Pothas]

Dressage, absolutely ridiculous.

 

[grecian]

Hope Solo is a piece of work isn't she?

 

[MW1304]

Hope Solo is a piece of work isn't she?

How you respond to a loss when you're used to winning for most of your life is a sure test of character. Safe to say she failed it miserably.

I saw the end of the game too and she's talking utter ****. Sweden should have won in extra time if it wasn't for a linesman that didn't seem to understand the offside rule.

 

[hendrix]

Hope Solo is a piece of work isn't she?

Man. I love her name too, when added to the quote. It's not quite Freedom Eagle First Amendment but it has a nice allusion.

 

[RossTaylorsBox]

Pretty rich of a domestic abuser to call other people cowards.

 

[Anil]

Hope Solo is a piece of work isn't she?

yeah she is a world class jerk alright...

 

[social]

In fairness, that's because we expect to win everything we compete in. Misguided though that may be, the people of Australia want to know their tax payers' dollars are being spent on people who actually win something, not someone who has several hundred grand tipped into them, cops a massive sponsorship on top of that from a ****ing breakfast cereal, goes in as gold medal favourite, bombs then gets out of the pool and says "Oh well, I don't need a gold medal to define who I am" or "It's not whether you win, but the fact you try your best to win". GAGF then.

Tbf, given that our elite junior athletes are targeted from a young age by professional sporting codes offering big incentives, it's pretty remarkable that we are competitive in more than a handful of sports as the vast majority of the best kids are playing sports that arent at the Olympics

Having said that, swimming generally doesnt fit into that category and someone like Cate Campbell was seriously disappointing - I seriously doubt that she could swim that badly if you paid her to and it's unlikely that she will swim a time that slow again before the next Olympics

 

[Zinzan]

Tough for Val Adams, went within a whisker of being the first woman to 3 win Olympics shot-put golds on the trot. Fair play to the American woman though.

NZ making up for the fact we're traditionally been shy in silver medals compared to any other. Not this time, that's our 5th silver this games.

Still a good chance for gold for Drysdale & Carrington. I suppose Lydia Ko also has as good a chance as anyone else in the womens golf.

Any prospects I've missed here, Sailors perhaps?

Edit: Have since read our Sailors are in reasonable shape.

 

[Hurricane]

Tough for Val Adams, went within a whisker of being the first woman to 3 win Olympics shot-put golds on the trot. Fair play to the American woman though.

NZ making up for the fact we're traditionally been shy in silver medals compared to any other. Not this time, that's our 5th silver this games.

Still a good chance for gold for Drysdale & Carrington. I suppose Lydia Ko also has as good a chance as anyone else in the womens golf.

Any prospects I've missed here, Sailors perhaps?

Yeah - I watched the whole thing Zinzan. Couldn't believe it that she did that on the last throw. Well done Valerie anyway. I am proud of your effort.

 

[vic_orthdox]

Hope Drysdale goes well, his brother is a good cricketer, spent a year playing against him in England, he's a ripper.

 

[Bahnz]

Yeah - I watched the whole thing Zinzan. Couldn't believe it that she did that on the last throw. Well done Valerie anyway. I am proud of your effort.

I watched nearly the whole thing, popped out to make a cup of tea thinking it was in the bag and came back just in time to see that she'd lost.

Here's a recording of me finding out:

Pains me to say it, but I don't think the hockey girls will be in the mix. They've been incredibly profligate in front of goal, and just don't look like they have the right mentality. The late goal they let in against Spain was incredibly slack, and some of the things the captain said after the loss against Germany makes me think not all is right in the squad.

Emma Twigg also an outside chance for a gold in the woman's single skulls.

 

[Bahnz]

Tough for Val Adams, went within a whisker of being the first woman to 3 win Olympics shot-put golds on the trot. Fair play to the American woman though.

NZ making up for the fact we're traditionally been shy in silver medals compared to any other. Not this time, that's our 5th silver this games.

Still a good chance for gold for Drysdale & Carrington. I suppose Lydia Ko also has as good a chance as anyone else in the womens golf.

Any prospects I've missed here, Sailors perhaps?

Edit: Have since read our Sailors are in reasonable shape.

We've got a couple more reasonable hopes in athletics. Tom Walsh is the big one. Not really a gold medal contender, but he's capable of being in the mix for silver/bronze. Nick Willis will always have a puncher's chance of a minor medal in the 1500m and it'll also be worth keeping an eye on Eliza McCartney in the pole-vault. 2016 will probably be 4 years too soon for her, but she's an enormous talent, very much the heir apparent to Val as the queen of NZ athletics, so it'll be fun to watch her in action.

 

[straw man]

Random Olympics-related question for NZers:

How did you find out that most of Africa boycotted Montreal in 1976 because of New Zealand rugby team touring South Africa? I thought this would be kind of a big event in our history but no one really mentions what happened and even at school we only focused on the 1981 protests.

I feel like I've heard something about this in passing once but never read about it. Wow, little old New Zealand huh.

 

[Anil]

katie ledecky is just spectacular, not sure we ever saw such dominance in the pool!

 

[Burgey]

Australian soccer never ends well in major tournaments. :-(

 

[straw man]

Gutting loss in the women's soccer for Oz against Brazil on penalties. The two Aussies that missed pens will feel terrible, but the Brazilian keeper made great saves, especially the last one, and had so much more presence off her line than the Aus goalkeeper.

 

[Jono]

God I hope Schooling beats Phelps again

Did it!

 

[Jono]

Gutting loss in the women's soccer for Oz against Brazil on penalties. The two Aussies that missed pens will feel terrible, but the Brazilian keeper made great saves, especially the last one, and had so much more presence off her line than the Aus goalkeeper.

She was way off her line

 

[Daemon]

Yassssss wafg. Was from my primary and secondary school before he left for the US to train in a better environment. Can't believe we have a Gold in swimming now.

Ping pong was a disappointment though

 

[GIMH]

Jessica Ennis