2012 London Olympics - Official thread

[GalwayBayBoy]

Couple of competitors names at the Olympics that would be hard to live with....





Vania Stambolova who stumbled over in the 400 metre hurdles

[BennyHarp]

Sounds like there was some atmosphere at Katie Taylor's fight. From RTE.ie...

IOC: Noise level at Katie Taylor fight was highest recorded at London 2012 so far

The decibel level during Katie Taylor's fight with Natasha Jonas this afternoon hit 113.7 – the highest recorded at London 2012 so far.
An International Olympic Committee official said the noise surpassed the sound recorded during GB's win in the cycling finals at the Velodrome last week.
The noise of a jet engine is around 140 decibels.
When Taylor's name was mentioned for the first time a full 90 minutes before her fight, London's ExCel boxing arena shook with a roar that one Irish fan said could even be heard at the nearby wrestling arena.
Inside the arena, fans witnessed the best atmosphere at a fight at the Games so far, as the crowd exchanged chants of 'Team GB and 'Ole, Ole, Ole',
While British fighters have boxed in front of partisan crowds every day so far, Jonas' supporters were vastly outnumbered and outsung by the Irish fans, with a huge number of tricolours to be seen around the venue.
Back home, more than 6,000 boxing fans lined Bray seafront to see Taylor guarantee at least a bronze at the Olympics.
There was a great atmosphere as the champion fighter's Olympic debut was shown on an open-air big screen.
The boxer looked every inch a gold medal winner in waiting. She was briefly troubled in the second round but extended her advantage in a final two-round battering that saw Jonas receive two standing counts, thanks to a couple of thunderous right hands from the Bray boxer..

[Eamonnca1]

It is puking the life out of me watching, reading and listening to all this spouting about Team GB being so brilliant

Och I wouldn't begrudge them. They've put in a lot of work over the years and they're reaping the rewards. They deserve their medals and fair play to them.

... but at the same time the number of medals they are racking up is impressive when you compare it to what Team Ireland have won.  You would wonder how poor our athletes are when you look at your doll Murphy near drowning in the pool to Nocher being so far back in her races too.  How is the rest of the world so much better at swimming than the Irish?  Why don't we have even one decent track representative?  It's crazy because there are lots of countries out there doing well across the board now, and a lot of them are not the usual suspects of US/China/Russia either.

I've been wondering the same thing for years, and not just about Olympic sports.  You get the occasional self-motivated people like Sean Kelly and Stephen Roche making the big time in their chosen field without any government intervention to make it happen, which is nice when it happens because it's a genuine case of someone taking the initiative to put in the work and take the chance on pointing their career in a risky direction.  But it also means inconsistent results for Team Ireland since it has to rely on flashes in the pan like that.

There was a good article in the The Economist last week about how countries like India with massive populations can't seem to make much of an impact at the Olympics.  They were saying that athletes have short careers in their teens and 20s, so if they have to start off around the age when they're still in school and most people are making crucial career choices.  If someone in the likes of America wants to be an Olympian, they can do it and still go back to school when their athletic days are over and have a decent shot at a middle class lifestyle.  People in India don't seem to have that option. 

I see what others say about the cost, you're absolutely right that GB can throw tons of money at it.  But I wonder if Ireland would have to put in a huge investment to make a more noticeable dent.  I wouldn't expect us to have medal contenders across the board in just about everything and dominate like China and the US, but surely we could put in a better showing in at least more events than just boxing, sailing and a few others.

You certainly need a big budget in certain events like track pursuit cycling where the design of the bike plays a bigger role and might be enough to decide the difference between the gold medal winner and the silver medalist who finished a few nanoseconds later.  But for other events like scratch races and the staring contest/sprints it's all down to power, tactics and skill of the rider.  That's all down to training and experience of top level competition.  More velodromes around the country would help.

I don't know what the costs are like for rowing but there's plenty of lakes and rivers around the country, and there's even more gyms where you can row away to your heart's content. 

Running isn't exactly equipment intensive and you don't need running tracks in every high school like they have in America, so I'm a bit disappointed that we don't have more serious track and field contenders. 

Jamaica took 11 medals home from Beijing and they have half the population of Ireland, and Jamaica's not exactly wealthy.  Ireland took 3, and if we'd produced medals as efficiently as the Jamaicans there'd have been 20 of them.  And that's before we event get started on Kenya; all right they have a population of 43 million, but they're hardly rich.

Frankly I think we can do a whole lot better.*  We might not be able to get up there with the USA and China or GB but we should at least be able to hold our own with the likes of Spain and Canada.  We shouldn't be sitting at the bottom of the table like some banana republic that can't get its shit together.

Wasn't there supposed to be an Irish Institute of Sport established a few years back?  How did that work out? Are the sports governing bodies making use of it?  Is it getting decent funding? Well managed?  Anyone in the know?



*Before anyone jumps down my throat, I have nothing but respect for the athletes who make it to the competition and I'm not criticising them at all.  My complaint is that there doesn't seem to be systems in place that produces more athletes like them.

[the Deel Rover]

That chariots of fire music is getting pretty annoying at the medal cereomonies!

my wee lad said the same thing last night when they were presenting the medals he said" awww no not that music again it's going my head in" . As for Katie Taylor only one word for her fight awesome in fairness 2 the english girl she put up a fair battle but Katie is so strong the atmosphere seemed unreal the commentators on bbc said that they couldn't hear themselves with all the noise. And finally i'd say there won't be a cow milked Grenada today with Kirani James winning his countries 1st ever olympic medal and it a gold . He is only 19.

[Mayo4Sam]

I was at the Olympic park yesterday morning for the athletics, great atmosphere, especially when there was a Team GB running, their 1,500m women all looked strong in the heats.

Headed off then to the Excel, I can only imagine that mayo winning the all Ireland could top that, the noise was incredible and she was fantastic, loved the little come on stance as she left the ring. It helped that it was Jonas and not Underwood she fought, there was plenty of GB there too but out numbered by Irish. What a day!

Off to Conlon tonite, hopefully another medal

[nifan]

Saw a boxing journalist for the irish examiner saying about how much support the british where giving the irish boxers as well - and with the many irish over its practically a home crowd for them as well (I did notice in the opening ceremony the irish and Jamaicans got the biggest cheer apart from the brits).
He did say they had been discussing would the british fighters get the same support in ireland - but didnt say what the conclusion was!

[Orangemac]

Katie Taylor is a fabulous boxer and brilliant to watch. Hopefully now she will go on to win a gold that she deserves after dominating her sport for so long.

However why is there such hype around her compared to John Joe Nevin, who has reached the same stage by a harder route or Barnes/Conlon if they win their next fights? Is it just that we love a winner and she is seen as more of a sure thing?

[Olly]

A lot of boys falling down during the hurdles races. Are the British using hurdles that are too high? If those runners were horses they'd be put down. Has an athlete ever been put down? Maybe Hitler did it or the Chinese in a week or so.

[Bingo]

Triathlon this morning should be a cracking race with the Brownlee brothers against each other, be interesting to see how they get on, all indicators are that it will be a battle between them for Gold. Womens race on Saturday was savage, what a finish.

[imtommygunn]

Katie Taylor is a fabulous boxer and brilliant to watch. Hopefully now she will go on to win a gold that she deserves after dominating her sport for so long.

However why is there such hype around her compared to John Joe Nevin, who has reached the same stage by a harder route or Barnes/Conlon if they win their next fights? Is it just that we love a winner and she is seen as more of a sure thing?

4 time world champion. Not sure what Barnes got but best Nevin got was bronze.

Triathlon should be brilliant. Alastair has had a bad achilles injury. Remains to be seen how he recovers from that. These boys will knock out a sub 30 10k at the end of a run and swim - madness. They come across as good genuine lads them so I hope one or the other wins.

[AQMP]

Fionnuala Britton runs a PB in the heats of the 5000m but it's only good enough for 10th place.  Doesn't look like that will be quick enough to get in the final.

[AQMP]

Katie Taylor is a fabulous boxer and brilliant to watch. Hopefully now she will go on to win a gold that she deserves after dominating her sport for so long.

However why is there such hype around her compared to John Joe Nevin, who has reached the same stage by a harder route or Barnes/Conlon if they win their next fights? Is it just that we love a winner and she is seen as more of a sure thing?

4 time world champion. Not sure what Barnes got but best Nevin got was bronze.

Triathlon should be brilliant. Alastair has had a bad achilles injury. Remains to be seen how he recovers from that. These boys will knock out a sub 30 10k at the end of a run and swim - madness. They come across as good genuine lads them so I hope one or the other wins.

Looking forward to a big performance from Gavin Noble.  I know his parents.  Good people.

That clown Philips Idowu fails to qualify for hop, skip and a jump final.

[AQMP]

Noble in 15th after swim, 28 secs behind.

[imtommygunn]

In 6th now.

[magpie seanie]

Fionnuala Britton runs a PB in the heats of the 5000m but it's only good enough for 10th place.  Doesn't look like that will be quick enough to get in the final.

Doing a PB at the Olympics is good enough for me. Well done to Fionnuala. Getting under 15 minutes is ridiculously hard but she might be able to get there.