Let's face it, Ireland, we're poor at sports

[nifan]

And at least when Denmark qualify or even win a tournament ( European Champ 1992) they can do it without claiming a lot of UK players under the granny rule.

Aye, but they did do it without actually qualifying!

[deiseach]

As I orginally posted " the usual excuse is thrown out, Gaelic games are so populiar here and absorbs people who would be good at other sports, ". I would have thought that by highlighting a nordic country's 4 times better record than us in the summer olympics while possibly half of the sports played by people there are winter sports would make a difference - but no. And at least when Denmark qualify or even win a tournament ( European Champ 1992) they can do it without claiming a lot of UK players under the granny rule.

Typically Irish  -'ah sure it's no good, but sure it will have to do'. Wonderful.

Hard to know where to begin with all this. On the face of it, Denmark's Olympic record is far better than ours - 42 gold versus only 10 for us (all Olympic medal stats available here). But the population of Denmark has been nearly twice that of Ireland for most of the 20th century and only recently have they begun to converge. Denmark also has been an extremely wealthy country for most of that period with the resources to invest accordingly. A better example would be Portugal, which has won three gold medals. And look at the quality of  Denmarks's medals. They've won 11 of their golds in sailing. Can you name a single sailing medallist from the last Olympics? A single sailing medallist ever? About the only one any of us would recall would be David Wilkins and James Wilkinson. When you look at the Blue Riband events of the Olympics, athletics - and if you deny the validity of that comment, I ask rhetorically whether they had sailing at the ancient Olympics - Denmark has not won a single gold medal. This despite trying to import Wilson Kipketer, who having trained in St Patrick's High School was probably more Irish than Dane.

Incidentally, the Danes have won precisely one medal in the Winter Olympics.

[Puckoon]

We even invite the Australians over for a game of Gaelic football (with the exception of bigger scoring targets) and we still get hammered.

EDIT: Apologies to skull1 and 5ive Times for the length of this post.

Hardstation, If you just copy that little apology onto the bottom of every post, you can no longer be classified with us one liners. The choice is yours!

[SuperMac]

[quote author=deiseach

Hard to know where to begin with all this. On the face of it, Denmark's Olympic record is far better than ours - 42 gold versus only 10 for us (all Olympic medal stats available here). But the population of Denmark has been nearly twice that of Ireland for most of the 20th century and only recently have they begun to converge. Denmark also has been an extremely wealthy country for most of that period with the resources to invest accordingly. A better example would be Portugal, which has won three gold medals. And look at the quality of  Denmarks's medals. They've won 11 of their golds in sailing. Can you name a single sailing medallist from the last Olympics? A single sailing medallist ever? About the only one any of us would recall would be David Wilkins and James Wilkinson. When you look at the Blue Riband events of the Olympics, athletics - and if you deny the validity of that comment, I ask rhetorically whether they had sailing at the ancient Olympics - Denmark has not won a single gold medal. This despite trying to import Wilson Kipketer, who having trained in St Patrick's High School was probably more Irish than Dane.

Incidentally, the Danes have won precisely one medal in the Winter Olympics.
[/quote]

Well haven't the slighest doubt about your posting. Still say,  apart from boxing, we are poor at sports.

[deiseach]

Well haven't the slighest doubt about your posting. Still say,  apart from boxing, we are poor at sports.

You don't know what you're talking about, do you?

[thejuice]

There was a fine tradition of hammer throwing with the builders i used to work with. Perhaps if there was fightin' and drinkin' games we'd do alright. I think we really only give a shit about contact sports. Well I do anyway. and I dont include soccer in that, its not really a contact sport.