Simple solution, go around to elementary schools and pluck out kids with bodies built for swimming. Send them to luxurious private schools where they study during the day and then practice swimming every single night. Push them hard and make them understand their only goal in life is to win gold. If they train every day for 12 years they will be ready for the Olympics for sure.
Canadian Matt Gentry qualifies for the bronze medal match at 74kg in men's freestyle wrestling. Gonna be a tough challenge against Denis Tsargush of Russia, but hopefully he can pull it off. Match should be taking place just after 11:30 Pacific, I think.
@MAKAVELI - nice work on your Team Norway ... er, Team USA pics in Part I of this thread.
The Matheson goal in the 92nd minute against France helped salve the wounds from the previous game.
According to coach Herdman: "And Christine had the quote that’s been inspiring us all: You can’t be great until you’ve achieved great things. And getting a medal today was that great thing.”
I would be happy to see Sinclair carry our flag in the closing ceremonies.
too much competition in swimming... With the dominance of Americans and the chinese in the pool, you see countries like australia struggle even with massive investment of funds and infrastructure
if canada wants to excel in a particular area, it should be rowing / kayaking... We already have a lot of talent, historical interest and success, and it's not a sport monopolised by the big sporting powers
Totally. Canada could've used her hotness somehow. Distract the ref or something.
Yep, absolutely. Too bad she tore up her knees. My wife looks at me sideways every time she's on TV. I usually do a better job of hiding it when I find another woman attractive.
So...the slogan for 2012 London apparently is Own the [bottom of the] Podium
Lol...
That's a good one.
I really enjoyed the games this year.
Even though a lot of the favorites fell through or did not reach expectations, there were a lot of breakthroughs in unexpected places, which is always nice to see.
Also, I am just glad many of the Canadian athletes gave it their all and competed with grace and humility.
They had been really classy and showed true sportsmanship, which is how the IOC promotes itself.
Winning gold is nice, but for me, the process is also very important.
Winning at all cost can be cruel, and in some cases, down right tragic.
I think a lot of them had done it the right way.
As long as they reach that target of 12th place, then the Canadian program will continue to get funding, and maybe even see an increase.
It would be nice to get more golds, but right now, I just want them to get more funding and be able to train more athletes.
London is a building block for the future.
I really enjoyed the games this year.
Even though a lot of the favorites fell through or did not reach expectations, there were a lot of breakthroughs in unexpected places, which is always nice to see.
Also, I am just glad many of the Canadian athletes gave it their all and competed with grace and humility.
They had been really classy and showed true sportsmanship, which is how the IOC promotes itself.
Winning gold is nice, but for me, the process is also very important.
Winning at all cost can be cruel, and in some cases, down right tragic.
I think a lot of them had done it the right way.
As long as they reach that target of 12th place, then the Canadian program will continue to get funding, and maybe even see an increase.
It would be nice to get more golds, but right now, I just want them to get more funding and be able to train more athletes.
London is a building block for the future.
If you go by how the IOC ranks it, most golds, tiebreaker to silver, second tiebreaker to bronze, we're 33rd right now. If we can pull off a 2nd gold in mountain biking, we could finish 24th. Emphasizing on medal count is just putting a positive spin on a disappointing Olympics for Canada. We didn't have any problem shoving the gold medal count in the American's faces during Vancouver 2010. 1976 was the last time team Canada took home less than 3 golds. I'm not disappointed in the individual athlete's for 'only' winning bronze or silver, I'm just disappointed in Canada's overall gold medal haul.
If you go by how the IOC ranks it, most golds, tiebreaker to silver, second tiebreaker to bronze, we're 33rd right now. If we can pull off a 2nd gold in mountain biking, we could finish 24th. Emphasizing on medal count is just putting a positive spin on a disappointing Olympics for Canada.
Yeah, but most publications say that Canada will win about 4 golds prior to the games.
I think that is also approximately what Own the Podium expects.
Canada is never a summer games powerhouse.
The Olympics was not that disappointing.
Some of the big names failed, but there were a lot of unexpected medals, along with many top 5 and top 10 finishes.
Compared to the Australians, with the complete collapse of their swimming program, I think Canada made out rather well.
Canada also got the results with a lot less resources, which is commendable and an achievement in itself.
It is the 1st year that Own the Podium really focused on the summer games.
London was always an experiment, and a building block for the future.
For a "rebuilding" program, I am ok with the way they use the total medal instead of the gold medals.
As long as they can claim that they reach the goal of a top-12 finish, hopefully that will lead to continue or even more funding.
Apart from the disqualifications for not trying (and in some cases reversals) and the poor officiating/reffing, the fact that none of our media outlets have been tracking medals by golds, then silvers, then bronzes has been highly dissapointing to me. We were concerned about golds during the winter games and we should be focused on it in the summer games. If it drops us in the standings, oh well, real is real.
Yeah, but most publications say that Canada will win about 4 golds prior to the games.
I think that is also approximately what Own the Podium expects.
Canada is never a summer games powerhouse.
SI had predicted gold for Tara Whitten in Women's omnium and Catharine Pendrel in Mountain biking (event is starting in a half hour). I've seen other sites predicting gold for Adam Van Koeverden and the Men's 8 rowing team. No, we've never been a powerhouse, but have taken home 3 or more golds since 1984 (which the communists boycotted, so '88 if you want).
Quote:
The Olympics was not that disappointing.
Some of the big names failed, but there were a lot of unexpected medals, along with many top 5 and top 10 finishes.
Compared to the Australians, with the complete collapse of their swimming program, I think Canada made out rather well.
Canada also got the results with a lot less resources, which is commendable and an achievement in itself.
I'm disappointed in the top end results, not in the team. We pulled off some surprise upsets to bring home the Bronze. Even the gold medal winner was off the board. Our underdogs over-performed, and our favorites slipped up.
Quote:
It is the 1st year that Own the Podium really focused on the summer games.
London was always an experiment, and a building block for the future.
For a "rebuilding" program, I am ok with the way they use the total medal instead of the gold medals. As long as they can claim that they reach the goal of a top-12 finish, hopefully that will lead to continue or even more funding.
I kind of worry about complacency setting in from a '12th place' finish. Canadians might start thinking 'Hey, everything's OK, we finished 12th. They obviously don't need any more funding etc.' Did we really have a better Olympics than Hungary, a country that had 2 less medals to date but brought home 8 golds? That's better than Canada has ever brought home in a non-boycotted summer games.
Quote:
Originally Posted by DJOpus
Apart from the disqualifications for not trying (and in some cases reversals) and the poor officiating/reffing, the fact that none of our media outlets have been tracking medals by golds, then silvers, then bronzes has been highly disappointing to me. We were concerned about golds during the winter games and we should be focused on it in the summer games. If it drops us in the standings, oh well, real is real.
We called the Americans on it during 2010. I remember being frustrated when their media would go on about winning the medal count, when we outdid them in Gold medals. This time out, our media is doing the same thing they denounced in 2010 and trying to put a positive spin on team Canada's performance. It's a bit hypocritical on the Canadian media's part.
Apart from the disqualifications for not trying (and in some cases reversals) and the poor officiating/reffing, the fact that none of our media outlets have been tracking medals by golds, then silvers, then bronzes has been highly dissapointing to me. We were concerned about golds during the winter games and we should be focused on it in the summer games. If it drops us in the standings, oh well, real is real.
Absolutely in terms of summer games.
We should be dominating in winter sports as its much harder to put winter sport resources in place for non-cold climate countries.
We may not have year round sunshine to train in but a good portion of summer sports can be done in existing or cheaply built sporting complexes.
Canadians in general simply just dont care enough about sports other than hockey.
And when we dont do well theres a litany of excuses. Not enough population, dont spend enough money, bad weather blah blah blah.
We should be dominating in winter sports as its much harder to put winter sport resources in place for non-cold climate countries.
We may not have year round sunshine to train in but a good portion of summer sports can be done in existing or cheaply built sporting complexes.
Canadians in general simply just dont care enough about sports other than hockey.
And when we dont do well theres a litany of excuses. Not enough population, dont spend enough money, bad weather blah blah blah.
Stop whining. Canada will never be a power in the Summer Olympics. You can whine all you want about Canadians not caring about sports, but look at the British budget for this year alone was over 200 million pounds. Don't watch if it gets you so pissed off
Stop whining. Canada will never be a power in the Summer Olympics. You can whine all you want about Canadians not caring about sports, but look at the British budget for this year alone was over 200 million pounds. Don't watch if it gets you so pissed off
Not whining and not pissed off.
Never asked canada to be a power.
I dont watch any of the sports to watch canadians. I watch to see athletes doing amazing things. Such as the Tunisian fellow who won the 10km swim yesterday.
How many canadians tuned into that? Weinberger of canada also had a fantastic swim finishing in bronze.
Also as someone who played what was canadas official sport, lacrosse, im well aware of how little interest sports are that are not named hockey.
I hate Mark Lawrenson so I'm biased, but I loved the first 30 seconds of the gold medal men's soccer. "Brazil have the sun at their backs and have some amazing talent. We might just see Brazil do something really special today". Five seconds later it was in the back of Brazil's net and Lawrenson was trying to sound like he'd seen it coming all along.
**** this team. Mano is awful, Neymar thinks he's Pele, this defence is so casual you would think they're hung over from last night.
Winning the Gold Medal would be the one Brazil would be forgiven for not winning the World Cup two years from now. Now I don't want to be anywhere near that country when Argentina or something puts the team to sleep in the quarter finals in 2014.
