Olympics Last Day

First topic message reminder :

Well, it's finally here. The day when the Games of the XXXth Olympiad, London 2012, draws to a close. We will finish 3rd in the medal table, what an achievement for a nation like ours. It's our finest performance in the modern era and dare I say ever, when you consider London 1908. These are the greatest Olympic Games ever, even topping the Games of Sydney, which takes some doing. We have a chance of hitting the 30 Golds now, with Anthony Joshua and Fred Evans and Mhairi Spence in the Modern Pentathlon.

We then have the Closing Ceremony to look forward to, and then the Olympics shall be over, and the athletes of the world shall depart to their homelands some with gold medals, but all with a tale to tell their grandchildren. And then, our Olympians shall return back to their hometowns, leaving behind memories that we all have shared in. Things will now eventually return to normal, just as they were before. But we will never forget this.

Thank you Olympians, for making me proud of my country. Thank you.

Brendan Foster needs a knighthood.

Off course it is reign0 and its been a great one

Your right lorus its all about gold, unless your tom daley

There's also Anthony Joshua in the Super Heavyweight boxing final v Roberto Cammarelle of Italy.

Lorus, we've had out best games in around 56 years, some people have ridiculous expectations of Ireland. We can certainly do better but not without the funding that is needed. With the way things are at the moment don't expect massive improvements any time soon. A gold, a silver, 3 bronze and 2 4th place finishes that on another day might have been different. That's not too much of an under performance.


It has indeed been a superb games, from an Irish and world point of view. Well done London, Rio has a big job to do to follow in your footsteps.

Dave, nice to see you take pride in GB because of the games, great to see. Hope some of the Irish lads did you proud too, the boxers and Heffernan and Annalise in particular. Barnes and Conlan did Ulster and NI proud at the very least.

Ulster would have come home with around 5/6 medals. Their population is probably under 1.5 mill is it? That's pretty frightening! SUFTUMW


Well done team GB, hit or surpassed expectations in medal counts and most stadiums were pretty full. Superb stuff lads, and you should feel proud and ecstatic with how you've done. I know I'm feicing delighted for you anyway!

I think Its 2 million tom- still good though!

The lottery funding has done its job for the UK..

mystiroakey wrote:Its over crimey, just forget it or pm me- your just creating amimosty yourself and derailing the thread.

Agreed, don't know what he's going on about. I see nothing remotely aggressive or antagonistic in this thread. Over enthusiastic administration I think.

Lorus, did you mean track and field athletes or in general. If it's track I would agree besides Heffernan. He was great. Irish Athletics have a lot to answer for, half the team came in with injuries ffs. Need an overhaul of it in this country, they had a discussion on it last night on RTE (watched it this morning would be interesting for those who can watch it, talks about why we are in the shoite and what can be done to improve)


If you're talking general then we have performed very well, our best in 50 odd years.

slyadams wrote:

mystiroakey wrote:Its over crimey, just forget it or pm me- your just creating amimosty yourself and derailing the thread.

Agreed, don't know what he's going on about. I see nothing remotely aggressive or antagonistic in this thread. Over enthusiastic administration I think.

Just mysti's reputation catching up with him I think.

I apologise.

From an Irish point of view, Boxing has again saved our bacon. 4 medals achieved with only 1.3 million Euros in funding. Compare that with GB who spend nearly 10million pounds and won 5 medals. To sustain and improve on our performances we need more funding. All our world class boxers need to train full time. If that means slashing what we spend in other sports, then so be it.

Don't think we should favour funding in one sport ahead of another, I also think they may have gotten more than that over the last 4 years ,but I don't know a lot .Isn't boxing our number one funded sport though? We have no money in the government and lottery funding is far stricter unless private investment is got in boxing and our other sports we will struggle. Boxing is probably paid more attention than most though.

It's paid more attention because it's probably the only sport we can compete at. A lot of our athletes are just happy to be at the Olympics, our boxers go thinking they can win. 80% of our medals came from boxing, it was 100% in Beijing. I highly doubt the overall funding in Irish sport represents this. Success should be rewarded. If there isn't money available, then cits should be made to sports where there is little or no success.

A fair point, the mentality is different in boxing a lot of that is down to Beijing and the success we had. There were only one or tow more qualifiers we could have had in boxing ,Ward was robbed, they seemed to be doing alright. A bit more funding would be good but we can't let the other sports die. Arguably they need more. But yes a bit more should go to boxing, but when we have some form of finance available to the country which won't be till 2020 Olympics, we need to pump it into other sports.

Well next year rugby 7's and golf!

you never know with them two!

Personally i think countries need to concentrate on a few niche sports abit more than the rest. So clearly Irdeland do on boxing- What other sport would work?(and i cant see curling getting in any time soon!)

I think we are capable of getting medals in some medium to long range track events if we put enough emphasis on it but that's just me. The fact is that we are a small country, with enough funding we could do better but we are bankrupt. We are sports mad but they are concentrated into a big 4, after that there are few sports we take seriously. I'd say I knew a combined 25 or so people in my teens who competed in the likes of rowing, athletics, basketball, table tennis, volleyball etc. Cork is a county where GAA is king and then soccer, followed by rugby. It is the second biggest county in Ireland. That shows you that there are not many facilities or people interested in some sports. It's improving and schools focus on other sports in PE class but in a lot of cases there aren't clubs for some sports until people get to college at least.

Think you mean hurling, curling's in the winter Olympics

You mean Hurling. Knowing the Irish we would probably find a way to lose at that too.

Oh yeah!!

I actually really like curling as well. The scots are good at that one!

At rugby 7s we would not have a prayer against New Zealand or the South Sea Islands. Most the best golfers would be playing for GB.

The fact is, at amateur boxing Ireland is world class. We can not say that about any other Olympic sport. We need to play to our strengths. Paddy Barnes was going to lose his funding if he didn't win a medal. Yet we have swimmers receiving funding, and with all due respect, getting out of the heats is an achievement for most. We have serious Strength in boxing, we have two European Champions who didn't even qualify. We've had two Youth World Champions and a Youth Olympics champion in recent years, so we clearly have the young talent coming through. If money is tight, it should be allocated to sucessful athletes. Once athletes have shown they can compete, then they should be given funding.

Lorus, I'd say most golfers will compete for Ireland at the Olympics as they are GUI members, they should be expected to compete for Ireland. Also you are the most pessimistic poster I have ever met on here, and that's saying something given the Irish on the rugby boards.

We don't have a 7s side so we won't be competing in it more than likely

mystiroakey wrote:John Gregan the offical way of ranking originally was actually 4 for gold , 2 for silver and 1 for brinze- then they scraped the offical table because they couoldnt be bothered to promote national competition.

Why are they publishing a Medals Table then on the official site??

Going for the 4, 2, 1 scoring system, it's Russia in 3rd.....................

John Cregan wrote:Seeing as there is a bit of confusion here, im going for my own system to rank the medals.................

10 points for gold,

7 for silver

4 for bronze

That gives GB 461 points
Russia have 513 points

Russia officially 3rd according to my system.

When Lord Coe hears this i think he will immediately order an Inquiry into Team GB's pathetic performance!

How many athletes do you think would rather get a silver and a bronze than 1 gold? I'd say very few. I doubt most would rather get several silvers than a gold. Medals are great but in the end, Gold is winning and winning is the aim of every single sport ever. Having a silver as more than half the point of a gold doesn't make sense to me, whenever I ran in a race I knew I could BR competitive in (as any medalist should be) not winning was gutting. You could be happy with the fact that you had placed but in the end if you don't win you lose. I can't agree with your scoring system, it seems arbitrary at best, contrived at worst.
Pretty arbitrary system. In any sport in the world, or in fact anything ever, winning should eclipse being 2nd by a huge margin. 10 for gold, 5 for silver, 2 for bronze would seem more representative of the fact that if you pick any Olympian ever, I think they would take one Gold over 2 Silvers. To be honest, I'm not sure how many seconds makes

Apparently we should be coming, taking populations and GDPs into account, either 5th or 8th or 9th depending on whom you ask. Even 4th, which we are not officially, is better than we should be. And that doesn't reflect the ridiculous numbers of medals available in certain sports (a fair few in the ones we are good at, but Judo and Taikwando and especially swimming too). I think some people, who know you are they are, are trying to be provocative though I can't think why.

Cheq,

Your 10, 5, 2 system puts Russia ahead of GB also................

ChequeredJersey wrote:Apparently we should be coming, taking populations and GDPs into account, either 5th or 8th or 9th depending on whom you ask. Even 4th, which we are not officially, is better than we should be. And that doesn't reflect the ridiculous numbers of medals available in certain sports (a fair few in the ones we are good at, but Judo and Taikwando and especially swimming too). I think some people, who know you are they are, are trying to be provocative though I can't think why.

I am trying to be provocative............in case you were unsure!

Anyone watching the volleyball?

So much better than the beach version, imo.

If the IRFU started taking 7s serious now you might have a chance come the Olympics, Thomond.


John Cregan, either way, we'll take 3rd in the official table and we will take 4th in a more holistic rating. Russia are meant to beat us outright in predictions

Thomond wrote:Lorus, I'd say most golfers will compete for Ireland at the Olympics as they are GUI members, they should be expected to compete for Ireland. Also you are the most pessimistic poster I have ever met on here, and that's saying something given the Irish on the rugby boards.

We don't have a 7s side so we won't be competing in it more than likely

I think you are naive if you think Rory McIlroy or Graham McDowell will want to step on to the podium and listen to the Soldier's Song.

lorus59 wrote:

Thomond wrote:Lorus, I'd say most golfers will compete for Ireland at the Olympics as they are GUI members, they should be expected to compete for Ireland. Also you are the most pessimistic poster I have ever met on here, and that's saying something given the Irish on the rugby boards.

We don't have a 7s side so we won't be competing in it more than likely

I think you are naive if you think Rory McIlroy or Graham McDowell will want to step on to the podium and listen to the Soldier's Song.

McIlroy and McDowell are from Northern Ireland which is part of Great Britain. Hence they will represent Great Britain, surely??

It is their choice

Nobody watching the boxing ? Evans rather outclassed by Sapiyev , no disgrace in taking a silver medal.

Joshua up next...

Evans outclassed, but Joshua does just enough to get the GOLD on countback for GB. Again, I really don't get Olympic boxing, it seems to reward fighting in 20 second flurries (which is what the Italian did in the first two rounds): deserved win in my book.

29 golds

So Freddie Evans was outworked and outclassed but he'll certainly won'd mind a consolation of a Silver Medal. Anthony Joshua had a superb final round to win Gold. Let's hope he's another Lennox Lewis, not Audley Harrison.

29 Golds now. Probably 29 and out.

18-18 sounds about right, don't get the countback stuff though.

Cammarelli was robbed there. He clearly won first 2 rounds and theres no way he lost by 3 points in that last round (neither did he concede 18 points). Italians should really be challenging to overturn that.

AJ was not that good.

Shelsey93 wrote:

lorus59 wrote:

Thomond wrote:Lorus, I'd say most golfers will compete for Ireland at the Olympics as they are GUI members, they should be expected to compete for Ireland. Also you are the most pessimistic poster I have ever met on here, and that's saying something given the Irish on the rugby boards.

We don't have a 7s side so we won't be competing in it more than likely

I think you are naive if you think Rory McIlroy or Graham McDowell will want to step on to the podium and listen to the Soldier's Song.

McIlroy and McDowell are from Northern Ireland which is part of Great Britain. Hence they will represent Great Britain, surely??

Quick geoghraphy lesson. NI NOT part of Great Britain. It is part of "The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland". All citizens of NI can choose to be Irish citizens or British Citizens..............assuming McDowell & McIlroy would have a choice..............

No way did he win the 1st two clearly. I'd say the 2nd was even, Cam should've had a 1 point lead going into the 3rd in which Joshua was on top.

yeah really didn't get the scoring in the second round: don't see how Cam won it by 2, but it didn't matter in the end. For me, you have only to look at the reaction of the boxers (the boxers, not their camps) after the fight to know who won that: Cam was shaking his head, while Josh raised his arms. Deserved win

EnglishReign wrote:Cam should've had a 1 point lead going into the 3rd

Someone clearly listens to the Pro British commentary too much.

The Italian was tired for the last 20 seconds, that is not good enough reason to award AJ the win based on 20 seconds.

Josiah Maiestas wrote:

EnglishReign wrote:Cam should've had a 1 point lead going into the 3rd

Someone clearly listens to the Pro British commentary too much.

The Italian was tired for the last 20 seconds, that is not good enough reason to award AJ the win based on 20 seconds.

20 secs were enough to award Cam the first round (not that I'm complaining about that actually, thought the first round score was pretty OK really). Cam tired for the whole last round, which Josh dominated completely.

Italians are appealing, I probably would if I were them but no way was it a 3 point lead going into the 3rd.

I thought it was very close . If they were allowed to they would have scored it as a draw ... Which in fact they did , 18 all ... and Joshua won on some sort of countback (I don't claim to know the intricacies of the scoring)

Seems fair enough as he was finishing all over the Italian , who seemed to be just trying to cling on...

Certainly not going to argue with the judges

So with GB on 29 golds and 64 all up I have to go back to work tomorrow alas so I'll leave you lot to cheer home the girls in the modern pentathlon for the sixty-fifth...

Italians are appealing, which is understandable I guess, but don't think they're any grounds on which to do so here, so I expect that to be rejected.

YES he's appealing, please do the right thing and give Italy this decision (which has been farcical), save us the embarrassment of falsely calling AJ a Gold Medallist. Cammarelli earned that win.

Personally, I thought AJ had won that fight. First round was fair, second round was far too biased in favour of the Italian and the third round as fair. It shouldn't have needed countback in the first place, AJ should have won by 1 or 2 points.

Appeal rejected!

I'm with Duty on this, thought the Italian had maybe a slender lead going into round three, which Josh dominated handsomely in my book.

Appeal rejected, GOLD to Joshua

Judges and jury don't agree with you , Josiah

Gold for Joshua !

This will create unneccesary hate for me when I go back to Parma next month. And now the guy awarding the medals is an Italian, way to upset the visitors, UK.

Mad for Chelsea wrote:yeah really didn't get the scoring in the second round: don't see how Cam won it by 2, but it didn't matter in the end. For me, you have only to look at the reaction of the boxers (the boxers, not their camps) after the fight to know who won that: Cam was shaking his head, while Josh raised his arms. Deserved win

That was what I thought , too , MFC ...Cammerelle seemed to suspect he'd been over run.

Close but fair decision .

Josiah Maiestas wrote:

EnglishReign wrote:Cam should've had a 1 point lead going into the 3rd

Someone clearly listens to the Pro British commentary too much.

The Italian was tired for the last 20 seconds, that is not good enough reason to award AJ the win based on 20 seconds.

If he landed enough clean punches in that time it is. Olympic boxing is not scored in the same esoteric way that pro boxing is, its a much simpler system. If the judges saw him land more clean punches through the match he wins, even if the other guy looks dominant for the vast majority.