Great start in the Olympics

[Buffy]

Proof I was up way too late last night: Congrats to the Norwegian women for beating the pants off Romania in Handball!

 

Content thyself to be obscurely good. When vice prevails, and impious men bear sway, the post of honor is a private station, :shrug:

Buffy

[modest]

I just saw Romania get gold for women's floor exercise (gymnastics). Well deserved too. That girl did well.

 

And poor Alicia on the vault :shrug:

 

~modest

[REASON]

And poor Alicia on the vault :shrug:

 

Yeah. I don't want to sound like a whiner, but I felt she was robbed. She supposedly received a deduction which kept her out of the medals because of a small hop on heer second vault. But the Korean girl who won the gold landed with both feet out of bounds on her first vault, and had a significant hop on her second vault.

 

I'm not going to pretend to understand the scoring, but Alicia did really well and deserved better in my opinion.

[modest]

I'm not going to pretend to understand the scoring, but Alicia did really well and deserved better in my opinion.

 

Yup. And, she's near 20 I think. Probably her last shot at the Olympics and she got nothing. I'm not sure why I'm emotionally invested in this at all, but I do feel genuinely bad for her :hyper:

 

~modest

[Monomer]

Not sure where to put these, but they're about the olympics, so here will do.

 

Something funny I came across on the weekend. They guy's a clown but obviously a very talented gymnast:

 

YouTube - 1988 Paul Hunt gymnastics comedy floor exercise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBPjhB9d3jc

 

YouTube - 1988 Paul Hunt gymnastics comedy beam routine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO_BnsrWMnI&feature=related

 

YouTube - 1981 Nadia Tour gymnastics Paul Hunt comedy uneven bars http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu-YAMiS5wA&feature=related

[Turtle]

Not sure where to put these, but they're about the olympics, so here will do.

 

Something funny I came across on the weekend. The guy's a clown but obviously a very talented gymnast:

 

The Olympics are winding down and the Chinese aren't laughing, or, it's all over but the crying. :naughty: As if. :ebomb: Anyway, you got me thinking, "do the Chinese even have clowns?" Seems they do, but it's a serious business.

 

...Clowns who performed as court jesters were given great freedom of speech. Often they were the only one to speak out against the ruler’s ideas, and through their humor were able to affect policy. In about 300 BC Chinese emperor Shih Huang-Ti oversaw the building of the Great Wall of China. Thousands of laborers were killed during its construction. He planned to have the wall painted which would have resulted in thousands more dying. His jester, Yu Sze, was the only one who dared criticize his plan. Yu Sze jokingly convinced him to abandon his plan. Yu Sze is remembered today as a Chinese national hero.

clown link

 

My clown's better than your clown. :hihi: :naughty:

[Michaelangelica]

Some geat historic stuff

The Chinese did well thanks to the army.

 

The closing ceremony was great (except for the Brits/Poms- what were they thinking???? a double -decker bus??? please?!?!??)

 

Some ore OZ comment her if anyone is interested

The Forum

 

This is a look at the games acording to GDP

Crikey - The real Olympic medal tally - The real Olympic medal tally

 

The good news is that in the adjusted figures Australia comfortably beats Great Britain, the US, China and Russia, but in doing so lets New Zealand race past for a higher place on the overall tallies. The above table also shows that the Olympics is anything but a level playing field. The richest and most populous nations have an insurmountable competitive advantage when finally the athletes crouch waiting for the starter’s gun.

 

When we calculate how many citizens it takes to earn a gold medal, Australia rockets to the top of the standings. It's beyond doubt: Australia converts citizens into gold medals more efficiently than any other nation in the top ten. And into that list you can add New Zealand, which takes 4,173,460 citizens to produce one gold medal. That makes Australia roughly three times more efficient at converting citizens into gold medals than our cross-Tasman rivals, and more than twice as efficient as the Brits.

 

Nation

 

 

Citizens per gold

 

1. Australia

 

 

1,471,489

 

2. Great Britain

 

 

3,207,574

 

3. Korea

 

 

3,787,141

 

4. Germany

 

 

5,148,097

 

5. Russia

 

 

6,117,482

 

6. Italy

 

 

7,268,165

 

7. United States

 

 

8,439,574

 

8. France

 

 

9,151,112

 

9. Japan

 

 

14,143,157

 

10. China

 

 

26,079,305

 

Citizens per gold medal -- An alternate Olympic Top Ten

 

Knuckle dragging?

Don't be silly!

See you at the Para games and the snow stuff

[Tormod]

When we calculate how many citizens it takes to earn a gold medal, Australia rockets to the top of the standings. It's beyond doubt: Australia converts citizens into gold medals more efficiently than any other nation in the top ten. And into that list you can add New Zealand, which takes 4,173,460 citizens to produce one gold medal.

 

Norway has 4,6 million citizens and took 3 gold...that would place us at #2 after NZ then!

[Tormod]

Proof I was up way too late last night: Congrats to the Norwegian women for beating the pants off Romania in Handball!

 

:eek2: And they finished the games by giving Russia a fair beating by winning 34-27 in the finals! The first Olympic Gold for our handball team (they have won just about everything else, including Olympic Silver and Bronze).

 

And the same day Andreas Thorkildsen repeated his Javelin Gold Medal from Athens and set a new Olymic Record!

 

...and the same day we even got our first silver medal in Tae Kwon Do: Nina Solheim lost the finals but had a marvellous performance in the Games.

 

It's not often that Norway gets three medals in one day during the summer Olympics!

 

...now bring on the Winter Olympics in 2010...

[Eclogite]

It's not often that Norway gets three medals in one day during the summer Olympics!

 

...now bring on the Winter Olympics in 2010...

Do you think global warming may be an American conspiracy to reduce your medal count?

[Buffy]

Do you think global warming may be an American conspiracy to reduce your medal count?:)

No need for that. We just need to keep Bode Miller away from the bars the night before the alpine skiing medal rounds.... :hyper:

 

Talk about a hard challenge right there. ... If you ever tried to ski when you’re wasted, it’s not easy, :)

Buffy

[Turtle]

Now what am I gonna watch on the boob tube!? :) A quick congrats to Ozzarians everywhere for your man/boy taking Gold on men's platform diving! Spectacular. :)

 

On to Whistler now I guess. I was interested to see that the giant reels of cable going up there for the gondolas have to be offloaded here at my hometown Port of Vancouver USA, as we have the largest mobile dock crane in N. America. Gittin' 'er done. :hyper: