Why do they keep making excuses for that loser Stephie Rice and her poor performances and unsportsmanlike behavior?...

... wrote on Aug 1^st, 2012 at 12:19pm:


Doctors, pilots and boilermakers don't get sponsored by the Australian taxpayers. We are up the top of the chart with the amount of funding we give our Olympians.

$588 million and that doesn't take into account what the states spend on maintenance of pools, fields etc.

What do we get out of it?

National pride, although even that seems to be thin on the ground for these Olympics.
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The cost of a gold medal is an extremely difficult thing to “price”. At its simplest, we can say that taxpayers paid (roughly) $588 million to the Australian Sports Commission for Olympic sport. Divide that by the likely number of gold (let’s be generous and say 12) and we get $49 million per bauble.

http://www.crikey.com.au/2012/07/26/what-price-gold-tallying-up-olympic-success/

Four pairs in the badminton women's doubles competition created farcical scenes as they began deliberately playing to lose their matches at the London 2012 Olympics.

Two pairs from South Korea and one from each of China and Indonesia had already qualified for the finals but then tried to manipulate the standings by trying to lose their final round matches.

Players served into the net and hit the shuttle out of the court on purpose, creating confusion and outrage at Wembley Arena.

The debacle began when China's top-seeded pair Wang Xiaoli and Yu Yang began to throw the match against South Koreans Jung Kyung-eun and Kim Ha-na in an effort to avoid China's second-seeded pair Tian Qing and Zhao Yunlei at least until the final.

The Koreans became aware of the Chinese pair's plot and began copying them, causing referee Thorsten Berg to warn all four players. The match was eventually won by the Koreans 21-14, 21-11.

That didn't end the fiasco as a second Korean pair, third seeds Ha Jung-eun and Kim Min-jung, then tried to lose their match against Indonesia's Meiliana Jauhari and Greysia Polii.

The Koreans were attempting to avoid playing Wang and Yu in the quarter-finals, an outcome they failed to achieve as they won 18-21, 21-14, 21-12.

The Indonesian pair had also tried to lose the game themselves.

Four of the eight players involved were shown the black card of disqualification by Berg, but this was rescinded on protest, before all players were booed off court by the angry crowd.

China, who dominate world badminton, have been involved in similar controversies before.

"China control everything. I don't know who controlled the match to lose but if it is China again, they did it so many times last year, they didn't play against each other in 20 matches. They do what they want," said Petya Nedelcheva, Bulgarian women's singles 15th seed.

Nedelcheva's comments are supported by figures in online magazine Badzine which show that of the 99 all-Chinese matches played in major tournaments in 2011, 20 were walkovers.

"It was a disgrace. We had four pairs on court trying to lose - very un-Olympic spirit," said Gail Emms, an Olympic silver medallist in 2004.

"I'm furious. It is very embarrassing for our sport."

Badminton's governing body has launched an investigation but is yet to comment on the issue.

Magnussen gets silver losing by only 1/100th of a second!

Sprintcyclist wrote on Aug 2^nd, 2012 at 7:57am:



Actually - we're doing quite well for such a small population.