Badge

I've been meaning to post this for some time. We've had a fair amount of interest in the Swim team over here. Some of the girls have posted world record or equalising world record times in the trials.

Anyone looking forward to the 2004 Olympics?

I am!!

Centurix

Seeing as Melbourne is supposed to have the largest population of Greeks outside of Athens, I'm guessing the place will spring into life...

Where's the next winter olympics being held?

renth

The Aussies will do well in the pool.

Does anyone else think there is going to be a hideous terrorist atrocity? It's Athens after all, the favourite place for plane hijackings in the 70's and 80's

bondipom

The swimming got a huge amount of coverage. Thorpes disqualification was treated like a national tragedy. He'll be wearing his pearl's to Athens afterall.

Ceri

Not holding my breath.
the coverage of the Olympics here was dreadful last time - ok if you support everything Aussie.. not OK if you like to watch all nations compete.... you know true sport, for the sake of sport.

They even delayed one of the men's track relay events (final) just because Australia were not in the final ( by the way you're talking about an event which is the most watched in the Olympics) Not only that they switched to water polo .. which they need not have done..

what they did last time, when giving medals out too - say an Aussie was Bronze .. they showed the Aussie receiving their medal.. and not silver and gold. they went to adverts and cut out the other others receiving their medals - very good sports - I don't think!

I will always remember the KL commonwealth games - where a Malaysian won a gold medal in a street race - it was the first time a Malaysian had won any gold medal in the games history - the crowd were going mad...history in the making .. and on home ground too... the b*stards here cut out the medal ceremony.. showed the Aussie getting theirs ( either second or third can't remember) .. and did not show the Malaysian getting his gold ... they were only the hosts.. like!

tell you what they are bad sports here.

you only get to see events if an Aussie has qualified.. the Sydney Olympics had very bad coverage in this respect . And if you like boxing forget about watching that event, forget about the rugby too.. If you like swimming - you're ok.

someone should explain to the Aussies what the true meaning of sport is.

P.s and this is not just me being a Brit, I like to see other nations getting their dues too... it's a common gripe , I work with a lot of foreigners .. have a few kiwi's here too- and they well say the exact same thing as I have just said. They can't believe how bad sports they are. They will not cover anything that does not have an Aussie in it if they can get away with it (or they will delay it)

Centurix

I guess in the UK they're used to showing sports with no English players in the teams...

Ceri

Perhaps that's because a lot of their (UK)top runners are Welsh

Nice try anyway

Badge

Is Thorpe in after all now? I thought he handled the affair fantastically. And I was surprised Aussie didn't bend the harsh rules within the hour.

Another take :wrong hemisphere again. I was in the UK for 2000, now I am in the SH for 2004...

BM

Bordy

Craig Stevens said he will make his mind up within next couple of weeks whether to swim the 400 or not, possibly letting Thorpe in. Whats the time differance from Athens to Melbourne, will it be middle of the night over here for main events?
Its things like the olympics I miss the BBC for, I don't think you realise how unbiased they are till you see coverage from another country.

bondipom

Yep he is in. The person that qualified in his best event (400m) also qualified for the 1500 so he is giving his 400m spot to Thorpe. Thorpe also qualified for a couple of other events.

MikeStanton

Aussies throwing their usual hissie fits?

I would love to have been in Oz in 1976 - I think it was that year -Oz's ultimate low point; the Montreal olympics. Shhhh! Don't mention it. Oz didn't win 1 gold medal - their worst performance in 40 years. You can imagine what the television coverage would have been like!

But out of those ashes came the Australian Institute of Sport. So mankind was saved!

Centurix

Ah yes, the AIS in Canberra. Strike one for the ACT!

ANA123

Cant wait, when we came to Oz we gave up the chance of going to some events as my parents have a flat in Athens and I have a family member there who gets freebies to the good stuff through his job Dad is still going back for it but we chose uk for our time in Europe this year.
Wonder if the venues will be finished???

Ceri

should re- name them the mafia . what is that drug that's banned? , but the institute of sport got around it by ingesting it not injecting it (it apparently wasn't banned to ingest) .. then they had the cheek to say that it does not enhance their performances .. hello, why take it then?lol

The American woman in the speed cycling blew their cover . (she was an American in the Aus team... who got P*ssed off with them) .

wonder if they bought any new foreigners this year from eastern European and Asian countries .. I like to play spot the Aussie accent , this is a good game to play when you're watching the gymnastics, or boxing, or field events .. try that one ..lol. Mind you it get's a bit tedious after a while when you can't find one, I have a low attention span