BadgeIsBack

Chill mate..there are bad losers here and there. As for reputation, it's just journalism in the end. Mr Barnes is considered one of the biggest throbbers in the entire sport, and that's before you even get into his journalism. He is paid handsomely to serve this up.

I don't trust anything I read in the papers. 4 people playing bad losers in 5 years is a non-event. And you could argue that the Brits are stereotypically good losers because they are allegedly good at it - when in fact they are capable of winning well....not that I want to get into the age old comparison...

There is a book out there called 'Fooled by Randomness' - where among other common strands the author is very critical of events reported in the media and the effect on public opinion.

BadgeIsBack

I'm convinced, or feel I can conclude, that Melbourne operates a different mentality to the rest of the country.

It's papers do seem to report failures - and you can find in it's editorials precisely what other people from other states complain they can't find.

mohogony

Aussies are bad losers becasue they are'nt used to losing unlike the English.

nickyjohnt

Possibly because they don't qualify for many competitions maybe!!

MartinLuther

Like the World Curling Championship?

Vash the Stampede

Or rather that we tend to win the ones we enter.

England qualifies for plenty of stuff, but I don't hear a lot of winning going on. Even at the Olympics it took the combined force of England, Scotland and Wales to take more medals than Australia.

stuckinblighty

Here we go again !!!!!

Broad Shoulders

whilst with Australia it took the combined force of nearly every single third world country.
Look at how many of Australia's Olympic athletes or coaches have been in Australia for less than 10 years.

Vash the Stampede

What? Australia usually ranks in the top 6 at the Olympics - beating wealthy 1st world nations with far better facilities, far larger teams and more than double our population - and we totally dominate the Commonwealth Games.

Do you have an exact figure? Oh, and... relevance?

Broad Shoulders

your statement that England have to enroll the Welsh, Scottish and N.Irish to beat the Aussies in the medal count makes my statement relevant to your argument.

Australia enrol poor overseas athletes all the time to bolster their team, especially in those sports where they are crap. The funniest one, was an Algerian long distance runner who was granted Aussie citizenship the day before the 2008 Olympic selection deadline. How convenient....

Broad Shoulders

No, but here is a list of "Australian" athletes at the 2008 Games

Cate Campbell
Matt Target
Myriam Glez
Erika Leal-Ramirez
Pietro Figlioli
Sky Kim
Youcef Abdi
Luke Adams
Clinton Hill
Fabrice Lapierre
Eugenia Tanaka
CJ Bruton
Stephen Sutherland
Rob Bell
Torsten Lachmann
Chantal Meek
Laurie Lever
Lucinda Fredericks
Clayton Fredericks
Billy Celeski
Neil Kilkenny
Nikita Rukavytsya
Archie Thompson
Daria Joura
Rachel Imison
Fergus Kavanagh
Maria Pekli
Semir Pepic
Rod Hisholm
Peter Hardcastle
Amy Ives
Dina Aspandiyarova
Stacy Roiall
Lalita Yauhleuskaya
Jian Fang Lay
Miao Miao
Stephanie Sang
Kyla Bremner
Sandeep Kumar
Hassan Shahsavan

Coaches:
Hui Tong, Xiangning Chen, Anna Nepotacheva, Marina Kholod, Irena Olevsky, Aleksandr Osadchuk, Kyomoon Oh, Brian Goorijan, Bodo Andreass, Annika Neukaeter, Maria Israelsson, Vladmir Sher, Serguei Chinkar, Mikhail Barabach, Nikolay Zhuravlev, Victor Kovalenko, Lars Kleppich, Anatoly Babushkin, Miroslav Sipec, Valeriy Timokhin, Tae Ho Uhm, Carlos Garletti, Leonid Zaslavsky

Glass houses!

MartinLuther

And let's not forget Zola Budd

BadgeIsBack

Having read the article now, the actual tenor of it is that he says how well Australian and Englishmen get on..really...

Vash the Stampede

A nice long list of Australian names there. Good to see our thriving multicultural nation so broadly represented.

"Australia in 'we hired people who actually knew what they were talking about' shocker!" Wow, I am absolutely stunned that Australia has brought in the best coaches they could source from overseas, just like every other country does. Whoever would have thought it?

Stop me if I'm wrong, but who actually competes in the event? The athlete or the coach? Oh wait - I do believe it's the athlete. So the nationality of the coach is completely irrelevant.

Er, no. Australia is one nation competing as a single nation. The UK is three nations competing as one.

Vash the Stampede

Well no, it's still not relevant, because the issue is one of scale, not nationality. With the three nations combined, you have a population three times the size of ours, and a GDP of $2.13 trillion compared to our £773 billion. You field more athletes, you enjoy a larger budget, and you have easy access to the best talent in Europe. Yet we continue to beat you again and again.

If we're enrolling poor athletes, why do we keep winning?