Thread: London 2012 results and comments only (no politics)

Colombia's medals won on these wonderful Olympics:
1 gold
3 silver
4 bronze

My home country has celebrated every one of them.

Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow

29 Gold medals for Great Britain. That's a gold for every 2.1 million Brits. The US has a gold every 7.1 million and China has a gold for every 35.4 million.

It's always helpful as the host's in succeeding in the competition. Congratulations on providing the all around best venues I have seen in the Olympics and I've been watching since the 1960's The US clearly the best 2012 Summer Olympic athletes in the world period.

We can all look forward to The US getting their azzes kicked in the Winter Olympics by
Germany
Russia
Canada
Norway
Finland
Sweden
Italy
France
Switzerland
Liechtenstein (well maybe not Liechtenstein )
And apologies to anyone I left out.

As for now we rule

Spain held USA until the last quarter and only lost by 7 points

Originally Posted by donKey jote

Spain held USA until the last quarter and only lost by 7 points

I was rooting for Spain.

And where the hell have you been? For a moment I thought you were too involved in Spain's synchronized swimming.

Originally Posted by race aficionado

And where the hell have you been? For a moment I thought you were too involved in Spain's synchronized swimming.

I'm on holiday in Spain
Currently at a public wifi-spot on the beach promenade in Canet d'en Berenguer, watching some of Spain's womens sychronized buttock wiggling and catching up on the daily show and colbert report

Originally Posted by donKey jote

Spain held USA until the last quarter and only lost by 7 points

Prop's for your boyz donkz, your low post game was very effective, and Pau is a beast. I'm not saying that I thought Espana would win at any time, however had to leave the room three times because I couldn't watch

BTW being that you have six players with NBA experience, the last two times the USA met them I thought we were entirely, nay perfectly beatable.
Cheers

Poor Brazil these past two days. Favorites in Men's Soccer,they give up and early (and I mean early) goal and never really get back into it. Then today they are serving for match in Volleyball up 2 sets to zero, and then not only lose the set, but lose two more straight to lose the match.

If I was Brazilian, I'd be really depressed right now.

Closing ceremonies most cool

I felt asleep ( as usual ) and lost the performance of my beloved Take That.

Brian May/Queen and Eric Idle made that closing ceremony, in my opinion.

Originally Posted by theugsquirrel

Brian May/Queen and Eric Idle made that closing ceremony, in my opinion.

Actually the part of Eric Idle was played by McCartney with tons of plastic surgery (like he hasn't had tons already). He couldn't let Lennon have the last word!!!
My office is slap bang adjacent to the O2 Dome and seeing the joy on the faces of the many nationalities milling around the piazza for the past fortnight has been heart-warming. I've lost count of the number of photos I've been requested to take of people in front of the cable car and round the Thames bank at London Bridge. Favourite moment has to be the Modfather Wiggo making endurance cycling 'cool' - something I never thought would happen in the UK!!

U.S. dominates medal count, sets new gold standard at London Olympics - Olympics - CBSSports.com News, Medal Count

Originally Posted by henners88

Originally Posted by Brown, Jon Brow

29 Gold medals for Great Britain. That's a gold for every 2.1 million Brits. The US has a gold every 7.1 million and China has a gold for every 35.4 million.

It's certainly our Olympics in more ways than one

LONDON -- Most medals. Most gold medals. The U.S. left no doubt at the Olympics.
When the U.S. men's basketball team took the Olympic title Sunday, it won the 46th gold medal for Americans in London, their highest total at a "road" Olympics. The U.S. -- winners of 104 medals overall in London, easily the most of any country -- won 45 golds at Paris in 1924 and Mexico City in 1968.

LeBron James recognized that winning gold means more than, well, winning gold.

"It means more than myself, it means more than my name on my back. It means everything to the name on the front," he said.

The final numbers for the Americans in London won't go down as record-setting for all Olympics.

They won 83 golds (174 overall) at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, boycotted by most of the Soviet bloc countries;

and 78 golds (a whopping 239 overall) at the 1904 St. Louis Games, when U.S. athletes won roughly seven out of every eight medals

Snap for the win

Originally Posted by D-Type

On a different theme, how many of Britain's medals are in sports where the participants are sitting down? Horsing, rowing, cycling, sailing, ...

And don't forget the long jump, which is after all just running to sit down.

Originally Posted by henners88

Yep for a small island I am rather proud.

You should be!! You kicked asz in competition, and as hosts, as I have previously stated, your venues were the best!
As a big country that has a large percentage of its world class athletes developed through the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), I think most members would be amazed at how many athletes that medaled for other countries, were actually provided with their coaching, competition, equipment, physical training, and college education in the US. It would be interesting to get a definitive number.

Originally Posted by henners88

Yeah true. I know Bolt trained in the US prior to the games. The UK have been spending alot of money through lottery funding/other sources too on our athletes and it was apparent how much work we put into investing in these guys and gals over the past few years. I know people like Mo Farah have been training hard in all weathers to be up to the task and many have said our unpredictable weather has helped athletes in certain sports simply because any conditions needed to be trained for. I was amazed our weather held up so well for the games and its back to normal today with grey, wet weather lol.

Mo is one example of what the Dr was referring to, he trains in Oregon these days, which seems to be a hotbed of US track and field talent especially in the distance events. But if the USA is claiming credit for Mo's golds then we should get a bit of Ashton Eaton's (another Oregon athlete) decathlon gold in return, as the head elite coach of the Oregon Track Club is British!

We probably don't want to be going down that road though, or someone will bring up our German rowing coaches or Australian cycling coaches... perhaps we should just say top-level sport is an international effort these days, and wherever you live or train, it all comes down to where you call home in the end

Re the weather - I don't want to know who Lord Coe did a deal with to arrange that!

Anyone else feel that Team GBs 'don't stop me now' video (see BBC website) has in some way taken the shine off what has been a fantastic few weeks of sport...?

Originally Posted by AndyL

Mo is one example of what the Dr was referring to, he trains in Oregon these days, which seems to be a hotbed of US track and field talent especially in the distance events. But if the USA is claiming credit for Mo's golds then we should get a bit of Ashton Eaton's (another Oregon athlete) decathlon gold in return, as the head elite coach of the Oregon Track Club is British!

We probably don't want to be going down that road though, or someone will bring up our German rowing coaches or Australian cycling coaches... perhaps we should just say top-level sport is an international effort these days, and wherever you live or train, it all comes down to where you call home in the end

Re the weather - I don't want to know who Lord Coe did a deal with to arrange that!

Andy Mo is not one I was referring to. He competed internationally for something like 10 years before he went to the Prefontain facility to train. Bolt is also a bad example as he never attended a U.S. University. I was referring to young people that make a commitment to acquire athletic greatness, while spending formative years perusing a University degree in The USA. You need to understand that College sports (specifically American football and basketball) are multi-billion dollar business, and that College Football is the most televised sport in the US, while College Basketball is also hugely popular. That is why our universities welcome non-citizens into this experience. It has to do with out-recruiting the competition. I am certainly not saying the training they receive and the athletic scholarships are selfless acts of kindness. These students must maintain average, or above average (depending on the school) grades and the success of the athletic programs bring in television revenue and donations from Alumni that go into the schools general fund.
Here are a few examples that just happen to be (mostly) from Louisiana State University:

That is also the year in which Hylton saw LSU compete for the first time.

“I start hearing about LSU at Penn Relays, and I actually saw them,” Hylton recalled. “I saw them in their purple suits. They were looking all nice in their uniforms like they were ready to run. They looked like they were into this track thing a lot. I was like, ‘Yeah, LSU is it.’”

Despite the wishes of his coaches for Hylton to remain in Jamaica and continue his training in the wake of his stint at St. Jago, Carmen Hylton had other ideas for her son.

Knowing that her son’s talent might open a door to the American university system, she encouraged Riker to make the move to the mainland to continue his academic and athletic pursuits.

“My mother had different ideas,” Hylton laughed. “She wanted me to go to a new place, be around different people and be in a different environment. She told me to try something different, to branch out and go and do something on my own. I think she just wanted me to mature and become a man. She would say, ‘I want you to get your education.’ Going to the U.S. was a way for me to do that.”

As a way to ease into the U.S. system, Hylton elected to attend a two-year junior college before looking to join a training program at a major four-year university.

“My mother thought that if I do that, I would do better in my school work because I’m not rushing myself into the university thing,” Hylton explained. “I could see how the system works.”

With two years at Essex County College in New Jersey, Hylton would be ready to take on the NCAA.

He received attention from some of the nation’s premier programs, including Tennessee and Texas A&M, and decided to visit those most interested in his talent.

But there was something that stuck when making his visit to LSU.

Perhaps it was the academic support system that outlined the path to graduation. Perhaps it was an athletic training staff with the reputation as one of the nation’s best. Perhaps it was the honesty of a head coach on the importance of personal responsibility needed to chase his dreams.

“Coach (Dennis) Shaver explained to me that, at LSU, you can be the best you want to be,” Hylton stated. “There were people there to push me and keep me on track. I needed to be around people like that. My mother pushed me, my father pushed me. They weren’t going to be around me, so I knew the best place to be was with people like that who cared so much. Choosing LSU was a really big deal to me.”

It’s a decision that has paid big dividends for both Hylton and LSU as he has developed into a world-class 400-meter sprinter in his two seasons at the Baton Rouge-based University.

A four-time NCAA All-American, Hylton was a three-time NCAA semifinalist in the 400-meter dash and anchored LSU’s fearsome 4x400-meter relay team. He even wrapped up his collegiate career with his best relay run as a Tiger at 44.24 on the anchor leg for LSU at the NCAA Championships.

After finishing as the NCAA Outdoor silver medalists in 2011, Hylton helped the Tigers take two national championship bronze medals in the 4x400 relay as a senior in 2012.

There’s no denying Hylton’s impact on his country’s 400-meter resurgence

.
LSU?s Hylton Follows in Footsteps of Jamaican Sprint Stars > SEC > NEWS

This next bit has to do with two LSU grads two current LSU students and one Texas A&M student that all represented and medaled for Trinidad and Tobago:

LONDON - Two Trinidad & Tobago national records fell and three relay teams advanced to Friday's finals at the 2012 Olympic Games as four sprinters with ties to the LSU Track & Field program are ready to take their place on the medal podium following Thursday's qualifying action at the Olympic Stadium.

Based on their participation in qualifying, LSU alums Kelly-Ann Baptiste and Samantha Henry-Robinson and seniors Ade Alleyne-Forte and Semoy Hackett will receive Olympic medals with a top-three finish in Friday's finals whether or not they are given the opportunity to run.

Alleyne-Forte kicked off relay qualifying by running the third leg for Trinidad & Tobago's foursome that advanced to the Olympic final in the men's 4x400-meter relay.

After Olympic 400-meter bronze medalist Lalonde Gordon and Jarrin Solomon put the team in position to win the heat with two strong legs, Alleyne-Forte passed the baton to Texas A&M freshman Deon Lendore on the anchor leg as Trinidad & Tobago joined Cuba and Great Britain in a sprint to the finish line.

Sprinters Advance to Olympics Relay Finals - LSUsports.net - The Official Web Site of LSU Tigers Athletics

I haven't even gotten to the Southern California Colleges that provide the highest number of Olympians, but their percentage of homegrown talent is much higher due to population density, and very mild weather conditions that allow year round training in this region

Originally Posted by Dr Giacomo Rappaccini

It's always helpful as the host's in succeeding in the competition. Congratulations on providing the all around best venues I have seen in the Olympics and I've been watching since the 1960's The US clearly the best 2012 Summer Olympic athletes in the world period.

We can all look forward to The US getting their azzes kicked in the Winter Olympics by
Germany
Russia
Canada
Norway
Finland
Sweden
Italy
France
Switzerland
Liechtenstein (well maybe not Liechtenstein )
And apologies to anyone I left out.

As for now we rule

Yeah you kinda forgot Austria who managed not to get any medal in the 2012 Olympic Games.

A big WELL DONE to all the athletes who participated in the 2012 Olympic Games!