London 2012 results and comments only (no politics)

[Alexamateo]

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.

[Tazio]

Closing ceremonies most cool

[gadjo_dilo]

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

[ShiftingGears]

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

[Mintexmemory]

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!!

[Tazio]

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

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

[AndyL]

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.

[Tazio]

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.

[AndyL]

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!

[Norwegian Blue]

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...?