London 2012

Nick Willis must be in with a shot as well I would think?

On the front page of this morning's Daily Telegraph (Sydney) there's apparently a brand new country sitting in ninth place on the medal table.

[ AUS ZEALAND]

Hopefully this means that we are part of Asia now and can compete in the ACL.

The kind of people that follow Olympic sports over here wouldn't even know Australia was in the Asian Confederation.

Australia, where the bloody hell are ya?

*ALERT* *ALERT* *ALERT*

Be careful if wanting to watch the kayaking.  You not only have to put up with Dewhurst, but also Mark Watson!

What the fuck are these square things in the Olympic Stadium between/on seats?!

This has been bugging me the entire tournament.  

Claymores.

In my pants.

The Hockey Girls are to the next round, facing either GB or the Dutchies for a place in the gold medal match.

The GB media are obsessed by Team GB. You wouldn't know there are other countries competing 

Feeling a bit deflated this morning, after waking up early to see Adams get silver. I expected it to be much closer between her and Belarusian. I guess that is how the Aussies are feeling about their big medal prospects failing to get Gold.

Congrats to the 49er crew getting silver, hopefully the mens & womens 470's can pick up something as well.

Tough ask for the Hockey girls to make the Gold medal match, facing the #1 ranked Dutch in the next round.

Amazing game of womens football this morning between USA and Canada! 3-3 at full time, after Canada had taken the lead three times only to have USA equalise each time. The last USA goal was very contentious, the ref ruled that the Canada keeper had held onto the ball for more than 6 seconds, and awarded an indirect free kick in the box. From that kick, the ball hit one of the Canada players, and the ref ruled that she had handled the ball and awarded a penalty.

And to top it all off, USA score the winner in the 123rd minute, 2 minutes into stoppage time. Crazy stuff.

http://nz.sports.yahoo.com/news/adams-rues-lack-aggression-211131916.html

"I might just go to Rio just to piss people off."

Good on ya Valerie!  Still a legend no matter what.

Good to see the Australian comeback, with their latest correct entries in the 11-and-a-half foot with colourful spinnaker class (i.e., bloody sailing).

They lit up the stands during the Opening Ceremony. They made the stadium look amazing, as you can see here:

I suppose they didn't have time to remove them before the Athletics began or they might use them again for the closing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EkkNfZp_qDA

Ouch.

That looks very painful.

Not as painful as my night tonight on the piss with Frankie Mac 

You know it's a feel-good event when the Guardian has faint praise for the Royals: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/aug/07/london-2012-royal-family-gold

(BTW Guardian if you EVER get nasty about her Royal Kateness the Duchess of Kate I will consider you to be worse than the Dominon Post.  Her Kateness is second on phwoar-ability only to Jess Ennis.)

This guy won gold...sober this time though.

So close for the Hockey girls, hope they can pick themselves up and get the bronze.

To be fair,it's the same here. Only ever hear about nz athletes. 

And another American taking cheap shots: http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2012/aug/10/usain-bolt-london-2012-olympic-games-gold-medal

Women's 470 looking good for gold, big lead over the GB crew atm. Might try and stay up for the Hockey bronze medal match.

NZ win it.  GBR distant despite much "pumping" as described by the commentator.

Silver for Walker in the BMX. Feel sorry for Willers, crashed when in 2nd in the first heat of his semi and never recovered from it.

Hockey girls are needing some calls go their way in the Hockey. 1-0 down atm.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/sport/olympics/other-sports/7458795/New-Zealand-claim-gold-in-470-sailing

Couple of points Fred:

1. "Aleh, 26, and Powrie, 24, navigated their vessel - which they dubbed 'Muppet', that classic Kiwi term" (LOL)

2. "The Brits had less experience in match racing scenarios and it showed. They had a brilliant start in 5-6 knots but when Aleh immediately tacked away, Mills inexplicably decided not to follow her, forcing huge separation up the first beat." Being the vastly experienced yachster-er that i am - it looked like GBR got the jump on NZ but were then amongst a crowd of boats, so even if they wanted to, it would have been hard to follow NZ.  In fact only France followed NZ out to the far side (there were a few other boats out on that side but the majority were all around GBR).

Way to go Aleh & Powrie - Women's 470!!

I seem to remember there were yachting knockers on this forum regarding yachting as a richman's sport & a waste.  Now we've won gold, have those critics changed their tune?

TBH I couldn't really care less about sailing and even less as an Olympic sport.  One thing in its favour; it was comparatively short.  Also it wasn't Peter Montgomery commentating which was a good thing*.

It really needed a couple of offsides and a reckless challenge, or failing that Jess Ennis and Katarina J-T as the crew to make it a real sport.

*and I have now learned that "pumping" and "leaching" are sailing terms.  One is good and the other is bad.

Brazil vs Mexico is live on the Sky Sport highlights channel from 1.50am tomorrow morning, for those of you who don't have access to the HD channels. Big Pete 65 will be happy.

5 golds is a big result for us, it has been a pretty successful Olympics. If Farquhar can pick up a medal it will be the icing on the cake.

According to the SMH, it has cost Aussie 10m for each of their 31 medals (http://www.smh.com.au/olympics/off-the-field/what-price-medals-20120810-23zua.html).

Wonder how much funding it has taken for our 13?

Womens mountainbiking crosscountry on now, nice looking course.

Best pic of the Olympics yet: 

Really did enjoy the closing ceremony, Eric Idle stole the show for me.

6 golds, woohoo!

http://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-withdraws-gold-medal-from-shot-put-athlete-nadzeya-ostapchuk/172684

Anyone at all shocked by this?