Olympics 2008

Javagal Srinath has changed sports and countries and is now coaching the Pakistani hockey team, check it out! Must be his twin

sarah walker 4th in bmx final

Yeah unlucky Sarah, you're still awesome though.

Looks like they're showing Argentina vs Nigeria live on 1 today. Not sure if they're showing it all but looking forward to it should be a great match.

Interesting article on NZ Herald today about whether it has been a successful olympics for NZ. For me looking on the face of it 9 medals is nothing to sneeze at, but their is also a slight feeling of disappointment, our favorites for Gold prior to the games were Vili, Ashley, Drysdale and Walker. In the end only two of them won gold so that is slightly disappointing, although circumstance played against Mahe. I haven't got exact numbers but on top of 9 medals we have five fourths(?) plus another 5 or 6 maybe more top 10s. So on the whole a pretty good games i feel
Here are some questions? I'll give my answers and would like to see some of yours
Phelps or Bolt? Phelps
Best NZ Performance: Vili
Worst NZ Performance: Famuina or Womens Hockey
Best story: Ever Swindells
Hard luck moment for NZ: Drysdale
Most promise for London: Team Pursuit or Walker
Overall rating for NZ: 7
China, yay or nay? NAY!!!!

Joseph just came 9th in the MOuntain Biking, not bad considering she had a monster crash in the middle of it. Also not bad considering she is currently a rhodes scholar at Oxford studying Public Lawbopman2008-08-23 15:55:45

simon_hampton2008-08-23 14:49:34

When does it end?

Who is the other Walker?

Phelps or Bolt? Bolt for me by a mile. 3 golds, 3 world records, crushed the opposition in both 100m and 200m and he coasted part of the 100m which isn't even his favoured event. It's easier to win more golds in swimming as there are different styles and events. If there were the same amount of sprinting events Bolt would cruise to 8 golds. Plus he has personality, something Phelps lacks.

Best NZ Performance: The Twins. Had no form coming into the games and had tons of pressure on them to perform in the same vein as Athens four years ago. Stepped up to the mark brilliantly. Back-to-back Olympic champs, can't argue with that.

Worst NZ Performance: Womens Hockey or Basketball. Or Marc Willers. Hard to tell.

Best Story: What, overall or just NZ? Obviously Phelps and Bolt dominate the headlines. The rise of GB in the medal tally. For us probably Super Saturday and all that went with it.

Hard luck moment for NZ: Probably Drysdale, although he did amazingly well to finish 3rd. Maybe a mention for the Olywhites only a few minutes away from a heroic 1-0 win over China with only 10 men.

Most Promise for London: Not sure, but if sevens gets in you'd have to say the Half Blacks or whatever they're called.

Overall rating for NZ: 7

China, yay or nay? Meh. I've enjoyed it, but still meh.

Argentina beat Nigeria 1-0 in the football final this afternoon.

Good final i thought. Argies deserved the win. Riquelme was disappointing which was sad to see as he is such a brilliant player and i don't know if we will see him at South Africa 2010 so it was sad to see him in possibly his last big international tournament. Messi was brilliant as was Di Maria. Argies defended well as a unit too. So well done Argentina.

I'd nominate Beatrice for the Worst performer  for her performance and attitude - or lack of, although that BMXer would push her hard.

I'd give anything to have a decent running, track and field team again.  Millenium Centre is nice but compare that to the state of the art centres they have in Germany and the US.  Still loved the way Valerie Vili made up her mind that she was going to win.  Has the right physique and right mind set.

Don't forget Nick Willis LG.

True. PHooooey is another to forget, in the two interviews I saw, his mind was not on the job and there was no confidence. he should have not gone feeling the way he did.

classy goal from Di Maria in the final

The fact is at the start of the week he was all over the show, by the semi he had regained his confidence and ended up coming fourth. To say someone who came fourth shouldn't of been there is very tough.

Did any one see the tykwondo?? The bronze match this cuban round house kicked the ref in the head.. Excellent way to get banned for life, what a shame getting all that way then being banned for losing ya temper. He did have good reason though, the ref ended the match in controversial style, got his come-uppance, maybe we should do the same to our refs, that would be funny

Where's the link?...in my pursuit of watching gratuitous violence, this sounds like a good 'un!

The video is at the end:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24BLj5DmbBw&feature=related

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4667376a1823.html "$10m per medal - but 'worth it'??????

Clearly he's been taking lessons from Veitch

did you read some of the user comments? The standard of refereeing at the boxing and this martial art were pretty much the same - allegedly. The only match I watched was that NZ girl. In 10 minutes they threw about 4 kicks, the rest of the time they were trying to psych each other out waiting for the chance.

sounds like there have been a lot of unhappy competitors particularly in the boxing, tae kwon do and wrestling.

i watched some of the judo. could be the worst martial 'art' of all time. they dead set just grabbed each others shirt and tried to pull them over. so boring to watch. i can't see how anyone can be a judo coach either. "righto mate, grab that blokes shirt and hip toss him onto the ground." they spent half the fight tucking in their top half cause the other kept pulling it out.

It seems to me that Olympic/competitive martial arts is like brawling.  There is no "clean" contact/hits.  You might as well chuck out all Olympic martial arts & replace them with 1 event - kick boxing.  That, at least, encompasses kicking, strking with hands & grappling.  I'm neither a fan or exponent of it, just a casual observer.  Now I'll probably be criticised for being so.

And why do they wear an outfit that requires them to adjust themselves every 12 seconds. Just oil yourself up and slip on a pair of speedos FFS!

http://www.mmatko.com/angel-matos-cuban-taekwondo-kicks-referee-in-face-video-beijing-olympics/ 

I didn't watch any of the judo/taekwondo/marsial arts but that taekwondo thing looked pretty funny. 26th place is decent and our best medal haul in 24 years.

It really pisses me off when the media talk about our medal haul in LA, sure it was great but they conveniently forget to mention every time that the Soviets weren't there! A bit of perspective soemtime goes a long way

I wasn't around in 1984 or 88. I knew who got the golds from then and stuff but had no idea about the medal count so had no option but to believe the media. Learnt a lesson there!

You could of easily searched it online. Would of probably taken less than a minute.

I could have. But I didn't.

I've never ever seen a referee order two persons to fight until I saw the NZ girl in the taekwondo. She got warned about 6 times and her oppenent about 3 times as they had a Mexican stand off instead of mixing it.