Cycling headlines Aust-GB Olympic rivalry
Australia’s Olympic rivalry with Great Britain will be no more evident than in cycling.
And no test event could be as big a barometer for medals than this week’s London leg of track cycling’s World Cup in which Australia and Britain are both fielding Olympic-strength teams.
The Australian Olympic Committee’s benchmark figures released at the end of last year predict Australia will win 15 gold medals and Britain will claim 14 in their private battle for fourth place on the medals table.
Four of those gold could come down to a direct confrontation between an Australian and British cyclist, while another six could also be fought out in other sports by the traditional foes.
Here’s some of the sports which should produce the biggest Australian-British rivalry in London:
CYCLING
The AOC’s benchmark is inflated somewhat by Australia’s six gold medals at last year’s world track cycling championships, where Britain only won one. That’s not going to happen in London.
Neither country will dominate like they did in Athens in 2004 when Australia won six cycling gold or Beijing four years later when Great Britain won eight. Germany, France and, inevitably, the Chinese have caught up and will restrict Australia and Britain to a couple, possibly three, golds each.
Anna Meares won three of those six world championship gold and is aiming for an ambitious and unprecedented keirin, sprint and team sprint treble in London. But she’ll have stiff competition from Olympic champion Victoria Pendleton in all three, particularly in the sprint.
Triple world champions Meares and Kaarle McCulloch in the inaugural women’s team sprint and the men’s team pursuit are Australia’s best chances of gold.
World record holders Australia are the hot favourites to reclaim the men’s teams pursuit gold but Beijing champions Britain will be the biggest threat.
Shane Perkins won the keirin world title last year, but faces Britain’s cycling knight, Sir Chris Hoy, who claimed the sprint treble in Beijing.
Perkins could also challenge in the sprint against Hoy and Jason Kenny, while Australia and Britain could fight for bronze in the men’s team sprint behind Germany and France.
Britain’s multiple Tour de France stage winner Mark Cavendish is an early favourite for the men’s road race, but Australia’s Matt Goss is seen as one of his biggest challengers in an event that will come down to team tactics.
ROWING
Britain won three gold medals in Olympic events at last year’s world championships to Australia’s two and are likely to get the better of the contest on home waters at Eton Dorney. The men’s fours and lightweight fours and women’s double sculls will provide the best head-to-head contest between Australian and British crews.
Veterans Duncan Free and Drew Ginn are almost certain to make up half of what Australia hopes will be a new Oarsome Foursome to reclaim the crown from Britain, which has won every gold in the event since the 2000 Sydney Games.
Australia’s lightweight four took the world title off the British last year, while Britain and Australia took gold and silver in the women’s double sculls and will likely duel for those positions in Eton.
SAILING
Britannia ruled the waves off Qingdao in China in 2008, but Australia set up this Olympic year by winning three gold to one at last year’s world championships in Perth.
Australia won two of those gold medals – the men’s 470 and the Laser – with Britain claiming the silver, so the rivalry will continue off Weymouth.
Malcolm Page and Mathew Belcher will reprise their Perth battle with British pair Luke Patience and Stuart Bithell in the 470s, while world Laser champion Tom Slingsby will be pressed by silver medallist Nick Thompson.
World 49ers champions Nathan Outteridge and Iain Jensen will also face a challenge from Britain’s fourth-ranked crew.
SWIMMING
Britain’s female swimmers provide the contest and, between them, Rebecca Adlington, Gemma Spofforth, Fran Halsall, Ellen Gandy and Hannah Miley will challenge Australia’s women. Britain and Australia could end up with just the one gold each in women’s swimming.
Emily Seebohm against Spofforth in the 100m backstroke and Jess Schipper versus Queensland based Gandy in 200m butterfly are probably the two biggest head-to-head clashes, although not necessarily for gold.
In the 400m individual medley, Stephanie Rice and Miley could fight out the minor medals, while Halsall faces Alicia Coutts in the 100m butterfly and Libby Trickett in the 100m freestyle.
In the open water 10km, Melissa Gorman might have to settle for a minor medal at best against Britain’s two-time world champion Keri-Anne Payne.
TRIATHLON
Since triathlon was introduced to the Olympics in Sydney, Australia has underperformed compared to expectations, with one gold, a silver and two bronze, while Britain is yet to win a medal of any colour.
But this is the year Britain will make its mark. British brothers Alistair and Jonathon Brownlee are tipped to repeat their world championships gold and silver double in the men’s, while Australia’s Brad Kalhefeldt could push for bronze at best.
Australia’s Emma Moffatt will start among the favourites for the women, but Britain’s world champion Helen Jenkins could make it yet another Australia-Britain battle for gold.
CANOEING
A change of programme could help Ken Wallace, even though his Olympic gold medal event the K1 500m has been scrapped in London.
It now leaves him to concentrate solely on his preferred event, the 1000m, in which he won bronze in Beijing behind Britain’s Tim Brabants.
A return bout between Wallace and Brabants, however, relies on the Beijing gold medallist winning his current battle to qualify for Britain’s spot.
DIVING
Beijing gold medallist Matthew Mitcham and British teen Tom Daley will both be trying to beat Qui Bo and his Chinese team-mates to the medals in the 10m platform.
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The Crowd Says (28) | Page 1 of Comments
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February 16th 2012 @ 10:22am
B.A Sports said | February 16th 2012 @ 10:22am | Report comment
I always thought our rivalry was more with England than Great Britian?
To be honest at the Olympics, i don’t want to beat the UK anymore than i want to beat the US, China, Germany, Chile, Angola, whoever..
February 16th 2012 @ 11:29am
Tom Callaghan said | February 16th 2012 @ 11:29am | Report comment
BA sports,
The vry fact that you have to say this indicates that Great Britain is the country that you want to beat. You have no more chance of beating Great Britain than you do beating China. With luck you should finish above Angola.
February 16th 2012 @ 11:24am
Tom Callaghan said | February 16th 2012 @ 11:24am | Report comment
I think that you in Australia know in your heart of hearts that Australia is not going to finish above Great Britain at London in 2012. Its not plausible that all of Australia’s 15 World champions are going to come good in 2012 at London, Even if Britain’s 15 world champions don’t all come good several of the country’s silver medalists will probably do go one better at the Olympics. Australia doesn’t have so many silver medal prospects.
I think that the author of the article concedes as much when he argues that Australia will not dominate the Olympic cycling competition.
February 16th 2012 @ 7:10pm
Australian Rules said | February 16th 2012 @ 7:10pm | Report comment
Completely agree.
The Brits should absolutely belt Australia in the velodrome in London…not merely because they have triple the population, but because the funding that is channelled into sports by the host country in the lead up to an Olympics is just massive. Australia simply cannot compete financially with GB in the same year they are hosting the Games.
If Australia even gets close to GB, it would be embarrassing.
February 16th 2012 @ 10:32pm
Tom Callaghan said | February 16th 2012 @ 10:32pm | Report comment
What kind of talk is this?
‘Even if Australia gets close it will be embarrassing ! Mate, that sounds like an admission of defeat.Where have all the Australians saying: ‘ ah look,we don’t worry about the opposition, we just concentrate on our own game’ gone? You know, the kind of thing Michael Clarke said just before the recent Ashes series in Australia. He had nothing to learn from the Poms, did he?
‘m glad to see that you are still trotting out that hoary old chestnut about population being the prime determinant of sporting success. If it was so how did Great Britain, with a population of 60 million finish above Germany,80 million,Japan, 100 million, and France, 62 million at the Beijing Olympics?
I’m glad too see that you are still churning out the financial excuse. for impending Australian sporting failure. You seem affronted that Great Britain may be rewarded for channeling funds-not tax payers money by the way into sport. You seem to think that this is unfair. But what did Australia do after its debacle at Montreal in 1976. It invested heavily in sport, didn’t it? Australia’s medals weren’t won on the basis of a blend of Vegemite, fresh air and sunshine!
You know what that sounds like to me mate:
‘Boo hoo hoo, the Brits are not only better than us but they are also richer’
Get a grip. get a grip!
February 20th 2012 @ 1:18pm
Australian Rules said | February 20th 2012 @ 1:18pm | Report comment
Well that’s certainly a frothy response Tom. Good on you for being positively bullish about Britain’s prospects.
My word, where to begin…
1) HOSTING – First, it’s no “admission of defeat” as no-one’s been beaten yet. However, its stating the obvious to say the host nation has a massive advantage. EGs – Before they hosted, Spain had won a total of 5 gold medals across 15 Olympics…and never more than 1 gold at any Games. At Barcelona ’92 they won 13. Greece usually win about 1 or 2 but had their greatest ever haul in ’04 since 1896, with 6 gold (and excluding their 2 gold medal sprinters from prev years who got busted as drug cheats). China’s gold medal haul rose from 28 in 2000 to a whopping 51 when they hosted in ’08.
- incidentally, Australia is the only country in the world to improve on their best medal count at an non-hosting Olympics (excluding Canada in ’76 who were embarrassing).
Britain will achieve their best medals result because they are the host. Simple.
2) POPULATION – No one (certainly not in Aust) is “trotting out population being the prime determinant of sporting success”. If that were true, Australia would finish 52nd on the medal tally, in accordance with our population (22M). Instead, we regularly finish in the Top 4, below China (1.34B), USA (313M) and Russia (143M)…no not at Beijing, we were 6th there.
As stated above, in the build-up to hosting a Games, it makes complete sense that GB finally conquered its nemises France (65M) and Germany (82M). And about bloody time too…we’ve been doing that for years.
- in terms of the top 10 countries in the medal tally, all of them had at least twice Australia’s population.
3) FUNDING – Whilst population obviously helps, it means nothing unless you’re a developed country with money to throw at Olympic funding…as all the top 10 countries in the medal tally do. The “spend” by GB in the lead up has been massive and it’s designed to maximise medal returns in a nationalistic chest-beating exercise, which I note you’re well into the swing of (aren’t we all when it’s ‘our turn’).
GB has been crap at sport for so long, it’s about time that turned around. Hooray
February 21st 2012 @ 4:32am
Tom Callaghan said | February 21st 2012 @ 4:32am | Report comment
Australian Rules,
I’ll reply in dtail to your points later if I may.
Just to say now that if GB has been crap at sport for ages, how do you explain that it is third in overall Oympic medal table 1896-2008?
and I can’t resist adding: ‘GB 4-Australia 1′ that refers to golds won in Olympic class cycling events London world cup, Feb 2012.
Oh, and what about ‘Meareso’..Mearesey’?….Three races and no golds? Beaten by Pendleton and Varnish in team sprint and beaten by Pendleton for minor places in Keirin final…..
February 21st 2012 @ 9:03am
Australian Rules said | February 21st 2012 @ 9:03am | Report comment
First, don’t lost any more credibility by rubbishing a champion like Anna Meares – a multiple Olympic and Worlds gold winner who (despite being in the twilight of her career) broke her neck in January 2008 and still went on to won silver at the Beijing Games.
But moreover, you missed the point again Tom. Great Britain SHOULD be beating Australia in pet-Olympics sports like cycling in 2012. If they didn’t, something would be wrong.
I realise you’re excited…and that this is new…but try to relax.
Crowing about GB’s “overall 3rd placing on the medal tally” is pretty laughable too. Esp when the majority of those medals came from the days when all 3 athletes travelled 5 months by steamship to compete. To put it in context, GB won 146 medals at the London Games of 1908…almost half the total medals on offer…bravo Blighty! haha
February 22nd 2012 @ 6:10am
Tom Callaghan said | February 22nd 2012 @ 6:10am | Report comment
Australian (over) ruled,
I think that I need to give you a History lesson.
Your ‘argument’, as I understand it, seems to be that Great Britain’s success at Beijing was due to it’s preparations for hosting the London games in 2012. This proposition ignores the steady improvement in Britain’s Olympic placing since a low point in 1996 when only one gold medal was won. Beijing in 2008 was part of a longer term trend facilitated by the availability of lottery money. Historically, the British have lionized the plucky, gifted amateur who won against the odds with minimal preparation. From the late 1990s a more professional attitude has prevailed and there has been less guilt about directing money into sport, possibly because much of the money does not come from regular tax income. You simply cannot be Britain’s sporting success from 2000 down to he hosting factor.
You say that nobody in Australia is trotting out the ‘Population is the prime determinant of sporting success argument’. Now, that is simply at odds with the available evidence. Almost every sporting website or sports phone in to which Australian’s contribute makes that ‘argument’ There is a long cherished naive and demonstrably false assumption that a combination of sunshine and ‘the out door life’ have sufficed to bring Australia sporting success( until recently) and that the down turn in Australia’s sporting fortunes must be due to other countries ‘cheating’ by investing money sport.. This is part of your national mythology.
To the extent that Australia has ‘challenged’ leading nations ‘for years’ it is because ‘you’ have channeled disproportionate resources into sport following the Montreal debacle presumably because of ‘your’ painful awareness that you lack distinctive national attributes other than sport to carve out an identity on the international stage.It has only been this funding that has promoted Australia into the top four, not ‘regularly’ as you state, but in 2004 and 2000.
It seems to me that your points relating to population and funding merely substantiate my original argument.
Mate,look,
Don’t feel too bad about this rather chastening e-mail exchange. after all Great Britain has far more top rated universities in international surveys than Australia. you and your country are still learning.
February 22nd 2012 @ 11:58am
Australian Rules said | February 22nd 2012 @ 11:58am | Report comment
“after all Great Britain has far more top rated universities in international surveys than Australia. you and your country are still learning.”
First, this is actually pretty funny.
Second, you’re a git.
Third, you’re perhaps a product of one of these “top rated” universities, so it’s good to see you’re spending your time on internet forums banging away excitedly and sounding like a prat.
This one has to be my favourite: “Almost every sporting website or sports phone in to which Australian’s contribute makes that ‘argument’” Slick prose indeed…it has a Cambridge feel to it if I’m not mistaken.
Aside from incoherent ramblings and sweeping declarations about Australia’s “identity issues”, you’ve invented claims (apparently citing Australians) that our sporting success is due to “the outdoor life” or that other countries are “cheating”. Well I’ve never heard that…probably because you made it up.
You’re trying to sound clever on the internet…I get it, but without any real substance, you’re just another troll.
Just to qualify the results of the “disproportionate resources” by Australia post-Montreal…
From 1948-76:
Australia won a total of 48 gold medals and the team usually numbered about 190 (on average).
Great Britain won 28 gold medals and the GB team usually numbered about 290 athletes.
Of course, since Montreal GB fell even further behind…until recently.
GB will win more medals in London than Australia – that’s hardly a controversial statement. Part of the reason is funding and population…as it is for every Olympic nation.
February 22nd 2012 @ 3:29pm
Trent said | February 22nd 2012 @ 3:29pm | Report comment
“Mate,look,
Don’t feel too bad about this rather chastening e-mail exchange. after all Great Britain has far more top rated universities in international surveys than Australia. you and your country are still learning.”
Geez you know how to put the pom in pompous don’t you…
Despite all those “top-rated” universities, our average wage is higher and our unemployment is lower than the UK’s. The uni’s over there must be producing a whole lot of unemployed graduates with nothing better to do aside from comment on Australian sports websites…
February 20th 2012 @ 1:37pm
Renegade said | February 20th 2012 @ 1:37pm | Report comment
I’m with BA, i just want us to beat everyone and finish as high on the medal tally as possible.
Tom,
I hope we smack the poms and continue to treat them like our punching bags just like we always have…….that’s what you want to hear isn’t it?
February 21st 2012 @ 4:33am
Tom Callaghan said | February 21st 2012 @ 4:33am | Report comment
Nice one Renegade. That’s the old Adam!
February 18th 2012 @ 9:20am
Tom Callaghan said | February 18th 2012 @ 9:20am | Report comment
Good evening you blokes.
Look. I’ve just been watching the track cycling from the London velodrome.Two gold medals for Great Britain including a victory in a world record time for Victoria Pendleton and Jess Varnish over Anna Meares and Kaale McCullough
But I thought Meares was going to clean up in London.
What’s going on?.
February 21st 2012 @ 9:10am
Pecs McGee said | February 21st 2012 @ 9:10am | Report comment
How about the men’s pursuit team? So much for “smashing the Aussies”. Geraint Thomas should have kept his mouth shut.
February 21st 2012 @ 9:48am
Tom Callaghan said | February 21st 2012 @ 9:48am | Report comment
Ah pecs! ‘Pecksy’
GB won four golds in Olympic events over the weekend to ‘the aussies’ one.
Smashing!
Don’t you think, Pecksy?
February 21st 2012 @ 9:46am
Tom Callaghan said | February 21st 2012 @ 9:46am | Report comment
Australian rues (?)
Jeez mate!
I can hear the steam coming out of your ears from here in London!
I don’t think that Blighty’s competitors went to Beijing in 2008 by boat did they?
However they traveled they were not too tired to finish above Australia in the medals table,or in 2011 boxing,rowing, athletics, gymnastics world champs….
February 22nd 2012 @ 9:32pm
Tom Callaghan said | February 22nd 2012 @ 9:32pm | Report comment
Australian Rude,
Mate…mate!
looks like my innocent internet remarks have raised a few colonial hackles.
Mate descending to a level of personal abuse does not really advance your argument. you still fail to address the key issue.
The point is this. When the British take sport seriously former colonial dependencies like Australia cannot compete. The statistics that you compile don’t undermine that
fact.
Do please try again.I feel that i am in the process of educating you and that after a few more exchanges with me you will have mastered some of the elementary skills required for effective argument and debate. one elementary skill is to make sure that the statistics that you compile support your argument.your data relating to 1948-1976 may or not be true but they hardly undermine the argument that it is only when the British had a lackadaisical, amateurish attitude to sport that Australia could compete effectively with them.
interesting that you should refer specifically to Cambridge. Don’t most international surveys place that university at number one or two in the world?
looking forward to hearing from you soon,
your old mucker,
Tom
February 23rd 2012 @ 10:10am
Australian Rules said | February 23rd 2012 @ 10:10am | Report comment
Tom, thanks for the note, good reading from a little bleeder from Blighty.
With such pride and gumption on display, it’s a pity you lower your flag with: “the British had a lackadaisical, amateurish attitude to sport “…ahhhhh
All those years of running the world and Britain was actually not even trying to win..??!! Now I get it…the Union Jack was washed in white for 100 years.
The curious thing, is that you ridicule Australia’s apparently “disproporionate resources” for sport…but then: “When the British take sport seriously former colonial dependencies like Australia cannot compete”…so now Britain IS taking sport seriously…which means spending bucketloads of cash on it.
Moreover, we clearly CAN compete old boy. At Beijing, GB won 47 medals to Australia’s 46…not bad for a little colony with less than 1/3 the population of mighty Britain. And the reading gets worse when you depart from the Olympics…
Sports that Britain invented, for example… like tennis and cricket. GB has won the Davis Cup a mere 9 times and, embarrassingly, not since way back in 1936 (I won’t bother delving into the Wimbledon drought farce). Australia has 28 Davis Cups…I guess that’s competing effectively.
Or cricket…obviously Australia’s Ashes record is far superior. But even more alarming, is that whereas Australia has won 50% of the Test matches played on Australian soil…England have won only 29% of all their Ashes matches played in England…29% on home soil!!!???
I relieved to hear that they simply weren’t trying all these years. Thank god you paid some Africans to actually help you win a game.
Anyhow, I await your next effort…reaching with explanations but typically skinny on fact.
Best
AR
February 24th 2012 @ 4:22am
Tom Callaghan said | February 24th 2012 @ 4:22am | Report comment
Australian Wrong,
Mate,
I’m assuming that you live alone and don’t often get distracted by female company so I expect a reply to this post toute suite.
there are howls of derisive laughter ring round my house Bruce.
You still seem to be falling into the trap of making my case with every post you write. You keep making my case that it’s only when the British didn’t take sport as seriously as they have done since 2000 that former colonial dependencies like Australia could compete. Every fact that you mention only makes that case more powerfully.
The fact that you expend so much time and energy shows how much more sport has meant to Australians than to the British.
I notice that you refer to Australia having one third of Britain’s population but I seem to remember you saying that no one in Australia trots out the population excuse.
If you had taken the period 2000-2011 you could have mentioned three ashes series victories for England, the winning of RWC in Sydney in 2003, victory over Australia in RWC quarter final 2007, the fact that England hold the Cook cup-Ashton’s try was a stunner wasn’t it-GB’s placing ahead of Australia at Beijing in 2008, better placings at rowing, swimming, boxing, athletics championships 2010/11…….
You repeat your point that Britain is spending money on sport now but still don’t show how this is different from what Australia has done since 1976.
Mate,
you mention ‘Africans’ Ah strewth mate! Cripes! You know that Strauss and Prior were brought up in England-unlike Micky Arthur. Mate, don’t you think you are skating on thin ice here? Talking about ice, aren’t most of your winter Olympic competitors hastily naturalized Eastern Europeans? Don’t you have to be from Eastern Europe to play tennis for Australia?
Perhaps Australians are little less xenophobic than they were in the Menzies era ;was it he who wanted to keep australia white or was it some other backwoods man?
February 24th 2012 @ 10:02am
Australian Rules said | February 24th 2012 @ 10:02am | Report comment
Thomas, I realise you’re just a kid…but what’s truly revealing is that there’s no attempt to argue any of the points I make. Instead you simply roll out a set of snide remarks.
The claim that Britain “didn’t take sport seriously” is the most flaccid excuse I’ve ever heard.
But then you state:
“If you had taken the period 2000-2011 you could have mentioned three ashes series victories for England”…um Thomas, Australia’s won 3 in that period as well…more to the point, from all matches in that period, Aust won 16 and England 9 . Goose.
Australia expects to beat England…the most our players get is a pat on the back. When England wins, the country goes into tickertape meltdown and hands out OBE’s and knighthoods to anyone with cream trousers.
In the same period (2000-2011) Australia’s won 153 Olympic medals to Great Britain’s 105….is this the time that the Brits started taking sport seriously? Or you mention the Winter Games…other than one muppet Canadian, every medallist has been Australian born and raised…netting 7 medals (5 gold) since ’92. GB has managed 4 medals (2 gold) in that time. The Winter Olympics are a joke…and there’s hardly snow in Aust compared to Old Dart! Glad the poms are finally taking it seriously though…their results show it.
How bout Tiger Tim at Wimbledon…was HE taking it seriously? I bloody hope not.
I think we’ve probably come to the end of out little exhcange. I expect the usual arrogant dross from your end…good to see your feeling puffy in the Olympic year.
As for your last comment, I won’t venture into the same territory as you by bagging the fabric or politics of GB, other than to say that the word is spelled “backwards”…not “backwoods”.
February 24th 2012 @ 10:16am
Tom Callaghan said | February 24th 2012 @ 10:16am | Report comment
Australian rattled.
Oh Sweetie,
Don’t say that our affair is over!
You will have to go back to those internet sites that your wife-if you had one-would object to you entering.
You seem content to pile up statistics without subjecting them to analysis. Your present batch of statistics may or may not be true but the trend since Britain began taking sport seriously is upwards in terms of success against Australia and it looks as if Britain won’t fall back from the fourth or third place that will be gained in London 2012 by 2016. It won’t follow Australia’s downward trajectory from 2000.
Don’t give up on our exchanges. I have found your emissions most amusing. don’t be like an Australian boxer and throw in the towel!
Good result for your Olympic football team, by the way. a one nil loss to the United Arab emirates marks real progress!
February 24th 2012 @ 10:12am
Trent said | February 24th 2012 @ 10:12am | Report comment
If you add the medal tally of Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008 , Australia won 3 gold medals more than GB. I don’t understand where your arrogance comes from other than perhaps winning is a new phenomena for a pom…
Glad you took the time away from “female company” to troll an Australian sports website champ.
February 24th 2012 @ 10:22am
Tom Callaghan said | February 24th 2012 @ 10:22am | Report comment
Trent…mate!
You are a follower of Kevin Rudd!
don’t you remember how he tried to make out that Australia had ‘really’ won more medals than Britain at Beijing because its medals came in team sports?
Add together Athens and 2004 and Beijing 2008 indeed!
Mate, what will the result be when we add together Beijing 2008, London 2012, and Rio 2016?
I hope that you are getting used to losing, to the experience of defeat.
Surrender to it Trent…embrace it… you know that you love it…..
February 28th 2012 @ 6:21pm
Trent said | February 28th 2012 @ 6:21pm | Report comment
I’m not participating in the olympics and neither are you. Get a grip and stop being so melodramatic.
You’re just a sad little pom trolling an Aussie sports forum.
February 22nd 2012 @ 9:39pm
Tom Callaghan said | February 22nd 2012 @ 9:39pm | Report comment
Trent,
I was interested to read your economic analysis mate!
unfortunately you forgot to point out that Australia’s economy is based on selling what you find at the end of your shovel to your Chinese markets.
Trent, mate, doesn’t this strike you as a rather ‘colonial’ and dependent economic relationship. Mate, Australia seems to have exchanged its formal political dependence on Great Britain for economic dependence on China and military dependence on the United States.
No amount of boasting about your former prowess in sport can disguise this.
You had better re elect Rudd. He can speak the language of your Chines paymasters at least.
Isn’t Gillard Welsh?
February 23rd 2012 @ 9:27am
Trent said | February 23rd 2012 @ 9:27am | Report comment
Tom,
GB walked out on the Commonwealth and backed Europe. Don’t rewrite history. Europe seems to be going great guns at the moment! And yes Australia is reaping the rewards of its soil… much as GB use to do…. with the soil of Inida, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia and whoever else your miserable little island exploited. Don’t be jealous that Australia is on the rise whilst GB is heading downhill. No wonder Scotland wants out.
Cheerio!
February 29th 2012 @ 5:09am
Tom Callaghan said | February 29th 2012 @ 5:09am | Report comment
Trent my old mucker!
How delightful to hear from you again.
I have missed your articulate and elegantly composed messages.