The Olympics that got away from Australia

Tony mate, For nailed on favourite 'Sally Pearson' read: 'Nailed on favourite James 'The missile' Magnusson or 'Nailed on favourites: 'The Kookaburras' but 'don't cry for me Argentina'!

Very disappointing in the pool- now i am dreading the hurdles and Sally Pearson :'( hope i'm wrong.

Come August 13, we'll have forgotten about the Olympics. No one cares when they're not actually in progress.

But Jocelyn, Beijing is nearer to Sydney than London.

We have a lot of team sports though. We won't win water polo or men's Basket ball medals probably but we are ranked high enough to be at the Olympics. Do you think the competitors shouldn't be allowed to go? Stuff that, they've earned it ranking wise.

I reckon it's about 5 max as Johnno said, but then I never thought it would be 10 to begin with. It's not that big a deal, the bragging rights over this stuff only occurs every 4 years and the Aussies could do with not being so dog-in -manger about it to be frank. There's a lot more going for Australia than just sport.

Onya! That's the right attitude. Let's make it about performances and people rather than countries.

"The government in Australia funnily enough is spending more than we ever have before apaprantley on sport, the problem is though the other nations with bigger economies are spending even more." I feel this is the pertinent point. The fact is that Australia was able to punch above its weight in previous years largely because its people and government were far, far more serious about sporting success than was the rest of the world. Countries such as China, South Korea, Kazakhstan etc simply did not prioritise Olympics success, and did not invest in the infrastructure necessary to identify and develop the massive talent their much larger populations would inevitably produce. To put it bluntly, Australia consistently emerged at the top of the heap because good portions of the rest of the world didn't take the games seriously enough to produce a decent opposition. This has changed. China has thrown billions at sporting success, and has bought the kind of glory it desired. Other countries have followed suite, and the result is that there has been a much smaller pie left for Australia to cut its teeth on. Australia is simply too small to compete at everything, and has needed to divert all its resources into single areas that are of interest to the public and are traditional areas of strength (swimming, for example). That isn't about to change, and isn't going to revert back to the halcyon past.

Jocelyn The crazy part is that Australia with a population of 21 million sends a team of 410 athletes . Contrast this with UK 558, USA 529, Russia 448 etc. It is starkly obvious that this country is sending many athletes who have no hope of winning medals or even being competitive in many disiplines. With a limited budget why are they not concentrating on only the sports we are strong in like swimming, cycling, rowing, hockey etc. How our olympic committee can justify a team of this size defies reason to me

Sheek, That is a very very good point. In USA 300 million people cometietion is intense in juniors and never lets up until adulthood. Maybe it is the population issue, or just australia still has too much off a middle class that hey can coast through junior life and young adult life. The desperation factor is a big one. Population size doesn't not always equal desperation, eg west indies cricket, and pacific islands rugby, and african and south american soccer, all these nations some with smaller populations than australia the athletes are mighty hungry for pro contracts as it is there often only hope. But the factor about desperation is a big 1 , . USA the swimming system there is so much bigger, and competitive . maybe if Magnussen was from USA he may of won this olympics who knows, as talent wise despite all the mental strength of Nathan Adrian at the end of the day he was only 1 1hundreths of a second better than Magnussen. Maybe that is born mental strength or a product of the system. But Magnussen sure has the physical talent. -Stef rice has the heart but she just is carrying an injury and no girl on the planet or even man for that matter seems to be able to beat that chinese teenage swimmer. -Thorpe is an interesting 1. As he was only 17 about to turn 18, and kieren perkins from memory was about 18 in Barcelona. Hackett was 20 and there is a big maturity step up from 20 as opposed to 18. Thorpe had done a commonwealth games in 98, and a world swimming championship in 97 or 98 too from memory, but i think magnuseen had done much the same. -The other myth out of this Olympic swim team sheek and others for what it is worth is the experience factor. I think at least half or more than half had been at Beijing, so the experience factor wears a bit thin for half the team. I think it is a few things -Lack of top level coaching -Lack of depth to test the swimmers, at 2000 from memory those swim trials were ferocious eg the butterfly men like scott miller who won silver at Atlanta missed out -Some say the timetable USA have there swim trials only a month before or 3 weeks before, and that seems to be working rather than a few months before -And maybe the junior system in swimming is not as strong in OZ as it was before. -But this i just thought of then and this is stretching it for my memory as i was very young, but have vague images of the build up and watching the game of 1988 seoul. -I can remember the chit chat at least of the hype of our 1988 Seoul Olympic team swimmers a big hype for a lot of gold especially in the woman, and many bombed out big time. Jenelle elford was supposed to match Janet evens, julie mcdonald, had high hopes too, as did lisa curry from memory and none of them did much. It was unknown duncan armstrong who cleaned up In 1992 Johanna Griggs yes we all no her, from the tennis and better homes and gardens was a top swimmer, who won a silver or bronze in 91 at the perth world championship she developed chronic fatigue and that was that her career gone. -But Haley Lewis and sam riley did not live up to the hype and didn't win gold.

Johnno, An observation. The Americans are great competitors. They have to be just to get selected in their own team. The competition for places in many American sports is intense. It starts at age 6-7 & it never lets up right through to adulthood. The Americans understand intuitively the desperation of competition. When you're on top of your game, you have to cash in, because you might only get one clear shot at glory. Let the opportunity slip, & someone else will grab it. This was profoundly illustrated in the men's 100m freestyle final. Nathan Adrian charged into the wall like a crazed rhino, not breathing the last 15m while Magnussen rather glided into the wall, & took a breath at least once in the last 15m. Adrian wanted it more, & prevailed. Magnussen didn't want it enough. Magnussens says he couldn't have done anymore, but Adrian showed you have to be crazy desperate. That's the difference. Australians generally don't have this intensity, this desperation. Our last 3 great swimmers - Stephanie Rice, Ian Thorpe & Grant Hackett possess this desperation, but its not common spread. Rice is arguably the gutsiest swimmer we've had in 20 years. Or more. She will literally crawl over broken glass to win. Until the Aussies can match the desperation of the Americans one on one, we will continue to have more disappointments than triumphs.

Tom said it in a joke format GrantOZ lighten up.

Sheek good points. Yes you are no nostradamus and can't predict the future. -But the point out of this Olympics is this that has come out of it in a big way. And that is money rules, and you need a lot of it if you want to be up there with the best. All good to have the talant, but if there is no money for high performance training, call it academies or elite coaching call it what you want, or high level training facilities, the point is money rules, and you have to have both the funding and the talent to win. -The government in Australia funnily enough is spending more than we ever have before apaprantley on sport, the problem is though the other nations with bigger economies are spending even more. EHigh performance training has never been so advanced or so expensive at the same time. We need new ways or these sports needs new ways to market themselves and encourage private investment , as the government can't afford or be expected to fund everything, but we have to improve our nex olympics i hope in Rio. -Also the other factor is other big nations like Brazil and South korea and ukraine have stepped up there funding, and nations like Kazakthan who are oil rich and a lot of money to spend. So global olympics will get more competitive.

You shouldn't give comments like that the courtesy of a reply

Razza, I know there is all this spiritual side and just being there at the Olympics and the experience which is rich and lifechanging and inspiring. -But try telling that to the stars of the equal favourites knowing 1 or 2 ave to miss out. Try telling coming no 1 or getting the gold medal, and missing out by 1 1 100ths of a second doesn't mean more than the thrill of getting silver or just being at the games. -Try selling the olympic experience of coming silver to Eamon sullivan , or mihceal kilm who never got a individual gold just a relay gold. try telling that to shane kelly missing out on gold but getting silver or bronze has value, or to garry neiwand who tried hard for years. -Or to kirsty marshall or jaqui cooper. who missed out on winter olympics golds in the aireals over the years but were world champs. -Or to dan jansen who was a star and took forever to get gaoled but finally got 1 gold medal in his last winter oylmpics. -Or to merlen ottey who was always the bridesmaid but never the bride. Or to aussy dan kowalski who a fine swimmer but had to take 2nd to kieren perkins and to a lesser extent grant hackett who came later. -Or to ivan lendl who never won wimbledon. Try telling him he should be proud to be a wimbledon runner up. -My point is the athletes who are favourites or in the top pack only go to get gold and accept no less, once you reach the steps of the summit you want to at the top of the summit and it is hard to accept anything less if you have been given the talent too reach the summit human nature i suppose, heck i can remember playing schoolboy tennis at school and remember being so upset after losing on mathc point and being kicked out of the tournament i wanted to make the final even though the winner of the whole thing was better than me and the runner up , the runner up who beat me i so wanted to beat the as it turns out the no 2 ranked player as there was nothing in it between us and i blew a match point, it irked me for ages at the time how it was my 1st choke in sports, and i remember missing a big tackle at the death in a school boy rugby under 18 grand final and we lost it annoyed me for ages i blamed myself and was crying in the dressing room, coming 2nd if you want to win something Razza is annoying, you should always be a good sport but forget amateur school sport or amateur adult sport, the stakes for these professional guys adults not teenagers, at the olympics are so much higher. 4 years full time of there life with the chance to be no 1 int he world forget things like school or state titles, but no1 in the world, there once in a lifetime shot and they may never get another chance again to be no 1, plus all the potential endorsement deals that may follow if you win a gold, no one remembers a silver or bronze that is the truth, in some ways it would not bother me if they scrapped silver or bronze medals, make it even more alluring the gold but it is so much more alluring anyway as it is. . There have been athletes who have thrown out there silver or bronze or given it away as it has been too painful to accept or look at.

Johnno, Success & failure is not consistent across the board. And we must be thankful for that. Even when we were enjoying unprecedented success at the Olympics 2000-08, our Wallabies fell through the cracks 2004-10. We are witnessing a falloff in many sports, but there will be some sports that will cut across the grain & excel. Unfortunately, I'm not Nostradamus, & I have no idea how quickly we can turn things around. Certainly, if the federal government is willing to invest lots of money in talent identification, support, training & tuition, then we can recover quickly. The talent is often there, but it has to be encouraged & nurtured. Otherwise, these young people will go & do something else. On another note, I'm so thankful I'm not a professional sportsman today. Sure, the money & exposure is awesome. But what I wouldn't cope with, is the 'voices' - the voices of numerous coaches, managers, psychologists, psychoanalysts, dietitians, trainers, you name it, they're all giving well-intentioned but ultimately mostly meaningless & contradictory messages. There appear to be more support staff than athletes. And in the pool, despite all this support staff, they still managed to get the taper of most of the swimmers horribly wrong. Tapering is not a sports science discovered last year, or last decade. It's been around since swimming, & sport in general, began over 100 years ago. How could so many support staff be so collectively ineffectual? Go figure.....

The Olympics is not counted on how many gold medals, or in that fact any medals that a country wins. Just to be there to compete and be counted as an Olympian is worth more then any medal, sure the medals top it all off, but there is only one of each medal in every final event, but there are many Olympians competing, so if you are chosen to represent your country through your hard training to pass the criteria for your event, then that is the benchmark for becoming an Olympian, not the amount and colour of medals you won. Congratulations to all who were chosen you have done something that i could only have dreamed of and to those who were not chosen this time, keep up the hard training and goodluck for 2016.

south korea is way ahead of us on 7 gold. They have a bigger population, and bigger economy i think as well, but they are 7 we have matched in the past with south korea in summer olympics never at winter olympics. What would be really embarrassing and funny is if we win more winter gold than summer gold. We at last winter oylmpics in vancouver got 2 gold torah bright, and libby lesala. Ukraine, south africa, hungary,holland all ahead of us on the gold rush,japan and north korea too.