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Australia are heading towards their worst Olympic performance in 20 years, as Australia’s overrated and under performing athletes enter week two of the games.
Australia’s swimmers were a major disappointment with only one gold coming in the pool. James Magnussen promised a lot but delivered little, as Australia’s other swimmers could only manage silver at best.
Silver has been the norm for Australia’s under performing athletes. Long jumper Michael Watt was favourite but could only take silver in a weak field.
It was the worst Olympic long jumping result since 1972.
The rowers and cyclists have picked up some silver but have consistently fallen short of gold.
Thankfully, there will be people jumping on the sailing bandwagon they were last on in 1983, with a win overnight by Australia’s most famous sailor since Captain Cook, Tom Slingsby.
There have been theories about lack of funding resulting in fewer gold medals. But the reality is these modern day athletes spend too much time on Twitter and not enough time swimming laps.
There has been too much whinging about lack of money or losing coaches to China or not sleeping in the same room as your wife.
These athletes all have top facilities to train in, but when it has come to the crunch at the Olympics they have failed to deliver.
Outside of Australia’s poor performance, there have been some glimpses of greatness at the games.
Someone who hasn’t failed to deliver is the greatest Olympian ever, Michael Phelps.
An indication of Phelps dominance in the pool, he has by himself won 18 gold medals. India, with a population of 1.21 billion, have won nine gold medals in their history.
Phelps is in the top five sportsmen of all time.
Roger Federer, another of the best sportsmen ever, knew the drill when he let Andy Murray finally win something. Federer has 17 Grand Slams to Murray’s nil and in front of Murray’s home crowd he let him win something.
It was a nice gesture from Federer who had a month previously beaten Murray in real tennis.
Usain Bolt won the 100m sprint. It may have been a good field, but Bolt, who still looks like a giant compared to his fellow runners, is clearly the greatest sprinter the world has seen.