Australia

Autopilot

Thanks. I was using my iPhone and the page did not work fully.

Trollslayer

Autralia do well if you total up medals simply by quantity, not if you priorities gold then silver etc..
I have to admit, given their attitude it is fun to point this out otherwise I wouldn't have bothered.

Shared

BBC News - Why do Australians want less biased Olympic coverage?

Not all Aussies it seems are happy with their free to air coverage, and want less biased coverage, but this comment made me laugh

"If channel 9 (the Aussie FTA channel) are concentrating on Australian success what are they showing ? the test card ?"

And another fact that caught my eye..

"Australian official Olympic broadcaster Channel 9 apparently only showed the first nine table positions - not including NZ in 10th spot - and then Oz in 19th place."

BBC News - London Olympics diary: Quirky moments around the Games

DarkDogZA

I don't think a per capita medal count is particularly useful because it ignores demographics. While being fairly difficult to calculate, the more valid comparison would be medal count / elgible athletic population

South Africa for example has a population of about 40million however due to large gini coefficient, the actual elgible population would be somewhat less than New Zealand.

RMCF

Whats GDP got to do with sporting ability?

Autopilot

I think the point is that a poorer country has less to invest in training, equipment etc. Therefore richer countries have and advantage, esspecially when it comes down to 'rich mans' sports such as sailing. But it's a very crude comparison, there are lots of other variables.

Coffin

Two mad moments for Australia

BBC Sport - Olympics water polo: Premature celebrations embarrass Aussies

BBC Sport - Olympic basketball: Last-second basket in Australia-France game - wow !

lucasisking

I like the Aussies and haven't had a moment where Ive been 'laughing' at them .  To the contrary, I've wanted them to do well (except when they are against us, obviously ).  Whilst they are languishing far behind GB, they are still in the top ten nations on Earth.  They should give themselves a break.

And to be frank, Team GBs ambitions have stretched far beyond 'beating Australia'.  These people getting wound up need to get over themselves.

willywinker

That shot is normally associated with cheesy family films revolving around a team of nerds and fat kids that come out top in the end.