Aussies Australian Prospects for London 2012

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XFactor1979

XFactor1979

Norm Smith Medallist
Veteran
May 3, 2008
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Lurkville
AFL Club
West Coast
We had the World Athletic and World Swimming Championships recently and for the first time in a long time the Australian Athletic team surpassed expectations whereas the Swimmers settled for Silvers and Bronzes

Granted there is always a surprise here and there with regards to medals , but it looks like its probably going to be around the achievements of the Beijing Olympics by the way things are going for Australia...
 
The World Aths champs start next Saturday.

I don't think that we will be as successful as Beijing in terms of medals gained and we will probably drop down on the medal table to 7th or 8th. The HS site has got a predicted table up already:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/london-olympics

Still a long way out so hard to predict a lot. Should get a couple of gold from Swimming, Cycling, Maybe sailing, Maybe 1 in aths, maybe 1 in diving, where else might they come from?
 
pepsi said:
The World Aths champs start next Saturday.

I don't think that we will be as successful as Beijing in terms of medals gained and we will probably drop down on the medal table to 7th or 8th. The HS site has got a predicted table up already:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/sport/london-olympics

Still a long way out so hard to predict a lot. Should get a couple of gold from Swimming, Cycling, Maybe sailing, Maybe 1 in aths, maybe 1 in diving, where else might they come from?
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Hockey, triathlon, shooting, rowing and equestrian.

Would love to see us win the womens basketball but I think we'll probably just miss that again.
 

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imadodgyumpire said:
Sally Pearson, as much as you can be this far out, is "definitely" going to win gold. But, you know, I actually hope that, somehow, Lolo Jones gets it, unlikely I know.
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In a way, I hope Jones does OK - she seem's a genuinely nice person. Unfortunately, the media picked her up as a 'Sexy Athlete' and so she got a bit of a backlash from some fans because of it. She's not the most poular athlete in the US - she probably gets a bit more sponsorship than her ability deserves because of her looks, but you can't blame her for that. Yes, she has done the 'Sexy' photoshoots.

If she recovers from her injuries (which have been pretty bad), she's probably Pearson's main competition. I think Pearson is as close to a hot favorite as you can get for a hurdles title this far out - she's clearly the fastest at the moment by quite a margin and she has the best technique which means she is the least likely to fall - and she fell in her last race, so there you go.

Seriously, this far out - form, injuries, not crashing in the race - I wouldn't take shorter odds than 4/1.
 
I'm not going to pretend to be an expert or anything, but I'm not interested in Jones winning because of her appearance, but because of what happened in Beijing. However, as far as I'm aware, if she stopped getting injured for a change, breaking 12.30 wouldn't be that much of a stretch for Lolo? Also, I have the impression that Jones/Pearson don't like each other, is this a right impression?
 
imadodgyumpire said:
I'm not going to pretend to be an expert or anything, but I'm not interested in Jones winning because of her appearance, but because of what happened in Beijing. However, as far as I'm aware, if she stopped getting injured for a change, breaking 12.30 wouldn't be that much of a stretch for Lolo? Also, I have the impression that Jones/Pearson don't like each other, is this a right impression?
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I honestly hadn't heard anything re Jones and Pearson not liking each other - they ran against each other plenty of times in the last couple of years (when Jones has been fit). I agree that Jones deserves a bit of luck after Beijing.

Jones is probably the only hurdler with the same flat speed as Pearson. Their 100m times are comparable.

Jones' best hurdles time is 12.43 - 3 years ago in Beijing. The knock against her is that she'll be 30 in London, and with injuries she may be on the way down. Her best in 2011 was 12.67. Peason ran 12.28 in Daegu, which seems to have been a slow track, and is only 25.
 
Britain has the lottery funding. Ours started drying up after Sydney (carry-over effects continued in Athens), and our constitution doesn't allow any lottery funding. It won't be pretty in London, Brits will get twice as many golds as Australia, and John Coates will be on suicide watch.
 
It is an unfortunate fact of life these days tht money=medals. The sport science is now so good, that the training programs are set to within the hour, the diets and recovery treatments are planned perfectly. The old days of doing a few laps around the footy oval after you finish work are gone.

We spent a lot of money after 1976 (inc setting up the AIS) because of Montreal - no gold medals. It eventually paid off - by 1992 we were a top 10 Olympic nation again, and that lasted until 2004. However, we are no longer paying enough it seems.

The Poms aggressively attacked cycling about 10 years ago, and by 2008 they were the best track nation in the world (finally beating us). Being in Europe, they have always had a good track and field program - but that has never really had huge government funding anywhere. Up to now. Whether money and science can overcome the undoubted physical advantages of the west africans in the sprint/power events and the east Africans in the distances remains to be seen
The question is - do we want Government pouring money into sports that we really don't care about most of the time, just so we can get some Gold medals at a festival every 4 years? Is that a good use of our tax dollars?
 
For such a long time, Australia sided with itself believing that what we do in our sports achievement is synonymous with our country's identity

Most certainly during the Howard years:

port-John%20and%20Janette%20Howard-420x0.jpg
 

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Wallaby said:
The question is - do we want Government pouring money into sports that we really don't care about most of the time, just so we can get some Gold medals at a festival every 4 years? Is that a good use of our tax dollars?
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Agree, with china, us and russia always filling the top 3, the best any other nation can do is 4th which quite remarkably australia did in sydney and athens.

Then with the aid of lottery funding the poms targeted track cycling and rowing which are sports where the top 3 aren't that proficient in, are only accessible to rich nations and offer a lot of gold medals. Not rocket science really.
 
bullish23 said:
Agree, with china, us and russia always filling the top 3, the best any other nation can do is 4th which quite remarkably australia did in sydney and athens.

Then with the aid of lottery funding the poms targeted track cycling and rowing which are sports where the top 3 aren't that proficient in, are only accessible to rich nations and offer a lot of gold medals. Not rocket science really.
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Yep, just like we did. We have won heaps of rowing and cycling medals over the years.
 
Cycling is the one event we'll certainly do better in London compared with Beijing, where all we picked up was a solitary silver. World champ results in the past 2 years have been very impressive, although the new format has robbed Meyer and Bobridge of likely medals. Such a joke that the track quota is 5 events and the ICU decide to waste 1 on the omnium. Personally i've always found the 500/1000 time trial a fantastic event to watch as the top riders chase time's and Phil Liggett goes berserk. Oh well.
 
Cycling has it's fair share of rubbish events - like swimming with all those weird strokes.

Sprints, team sprint, Kieren (group sprint), 1K time trial (no longer an olympic event), 4K time trial (pursuit), 4K team time trial, 25K track race, points race. You see that you can get the same guys doing most of the events.

For track, all they need are the sprint and a time trial. maybe a 4K team time trial. The rest are just slightly different flavours.
 
Wallaby said:
Cycling has it's fair share of rubbish events - like swimming with all those weird strokes.

Sprints, team sprint, Kieren (group sprint), 1K time trial (no longer an olympic event), 4K time trial (pursuit), 4K team time trial, 25K track race, points race. You see that you can get the same guys doing most of the events.

For track, all they need are the sprint and a time trial. maybe a 4K team time trial. The rest are just slightly different flavours.
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On that note, even though it's one of my favourite viewing sports, I would say swimming has far too many events at Olympic level.
 
Wallaby said:
For track, all they need are the sprint and a time trial. maybe a 4K team time trial. The rest are just slightly different flavours.
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But the new format isn't balanced. Meares will compete in 3 events in London after only competing in 1 in Beijing. Meanwhile Bobridge must settle for a team pursuit spot as his only event. They've effectively wiped out distance track racing.
 
SJ said:
On that note, even though it's one of my favourite viewing sports, I would say swimming has far too many events at Olympic level.
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Doesn't stop Fina trying to get the 50m fly/breast/back added to the program at every opportunity. Anyway, they'll never cut back on the swimming program for the simple reason that the US are successful at it. NBC got the IOC to switch the heats and finals around from morning to night in Beijing. They'd go apeshit about a reduced swimming program.
 
Toriola said:
Doesn't stop Fina trying to get the 50m fly/breast/back added to the program at every opportunity. Anyway, they'll never cut back on the swimming program for the simple reason that the US are successful at it. NBC got the IOC to switch the heats and finals around from morning to night in Beijing. They'd go apeshit about a reduced swimming program.
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Yeah. I love it, but really it isn't 'fair' compared to the other sports.
 
Depends what you mean by 'fair'. I think most sports have adequate representation of events. I think there's like 14 different Wrestling category's for example.

Gymnastics is probably the only other event that allows someone to go on a Phelps-like medal spree though.

Still not sure why squash hasn't been added to the program. It should definitely be in. Yet they added golf. :thumbsdown:
 
Wallaby said:
Yep, just like we did. We have won heaps of rowing and cycling medals over the years.
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Absolutely. And prior to us the germans were also strong in these two sports, and no coincidence they would finish 4th. I can remember one olympics, barca i think, there were 4 track finals in the one evening and germany v australia in all of those finals. I think we got the 4 silvers.

Absolutely ridiculous to get rid of the 1km pursuit. One of my fav events.

I think track cycling in london will have the best atmosphere. We were fantastic in holland earlier this year so there will be a real ashes feel to the velodrome when we take them on at their home olympics.
 
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