Which are the 3 Best and Worst Olympic Moments of your Nation?

[thiago_simoes 1,423]

Best:
1 - Zanetti winning the gold medal on Rings in 2012. Everybody knows I love artistic gymnastics, and this made me cry with joy the whole day.

2 - The men's volleyball team winning gold in 1992. I was 8 at the time and this is the first Olympic memory I have in my life. 

3 - Yane Marques' bronze medal in modern pentathlon at the 2012 Olympics. She is such a humble person and she comes from one of the poorest parts of the country, and she was in a sport that virtually no one knew about. Even the Brazilian Olympic Committee had already held a press conference about the performance of the Brazilian athletes at the 2012 Olympics before Marques even got to compete, so not even the national committee believed she could win a medal. A magical moment.

 

Worst:
1 - Rodrigo Pessoa's horse refusing to jump at the 2000 Olympics, and then we all knew he had lost the chance to win a gold medal. This meant that we got no gold medal at all in Sydney and I was really sad for the rest of the year.

2 - Flávia Saraiva losing balance on the Balance Beam final in 2016. Prior to her performance, everything was going her way: Biles touched the beam (losing 0.5), Ponor performed badly, no Russians qualified for the final, so Flávia had a real shot at earning bronze. She performed around 10 times on beam in different competitions the whole year and her lowest score was 14.833. But when she lost balance her score went down by 0.5, and in the end she scored 14.533. Biles earned the bronze medal with 14.733. I am still heartbroken.

3 - Daiane dos Santos stepping out of bounds on the Floor Exercise in 2004. She was the reigning world champion, but we all knew she was a headcase and she usually got extremely nervous when competing. She cracked under pressure, but at least she is still known as the only female artistic gymnast from Brazil to date to be a world champion.

 

 

Edited August 5, 2017 by thiago_simoes
Fixed a typo.

[IoNuTzZ 306]

top 3 BEST :

 

1 - Nadia Comaneci won gold with a perfect 10 at Montreal

2 - Sanda Izbasa won the vault final in 2012 at London

3 - Constantia Dita-Tomescu won gold medal in Marathon at Beijing. At 38 years of age she became the oldest Olympic marathon champion in history. Previously the oldest woman to win an Olympic marathon was aged 30.

 

 

top 3 WORST

 

1 - Andreea Raducan Sydney 2000

2 - Romania - Angola 19-23 Rio 2016

3 - 2012 women's team epee

[heywoodu 15,145]

Best:

 

1. Gerard van Velde winning 1000m gold at the 2002 Olympics, until then he was usually the 'eternal 4th/5th/6th place finisher' but in Salt Lake everything came out and he destroyed the WR, 1:07.18 is still a magic number in Dutch sports and I still have the words of the commentator in my mind forever  ("And please let nobody touch this time, let noboby touch this time!") - Video

 

2. Maarten van der Weijden surviving cancer, then coming back to become the first Olympic champion in open water swimming in 2008. The nice touch was that the co-commentator was multiple Olympic gold medalist Pieter van den Hoogenband (who had finished his Olympic career by finishing 5th in his 4th consecutive 100m freestyle final a week earlier), also a good friend of vdWeijden, who went utterly crazy when it was becoming clear vdWeijden was going to win the gold (after which vdHoogenband ran down from the commentator position to welcome vdWeijden)  - Video (around 2:40 is when vdHoogenband goes all 'oooh yeah, he's in a great position!')

 

3. Epke Zonderland winning the horizontal bar gold medal at the 2012 Olympics, the first individual Dutch gymnastics medal ever and the first medal since the 1928 gold for the women's team. What made it even better was the commentator (Hans van Zetten, with his Dutch flag bow tie  ), one of the most enthousiastic and best Dutch sports commentators ever, for who it was just as cool that he could finally comment on a Dutch gold medal. His words at the end ("he's standing! And everyone...and I'm standing as well! I'm going crazy!") have become rather famous here  - Video

 

 

As for the worst, I'll have to search and think  

[George_D 1,205]

Best:
 

1. Voula Patoulidous's gold in 100m hurdles ahead of far more better athletes in barcelona 1992
2. Niki Bakogianni's silver medal in high jump in Atlanta 1996, second to great Konstantinova
3. Pyrros Dimas 3rd gold in Olympics in Wheightlifting in Sydney 2000

Worst:

1. Men's Basketball team in 1996
2. Nikolaidis injury in men's TKD in 2000
3, Men's Volleyball team in 2004

[intoronto 5,645]

17 minutes ago, George_D said:

Best:
 

1. Voula Patoulidous's gold in 100m hurdles ahead of far more better athletes in barcelona 1992
2. Niki Bakogianni's silver medal in high jump in Atlanta 1996, second to great Konstantinova
3. Pyrros Dimas 3rd gold in Olympics in Wheightlifting in Sydney 2000

Worst:

1. Men's Basketball team in 1996
2. Nikolaidis injury in men's TKD in 2000
3, Men's Volleyball team in 2004

 

The shock diving gold in 2004 and Ilias Iliadis winning gold in 2004 are my top moments.

[George_D 1,205]

2 minutes ago, intoronto said:

 

The shock diving gold in 2004 and Ilias Iliadis winning gold in 2004 are my top moments.

 correct!! but i should choose only 3 from the best. The diving gold was unexpected since both favorites chinese and russians failed in their last attempts