rajiv

I think the main point is that Australia wants marketable home games which mean something and can draw a crowd When in Oceania they had one every four years-the inter continental playoff for the World Cup ie one game where they could fill a stadium Now New Zealand has replaced Australia as the" superpower " of the South Pacific and will now get an automatic place at every FIFA tournament(where they vie for last place) Means plenty of trips for the NZ suits and FIFA money If FIFA is intent with giving a very soft place at every tournament surely it would make more sense to give it to a billion population country like China or India Oceania has only 2 members with over a million people-NZ has 5 million people

Ski Mountaineering looks pretty spectacular. However, any sport/ event where 90% + of the competitors/medallists are from the one continent really shouldn't qualify for Olympic inclusion. The Olympics shouldn't be another Continental Championship. There must be a significant element of universality

I've long noted a strong anti Australia attitude on this site Guess they are the obvious target for many users who resent the large teams Australia qualifies for Olympics or maybe it's just Europeans being European and pessimistic about everything and looking for someone to vent their anger on Americans of course see all non Americans (aliens?) as inherently inferior

I've long held the view that there should be a transparent objective system to make these usually contentious decisions. I would grant the Games to the country which has won the most medals since last hosting (guess this would be Germany or Hungary but I haven't checked) And by "grant" I mean that they have first refusal rights. Maybe this means some regions would never host so I would allow nations to effectively "donate" medals to another country so that for instance ,there could be an African Games if that was widely approved of. No country deserves the Games just because they claim "it's our turn" when it really isn't

This a very Eastern Europe view Grand Slam events are the much bigger deal in the rest of the world All the Commo countries considered the Olympics the be all and end all.They were (are?) of the view that Olympic medal counts are everything in sport The Berlin Wall was toppled in 1989 by the way

Yeah like ethe wintersport schedule is such a big deal in an Australian January Over half of singles games are 1st round-64 of 127- so it makes sense to spread them over 3 days (including a weekend day)

Is there any event where you don't think Canada is an outside chance of a medal?

Just for the record Oceania wins more Olympic medals than Africa. So I guess Africa is the weakest continent overall. Hard political sell these days though. Oceania is hopeless at all the combative sports however. (and there are so many medals in this grouping) Australia and NZ are very good at water sports In fact I'd say that they are ordinary in all gymnasium indoor sports. To them sport is an outdoor activity

I'm aware there is competition among some between baseball and cricket as to which is the more international game. Judging by what an absolute joke some of these so called national baseball teams are I call no contest I bet there are more than a few players who have never set foot in the country they represent

So Eurocentric In the real world Australia is always in the top 10 but not apparently in the Totallympics world

Bring in a rule that the number of Winter events cannot be more than 20% of the number of Summer events . At the moment it's about a third , Before WWII the ratio was about eight to one . This seems about right but nowadays TV ( mainly NBC ) want lotsa content so would be difficult to so drastically cull events Nothing, however, to stop many of the events being renamed demonstration events . Some , like female ice hockey , really aren't international events at all . Some winter medals have similar status to summer medals but not very many

This is a super expensive sport to train for OK running swimming and perhaps shooting may be manageable But people from the wrong countries need to go abroad to master fencing ( even a country like Australia doesn't do fencing ) and anything to do with horses costs big money May have made some sense when competitors were Army Officer cadets last millennium Just another sport where money is everything ( and GB has the biggest budget for all these low hanging fruit sports )

Greece wasn't also so pure I think Greece chased Mark Philippoussis ( tennis ) and Lydia Lassila ( aerial skiing ) to represent Greece

Nine of the top 10 are countries who you would expect to be there and usually are there Netherlands is the other country who had a great games I had once expected Sth Korea to become a more or less ongoing top 10 country but they have fallen way back The Eastern European countries which used to be in the top 10 now devote less resources for both Olympic sport and doping than they did in their glory days. They aren't coming back In terms of top 5 there are always USA , China and Russia . GB sees itself as permanently belonging to this group Well good luck with that . It costs a lot of money to be in the top group which some people may consider excessive given the size of the UK economy . I can't help thinking it's spending money on elites at the expense of kid's sport and community well being . The Nordic countries have a much healthier and active population than the UK but win far less medals . I know which I prefer but Britons prefer their sport to be something you watch on TV rather than something you might do yourself I think European countries put too much emphasis on bringing in migrants to to do their elite sport for them ( rather like USA brings in migrants to win them Nobel Prizes ) Seems so much like football teams buying players to me But, heh , it's their country

People here are always going on about "choking " In all sports actually But in golf terribly inappropriately Golf is a game of ebbs and flows and momentum swings . For everyone I'm pretty sure by all the inane comments that none of you have ever played the game

What on earth are "points " ?

I'd be interested to know how much of her short life the GB skateboarder Sky Brown has spent in the UK ( maybe there was a trip to see Grandma ? ) Not that I doubt her credentials -she has a British father which is rather better than those GB female sprint hurdles sisters who apparently have GB passports because their grandmother once changed planes at Heathrow

I heard that GB actually finished . The 3rd GB rider was smart enough to get on his bike and finish The Danes walked off without thinking Painful for Denmark but why isn't this a GB victory especially when it is quite normal to pass the other team's riders after all the lead Danish rider is 100% at fault It's not like the Australian equipment failure-this was totally a rider error ( and I much prefer Denmark to GB in everything )

That Australian goal by Kerr looked OK to me But I'm very cynical and suspect that the officials were instructed that all 50-50s go to Sweden as it's their turn

Track cycling just seems a matter of who is willing to spend the most money Spending on technology for one team only may be appropriate for Formula One or America's Cup but I think is totally inappropriate for the Olympic principle of universality Like every non Brit I really dislike their values If you look at the UK media you will see that even many Brits are very cynical about their cycling especially with the wide spread doping suspicions . Sure the individuals may be good athletes but it's DDR all over again This sport hardly exists outside the Olympics ( the Brits openly say they couldn't care less about non Olympic events for track cycling ) I know track cycling has a long history but that was when equipment was standardised It should be high on everyone's list of events to be dropped

Exactly fancy losing to a 3rd rate team like Australia

I'd be in favour of only having only one specialty stroke event ( the longer one -200m for the novelty strokes and 400m for IM ) Freestyle is to swimming as straight running events are to athletics All the other events are really novelty events . Races are about who is the fastest over a certain distance . Not about who is fastest with one hand tied behind your back

Well I'd say you are wrong USA has always done a lot better on Gold medals measures than Total medals measures . Go and check out historic medal tables Usually about 40% of their medals are gold ( China is similar ) If you are suggesting that USA only uses the Total medals measure when that measure favours them then you are also wrong in that . They have always used that system I'm second guessing here but I think USA prefers Total medals as it may ( and probably does ) measure better the overall strength of sport in a country ( eg 6 medals but none gold indicates a country is better at sport than a country with one sole gold medal ) ( Canada does the same but ,heh, Canada always follows Big Brother )

I'd say that countries who are excessively obsessed about the medal table like GB and China have long given this event a huge deal of thought and planning whereas I bet USA and Australia probably first really focused on this event yesterday But if this event stays I'm sure it will be different next time Yes I know all teams have an eye on the medal table but I'd say some more than others . Both USA and Australia don't really do all sports and all events whereas others like China and GB are always looking for low hanging fruit where money could mean medals

The captain of the Australian women's football team Sam Kerr is Anglo-Indian by origin