im confused on the labor government comment? please explain?

great effort by the boomers, Townsville Crocodile Peter Crawford played the last minute of the game, his first court time for the games, tipped in a 2pointer right on the final buzzer.
well done PC! legend mate.

gotta make the qtrs yet Matt..... One would think we would beat GB in our next game, but Russia will be very tough, and then it will rely on GB and China not winning their last games..
A qtr final against France or Lithuania will be very difficult. I think we are still only about the 7th to 9th best side in the world in reality...

Mick, I presume he's talking about sports funding allocation....

Yes so USA probably win it as usual with their excellent players. LeBron James, Kobe Byrant and Chris Durant leads the way.

Yep, I was referring to the allocation of funding to sports. K-Rudd and Labor made cuts and changes to sports funding soon after they came into power. These cuts/changes have a delayed effect, and it is clearly showing at our London performance so far.

New Zealand have just overtaken us on the medal table after winning their second gold medal of the Games so far. Oh dear...

Another gold for NZ, and they move into the Top 10.



Perhaps the only good thing about our current situation is if we win more gold, our healthy Silver medal count will ensure we are ranked above others with the same gold medal count.

Perhaps we should start doing what the Americans do?
List the medal tally in order of total medals so it looks better....

The tax payers money that is spent(infact too much money)on these sports is way over the top with crap results like this.

Team GB would like to thank you for inspiring our athletes to win several gold medals since you posted this.

The track and field events were always my favourite part of the Olympics. Lots to look forward to over the next week.

The coverage here on the BBC is excellent. 24 channels all dedicated to Olympics coverage.

Congratulations UK Steve, fantastic to see GB in 4th place (last time I looked)

We keep on hoarding those Silver medals, lol.

Medal Count at the end of Day 7 (under the assumption we will not medal in the Womens 10000m race):
1 Gold, 9 Silver, 4 Bronze - 14 Medals in total

Last day of Swimming events in the pool tomorrow (we're a medal chance in the Womens and Mens 4x100m Medley Relay).

Tennis Singles Bronze/Gold Matches decided:
Womens Gold Medal match - Serena (4th seed) vs Sharapova (3rd seed)
Womens Bronze Medal match - Azarenka (1st seed) vs Kirilenko (14th seed)
Mens Gold Medal match - Federer (1st seed) vs Murray (3rd seed)
Mens Bronze Medal match - Del Potro (8th seed) vs Djokovic (2nd seed)
If Serena, Sharapova, or Federer win Gold, they will achieve a Career Golden Slam (winning each of the Grand Slams at least once, and winning the Gold medal at least once)
Of the eight players above, Djokovic is the only player to have previously won a medal at the Olympics (Bronze in Beijing 2008).

Folks:

Good Luck to ALL the Athletes!

Hoping Michael Phelps can continue to add to his Olympic-Record Medal Count--really hoping that this isn't his final Olympics (as he says it will be).
Looking forward to seeing how the US will do in Basketball, Volleyball & Tennis.
It's a real shame that Baseball & Softball aren't in the Olympics this year.
Personally, I think (10-pin) Bowling should be an Olympic sport (horseshoes would be kinda nice as well).

GO US--GO AUS~~~Wet Snow

P.S.:

As per Mega's observation: If you don't like hearing the US National Anthem so much, there's an easy solution to this "problem."

Personally, I'd like to hear the Australian National Anthem a little bit more.

So glad that no "incidents" have occurred in the Games thus far.

Steve - do I get some sort of reward or commission?

Cheers - Slightly wrong - if we kept up the amount of funding that we did have for Olympic sports we prob wouldnt be languishing in 19th spot... but that's a whole new debate that could be a completely different thread.

A bit of choking happening amongst the Australians atm with the big occasion getting to some of our highest rated prospects. Nevertheless there have also been some great performances that have just fallen short of the gold, and then there are events like the rowing where there is a dominant team almost certain to win but an Australian crew has come in for silver. NZ are a dominant force in world rowing and we have struggled up against them.

Funny how everyone carries on about gold as if the other medals don't count. We have 14 medals which is ninth best (quick calculation) but only one gold. In a similar fashion, Russia only has 3 gold but also 23 medals all up yet they are languishing as well in the official medal table just clinging on to the top ten and yet in reality they are one of the better performing nations in the games.

Plenty of chances for Australia to catch up in the gold medal stakes anyway. We have Sally Pearson, the women's 4x100 medley team that tore up the pool in the heats. the BMX guy who is world champ, good prospects in the sailing, the Mens Hockey team that is completely dominating, etc.

If it was a funding problem then the media would be right onto it.
More money is not the problem.

Labour government is still taking control!!!! Silver and bronze without gold yet again! Totally screwed up! Worst Olympics games ever we had in history? Australia used to be good sporting nation, now we sucked. USA wins all the time. Looks like Great Britain comes next behind China....

What a load of BS.

They just aren't good enough Matthew- not enough decent comeptition and again not enough exposure to real competition overseas. You can throw billions of dollars at anything but if the athletes aren't up to standard then we will never make the grade.
Just look at how much money has been wasted in cancer research as a perfect example. By now you would have thought someone somewhere would have found the magic bullet to wipe this horrible disease out but no we get bombarded with requests for even more money - look it wouldn't matter if Australias entire GDP was thrown at athletes it won't help one iota. They didn't win because they aren't good enough and as for some of the reactions of those who won silver and bronze or failed to even get into a final I just want to bitch slap the lot of them. Ungrateful bastards, parents family and friends have all placed their lives on hold for years because of your desire to be the best and you throw it all back in their faces by having a sook on TV? You are representing your nation as well as yourselves. Act like it or retire.

It may have already been mentioned, but a big factor is that developing countries & other countries that havent been good at some sports that we excelled in, are now right up there competing at a level we expect to. We have to fight it out amongst a lot more countries in sports such as swimming, rowing, and cycling that its inevitable that we were going to not win all that we expected...

Secondly much like the weather, it comes & go in cycles..... 2024 we might see us dominant again in the pool, or maybe do a GB at the rowing....
Look at other sports we are starting to do well in that we havent before.... diving, gymnastics, etc... We may end up being a dominant country in those sports.

Lastly, we are only half way through. We can turn this around majorly, starting tonight. A few golds will lift spirits and perhaps inspire a few surprises along the way.
Dani Samuels and Mitchell Watt could well just begin that in a few hours.... Or maybe Jarred Talent in the walk? And just maybe finish the swimming off with a bang in the 2 medley relays....