Great start in the Olympics

[Michaelangelica]

Some geat historic stuff
The Chinese did well thanks to the army.

The closing ceremony was great (except for the Brits/Poms- what were they thinking???? a double -decker bus??? please?!?!??)

Some ore OZ comment her if anyone is interested
The Forum

This is a look at the games acording to GDP
Crikey - The real Olympic medal tally - The real Olympic medal tally

The good news is that in the adjusted figures Australia comfortably beats Great Britain, the US, China and Russia, but in doing so lets New Zealand race past for a higher place on the overall tallies. The above table also shows that the Olympics is anything but a level playing field. The richest and most populous nations have an insurmountable competitive advantage when finally the athletes crouch waiting for the starter’s gun.

When we calculate how many citizens it takes to earn a gold medal, Australia rockets to the top of the standings. It's beyond doubt: Australia converts citizens into gold medals more efficiently than any other nation in the top ten. And into that list you can add New Zealand, which takes 4,173,460 citizens to produce one gold medal. That makes Australia roughly three times more efficient at converting citizens into gold medals than our cross-Tasman rivals, and more than twice as efficient as the Brits.

Nation


Citizens per gold

1. Australia


1,471,489

2. Great Britain


3,207,574

3. Korea


3,787,141

4. Germany


5,148,097

5. Russia


6,117,482

6. Italy


7,268,165

7. United States


8,439,574

8. France


9,151,112

9. Japan


14,143,157

10. China


26,079,305

Citizens per gold medal -- An alternate Olympic Top Ten

Knuckle dragging?
Don't be silly!
See you at the Para games and the snow stuff

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by Michaelangelica's news item

When we calculate how many citizens it takes to earn a gold medal, Australia rockets to the top of the standings. It's beyond doubt: Australia converts citizens into gold medals more efficiently than any other nation in the top ten. And into that list you can add New Zealand, which takes 4,173,460 citizens to produce one gold medal.

Norway has 4,6 million citizens and took 3 gold...that would place us at #2 after NZ then!

[Tormod]

Originally Posted by Buffy

Proof I was up way too late last night: Congrats to the Norwegian women for beating the pants off Romania in Handball!

And they finished the games by giving Russia a fair beating by winning 34-27 in the finals! The first Olympic Gold for our handball team (they have won just about everything else, including Olympic Silver and Bronze).

And the same day Andreas Thorkildsen repeated his Javelin Gold Medal from Athens and set a new Olymic Record!

...and the same day we even got our first silver medal in Tae Kwon Do: Nina Solheim lost the finals but had a marvellous performance in the Games.

It's not often that Norway gets three medals in one day during the summer Olympics!

...now bring on the Winter Olympics in 2010...

[Eclogite]

Originally Posted by Tormod

It's not often that Norway gets three medals in one day during the summer Olympics!

...now bring on the Winter Olympics in 2010...

Do you think global warming may be an American conspiracy to reduce your medal count?

[Buffy]

Originally Posted by Eclogite

Do you think global warming may be an American conspiracy to reduce your medal count?

No need for that. We just need to keep Bode Miller away from the bars the night before the alpine skiing medal rounds....

Talk about a hard challenge right there. ... If you ever tried to ski when you’re wasted, it’s not easy,
Buffy

[Turtle]

Now what am I gonna watch on the boob tube!? A quick congrats to Ozzarians everywhere for your man/boy taking Gold on men's platform diving! Spectacular.

On to Whistler now I guess. I was interested to see that the giant reels of cable going up there for the gondolas have to be offloaded here at my hometown Port of Vancouver USA, as we have the largest mobile dock crane in N. America. Gittin' 'er done.