Why does Sonia do this to us?

Ireland's appallng performance

Why do we bother sending a team to the Olympics at all, when we inevitably do so badly ? Even Trinidad and Tobago got a medal this time out, when we just sit here sneering at British marathon runners.

Special

But did we not win a few gold medals in the Special Olympics? Maybe we should stop supporting ordinary athetes and pour money into supporting our special athletes instead.

And I think the parlympics are coming up soon. I think that they are for drunken athletes. if so we should do very well.

Re: Special

Proud Irishman, I wouldn't be so proud of the "Drunken Athlete" joke. Stick to the day job and leave the comedy to the Pro's.

As for our performance at the olympics, what's everyone moaning about?

We got 1 gold Medal. America got roughly 100.
America's population is roughly 100 times greater than
ours. On a per capita basis China did way worse than us in
Athens.

The Ryder Cup Team will contain 3 Irish Golfers.
And not for the first time AFAIK.

We're consistently in the Top 10 to 15 Soccer Nations
in the world.

In Hurling we posess the Fastest and (IMHO) the greatest
field sport on earth.

Compromise Rules while it's a made up sport shows that
our "Amateur" Gaelic Footballers can mix it with the
Full Time Professional Aussie Rules Players.

At Horse Racing and Show Jumping we are consistently
among the top nations in the world. It was an Irish horse and Trainer that became the first Northern Hemisphere winner of the Melbourne Cup, and fir good measure he went back and won it again the following year.

We are one of the top 5 nations in the world at rugby,
and on our day can beat any one.

We've produced world champions at Boxing and have a very
proud and succesful history at Amateur Boxing.

Sean Kelly dominated cycling for over a decade, he was almost untouchable as Number 1 in the world.

Our success at Track And Field is Limited. So what?
Just how many sports should a nation of 4 million people be
expected to dominate?

Let's be happy with the odd olympic success, but not let the olympics take from our other achievements.

Would you really prefer an Athlete who can win 3 or 4 medals that ends up shaming us to the extent that we try not to even mention her as one of our medal winners.

-Rd

Ken Doherty, Denis Taylor & Alex Higgins

DaltonR, You forgot to mention the one sport we have the highest per capita of World Champions - by far.

...

rd- a lot of good points made there alright, though we should still expect our athletes to perform at least to their best in the Olympics.

If our a load of our athletes broke personal bests in Athens and still came nowhere, I'd be proud of them. As it is they underperformed badly (particularly the sailors, rowers and highjumping fella) and that's why alot of people feel let down.

As for your list of Irish sporting achievements the most glaring absence (bar the admirable omission of Michelle Smith's drug-fuelled medals) is the achievement of Stephen Roche of winning the Giro D'Italia, Tour De France and World Championship all in the same year. If this was done without drugs, it is to me the greatest sporting achievement by an Irishman. Alas there is doubt, but if you omitted Roche on grounds of drug suspicion (and at the moment all their is against him is suspicion), then surely Kelly with his multiple failed drug tests throughout his career should also have been omitted, even taking into account what a legend he was.

Ray Reardon, Terry Griffith, Mark Williams

Bongo - way off the mark there, and Denis and Alex are Brits anyway.

The very best

OhPinchy, Vincent O'Brien, horse trainer, is easily the best Irish sportsperson of all time. An absolute colossus at his game, he is easily the best the world has ever seen. Roche, I guess, wouldn't make the top 10 cyclists.

Re: The very best

then surely Kelly with his multiple failed drug tests throughout his career should also have been omitted, even taking into account what a legend he was.

Click to expand...

You're probably right, I possibly should have ommitted Kelly. I did omit Roche due to my own doubts. And you're right also, that if he was clean, it was the greatest achievement by an Irish Sportsman.

Anyway, let's call a halt to all the Olympic moaning. We get our share of Medals. I read somewhere that we've only gotten 8 golds in 96 years, but most of those have been in the last couple of olympics, so we're improving.

If it transpires that tax payers money was used to build facilities like the aquatic center and our elite swimmers don't get to use it, then yes, that would be a scandal.

But if our swimmers are given every opportunity and just aren't good enough then I wouldn't be too upset. So we're not good swimmers. It's not the end of the world.

-Rd

Slightly off topic ...

But another area where we fall down is in producing sexy female athletes. In Sydney we had that cute blonde 400 hurdler Susan Smith, but this year we failed miserably and I believe this cost us medals !!

It's no secret that countries that produce sexy athletes get medals.
Australia - that tall basketball player
USA - those shapely sprinters, that multi-medal gymnast
UK - Denise Lewis
Russia - the pole vault gold medal winner
...

Also note that every country who participated in the female beach volleyball tournament received medals in some event in the games.

Anyone agree with my theory`??

By the way, I am not trying to be sexist here either, I am sure there were some fit men in the olympics, but I am not qualified to judge them ... maybe someone else could comment ??

beach balls

All female beach volleyball athletes should get a medal no matter where they come!

Smoking Fit - Hestrie Cloete, S Africa's world high jump

'Smoking fit' South African lights up Athens high jump
Source: Times Of London (uk), 2004-08-27
Author: Owen Slot

Intro:
SMOKING may damage your health, but it does not seem to hinder the progress of Hestrie Cloete, South Africa's world high jump champion. Proof that a pack a day is good for you was there for all to see in the women's high jump qualifying round last night.

When Cloete arrived in Athens a fortnight ago, she declared herself "smoking fit" and this she demonstrated last night when she breezed into tomorrow night's final. Given that it was also her 26th birthday, we can be pretty sure that she lit up afterwards.

Cloete started smoking ten years ago. Struggling sometimes for breath, she realised that it was perhaps affecting her performance in the 400 metres and 800 metres and so she plumped instead for the high jump, which she thought would probably require less training.

It was indeed a stroke of genius, for she has two World Championship gold medals and an Olympic silver to her name and was last year voted world female athlete of the year. Her husband is, nevertheless, by no means alone in wishing that she would quit, but she is determined not to kick her world-beating habit.

Click to expand...