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[Sibylus]

On the one hand, lots of great moments and inspirational stories.

On the other hand, the end can't come soon enough. This bickering is so fucking stupid.

 

[Pandaman]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD27S1Ec9mI
^ is that the one everyone was talking about as a robbery?
because the Korean stumbles first and gives the states a silver. :\

oh well, hazards of the sport.

 

[expy]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD27S1Ec9mI
^ is that the one everyone was talking about as a robbery?
because the Korean stumbles first and gives the states a free silver. :\

That's the run, but U.S. gets DSQ'd

 

[Canova]

On the one hand, lots of great moments and inspirational stories.

On the other hand, the end can't come soon enough. This bickering is so fucking stupid.

The Americans started it, they got jealous all of a sudden.

Srsly, it's all just for fun and joking around, definitely not in a mean-spirited way

 

[Chumly]

umad?


whose prediction? doing some googling.
CTV tv had 1-3
forbes and WSJ had 27 with 5 gold.
there's a CTV article on a 29-6 gold prediction
CNN has 29-10 gold.

so yea, seems we've exceeded [read doubled] alot of peoples projected gold medal count.


thanks, i wasn't following anything at the beginning as i usually only watch the hockey.

LINK

37 Predicted with 11 Gold

LINK

31 Overall with 15 gold.


LINK
First in overall medals with 28-34 Medals



EDIT: You would have to be completely delusional if you thought Canada Doubled the predictions.

 

[Pandaman]

That's the run, but U.S. gets DSQ'd

okay, that's alittle funny. looking at it, it looks like korean guy stumbled and spooked everyone into a crash.

so did they just reset the rankings to just before the crash? :\

'course im hardly qualified to make much of a judgment in this regard.

edit: oh, another forum pointed out him balancing/pushing off against the canadian in third.

 

[somnific]

all this fucking bickering about medals is inane. everybody should be proud of the whatever medals their respective country has won.

usa has the most medals. congrats to them.
canada has the most golds. congrats to them
germany has more golds than the us, and has more medals than canada. well, fucking congrats to them too.

you guys can be so ridiculous.

 

[LQX]

Its this sudden surge of Canadians that started the bickering. Since like two days ago a ton of them have come out of the woodwork.

 

[AlphaTwo00]

Its this sudden surge of Canadians that started the bickering. Since like two days ago a ton of them have come out of the woodwork.

I blame it on the Hockey game.

And the eventual media parade on both sides talking about it.

 

[neptunes]

Its this sudden surge of Canadians that started the bickering. Since like two days ago a ton of them have come out of the woodwork.

Some of us have always been here and frankly most of us have been more critical of our own than of other athlethes.

 

[Dresden]

Or as the Russians said, Canadians are jealous of their big, beefy bros south of the border.

 

[scorcho]

this can all be solved by finally granting what many Canadians want - statehood! we will even let you replace the QoE on your money with famous Canadians, such as Steve Nash, Tim Horton, and someone else.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Fair weather patriots? How abhorrent!

 

[Canova]

I blame it on the Hockey game.

...and the amount of alcohol consumed tonite

 

[Sloane]

all this fucking bickering about medals is inane. everybody should be proud of the whatever medals their respective country has won.

QFT. These are the fucking Olympics, it shouldn't matter how many medals any country gets. Of course, you can be happy if your athletes win a lot, but apart from that... ugh.

 

[Divvy]

Goddamn you guys are ruining the spirit with your shitty bickering.

 

[Maximus.]

Goddamn you guys are ruining the spirit with your shitty bickering.

classic gaf style :/

 

[zedge]

Its this sudden surge of Canadians that started the bickering. Since like two days ago a ton of them have come out of the woodwork.

I am pretty sure the blame is equally shared with those south of the border.

 

[Sibylus]

The Americans started it, they got jealous all of a sudden.

Srsly, it's all just for fun and joking around, definitely not in a mean-spirited way

It really doesn't matter who started it, it's stupid!

I'm not really getting a "joking around" atmosphere from this thread, there's incessant bickering and constant wankery involving medal counts and values associated with said medals. Actual kidding seems to be so rare it stands out bluntly amongst the sewage it's buried in.

So yes, fun events and all, but I welcome the final days because it means the end of this lunacy. This thread's about as fun and lighthearted as a skate-blade to the groin.

 

[Firestorm]

I'm pretty sure I already proposed the best way of figuring out who won -_-

 

[squicken]

So is NBC going to show the hockey game, or is it relegated to one of the low rent non-HD channels?

 

[Socreges]

As a Canadian,

I'm very happy with how Canada has done so far. 10 gold with at least 3 potential golds waiting? That's fantastic. 21 medals at this stage is also very, very good.

The U.S.A. has been awesome. 34 medals, so far, is insane. Yeah, gold is the big thing. But silver and bronze are medals for a reason.

I can't wait for us to destroy Canada in hockey, take the gold, and rip their hearts out. It's not good for America if Canada is happy.

Never has this been more apparent. And you guys adjoin your bickering and arrogance with "But we don't really care about Canada", which just seems to compound the appearance of your own complex.

And too many Canadians here are wasting too much energy trying to suggest that the gold medal count is more important than the overall medal count. Who cares? Be happy about your country's performance and leave it at that. Apparently we're in third and well behind the United States. Ah well. And it's no coincidence that some people here are focusing on gold medals because it happens to be the only measure where we're still in contention.

Ultimately there's not one, absolute thing to measure against which tells us whether or not we should be pleased with Canada's performance. Do we look at the gold medals? Do we look at the overall count? Do we compare the count to Turin? Do we compare ourselves to the United States? Do we compare the count with the high (and deliberately unrealistic) or low predictions? There's no one truth here. Just enjoy the events for themselves and be happy that we've had so much to celebrate.

I'm amazed at how much these Olympics have begun to serve as an opportunity for overt nationalism outside of some individuals from each country doing well or poorly at such and such an event. It truly has become a dick-waving contest. Even NetMapel has gotten into it and she hasn't even got one

 

[Firestorm]

true winner of olympics is host nation
we already won in 2003

 

[Socreges]

I still don't know how you can go in to the final with a loss on your record against a team that has beat you already and win the gold, but whatever, shitty tournament structure is shitty tournament structure.

Huh? Do you even know what the tournament structure is?

There were the preliminaries. Canada faced the U.S. and lost. U.S. won the group, Canada came in second. Given the seedings, they ended up on different ends of the table. Canada went on to play an extra game in the qualification round while the U.S. went straight to the quarters. Canada then played Russia in the quarters while the U.S. played Switzerland. Both won, then won their semi-finals. Now they're facing each other in the finals.

Every tournament that has ever a round robin or preliminary round has always had this exact same possibility. You must watch sports, so I don't understand why this confuses you.

true winner of olympics is host nation
we already won in 2003

I love that attitude. Living in the host city has been an incredible experience.

 

[Pochacco]

NetMapel is a girl?!
Hmm.

Who cares about the medals. It's stupid how the Canadian media freaked out last week (as always) when we were struggling. And it's stupid how they are now constantly reminding us how Canada is leading in the Golds. Who cares. Let's just enjoy the sports and be proud of our athletes. Anything else is icing (except hockey, we need to win that).

Seriously. In a couple years, or even a couple months, nobody will remember how many medals we won (or didn't win) at these games... they're only going to remember the Men's hockey results.

 

[Socreges]

The Canadian media has been opportunistic, as you'd expect.

The corporations (otherwise) have been worse than I thought they'd be, though. I'm tired of the commercials about how great Canada is or how great Canadians are. I'm tired of the commercials about hockey and about how we all apparently put on our ice skates each week and go play pond hockey when we're not busy taking our children to hockey practice. I'm tired of Morgan Freeman talking about maple syrup. They're not selling Coca-Cola or Visa or any actual product. They're selling Canada. They're reinforcing these fragile, irrelevant stereotypes and hoping that it touches you in that special place so that when you see that little McDonalds logo flash at the end of the advertisement that could have just as easily been about Burger King or Pennzoil, you want to eat that Quarter Pounder because it makes you more Canadian.

A new Subway commercial with Jared casually walking down the street with a puzzling smile on his face would be such a breath of fresh air right now.

AND I'm tired of hearing "I Believe"! Thank God the song is actually kind of nice on the ears because otherwise mine would be bleeding three times a day. That young girl definitely hopes to have a career once the Olympics are over, but I'd be surprised if she even had any friends. I can't be the only one who never wants to hear her sweet voice again.

The GAMES have been great, though. And the city and the people have been fantastic. Makes it easy to put up with all the other bullshit.

 

[SickBoy]

:lol

Home cookin'. The Korean got robbed.

But then, in Korea, back in 2002, their soccer team robbed Spain of three goals and 'won' the game... so its karma, in a way. Still, the Korean dude got robbed tonight.

I thought Hamelin got away with something as well, the first time I watched the race. At work, we've got the Olympics on all the time and when they played the race a second time and there was less commotion around the TV, it's obvious the Korean was losing it before Hamelin made contact with him... and that contact was apparently to protect himself (Hamelin).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uD27S1Ec9mI#t=0m51s

Don't know if this is available outside Canada... watch in real time and it looks pretty bad, but watch the Korean's feet and the fact that he touches the ice with his (EDIT: *outside*) hand. Watch those things again in the second replay (slowmo) and how Hamelin contacts him after its apparent Si-Bak's in trouble. If there is a push, it doesn't look like much and looks very much reflexive, and they near-simultaneously make contact (Hamelin on Si-Bak's upper body, Si-Bak on Hamelin's skate, which is why he was spinning as he approached the line). EDIT: Just to be clear, I think the replay shows it was correct not to penalize Hamelin.

The Ohno DQ it's a little hard to tell, because it doesn't look like a substantial push, although it does seem unusual for Tremblay to lose it so completely on the corner, since he appears to be first to go down (i.e: it's not a reaction to the chaos in front of him). It looks like he was probably doing a little bit of a Gran Turismo rub thing, riding him a little while cutting into the inside.

EDIT: As for all the medal bitching, sheesh. Canadians have a right to be proud after taking a lot of crap about their lacklustre start, but to me the comments on both sides are a little ridiculous.

 

[SickBoy]

The corporations (otherwise) have been worse than I thought they'd be, though. I'm tired of the commercials about how great Canada is or how great Canadians are. I'm tired of the commercials about hockey and about how we all apparently put on our ice skates each week and go play pond hockey when we're not busy taking our children to hockey practice. I'm tired of Morgan Freeman talking about maple syrup. They're not selling Coca-Cola or Visa or any actual product. They're selling Canada. They're reinforcing these fragile, irrelevant stereotypes and hoping that it touches you in that special place so that when you see that little McDonalds logo flash at the end of the advertisement that could have just as easily been about Burger King or Pennzoil, you want to eat that Quarter Pounder because it makes you more Canadian.

Tim Hortons built their empire on this, IMO.

 

[Socreges]

SickBoy, looks like S-Bak's right skate gives away at one point (you can also see how his face completely changes) and he loses speed (and drifts outward) as he leans and puts his arm down to make sure that Hamelin doesn't pass him until he recovers. Hamelin's right arm swipes at S-Bak's left arm which is right at his legs. He may have made contact and helped S-Bak fall. Impossible to tell from that angle. Are there any other angles available?

Ohno definitely had his hand on Tremblay, but it's impossible to tell if there was a push. At full-speed, it looks like he definitely pushed Tremblay. Slow-motion, it's looks like it's just placed there and Tremblay suddenly bails.

Tim Hortons built their empire on this, IMO.

Absolutely. If you ever walk into a Tim Hortons, they are full of blue-collar people and others very prone to nationalistic pandering (people can dispute this - it's just a correlation I'm personally making). The large majority of their business comes from people who consider it the community destination and a place to gather.

 

[Cold-Steel]

...what?!?

*drops Tim Hortons delicious French Vanilla Latte in disgust*

*goes out and buys Nike Team Canada Official Mens Hockey Jersey instead*

 

[Socreges]

:lol

I go to Tim Hortons, too. They've got some tasty stuff. But like Sickboy said, they didn't build their empire on the backs of you or I occasionally buying a Sour Cream Glazed donut.*

* fucking delicious

 

[Forsete]

:lol :lol @ how quiet the curling hall went when Sweden got the gold.

 

[Firestorm]

The Canadian media has been opportunistic, as you'd expect.

The corporations (otherwise) have been worse than I thought they'd be, though. I'm tired of the commercials about how great Canada is or how great Canadians are. I'm tired of the commercials about hockey and about how we all apparently put on our ice skates each week and go play pond hockey when we're not busy taking our children to hockey practice. I'm tired of Morgan Freeman talking about maple syrup. They're not selling Coca-Cola or Visa or any actual product. They're selling Canada. They're reinforcing these fragile, irrelevant stereotypes and hoping that it touches you in that special place so that when you see that little McDonalds logo flash at the end of the advertisement that could have just as easily been about Burger King or Pennzoil, you want to eat that Quarter Pounder because it makes you more Canadian.

A new Subway commercial with Jared casually walking down the street with a puzzling smile on his face would be such a breath of fresh air right now.

AND I'm tired of hearing "I Believe"! Thank God the song is actually kind of nice on the ears because otherwise mine would be bleeding three times a day. That young girl definitely hopes to have a career once the Olympics are over, but I'd be surprised if she even had any friends. I can't be the only one who never wants to hear her sweet voice again.

The GAMES have been great, though. And the city and the people have been fantastic. Makes it easy to put up with all the other bullshit.

Definitely. I could sort of stand it when it was just Molson and Tim Hortons doing it. After all, somebody's going to take advantage of that space. It's inevitable. But these Olympics oh my god >.< The President's Choice one is what gets to me the most. I want to punch the guy every time he said "after all, we are Canadian".

 

[TheKyle07]

That's very Un-Canadian of you, Firestorm. Tsk tsk.

 

[talisayNon]

WSJ article on USA Funding.

When Johnny Spillane won the first-ever U.S. medal in the Nordic Combined on the third day of the Winter Olympics, his victory was touted as the payoff for old-school Olympic team building: a patient grass-roots effort to establish an American presence in an obscure winter sport. But since that early surprise, most of the biggest names of the Winter Games have been members of Team USA in name only, mavericks notable for training on their own, often in unconventional ways.

In 2007, for example, Bode Miller, who won his first Olympic gold in the men's combined earlier this week, took the unprecedented step of quitting the U.S. Ski Team to form his own Team America, which consisted of a mobile home and his personal entourage, before returning to the U.S. Ski Team this season. Lindsey Vonn, who won the women's downhill, has also worked outside the U.S. Ski Team infrastructure, being coached by her husband, Thomas Vonn, a former U.S. Ski Team racer. The Games' biggest star, Shaun White, the two-time defending gold medalist in the halfpipe, developed and perfected his signature tricks—the Double Cork and Double McTwist 1260—at a secret halfpipe built by sponsor Red Bull in Silverton, Colo.

Speed skater Shani Davis, who won gold in the 1,000 meters and silver in the 1,500 meters, operates even further outside the mainstream. An African-American from the South Side of Chicago, Mr. Davis opted out of the U.S. Speed skating's "athlete's agreement" that would have provided him a modest stipend; he chose, instead, to look for his own sponsors. He's conspicuously absent from the team's promotional materials, and team officials are notably mum on the subject of their biggest star. Short-track star Apolo Ohno hasn't always seen eye-to-eye with the powers that be in his sport. And, of course, figure skating is the ultimate individual endeavor, with skaters like 15-year-old Allison Reed of the Republic of Georgia, by way of Warren, N.J., going so far as to change citizenship in order to compete.

Contrast this rather rough-and-ready approach to athlete development with Canada's methodical, government-sponsored Olympic performance program. At a cost of 112 million Canadian dollars ($105.6 million), "Own the Podium" has produced only 17 medals as of early Friday, well behind the pace of Torino four years ago, when the Canadians captured 24. The U.S. sat atop the medal standings with 32.

This may seem, at first, like a convincing argument for fully privatizing the development of Olympic athletes. The reality is more complex than that. America's Olympians are funded at relatively low levels compared with their international rivals—the U.S. Olympic Committee doled out $58.2 million over four years to national governing bodies of individual sports, roughly half of what Canada's spending. For every Shaun White, there's a Shannon Bahrke, the pink-haired, bronze-medal mogul skier, who started her own coffee line to support her training and that of her teammates. Or the American speedskaters, who turned to comedian Stephen Colbert to raise $300,000 for the team after its major sponsor, DSB Bank, went bankrupt. The bottom line is simple: We won't put a dent in the national deficit with the money we're now spending on our Olympic athletes.

Relying solely on companies like Red Bull won't do it either. Sponsors are looking for an immediate return on their investment and to throw money at sure things. Messrs. Davis, Ohno and White secured big endorsement deals because, as defending gold medalists, they were sure to attract media attention, win or lose.

As Canada has learned the hard way, producing Olympic medalists is a long-term proposition. A lack of funding might distract a mature athlete from giving his best performance, but throwing money at a modestly talented competitor won't put him on the podium.

The first part of the road to future Olympic gold is under way right now. This week, every 10-year-old in the U.S. wants to be Shaun White or Lindsey Vonn or even Bill Demong, who won a gold in large-hill Nordic Combined. The first job of the U.S. Olympic Committee and the governing bodies of the individual sports is to provide the resources so as many of these kids as possible can to try out these sports in the hopes that one in a million will turn out to be the next Bode Miller.

Then comes the hard part, that long slog between gifted youngster and grizzled medal contender. The USOC must recognize that its goal isn't to churn out merely competent athletes by the dozens, but to identify and nurture a few full-blown geniuses. And geniuses often march to the beat of their own drums. Early in his career, for example, Mr. Miller was the first to use shaped skis, while his coaches dismissed them as a gimmick for recreational skiers. And Ms. Vonn, at the urging of her husband, defied conventional wisdom and became the first woman to race—and win—on stiffer, longer men's skis.

For all their talent and charisma, the heroes of Vancouver are also rugged individualists who reinvented their sports, sometimes clashing with coaches who didn't see things their way. It's not hard to envision an alternate reality in which many of them got fed up with bucking the system and ended up in front of the television, watching less talented but more compliant former teammates finish a respectable 12th.

An American version of "Own the Podium" might look like a cross between a school voucher program and venture-capital funding. The USOC and the individual sports federations should offer seed money to the most promising young athletes, and then have the foresight to step back and allow them maximum freedom to think—and train—outside the box. If there's a lesson to be learned from this magical Olympiad, it's that the only thing more important than discovering prodigious talent may be having the good sense to stay out of its way.
—Mr. St. John wrote the By the Numbers column for The Wall Street Journal and is a frequent contributor to SKI magazine.

 

[Alucard]

OMG the headline. :lol

EDIT: Damn, yahoo won't let me directly link pics. Click on the bottom link to check it out!

WHY THIS MAN IS ANGRY WITH HIS TEAMMATE.

So perfect.

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/olympics...lebrations-starring-Aleksandr-?urn=oly,224449

I think we'll be getting good use out of this in the future.

 

[LonelyIsland]

I love that attitude. Living in the host city has been an incredible experience.

You got that right. Like damn, I just got back from partyin' downtown a couple hours ago and everyone was going crazy with BRO FIVES all around.

I can't wait for Sunday's men's hockey gold medal game, it's gonna be intense.

BRING IT USA.

 

[Wes]

Seems Japan has a new love?

:lol

 

[Brazil]

:lol

 

[Solo]

Any fan of the sport shouldn't be happy. It was a clear case of favoritism.

Edit:

Ohno is probably more pissed now that he's seen better replays. I would be too.

Jesus, you guys are too fucking much with the conspiracy theories. Guess what? If there was tampering, the IOC will review it and strip Canada of its medals. But guess what? There wasnt so they wont. Get over it.

 

[mclem]

:lol :lol @ how quiet the curling hall went when Sweden got the gold.

I don't know if you got the shots wherever you are, but occasionally we'd see the Swedish part of the hall. If those shots were accurate, there were literally something like 10-20 Swedish fans in the entire hall. Talk about David vs. Goliath, at least for the supporters

 

[mclem]

Seems Japan has a new love?
:lol

It's too much to hope for the possibility of any similar images from 2000 of their 'interpretation' of Rhona Martin, right?

 

[pringles]

I don't know if you got the shots wherever you are, but occasionally we'd see the Swedish part of the hall. If those shots were accurate, there were literally something like 10-20 Swedish fans in the entire hall. Talk about David vs. Goliath, at least for the supporters

The Swedish King & Queen were in attendence, that's all the support the swedes needed

 

[Pachael]

Didn't we go through this whole gold-versus-number of medals two years ago? ;p

 

[Pakkidis]

Didn't we go through this whole gold-versus-number of medals two years ago? ;p

Yup, every two years its a tradition here on Neogaf.

 

[criesofthepast]

OMG the headline. :lol

EDIT: Damn, yahoo won't let me directly link pics. Click on the bottom link to check it out!

WHY THIS MAN IS ANGRY WITH HIS TEAMMATE.

So perfect.

http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/olympics...lebrations-starring-Aleksandr-?urn=oly,224449

I think we'll be getting good use out of this in the future.

:lol I remember posting about what a jackass that guy was for celebrating like that after the crash.

That photo is priceless.

 

[Chumly]

WSJ article on USA Funding.

Honestly this is single handedly the most annoying thing in this thread. All the Bullshit FUD that Canadians spread around how the US team is so much more well-funded than everyone else. US athletes only get a shit ton of money AFTER they become gold medalists. Were on the same level as all the rest of the athletes in terms in funding for the games if not worse off.

 

[schuelma]

Whoops, posted in the wrong thread before:


I do honestly want to apologize if I've been a bit of a dick the last few days or so- obviously this is a really dumb topic to get worked up about. And I am honestly very happy for Canada and what they've done lately- games started out on a pretty rough note but the athletes have really been bringing it the 2nd week of competition.

The only thing that pissed me off was when in the last few days I posted updates of the "overall" medal count, about how the US was leading and Germany probably wasn't going to catch up, etc., there were literally 5 Canadian posts within a half hour correcting me and citing the IOC medal count history, and the BBC and Austrian TV's medal tables, etc.

 

[Canova]

aw c'mon, no apologies needed, no harm done.

This is nothing but a normal trash talk among sports-fans juiced-up by patriotism. I don't take it personally, heck I never take anything from the internet personally. If any of you guys takes it personally, then something's wrong with you.

It wouldn't be fun if we all sweet talk to each other, it's boring.

I'm amazed at how much these Olympics have begun to serve as an opportunity for overt nationalism outside of some individuals from each country doing well or poorly at such and such an event. It truly has become a dick-waving contest. Even NetMapel has gotten into it and she hasn't even got one

and NetMapet, she's just one of the boys, she can participate in this dick-waving contest

 

[YYZ]

Well, if you think about it, giving medals to the top 3 is as arbitrary as any other number. It's just been used for so long that it feels like the only logical thing. Being first and being the best is the ultimate goal. One should always strive to be the absolute best, but there can only be one so it's nice to be recognized as getting close I guess. But being #1 absolutely means the most to me because it encourages everyone to keep striving for the top, better overall for everyone involved.