London Summer Olympics 2012

The 1st time I ever saw a total medal count was in Beijing 2008, after it was obvious China was going to be on top of medals table by gold medal count. So lo and behold, the media introduced total medal count as a way of putting team USA first...and since then, that trend has caught on.

On another note, in badminton 4 teams disqualified for using strategy to get into the best possible position to win gold. HUH??
If you ask me, it's the organiser's fault for putting round robin group stages straight into an olympics without seeing how it would work first. Everyone and anyone that follows badminton would know that's just asking for trouble plain and simple.

Gold #11. Men's foil, Lei Sheng, first ever gold for men's fencing!!

bd popeye said:

I think the medal count is an invention of the American Sports media. Which is hell bent on counting everything. The Olympics is about the competition and individual athletes. Not which country has the most medals. Just my opinion.

And I don't care too much for the Olympics at all. Too political...and most of the sports do nothing for me.

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For Chinese Olympic teams photos from the London Olympics go to the link below. There are hundreds.

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Yes, I agree with the political part. Some Olympics are more political than others, no thanks in part to some of the media.

flyzies said:

The 1st time I ever saw a total medal count was in Beijing 2008, after it was obvious China was going to be on top of medals table by gold medal count. So lo and behold, the media introduced total medal count as a way of putting team USA first...and since then, that trend has caught on.

On another note, in badminton 4 teams disqualified for using strategy to get into the best possible position to win gold. HUH??
If you ask me, it's the organiser's fault for putting round robin group stages straight into an olympics without seeing how it would work first. Everyone and anyone that follows badminton would know that's just asking for trouble plain and simple.

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Yes I agree, although deliberately throwing games is bad sportsmanship, we should not be expecting the athletes to be in the Olympics to simply "participate". These athletes worked all their lives for a chance at Olympic Gold, and they deserve to get that chance by any means that is within the rules of the Games.

And if those rules lead to a strategy of bad sportsmanship, well, isn't that the fault of the rules makers?

solarz said:

Yes I agree, although deliberately throwing games is bad sportsmanship, we should not be expecting the athletes to be in the Olympics to simply "participate". These athletes worked all their lives for a chance at Olympic Gold, and they deserve to get that chance by any means that is within the rules of the Games.

And if those rules lead to a strategy of bad sportsmanship, well, isn't that the fault of the rules makers?

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The organizer is partly to blame. The least they could do is to have the 4 teams in a round robin fight. The best 2 teams go through.

Well I think this decision to disqualify the players is a farce and mostly the fault of the organizers for creating a situation whereby it would be better for teams to loose rather than to win. During the planning meeting, the issue of deliberately throwing games as raised and high handedly dismissed, and now that game throwing is happening, the organizers are freaking out and are being deliberately harsh to send a message to cover for their own bad planning in setting up the system.

Like it or not, gamesmanship is a key part of every sport, and if you are foolish enough to design a system whereby it is better to loose rather than win, people who desperately want to win at the end of the day will loose a meaningless match if it gives them a better shot at a medal.

The reasons given of "Not using one's best efforts to win a match and conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport." is so subjective as to be worthless.

For example, I doubt any athlete would give their all in a qualifying event unless they had to, if they applied this, only the athletes who needed to give 110% just to qualify would be left and all the top seeds who decided to save some energy for the finals would be shown the door.

Have a look at football or basket ball. I am sure that if someone could be bothered, they can find all the diving and deliberate foully to be against some Olympic code or another.

The players in this instance did take it too far, but the planners and organizers certainly deserve their fair share of the blame for creating a situation whereby the players would want to loose in the first place.

Also, I see that the media has not missed any opportunity to bash China with the editors cherry picking the inflammatory China hating comments while saying nothing bad about any of the other countries to have had players disqualified.

Medal count..

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The 1st time I ever saw a total medal count was in Beijing 2008, after it was obvious China was going to be on top of medals table by gold medal count. So lo and behold, the media introduced total medal count as a way of putting team USA first...and since then, that trend has caught on.

Click to expand...

I'm old. I'll be 59 in September. . I've lived things many of you know little of. Trust me.. the US has been counting all medals long before China participated in the Olympics. Especially in the 60s when the Soviet Union was the main competition.

Yeah this is the fault of the rules if people can lose to their advantage. Sports have many times been compared to war. In war that tactic is called strategy. I've read that the Japanese don't like how in American baseball they walk good batters. It's strategy to win. Or when I watch the Indy 500, you see cars from the same team protecting and blocking cars so one of their teammates can be ahead.

English.news.cn 2012-08-02 03:46:02

LONDON, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Chinese swimmers underwent more than 2,500 drug tests last year and no positive results returned, the Chinese Swimming Association (CSA) said on Wednesday.

Of the 2,539 dope tests, 1,523 were carried out by the FINA and the World Anti-Doping Agency, and the rest conducted by the Chinese doping control authorities, according to the CSA.
"China's recent breakthrough in swimming are the results of scientific training and hard work," the CSA said in a statement.

The CSA statement came after Chinese swimmer Ye Shiwen was plagued with doping speculations after the 16-year-old won the women's 400m IM gold medal with world record-breaking performance on Saturday.

FINA also released a statement on Wednesday to defend Ye.

"Following the recent comments reported in the media, FINA would like to clearly state that there is no factual basis to support this kind of insinuations related to the performances of the Chinese swimmer, Shiwen Ye. This athlete has fulfilled all of the FINA Doping Control obligations, having been tested on four occasions in the last twelve months, including twice before the Chinese Olympic Trials in 2012," said FINA on its official web.

Gold #12, women's swimming 200m medley, Ye Shiwen