Olympics, bad sports?

[shinAUFC]

Anyone been watching the swimming and this 16 year old chinese girl Ye Shiwen?

She has stormed onto the scene in the games winning 2 gold medals, but because she has been so good and because she is chinese aussie media are speculating she is a drug cheat.

Am i the only person that feels un easy about this? if not embarrassed?

Ian Thorpe stormed onto the scene at 16 from nowhere, and had an incredible 50m sprint home that became a trademark for him much the same an Ye Shiwen

Also so much has been made of Ye Shiwens final 50m thats was so super human which means she MUST be cheating supposedly, yet she posted a slower time then our very own Stephanie Rice in the previous olympics, so does this mean Miss Rice is also a drug cheat?

No of course not because she is an australian golden girl.

Maybe this young chinese girl has taken a performance enhancing drug, but surely she deserves the benefit of the doubt?

Its very embarrassing the way the western countries like australia and USA have reacted, why does it make us so uneasy that a young chinese girl is better then us so we have to use sketchy circumstantial evidence to put a slur against her name?

IMO the media plants the seed of racism in so many peoples minds.

Thoughts?

[EdDog]

Drug test her. If she takes drugs, she's a cheat. If not she's a freak of nature.

Nuff said.

[Old Gregg]

Yeah, bad sports. You see it in the Aussie athletes themselves as well as the commentators & the media. This girl is 16 y/o, surely a recent surge in performance (which is what some people have pointed to as evidence of doping) could be explained simply by the fact that her body is still growing and getting more muscular?

Also, I will admit to a certain degree of schadenfreud following James Magnussen missing out on gold, given that he was the one bitching on Twitter about having to come to Adelaide for the national titles...

Maybe I'm not very patriotic but I find it hard to support athletes that have such a sense of entitlement and arrogance just because they come from Australia.

[double07]

The whole vibe from the Australian media this Olympics has been attrocious. They're fulling expecting us to dominate in the pool etc. but we're not, the spin seems to be that it's a dissapointing performance from the Aussies and not a good performance from other nations. It's downright disrespectful.

[Stuckey]

Very glad to be in London BBC's coverage has been great. They stream any event live of their website as well. Is 9 doing anything like that?
As for the girl yeah it was the first thing that came to my mind too I will admit. IMO its not being a bad sport it just that she from China. Considering they have been busted before for drugs and the state of play in their football league with bribes and sending the national diving team to play ACL games. China isn't exactly the most trustworthy nation on the sporting scene.
Having said that I hope this time is different and this girl is the real deal.

[shinAUFC]

Not sure about network TV,

But Foxtel has 8 new channels dedicated to the Olympics, supposedly every gold medal will be shown live.

Apparently thats a world first, atleast so they say. but so far its been great from foxtel

[EdDog]

Yeah wish I had fox - channel 9 swaps between sports, showing like 30 seconds of this, 10 seconds of that, then throwing to an ad break of Swiss multivitamins. Add to that all the Aussie rules commentators for the rowing and it's enough to make you watch it on mute.

9 have 3 channels with 9, Gem and Go. I'm very disappointed that they haven't used this to make the viewing experience a little better.

Surprised how much I'm enjoying the Olympics - was super uninterested with the build up.

[Interloper]

The fox coverage is amazing (sadly out of action for me now, moving house.) With all the different sports, it's the first time I've actually felt like I'm watching what the olympics is all about.

[double07]

The fox coverage is amazing (sadly out of action for me now, moving house.) With all the different sports, it's the first time I've actually felt like I'm watching what the olympics is all about.

Yeah gotta say it's been pretty impressive. I've spent a lot of time on the couch just flicking between the channels

[shinAUFC]

The fox coverage is amazing (sadly out of action for me now, moving house.) With all the different sports, it's the first time I've actually felt like I'm watching what the olympics is all about.

Yeah gotta say it's been pretty impressive. I've spent a lot of time on the couch just flicking between the channels

When i found out they were putting on 8 new channels just for the Olympics i decided to take 2 weeks off and sit on the couch for 2 weeks.

Eddie is infuriating though, for example during the womens marathons he would say such things as "one of the great marathon wins of all time", really eddie? really? name one other you have actually seen?

Meanwhile rodney dicostello is commenting that it was a fairly average winning time, STFU eddie!

[blahblah]

On TV here I get the coverage from a Malaysian channel, a Chinese channel, an Indonesian channel and the Khmer channel. Ye Gods I've seen a lot of badmington & table tennis.

Luckily the sports bar is 30 metres down the road and showing everything else

[blahblah]

Eddie is infuriating though, for example during the womens marathons he would say such things as "one of the great marathon wins of all time", really eddie? really? name one other you have actually seen?

Meanwhile rodney dicostello is commenting that it was a fairly average winning time, STFU eddie!

I watched it and thought it was a standard race (run a lot myself). If the Russian had managed to catch up and win it then it would have indeed been something special as it is very hard to do that (as it proved, too hard).

[shinAUFC]

Eddie is infuriating though, for example during the womens marathons he would say such things as "one of the great marathon wins of all time", really eddie? really? name one other you have actually seen?

Meanwhile rodney dicostello is commenting that it was a fairly average winning time, STFU eddie!

I watched it and thought it was a standard race (run a lot myself). If the Russian had managed to catch up and win it then it would have indeed been something special as it is very hard to do that (as it proved, too hard).

I cant run for shit LMAO, but marathon (triathlon also) is one of my favourite events for some reason i find it absolutely compelling!

[double07]

Ye Gods I've seen a lot of badmington & table tennis.

[sevengoals]

Ok, I'll play.

Two Austrian.
One German
Eurosport 1-(in german)
Various BBC satellite feeds mainly showing highlights.

I watched the Boomers pip Russia this afternoon on the German channel.

Super!