I think Phelps is also a great swimmer and he is good for the sport, however, he is a professional swimmer. I didn’t realize, but he couldn’t swim for his university team because he wasn’t an amateur. He makes about 5 million each year in endorsements.
The “Amateur” athlete is a very rare and endangered species at the highest level of competition. Take Dana Torres, the 41 years old mother who is a fast american swimmer for example. Fantastic swimmer, but:
[quote] The cost of being a middle-age champion can be steep, …estimated that she would spend about $100,000 this year on her support staff.
In addition to Lohberg, Torres employs a sprint coach, Chris Jackson; a strength and conditioning coach, Andy O’Brien, who also oversees her diet; two full-time personal stretchers, Steve Sierra and Anne Tierney; a physical therapist; a masseuse; and a nanny.[/quote]
Do you know any “amateur” who could afford the time and money to do this? Sure she is sponsored but that, in my opinion, amounts to being paid to practice a sport. So the real “amateur” athletes at the olympics are not the contenders in the marquee sports.
Gone are the days where the guy who’s a farmer or fisherman or doctor by day and athlete by night can compete at that level. You’ll find them maybe in some less glossy sports like shooting, archery or modern pentathlon but forget that for most of the other sports.
[quote=“BigThumb”]
Sure she is sponsored but that, in my opinion, amounts to being paid to practice a sport. So the real “amateur” athletes at the olympics are not the contenders in the marquee sports.[/quote]
Okay, I agree that most athletes are sponsored. But I think there is a big difference between Team Visa sponsoring some unknown athletes regardless of their past awards and accomplishments and Speedo’s endorsement of Phelps. Clearly Speedo is betting on cashing in on the accomplishments of Phelps. Watch the difference in TV ads, interesting. I guess the Olympics is all about money.
Cool. Canada is set to win its first metal of these Games in Women’s Wrestling. So I guess Canada will be known for its tough women.
Wrestler Carol Nguyen is from Hazelton. wrestled in the Northwest Zones in High School. You may have noticed that she has received zero recognition from the Canadian media until she made it into the finals. Now they are scrambling to find Hazelton on the map.
I still struggle to find Hazelton on a map. 
I always wanted to attend the South Hazelton Institute of Technology.
We accidentally drove through it a couple of weeks ago, 'cause we took the wrong highway home. It was a Sunday. Everything was closed except for one gas station. But the gas was pretty cheap. (Relatively speaking, of course.)
How can you take the wrong highway home? The highway goes right through New Hazelton. Unless you turned off and went to south or old Hazelton.
We took #5 when we should have taken #97 or something…
Okay, I just google mapped it, and see that I was way off! We still passed through it, but I thought we had passed through it on a different day… Now, I’m wondering what town I WAS thinking of? (on Hwy 5)
Lol nowhere near Hazelton. It’s on Highway 16.
That trip was haywire! From Vernon to PG, we took hwy 5, so we almost ended up in JASPER. Yikes! But dinner in Blue River was nice.
Duuude! Those shot put guys are HUGE! Wouldn’t want to run into them in a dark alley!
Hazelton’s Carol Huynh= First gold medal for Canada!!!
Congratulations Carol.
Well all be good now the women saved our little Canadian asses, one Bronze,Silver and Gold. Which was via BC I heard. Well done ladies we are on our way to 2010 now. Gordo has more to lie about while cruising in his private jet. It must be so cool being that much Gordo cool. But well done ladies.
Warning: Long post ahead
Well, now that’s it’s over, Canada’s athletes didn’t fare too bad. 18 medals and a few horrible fourth places.
Just for the fun of it (and get me back into math mode as my vacations are over tonight!), I made some calculations.
Often, at the Olympics, commentators like to compare Canada with Australia since they are a similar bunch of beer-drinking, fun-loving group. The number of young people from BC who travel to Australia is probably a sign of the shared characteristics between the two countries.
However, the Aussies kicked our butt at the Olympics.
But did they really?
(Yes, I had some time to waste. If you don’t, you’re lying cause why else would you be reading this!)
So here are some numbers (Wikipedia ) to prove that when it comes to the Olympics, we are better than they are.
I looked up the total medal counts for both countries since 1988. That’s Summer and Winter games.
Summer : Australia: 66 gold, 70 silver, 89 bronze, total of 225
Canada: 22 gold, 35 silver, 37 bronze, total of 94
Winter: Australia: 3 gold, 0 silver, 3 bronze, total of 6
Canada: 25 gold, 29 silver, 27 bronze, total of 81
So in the summer they own us but lower the temperature and they hide in mama kangaroo’s pouch.
But still, if you add the total of all medals, they beat us. (Aus: 231; Can: 175).
So how are we better?
Let’s assume that summer and winter olympics have equal value in terms of athleticism (an assumption all canadians should make!!!), then we need to make them equal in terms of the value of the medals, that is, we need to develop a scoring method to make them equal. I chose calculate the percentages of medal won by a country in relation to the total amount of medals awarded at the summer and at the winter games and then add the two percentages.
During the period studied, 5274 medals were awarded at the summer games while 1183 medals were awarded at the winter games. Let’s calculate the percentage of the medals won by both countries:
Australia
Summer:225/5274 x 100% = 4.266 %
Winter: 6/1183 x 100% = 0.507 %
Add the two percentages: 4.773
Canada
Summer:94/5274 x 100% = 1.782 %
Winter: 81/1183 x 100% = 6.847 %
Add the two percentages: 8.629
So, Australia’s score is 4.8 and Canada’s is 8.6. We are better than them!
All kidding ( and math) aside, the fact that our country has two Olympics to deal with doesn’t help us in the summer games as potentially good athletes in summer sports might be committed to a winter sport. Australians are committed to the summer games for obvious reasons and they do well.
(I hope the math is correct!)
We have 1/3 more population than Australia, but they apparently have more institutionalized high-level sport stuff going on. Is this true? Like big 'ole sports institutes.
Maybe you need to combine Australia + New Zealand + maybe Singapore to get a similar sized country to Canada.
Yeah, I think that is true.
I saw a show on TV showing the technology the Aussies employ when they’re observing, monitoring their swimmers.
I would question this bit, since you’re giving the Winter Olympics medals about 5 times the value of a Summer Olympics medal, even though you said that we should make them about equal. What you want to do is add all the medals up (Winter + Summer) and then divide by the total medals awarded (Winter + Summer).
So something like:
Australia
Summer 225 + Winter 6 = 231
Total Summer + Winter = 6457
Sooo... 231/6457 x 100% = 3.577
Canada
Summer 94 + Winter 81 = 175
Total Summer + Winter = 6457
Canada = 175/6457 x 100% = 2.71And if you take into account that we have 1/3 more population than them, I’d say they’re kicking our butts. Unless, of course, you consider a Winter Olympics medal to be worth 5 times a Summer one.
PS – this sounds like an assignment you’d give grade 9 math students on the first day back, BigThumb!