Has Australia Underperformed at the Olympics?

Question

it just seems like we've done worse than usual, especially in the team sports.

Answer 1

We've been let down by the men's swimming and the cycling which were previously good for 4 or so golds.  15 should have been about what they were aiming for.

Answer 2

No. We haven't. You have to remember that before Atlanta, we had not been in the top 10 in medals since 1972 in Munich. Before Sydney, a lot of money was pumped in, just like for Great Britain ahead of London 2012. We have sent our second largest team overseas (433, but 482 went to Athens and we had 630 for Sydney). We are sitting 5th at the moment, still with notably, the Women's basketball and Men's hockey to go. Yes we have done "worse" than usual, but that is only comparing it to Sydney and Athens - when we had our two largest teams ever. So taking that in to count...we really haven't. Just remember as well - the differences in population between the top 5 countries. China has 1 billion people, USA 303 million, Great Britain 60 million and Russia 140 million. And we only have just over 20 million. It's amazing that we are even up there. So no, we have not underperformed. We have done absolutely brilliant :D

Answer 3

Australia has done well. However compared to England our great rival, we have done appalling.  The big issue with Australia is we pin all our hopes on swimming without spending more money in developing athletes in other sports, that could win medals

Answer 4

Compered to other nations like the UK, US and China we spend very little to proved training for our competitors. Look at what the UK spent on their cycling teams, that should give you a good idea the other nations are spending BIG where the Olympics are concerned.    

Answer 5

We became complacent after the good results in Sydney and Athens and the support to sports has not been re-assessed. GB  is spending more on their swimmers than Australia is on their swimmers and paralympic swimmers combined.

Coaches are going where the money is - just like our footballers. Prefer to keep the coaches myself.

Answer 6

Yes, I'm an American and I was depending on you guys to outswim that dork Michael Phelps so they would stop giving him 90% of the air time and show something important like athletics instead.

You all are supposed to be way better swimmers than Americans but you let the American swimmers run the show and so all I could see on my tv was swimming and dorky Michael Phelps till my eyes hurt. They showed swimming live a few times but here in the US we didn't get to see any athletics live, including they didn't show either of Usain Bolt's final races. Not showing the 100 live is a desecration of the Olympics.

If your swimmers had done better maybe they'd have shown more athletics. Especially since there's more sharks in Australian waters than US waters, so the Australian swimmers have to be able to swim faster.

Answer 7

Hey!! Lets not sugarcoat this. I really do think we have underperformed in this games. I'm seriously heartbroken over the events that we were expected to do better in(esp. Kookaburras loosing). I agree that there has been some complacency after the success in Sydney and Athens. People say we are doing good in 5th(which wont be the case by the end of the games) but really our athletes had the potential to offer so much more. I'm disappointed now but I think these results are the "kick in the pants" that Australia needs to work harder for London and hopefully that's backed with more funding.

Answer 8

I think were doing great condidering the population of our country compared to the other countries above and below us on the medal tally.

Our women have done amazing this time around and we should really proud of our girls.

The blokes in the pool were a bit off but they'll be back.

I don't think you can say we've done worse this time as right now were sitting fifth in the world. Pretty d**n good i recon!!

Answer 9

Funny but quite right answers.

I believe that we have underperformed for us but we are still doing good. But the fact that pollution is high in Beijing and London does not surprise me that they are doing better than usual.

But the Water cube is clean air and therefore America and Australia wins the most. But London will be the big decider on whether we have really separated from the mother country.

Answer 10

I ask the same of my USA athletes - I've come to the conclusion that other countries have found some better athletes who have really stepped up their game - for a week I said wait until track & field happens and we sweep every category - where as Jamaica has really surprised us overall... the Chinese men in gymnastics are incredible & the old Romania/Russia classic style performances have been mediocre at best....

EDIT - to the 1 below - the air quality can't be all that bad when track & field records are being broken left & right... it sounds sarcastic, but isn't meant to...

Answer 11

my paper says your 5th in overall metals so that is pretty good