[feargale]

Originally Posted by TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Oh that thing about the tattoo? Seemed like a bit of an over reaction on our part. We seem to be doing that a lot lately.

What did he say ?

[robinph]

Originally Posted by TICKLE_ME_ELMO

Didn't think much of the canoeing one they had up earlier.

My only problem with the BBC's coverage of the women's boxing tonight was who they had on. At least Nicola Adams got to have Jess Ennis talk about her for a few minutes. Gabby was left to discuss Katie with John "I'll give an opinion on anything even when I know nothing about it" McEnroe and Daley "not quite the full shilling" Thompson.
Given that it was a historic day for the sport they could have had a boxer on, or at least someone like Michael Johnson who seems to know a lot about everything.

But really I can't complain. Sending Dara was inspired and the fact they covered her at all was good enough.

I doubt they had any spare boxers to call on tonight as they will all have been in the ExCeL still. Nicola Adams was on with Lineker earlier, but then will have been busy with the rest of the media requirements for the rest of the day. Might get someone on tomorrow depending on the results of the mens fights.

[TICKLE_ME_ELMO]

Originally Posted by feargale

What did he say ?

If it's what I'm thinking of, it was when some woman got a tattoo to celebrate the Olympics but whoever did it spelled it OYLIMPICS. They were talking about it on the One Show while Thompson was on it and he made some comment about they must have been Irish.

Now I took this to be a reference to how people sometimes pronounce it Oyrland or Oyrish, and he's just too half witted to realise that it might come across as him saying we're thick and can't spell. I don't know what he meant by it to be honest. Maybe he was saying we were all thick and couldn't spell, I don't know, but we were all up in arms over it and he had to issue an apology.

[bob50]

My review on London 2012

What a great games it has been so far brilliant stuff indeed

I am so proud of Katie Taylor winning a Gold medal and our irish male boxers who will also get medals minimum of bronze Not forgetting Annalise Murphy who almost won in Weymouth in the sailing, great stuff and Cian O'Connor who unexpectdly won bronze All great achivements

I hope now the IOC and sports councils see this for what we have got and ensure that Boxing, Equestrian and Sailing get the proper funding needed by these sports and forget the other sports i.e Swimming ,Athletics etc as even though the individual athletes will do the times required they are not going to get out of any heats once in competion i know this is contoversial to say but whats the point in letting athletes who wont qualify from their respective sports who have no chance of making either a semi final or final.

And we just concentrate on sports where we have a chance of a medal

[TICKLE_ME_ELMO]

Originally Posted by bob50

I hope now the IOC and sports councils see this for what we have got and ensure that Boxing, Equestrian and Sailing get the proper funding needed by these sports and forget the other sports i.e Swimming ,Athletics etc as even though the individual athletes will do the times required they are not going to get out of any heats once in competion i know this is contoversial to say but whats the point in letting athletes who wont qualify from their respective sports who have no chance of making either a semi final or final.

And we just concentrate on sports where we have a chance of a medal

I think we've had this discussion a few times already in this thread and probably don't need to get into it in too much depth again. I don't think we should ignore things like athletics and swimming completely, but we obviously need to change something about how we manage those sports. Perhaps focus on finding the talent from a younger age and, as I suggested before, get them to the point where at 18 or 19 they're able to go to somewhere like the US and be part of the NCAA sports system over there.

[rebel girl 15]

Boxing gets enough funding - aim would be to ensure that it stays as it is.

To be fair, two of the three swimmers did not show their best simply because of illness. Murphy got glandular fever in April, and hasn't recovered, Nocher got a severe stomach illness, can't think of the name of it.

I disagree completely about not giving funding to sports that we "don't have a chance in" because as Ken Egan said today, a number of years ago, if a boxer was fighting an Irish boxer, it was considered a handy fight. Money went into it, and it has returned dividends. Sailing - only for Annalise, we wouldn't have heard of it. Its exactly what we don't need to do, jumping on the bandwagon.

What we need is structures put in place to target talented athletes no matter what the sport, and put the people in place that can do that. At the moment, the structures are not there in a lot of sports, and the Irish Institute of Sport and the Irish sports council need to put the right people in place at the top.

[rebel girl 15]

Just saw on twitter that Katie Taylor named female boxer of the Olympics

[feargale]

DAVID v GOLIATH :

Originally Posted by Dan man

First ever Olympic medal for Botswana!!

Thanks Dan. Yes, thanks to Nigel Amos.
On Thursday MONTENEGRO also joined the ranks, beating Spain 27-26 in Women's Handball semi-final, and so will get either silver or gold. On Saturday at 8.30 p.m. they will play the final against Norway, who beat South Korea 31-25 in the other semi-final.
Also later today MONTENEGRO get a chance of a second medal when they meet Croatia in the men's water polo semi-final. USA play Spain in the other semi-final. My sources are Wikipedia, London 2012 ( by the Guardian ) and London 2012 Olympics ( by the Daily Telegraph. ) They give conflicting, confusing information re the times of these semi-finals. I trust Wikipedia which says USA v SPN at 14.20 and CRO v MNE at 15.40..

S

[feargale]

DAVID v GOLIATH : I am finding it difficult to get concrete information on St. Kitts and Nevis' men's 4×100 metres relay team. I presume they are competing in heats at 19.45 today.
So far, five countries have medalled for the first time, Guatemala, Cyprus, Grenada, Montenegro and Botswana

[Gergiev]

Originally Posted by Big Ears

Ah let's not get carried away, Ochigava is better than Jonas, and she proved that a couple of months ago, when she beat her very clearly at the World Championships (18-10).

Ya okay she looked somewhat sulky at the medal ceremony, but she's a winner and is clearly disappointed to be narrowly bested by her rival once again. Also we've no idea whether she actually made those comments or whether they were merely used by the Russian team to try and influence the judging in her favour.

Sensible perspective, Big Ears.

I think Ochigava was making a point to the crowd and not to Taylor.

After the fight and ceremony, she was warm and congratulatory to Katie but uncompromising with the audience.

Maybe hard to blame her after being unsportingly booed when (validly) claiming a 4-3 advantage, after the second round.

If she (SO) had won the fight on points I think we would have discovered whether this was such a "fantastic group of supporters", after all.

I suspect it was full of people who know nothing about boxing and just turned up for what they were led to believe was a coronation and who would have roundly booed any other result that didn't fit the pre-ordained sequence they had convinced themselves of.

Happily, it all turned out well in the end...

Q...anyone else notice that KT was on the canvas in all her fights, including twice in the final...is it the boots she's wearing or what?...seems more than a coincidence she slipped up 3 fights in a row???

[TICKLE_ME_ELMO]

Originally Posted by Gergiev

Q...anyone else notice that KT was on the canvas in all her fights, including twice in the final...is it the boots she's wearing or what?...seems more than a coincidence she slipped up 3 fights in a row???

I'd never really seen her fight before and I was wondering is she usually that clumsy?

She stumbled a few times but it was never from being hit, in fact a few times today it was after she had landed a good punch herself.

I wasn't impressed with the Russian girls mush on the podium, but to be fair to her, it was a very close fight, and she was leading for a while, and then she has to settle for silver, and a few minutes later have all this processed to come out in front of a massively partisan crowd and get her meddle. Katie said on her RTE interview that she's a nice girl and they've come up through the boxing together and she has no problem with her at all. She was disappointed with the comments she made before hand but other than that there's no beef.

[Gergiev]

Originally Posted by TICKLE_ME_ELMO

I'd never really seen her fight before and I was wondering is she usually that clumsy?

She stumbled a few times but it was never from being hit, in fact a few times today it was after she had landed a good punch herself.

Tickle, that's the point I was making.

All her slips seemed to be of her own making and not as a consequence of being hit.

She took a helluva blow from Ochigava after one of them today that could have been decisive but luckily she righted herself straightaway.

But it seems mysterious that it should have happened to her in all her fights and not her opponents, despite her being superior in each bout?

Suspect footwear???

[rebel girl 15]

Originally Posted by Gergiev

Sensible perspective, Big Ears.

I think Ochigava was making a point to the crowd and not to Taylor.

After the fight and ceremony, she was warm and congratulatory to Katie but uncompromising with the audience.

Maybe hard to blame her after being unsportingly booed when (validly) claiming a 4-3 advantage, after the second round.

If she (SO) had won the fight on points I think we would have discovered whether this was such a "fantastic group of supporters", after all.

I suspect it was full of people who know nothing about boxing and just turned up for what they were led to believe was a coronation and who would have roundly booed any other result that didn't fit the pre-ordained sequence they had convinced themselves of.

Happily, it all turned out well in the end...

Q...anyone else notice that KT was on the canvas in all her fights, including twice in the final...is it the boots she's wearing or what?...seems more than a coincidence she slipped up 3 fights in a row???

SO is good, no doubt about that - and I think you may be right about the number of people who thought it was a coronation. It was going to be far from that - the world final the two of them fought was a tough tough bout.

I don't blame her for being sulky towards the crowd, she had just lost an Olympic final and for any winner it is hard to take - think that Russian has won 2 world titles of her own. In fairness, she was quite good with Katie and there didn't seem to be any issue with the two of them, seemed to be a quite respectful relationship

I suspect the trash talk came from her coaches rather than her, Jonas had some similar stuff before their fight as well, but it could also have been a quote taken out of context as well.

Yeah, she did slip quite a lot, but I've noticed a number of other boxers slipping as well - could be the material of the ring and her shoes as well.

[feargale]

When does Jezierski go ?

[Gergiev]

Originally Posted by rebel girl 15

I suspect the trash talk came from her coaches rather than her, Jonas had some similar stuff before their fight as well, but it could also have been a quote taken out of context as well.

I'm inclined to agree with you, Rebel Girl.

For example, who knows what nonsense they're attributing to Taylor in the Russian media?

Of course, this kind of thing is meat and drink to broadcasters and print media, so they'll always run with the 'man bites dog' angle.

It's obvious the 2 girls know each other well and respect the other's capabilities...