2008 Beijing Olympics

[drakos13]

Bad Olympics so far for Greece indeed, but again, there's still time to pull out a few medals.  I wouldn't venture to say that these are the worst Olympics of all time for us, at least not yet.  It wasn't that long ago where getting ONE medal, even bronze, was a huge success for Greece.  Looking at some historical medal counts:

1992: 2 golds

1988: 1 bronze

1984: 1 silver, 1 bronze

1980 (boycotted by the US and many others): 1 gold, 2 bronze

1976: none!

1972: 2 silver

1968: 1 bronze

1964: none

1960: 1 gold

...and so on

I'm still optimistic we can come away with a few medals, though not as many as in 2000 or 2004, which was to be expected....just consider that most of our weightlifting team was disqualified before the games even started...they've been the source of several medals since 1996, even one of our two in 1992.

As an aside, I think several countries will see dropoffs in their medal count, with China's meteoric rise this year.

Yeah I didnt realize.....I really dont remember any Olympics before 96 so......

But yeah I know about weightlifiting....that will hurt us.

It seems like were going to get a few medals afterall...at least were in contention now that Athletics started...

I responded to your other post in the Free Greek TV threads BTW

Edited August 16, 2008 by drakos13

[loup]

and iakovakis qualifies for semis in the 400m hurdles

On to finals on Monday-- but will be in tough there

[loup]

gazis the boxer out 12-1 :blink:

[Irlandos]

Louis Tsatoumas has qualified for the finals in the long jump! :gr:

[loup]

Fanis Halkia Caught Doping

[Guest TheLegend]

greece's olympic team is a xeftilia this year

bravo halkia... win a gold then take drugs.... model athlete.

[Guest TheLegend]

A total of 15 Greek athletes, including Halkia, have tested positive for methyltrienolone

we are a joke

[Olympiakara10]

Pretty lame.

[paxiotis7]

Louis Tsatoumas has qualified for the finals in the long jump! :gr:

whens the final?

ANd Im shocked about fani. I would have never belived that. How come she had to do mroe testing than everyone else? Olympics are getting out of control

[PurelyAcademic]

I won't comment about the doping...inexcusable for any athlete to be doing it but it does seem like WADA and the IOC are picking and choosing their targets (and who not to target) this year. Let's leave it at that for now.

The good news is...we have our first medal! Bronze in women's sailing: http://www.contra.gr/Sailing/World/Olympic...008/208835.html

Congratulations to the women for their success!

[BlueStriker]

Hooray for women's sailing! :nw:

I just saw it on NET-ET1

"Yia tin Ellada re gamoto" Sophia (one of the sailors) says on camera. :tup:

[Irlandos]

Say it ain't so, Fani... :(

[drakos13]

10.30:

[PurelyAcademic]

You're right. EVERY athlete from EVERY nation should be doped, by a truly independent, transparent body, with transparent results, and one which keeps up with the times in terms of the new technologies in the world of doping. The current system of random testing is just far too convenient for the IOC and WADA and the more powerful nations to all have a heavy influence in determining who will and who won't be tested. It also gives athletes/nations which have "first dibs" on new doping technology an unfair advantage, as they get to take advantage of doping agents before they find themselves on the blacklist, whilst coming off as "clean" athletes.

Now as far as the Greek athletes, as far as I know, most of them were tested while they were in Japan before the Olympics. That's where Halkia was tested too. So if this is the only negative result so far, it's likely a positive sign....but it doesn't mean that they are "in the clear" yet. Hopefully this will be the last of such incidents for us.

[PurelyAcademic]

Another medal! Silver this time, in Men's Rowing. Dimitrios Mougios and Vasilios Polymeros bring us our second medal at this year's Olympics. Congratulations to them!

http://www.nbcolympics.com/rowing/resultsa...2100/index.html

[loup]

Hooray for women's sailing! :nw:

I just saw it on NET-ET1

"Yia tin Ellada re gamoto" Sophia (one of the sailors) says on camera. :tup:

:gr: :LOL: :gr:

2 medals - and triple jump in a few hours

re doping --- EVERYONE is cheating -- I am sure of it- at least the track stars

The Toronto Star did an article on the 20 year anniversary of Ben Johnson getting caught --- 6 of the 8 were caught at one point or another, or did things similar to Thanou to hide their cheating

So if we are cheating - we have to cheat better I guess :LOL:

[loup]

bronze triple jump :gr:

[drakos13]

Devetzi got the bronze......3 medals in a day not bad. finally some improvement.

:gr:

In other news:

Pavlidis (boxer) eliminated

weightlifting went today, in the same category of weight, not in lifting though. No hope of getting medals there this year anyways. But please, pick Greece for every doping test.... and nobody else :rolleyes:

[DUDE]

I was disappointed with Devetzi's performance. Of the 6 jumps she had 4 disallowed :blink: Pity.

[Genome]

Finally some movement ! ! ! :gr: :tup: :gr:

[loup]

Today

Tsoumas for long jump -- was the #1 qualifier with a season's best

Iakovakis 400m hurdles -- will need to run much faster than he has all season to win a medal

[paxiotis7]

what time loup?^

[loup]

20:10 and

22:00

I guess that is tomorrow for most of us

Beijing Time

12 hours ahead of EST

so 8 AM Monday and 10 AM Monday

Edited August 17, 2008 by loup

[Irlandos]

A big BRAVO to Pigi Devetzi! :tup:

She competed cleanly and brought back a medal once more in the Olympics for Greece! :gr:

[BlueStriker]

You're right.  EVERY athlete from EVERY nation should be doped, by a truly independent, transparent body, with transparent results, and one which keeps up with the times in terms of the new technologies in the world of doping.  The current system of random testing is just far too convenient for the IOC and WADA and the more powerful nations to all have a heavy influence in determining who will and who won't be tested.  It also gives athletes/nations which have "first dibs" on new doping technology an unfair advantage, as they get to take advantage of doping agents before they find themselves on the blacklist, whilst coming off as "clean" athletes.

Now as far as the Greek athletes, as far as I know, most of them were tested while they were in Japan before the Olympics.  That's where Halkia was tested too.  So if this is the only negative result so far, it's likely a positive sign....but it doesn't mean that they are "in the clear" yet.  Hopefully this will be the last of such incidents for us.

Completely agree. What is up with these "random" tests?

So getting caught (or not) is based on luck?

Everyone should have an equal chance of getting busted. Are these drug tests so expensive and time consuming that they can only be administered to a portion of the athletes? That's complete vlakies. All you got to do is woop out your poulaki, piss in a cup, hand it to some scientist and end of story.

On a side note, what do you guys think about the swimmers this year?

It seems like almost every race (and I am not exaggerating), the world record was broken, in some cases it wasn't even close, and sometimes more than one swimmer within the same race beat the previous world record. It got to the point that I expected a new world record to be set for every race.

I'm not an expert in swimming, so is it really possible that in 4 years time since Athens, that so many swimmers became that much better without doping?

And how? Through better coaching techniques, weight training, more aerodynamic swimsuits, etc.?