I hate American coverage. I watched gymnastics on NBC and got to see the Americans the entire time. Even during warm ups or walking around.

Canadian coverage switched between different countries when a Canadian wasnt actually competing.

It's a bit early to get arrogant when you've basically been tied with China at the end of every day of medals, don't you think? American media using total medals, ROW using total golds...

not that I said anything about who WOULD win, I said it was funny how the American media manipulated the stats to make the US win and figured that this would happen again (if necessary)

I have always viewed it as the country with the most medals wins, not the most golds. But I expect the USA to win both combinations anyways.

in most countries the table is done by most golds... US seems to be the exception. even with China now though US will probably do better than them in athletics.

rooting for australia.
our guys have done a solid job so far, even if it hasn't shown in the gold medal dept so far. plenty of silver and bronze there. Just a shame our own media is treating all these athletes who have managed to win medals (other than our sole gold winner) as failures and disappointments. it fluffs me to tears.

go team gb! sculling like a boss

How would you have any idea what most countries do? If you have seen olympic coverage in more than a few different countries I'll believe you but that just seems odd to me unless you move a lot :P Canada does it by total medals and not by golds. I don't know what other ones do but I guess we aren't part of the most countries :P The official site has it sortable by golds and total so I guess they see it both ways.

Yo Anoniem, are GB media/fans happier with how GB is doing now? First day or two the headlines I saw looked pretty harsh. Prince William and Harry seemed happy enough in an interview I saw. Now that I think of it I dont even know if you live in GB -_-

BREAKING NEWS - Korean badminton players Chee-Tin-Fuk and Net-Tu-Hai disqualified from the Olympics.

well I've lived in 5 countries but no, I'm not going by that, I'm going by this thing we call the internet ;) see these days you can just look up the olympics section of bild.de or lemonde.fr and see how they do medals

go to wikipedia, look up "Olympic Medal Table"

" Nevertheless, the IOC does publish medal tables for informational purposes, showing the total number of Olympic medals earned by athletes representing each country's respective National Olympic Committee.[2] The convention used by the IOC is to sort by the number of gold medals the athletes from a country have earned. In the event of a tie in the number of gold medals, the number of silver medals is taken into consideration, and then the number of bronze medals. If two countries have an equal number of gold, silver, and bronze medals, they are ordered in the table alphabetically by their IOC country code."

Ok, now that doesn't really prove anything, so go to the source, the NYTimes article:

http://www.nytimes.com/...orts&pagewanted=print

"Need to feel first down at the old Legion hall? Go to an American-based news media outlet, most of which rank the countries based on the overall medal count, which the United States has been leading. Here, and in many places around the world, China is ahead on the basis of a gold-medal surge that has roughly doubled its total haul from the 2000 Sydney Games with six days remaining.

For those who would like this debate to be formally officiated by a ruling authority, do not count on the International Olympic Committee. “If you read the Olympic charter, we actually see the Games as between athletes, not countries,” Giselle Davies, an I.O.C. spokeswoman, said in an interview Monday.

We’ll pass on the charter and read between the lines. Claiming that it is merely making a concession to the news media, fans and athletes who, as Davies said, “end up wanting to see a tally,” the I.O.C. does compile and present on its Web site a final medal table with a disclaimer at the bottom.

“The I.O.C. does not recognize global ranking per country; the medal tallies are displayed for information only,” it reads.

Violating the spirit of its own charter, the I.O.C. lists the countries according to the number of gold medals. Informational or not, based on that tacit nod, the Chinese will be popping Champagne by the end of the week if the current trend continues."

So importantly: most countries do it by gold because the IOC "informational purposes only" table (not a ranking) does it by gold

even your canadian media (Globe & Mail) is doing it by golds???

Canada = US Lapdog. Enough said.

... what gymnastics were you watching, i watched the gymnastics too and they showed other people competing when an american wasn't competing. NBC switches to other people if an american isn't competing its just that when you have over 500 athletes and are in 27 of the 28 sports there are plenty of american athletes to watch. Also we are medaling in like 90% of all the sports shown on NBC.

Yeah it is crazy how many international athletes train and compete in America. Don't know of any other country that has the college sport system that we have, or at least at the same magnitude as us.

They arent the official coverers of the Olympics.

http://www.ctvolympics.ca/medals/index.html
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/

Both show it in the total medals :P Globe and mail is just bad. I still think personally that it should be total.

Random quote off an ESPN article for you :P

"However, if you don’t like tape delays, web streams that freeze or are blurry on many occasions, or have even one iota of interest in seeing nations other than the United States compete, you would disagree with Bruce’s point of view."

I apparently saw the same NBC they see in America :P Small part of a fairly sad article on a korean getting screwed in her fencing match

I personally have enjoyed this Olympic coverage as much as the previous Olympic coverages. About the tape delays I don't see how NBC can get around that, I mean England is I think 6 hours ahead ( of the central time zone). The only way they could show it live would be in the early morning and afternoon, which I think they do, don't actually know because I have job so can't exactly watch at the time :P Never tried web streaming before, so have no experience in that area. And about the last point as an American its not like its hard for NBC to find a compelling American storyline in about every sport that is interesting to us Americans. I mean in men's swimming we got the greatest swimmer of all time. In women's swimming we have world record setting swimmers. In all 4 volleyball sports we have defending gold medalists, and world number 1 teams. In basketball we are absolutely dominating. In gymnastics we had really good teams. Also I would rather have NBC talk about an American athlete than some other countries athlete. While I don't know for sure I am assume that other countries show and talk about their athletes if they are competing in an event, and when you have over 500 athletes competing there are plenty of people to talk about, which is why it can seem that we don't care about the rest of the world :P

In conclusion: Americas awesome :P, we have a lot of athletes, we win a lot :D, and if you don't like it too bad ;)

The tape delays are only there so that they can cut whatever footage they want. The Olympics have a ton of amazing stories that you never see I guess. Too bad but I guess it is good you are so high on yourself.

China: 1.4 billion people, and state-sponsored athletics.

USA: 300mil(?) people, and no state-sponsored athletics.

China should be destroying the US and the rest of the world (I find it hilarious that PP is so jealous of the US yet he abbreviates 'rest of world' as ROW; even he sees how important and wonderful the US is. :P ) Just pointing that out for the haters.

PS. Love the olympics, and winners from any country as long as it's a good competition. Marathon is awesome.

PPS. Every. Single. Marathoner...is pro. Damn those pro Kenyans.

Frodo: I would say CURRENT best swimmer. Thorpe at his peak, or possibly Kieran Perkins back in the day would knock Phelps over no trouble or that Van Der Hoogenbanden or whatever his name was. Thorpey was so good in fact, people were accusing of taking steroids because he had extra large hands and feet. Magnussen is definitely developing as well, only missed gold by .01 of a second in his event.
In terms of feel good stories, the Aussie womens 8 sculls, only got to start training in April this year for the Olympics, made it to the final, (even if they ran dead last in the final... :P)

dunno what the hell you're talking about, I'm talking about the US media spinning US medal counts into making it seem like the US is winning (in Beijing), not about *who* is actually winning

ps. stop being so jingoistic and getting offended by anything bad about america

pps. ROW is a commonly used abbreviation (infact type in "row" on wikipedia and go to the disambiguation page)

ppps. go run a marathon fatty, i have.

they have sculls with 8 people? pfft, it's turning into swimming with a billion events. sculling should be for singles and 2s, anything about that should be sweep oar.

It is just womens 8's rowing. They dont include scull in it I dont think. And Drow, if he is the best then why doesn't he have even as many medals total as Phelps or the 8 golds in one Olympics records, or the world records? Thorpedo was great but Phelps is the best so far.

yeah ok just checked, they dont have sculled 8s. thankfully :P

What do mean that the tape delays are only so they can cut out footage? I don't watch in the afternoon since I can't but I assume they show live events then. But starting in NBC's primetime coverage at 7pm Central all the events are tapedelayed because at that time it is the middle of the night in London. So... kind of hard to show live stuff haha.

Also about the other great stories you are correct, there are a lot of events I will never see. I don't have cable so I can only watch NBC coverage. Also don't know how much free time you have on your hands but with a full time job I can't sit in front of a TV and watch the Olympics all day (though that would be pretty sweet :D) So anyway of course with so many events happening simultaneously and with the time difference I will not get to see some of the events.

I cheer for the USA for obvious reasons.

My fav events are basketball, and women's indoor volleyball.

You still alive Maurice??

It is patently obvious to anybody with a brain that the US is actually kicking ass, as usual. Yeah, I'm American. No, I don't care much if you whine about the US...just taking a moment to point out how good the US is doing. You should recognize that, rather than whine and complain about something most people don't even notice or care about. But then again, you're a one-trick pony. It just gets old that you complain so much...try just rooting for your team rather than bringing others down.

Btw, I just got back from a 24-mile run. I thought of going 2.2 more miles and calling it a marathon, but I'm just in training. I have a 50k in a few weeks...my third one. I've run multiple marathons. Signed up for 1/2 ironman in March. Full ironman to follow. Have you only done one marathon? lol

You don't understand the tape delay. They tape delayed even for the live events from what I have heard. Examples of things they cut out are things like a tribute to terrorist victims in a British bombing and such because it had nothing to do with Americans.

I've run three, internet toughguy.

But hey, way to divert and talk about something random instead of addressing the point that I was making about you just going on a random "OMFG ITS PP HE MADE EVERYONE THINK RD CHEATS MUST BE ANGRY AT HIM".

And you weren't "pointing out how well the US was doing." You were having your typical "omfg PP" rage attack and said something retarded. I'm looking at your original post here: outside of the postscripts, literally nothing is a good argument.

cut out in favour of an interview with Michael Phelps, because he doesn't get enough media exposure during the games

Bonus

This proves you are a petty troll, nothing more, nothing less. After my reply, I'm an internet tough guy? That's irony defined.

Here's on topic: OMG THE US CHANGES THE WAY THEY COUNT MEDALS, ITZ THE END OF TEH WORLDZ!!!ONE What a horrible thing. What a pathetic reason to be whiny. Almost nobody cares or even notices it except people like you. Bitter, whiny people who would rather look for something to moan about rather than congratulate. Bringing up RD in a thread about the Olympics is further testament to your one-trick pony status.

Outside of the 'row' comment, everything I said makes perfect sense. As usual, you're too bitter to admit it. The Chinese should be dominating the Olympics and they're not. What's wrong with that?

Try to be a little positive and say something good about the Olympics. I can't wait for the men's marathon. All the running events are amazing. Since you've run a few marathons I'm sure you're excited about the last event of the games. Chin up, buddy.

Whine.

Ok well it looks like this is becoming a pointless and unending argument. I understand that NBC cuts stuff out of the events in their coverage, that is their decision to make as they spent the money to broadcast the Olympics. They are not perfect but they aren't that bad either. I enjoy watching the Olympics, even the events that America isn't going to win. In conclusion the Olympics are awesome to a lot of fun to watch. So we should just agree to disagree I guess :D

Oh and Pontius Pirate there shouldn't be any reason to be getting upset in a thread about the Olympics unless there is some sort of controversy... I mean is there really a winning country in the Olympics? Look at some of these countries that send like 30 or less athletes and win like 2 medals and are thrilled. I enjoy competition and if there was no competition in the world it would be pretty boring, but that doesn't mean that there always has to be a winner and loser in EVERYTHING. Yes the individual athletes win or lose, but the countries don't win or lose... The Olympics are supposed to be fun to watch. People don't, or shouldn't, root for their country the same way as a Pro team or College team. I mean there isn't an even playing field amongst the countries.

We can agree that the Olympics are great for sure :P I have heard differing opinions on the quality of NBC's coverage but everyone is entitled to their opinions so no big deal :P

Women's marathon was great. Couldn't believe that Russian caught the lead pack and ended up with bronze.

you're the one whining about it. I clarified the system for locket, outside of that I had like one post on the topic except when Klown had basically the same jingoistic reaction as you.

And no, it doesn't make sense. Sure, China should be "dominating" - but on that same basis, the US and India should be doing a lot better as well... infact by your argument, most big countries are doing fluff, which doesn't really work. Seeing as you were doing your typical "US HOME OF THE FREE DONT YOU DARE CRITICIZE NBC COVERAGE" whine, you probably wanted the US to end up number 1 so I'm guessing the fact that it wouldn't be close to it wasn't your goal.

The kind of training available to athletes in the US is so far above what you get in most of the world. The kind of coaching and facilities available to US people through their educational system is just crazy. In the UK (which is pretty well covered relative to the rest of the world), it just doesn't exist. As an example that I just heard about recently, probably not the most extreme thing: Want to row in the Olympics? Even at the best rowing school in the country, you have to drop out to train - the school won't organise a training programme for you. George Nash (GB pair, won bronze) took a year off from Cambridge for a year to pursue rowing. But at least one other Cantab rower who would've at least stood a chance to get on their country's 8 couldn't take a year out because their academic scholarship wouldn't allow it. An athletic scholarship? Don't be silly.

edit: and there's no system in place for athletes with a C average to make it to schools requiring As either. admissions are done almost regardless of athletic ability, at the most it's a differentiator between two students with similar grades. US athletes have it so good...

Frodo - the only person who is getting upset seems to be Mr Snow who thinks that anything negative about the US (in this case it was a comment about how the US media wants Americans to think they "won") means that I've said the entire US sucks and that China are going to be our new overlords etc.

because Thorpe left so early in is career (relative) let himself get unfit, which is why he failed to qualify for this year's olympics.
That said, the US are doing pretty damn well.

Comparing their medals at Olympics it isn't even close even if you only count two of them :P Thorpedo was definitely my favorite when he was racing back then though. Too cool of a nick name to cheer against.

the fastest man on no legs wins this category

locket: did they actually go head to head at any stage though? or did thorpe retire before phelps started?
and whatever happened to Pieter Van Den Hooogenband? as I recall he was the only guy at the time able to offer thorpe consistent competition?

Hoogenband is the only swimmer to have beaten Phelps twice at Olympic Level, Thorpe also did it in the 200m at the 2004 Olympics, in the so called "race of the century" between Thorpe, Phelps and Van Den Hoogenband.

Thorpe is also the only swimmer in olympic history to get a medal in the 100, 200 and 400m events in the same olympics.
Finally, even Bob Bowman, the US mens swimming coach called Thorpe " "the greatest middle-distance swimmer of all time and...the greatest relay swimmer I have seen"
Also, belated thanks for the correction locket. I don't generally follow the rowing.

"Phelps idolized Australian Ian Thorpe as a teenager, modelling his public image after him.[198] Thorpe initially said it was highly unlikely for Phelps to win eight gold medals at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.[199] His remarks were used by Phelps, who stuck them on his locker as motivation during the Games.[200] Thorpe was in the stands for the men's 4×100 meter medley relay, where Phelps was swimming for his eighth Olympic title. When Phelps and his teammates captured the gold, Thorpe gave a congratulatory kiss to Phelps' mother, then gave a handshake and a hug to congratulate Phelps. Thorpe afterwards said "I'm really proud of him not just because he won eight golds. Rather, it's how much he has grown up and matured into a great human being. Never in my life have I been so happy to have been proved wrong. I enjoyed every moment of it."[129] He added, "I just couldn't envision it happening. And I didn't think he would get all eight, not because Michael couldn't win, but because of the competition. It's been a very tough week to get through. I couldn't do it. You couldn't imagine much closer races. The 4×100 free goes down as one of the all-time great races."

Yah it seems as if Phelps and Thorpe had different best swims and so they didn't compete too often directly in the Olympics but that quote definitely shows a lot there. Both are great and such though so perhaps it could just be argued that both were the best at different things :P

And yah, I am a huge fan of the 8's rowing(probably because Canada rocks at them) so I pay a lot of attention to it.

aye.
That said though, his seventh gold medal shouldn't have counted. "However, in August 2009, Omega officials admitted that while Čavić "for sure" touched the wall first, "Phelps did it more forcefully," thus registering the time first."
Makes it all the more controversial that Omega initially refused to release the underwater shots of the result, if it would have showed Cavic touching the wall first.

Van Den Hoogenband retired after the 2008 olympics.

The Dutch television swaps between broadcasting whatever sport a Dutch person is participating in to various highlights of other sports / winners when no Dutchy is active. For me that works pretty well.

Raven: ty. I had looked it up as I was curious, given he was the only real competition Thorpey had at the time.