I say from observing the national pride and grit in their country. You see it in their fans as well. 

I remember when one of the American NBA Dream Team players was interviewed by channel 7. This player was born in Australia, and the Australian reporter asked him why he was not playing for Australia. The American was stumped for a second trying to think of a diplomatic answer and when he gave it, you can just detect his pride in his country. 

im just thinking with having a big ego if that would be a competitive advantage? If youre the worlds best at something and having full confidence you are going to win, whether that would take the edge off in the big moment? Arrogance isnt something normally associated with Australian athletes, and is in fact frowned upon, so often our good athletes are humble yet the expectation of winning gold medals doesnt dial down, and in the big moment this could phase them.

Those are all examples of Australian teams coming from behind to come out on top. 

I can't think of too many Australian athletes or teams who were expected to win and actually did. Cathy Freeman, Ian Thorpe & Kieren Perkins come to mind. 

Was Keiren perkins humble? Or Thorpe? They come across that way. Lockyer, Steve Waugh, Gilchrist and Michael Beven all come across as humble to me yet all had incredible mental strength.

Itd be interesting to compare mental preparation atheletes had 10 years ago compared to now

susie o'neill hewitt hackett
our cricket team for 15 years...

The competition was pretty average in those eras compared to today. Hewitt has been book-ended by Sampras & Federer.

Aus cricket team were streets ahead of every other nation during that time. I can't think of another team that came close in terms of talent. 

Not sure about O'neill & Hackett.

wrong hewitt but yes leyton hewitts never say die attitude is a great example
our atheletes were mentally strong as favourites and as underdogs

so many good players in that generation we made them look average
muliriteran (excuse spelling) vaas pollock, kallis, ul haq, mushtaq....

Are the top athletes from American under as much pressure as the Australian? Australia realistically is expected to win 5-15 golds while America is expected to win something like 40-50+. Nearly all of ours are condensed into swimming/cycling/rowing. America has expectations everywhere. If someone unexpectedly doesn't win for America it isn't as devastating a loss to the country's expectations. They just move on to Phelp's next race, to the gymnastics or to the athletics next week. If someone doesn't win for Australia that pressure then gets heaped additionally onto the next hope.

Australia sends a massive group of athletes, the 4th most behind only USA, Germany and the host nation, such is our love for the Olympics. A small percentage is actually capable of winning their event. I expect being seen as the hope of such a large group would create additional pressure.

another thing is

theres 350 million people in America and its damn hard to get to the top in a place like that

It hurt to watch.

again its not about winning its about not getting a lot of pbs

Maybe the Aussie Athletes are shagging too much in the Village and drinking lots of booze? 

I don't think that is the right way to look at it. It will be a miracle if Usain Bolt breaks one of his PB's. He seemingly reached his limit years ago. Why can't it be the same for our athletes? 

Just because you haven't won (as you may have in past years) or got a PB doesn't mean that you haven't performed well. For a lot of the swimmers that performed "poorly" to get a PB they would have had to have broken the world record or gone really close to it.

that argument works if we have a bunch of aging atheletes past their prime....

'trauma worthy' one might even say?

I actually see the funny side, then wonder why Australians really care. 

I'd rather the measure of $/gold medal, rather than the fallacy, "they have 350mil people to choose from", because you know that's not true. 

The AOC spent $377mil on elite sports training since the London Olympics, which is up by 12%. It will be interesting to see if we have increased our efficiency since last time. 

Team USA on the other hand is completely funded by revenue streams from sponsors & the media, rather than taxpayer dollars. 

We should cut the budget given we have a deficit. Maybe a 50% cut to start off with?

to be fair they have a much much larger market to do things like sponsorship

Plus, the americans also clean up on track and field

But heres an opinion courtesy of dr josef goebbels on inglorious basterds

Tarantino

Because when youre a favourite its a shock to come up empty handed!

The complaints are: the race needed to be longer or shorter (they were 1 and 2 after 50)
The opponents cheated

Personally i prefer the new zealand way of accepting defeat, ie "i'd rather not talk about it", especially what happened with their rugby sevens

Yes a bit of humility would not go astray that's for sure.

I also hate the way they promote certain athletes as sure things for a medal. Over a 100m sprint, it is a bit of a lottery. The 50m is an even bigger lottery. If the athlete is not feeling 100% or has a slight niggling pain, then that can make all the difference in a race where even hundredths of a second are important. 

I was watching Sport Tonight on Sky last night, and the ring in was having a fit encouraging supporters to boo a Russian Athlete in a particularly shallow, hateful and personal manner because they were caught as a drug cheat in the past.

There is NOTHING sporting about this type of behavior or arrogance. NOTHING AT ALL! 

the aussies struck me as pretty humble after the defeats as well as their victories

I noticed the Swimming coach is a Dutchman [well with a name like Jacco Verhaeren its hardly surprising!!]. Perhaps the Aussie team is suffering from the same fate the Socceroos did under Pim/Holger? 

Maybe they need an Ange version around the team talking about "pride in the shirt" etc. 

American athletes tend to come through the college system.

Much like Timmy Cahill is probably the mentally toughest Aussie footballer in a long time at least in part because he was in England in his mid teenage years, doing an apprenticeship and learning the ropes. These US athletes go through the massive NCAA competition with all its culture of competition. It makes them tough.

Nah, I don't think so. He's rated really highly and they swam fantastically at the world champs. I think they were really poorly handled in London. This time around, it seems to me it's more a case of things not coming together perfectly.

Plus never underestimate the USA's ability to lift at exactly the right time.

This is also fallacious reasoning though, socceroo_06.

Believe you me, the US public spends a truckload on elite sport. They just don't do it in the same way that Aussies do (and in a less egalitarian way).

American athletes tend to be developed by the US college system. For the most part, it accounts for their success. And it's largely self-sustainable with minimal government assistance.

Sounds great. Well, it's not and it costs ordinary Americans dearly.

It's feasible because there's no HECS and ordinary Americans pay truckloads for access to tertiary education. The upshot is that the best athletes then get into college on sporting scholarships.

So Americans still pay, just indirectly.

I prefer our system with HECS.

The Americans do a lot of things right when it comes to sport. We could learn a great deal from them. We could perhaps try and introduce a more robust college sporting fraternity and give out scholarships to kids who excel in sport and we could develop their talents even more. We could even send them to the USA for training and competition. 

Think of it as an Institute of Sports on steroids through our tertiary system. 

HECS is actually quite flawed in my opinion. I don't like the thought of young kids starting out in life finishing uni and having a mortgage over their heads when they should be saving to buy a house or something. HECS is getting out of control and needs to be wound back a little. Sure, they should pay some nominal fees but coming out of uni oweing $100K isn't a good thing. 

Aikhme

We already do send of our best to the States for training (on sporting scholarships). Gen LaCaze, the steeplechase girl, went to university in Florida. Lots of the aths people do. Some of the swimmers do (although the best seem to be in Aus, more). Heaps of the rowers to, I gather. A guy from my school won a rowing scholarship to Yale. Then there were a couple of rowing guys who went to Scotch who go to Harvard and Brown.

The nice thing about US (sporting) scholarships is they take basically anybody if they have the talent (regardless of their nationality). This is one thing I find more admirable about the States than I do about most of Europe (because the EU is basically anti-meritocratic).

The downside, however, though is that the American system of deregulation of universities (for all the sporting success) means that, in real-terms, the poor are kept down and don't have much hope of social mobility (unlike in other countries). There's always a way but it's certainly not the most equitable outcome.

I don't think the NCAA culture could be replicated in Australia as there isn't the population or the college culture. Most Aussies I know go to university in their home city and live with their parents. In the States, custom is to go into another state and go to college. It makes a far better college culture than Australia has.

As for deregulation of Australian universities... it hasn't much to do with sporting goals, but to do with improving the quality of research and improving their rankings. It seems Australian university rankings are falling and this is a real concern. There is talk of deregulating the fees for them somewhat. This would improve the quality of research and classes, generally. And, in so doing, push Australian universities up the rankings. But I worry that it would make it exceedingly difficult for Australians from poor socio-economic backgrounds to attend university.

Both the American system and the Nordic system have their upsides and downsides. I think Australia is between the two and it's not unreasonable.