its a fallacy of logic, because you can argue the same thing with america if nfl players represented the USA in the olympics

I don't see how that's a fallacy of logic at all, the NFL is very popular in the US like how the AFL is in Australia, but obviously on a much larger scale in a bigger country.

What's different is the hostility towards football in Australia; the NFL has no such need to be so insecure. There is no US equivalent of the Rebecca Wilsons we have in Australia.

This is off topic.

In regards to afl, the 18yo played before giving up after his coach said 'you want to be a domestic athlete or a superstar?'

Can't believe Melbourne hasn't bid to host a leg of the Diamond League since it formed.

They've set it up very well to be the Regular Season/Premier League of top level world athletics, it's a shame.

I love this new word filter.

Just don't tell paulc they played for a big bad ethnic club

la pierre fouls out in the final
again problems with the mental side

The 10000 meters! 
How do you run 9600 meters (24 laps of a 400 m track) and sprint the last lap like a 400/200m at the end?

and mac horton's personal best in the 1500 will not be in this edition of the olympics

edit English Gardner ? Sounds like something from the abolitionist days... 

EDIT 2 Portugal- Brazil's Lingua Franca - 1 Bronze medal

We've choked so hard. Bloody embarrassing.

Following the Australian swimming team must be what it's like to follow the English football team. So much expectation. So much quality. Surely this one is the one. And yet failure after failure after failure :(

I would suggest people claiming we've failed massively look at what we were expected to achieve by anyone except the Australian media. The only true favourites we had that didn't win were McEvoy and Campbell. We won one of those events anyway. Larkin and Seebohm were obviously chances but on form leading in weren't favourites, particularly Emily. And we picked up an unexpected win with Horton as well.

Every medal tally prediction in our media was assuming we would win/medal in every event we had a chance in. It was never going to happen.

I keep hearing that it was the media setting the expecation that we would do well in the swimming, but it was only 12 months ago we won 7 gold at the world championshiops and 18 medals total. It doesnt matter how you spin it our swimmers underperformed at the Olympics, all our favourites like Mcevoy, Campbells, Seebohm and Larkin failed to fire and swam slower than they did 12 months ago. You would think being the olympics they would find an extra gear and perhaps swim PBs but they just couldnt handle the pressure. Treating them like royalty with chartered flghts etc only increased the burden of pressure, they should be treated normally and only like royalty after they bring home the medals.

That medal tally includes events that aren't at the Olympics and diving as well. Then include swimmers who didn't compete at the worlds (Phelps is an example) and the Olympics are a whole different beast. There's not much logic in 'you were marginally the best 12 months ago so you should still be the best now'. A lot of world champions in every sport don't win at the Olympics.

It's a bit of both, paladisious. Yes, part of it's due to the overbearing presence of AFL in Australia. The other part (or rather the corollary of that) is that AFL tends to get the lionshare of the best athletes in the country.

Chalmers' attributes wouldn't be that much use in football, it seems to me (although you never know). But then you start thinking of other AFL footballers who aren't so tall, and ridiculously agile and blessed with amazing hand-eye co-ordination. The likes of Cyril Rioli for instance. Hell, Patty Mills nearly went to the AIS on a AFL scholarship or similar (Ben Simmons also went close to taking that path). Then there's a lot who didn't pursue basketball because AFL offered a more secure pathway (Pendlebury, for example). You can see how wonderful it would be if football could make inroads against the AFL and gain such athletes.

Benjamin has previously say, if I recall correctly, that he he thinks Australia has the potential to be a football powerhouse if it can get all the best athletes that AFL gets. Obviously, we also need things like an excellent NC, A-League and second-tier, too.

Edit. I just realised I misread your post. It wasn't the media which pointed out that two of the gold medallists have former AFL footballers as parents. I noticed this myself without any prompting.

The US smashed everyone in the pool. We ended up second on the pool medal tally with 3 gold behind their 16. This was probably an average Olympics in swimming for us. People are hanging onto memories of an exceptional period in the pool for us and are setting that as benchmark low.

It's not an issue if you match or beat your PB and just get beaten by somebody who does even better (even if that opponent didn't do quite so well at the World Champs). That shows you seem to achieve your potential and your opponent has done better, peaking at the right time.

It's an issue when you're below your PB (and some way below it) at the Olympics. That's what has happened and that's what is concerning.

That's not how it works though. Athletes peak, and sometimes your lucky and that falls with the right timing to line up with an olympics and sometimes it doesn't. If the olympics were 12 months ago the canadian who won the womens 100m free wouldn't have even been there, but 12 months later and she's the best in the world. Some of our swimmers have peaked, and some will get better from here. We still had swimmers getting pb's, but they just didn't result in medals. Phelps didn't swim a pb but I'll take a guess that he's pretty happy with his performances.

Granted Phelps may be happy with his performance where a PB wasn't needed to win (he may have felt differently if a PB was needed to win, no different to Usain Bolt cantering across the line). But Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt are freakshows. It speaks volumes about their ability that they don't need to swim PBs to win. But most of the others, on the other hand, do need PBs in the Olympics.

I'm sorry but I categorically disagree. As I said, if you match or get a PB and then simply get beaten by somebody who peaks in that event (rather than at the World Champs), then fair enough. You've probably reached your potential and just been beaten by a better opponent.

But if you are some way outside your PB, that's a problem.

For our athletes who were around their PBs and still got beaten, then fair enough. The distinction is they, probably, can be happy with that.

But for the ones some way behind their PBs, it's an issue. This doesn't happen with the States. And it illustrates problems with Australia's prepping or mental side.

You don't just swim PB's your entire career. At some stage you peak. That's just a fact of sport. Swimming is also just like any other sport, sometimes you're in form and other times you're not. The only genuine let downs we've had was Campbell who had panicked after a horrible start and burnt herself in the first 50, and McEvoy who obviously had some mental/physical problem which didn't effect our tally because Chalmers won. The swimmers have achieved what the rest of the world thought we would.

You should be able to achieve PBs when you're at peak age, which most of these swimmers are.

Swimming and aths are different to sports like football, rugby, basketball and cricket. Your opponent has no influence on how you perform (at least strictly speaking). Therefore it is different. Providing you're fit (which these swimmer should have been), you should be prepped in such a way that you achieve PBs in the events that count (unless, of course, you don't need a PB to win).

This is where the States has excelled and Australia has been poor.

It wasn't just McEvoy and the Campbell sisters. Larkin and Seebohm were below PBs, weren't they?

The rest of the world expected Australian swimmers to perform at their best, even if they weren't necessarily expected to swim the fastest of the field (a few of whom were).

Therefore, it's an underwhelming performance.

In any sport, you need to time your run so that you put in your best performance in the important events. Australia has struggled to do this.

for the thirtieth time its not about winning its about pbs

ah forget it......

Phelps might not have competed in the worlds but he didnt steal any medals off the Aussies anyway, and all our gold came in the pool and none in the diving. None of it changes the fact the Aussies underperformed in Rio, many swam slower times thwn they did 12 months ago, they are not at the age where in 12 months they would be losing 10th of hundreds off their times, they should be improving and getting faster and peaking at the Olympics.

look hopefully no ones asking these guys to get crucified in the sphere of public opinion

but a lot of these guys aren't just getting pbs but are well below even recent performances

and lets face it no one feels worse about it than the atheletes.

All I'm saying is make some enquiries about atheletes mental preparation and how the coaches walked through it with them and compare it to more succesful atheletes to hopefully prevent the atheletes at the next olympics having to feel like this again

Ian Thorpe swam his last personal best in 2002 and Grant Hackett's was in 2001. They trained and competed for years after this, including winning gold medals in 2004, but could never replicate those times. They peaked. Every swimmer does and they can't always control when that happens. Look at Mack Horton at just these games. He swam the race of his life to win gold in the 400. A week later and he's not feeling 100% and he can't fire a shot in his preferred event.

We do need to look at what the Americans do to get better. The first thing I would change is the timing of our trials. But at the end of the day we finished second with 3 gold medals, when coming in that's about where every non Australian expert had us finishing.

Daria Klishina, the only Russian Track & Field athlete not banned because she was based in the US and was regularly tested while training and competeing there with no problems (although was forced to compete under the Olympic flag and not wear her country's colours) has been banned at the last minute, just because she also tested with the Russian system sometimes.

Say what you want about the rest of the Russian team, but this is fucked.

Somewhat relevantly, here's what she looks like:

doesn't sound like australian authorities are saying she'll be right

http://www.couriermail.com.au/sport/olympics-2016/australian-swimming-at-rio-2016--summary-medal-tally-stars-flops-passes/news-story/c189e90c6dea81e26841e57a98db74b9

I can't follow your point? It highlights that we need to make changes to compete with America and the best which no one has denied. They even admit they tried to prove a point by doing well at last years world championships and got their planning wrong and peaked in the wrong year. Then in an article designed to put the boot in it can only find 3 swimmers from our entire team that flopped, 1 of which was due to a massive mistake at the start of her main race. 

Watching kenya vs ethiopia in the long distance is great

What happened to Romania in the gymnastics? Thought they were a powerhouse in it