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alphabobjohn

Listed below are comments made by alphabobjohn between Wednesday, 20th August 2008 and Tuesday, 26th August 2008.

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The hidden Olympic effort 03:47am on 26 Aug 2008 Good point Nick - credit where it's due - to Australia's talented exports. It's worth mentioning the positions held by Australians back in the UK and Europe in peak art institutions.
GB pedal-powers to success 12:26pm on 20 Aug 2008 It's sport, banter, rivalry... not nationalism, jingoism or invective. Neither Australians or Brits have any true national identity. I kind of pity Chris Hoy, the flying Scotsman - for the price of winning three gold medals in cycling he has been forced to sing God Save The Queen. Three times. It's a bit like having an Anzac Olympic team and forcing the Kiwis to sing Advance Australia Fair. It wouldn't happen.

The problem with Australian sport generally, I'll always attest, is their media - they attract a mixture of laughter and loathing from all quarters, in all sports. Spend a Thursday in front of the Footy Show and just marvel. They're unashamedly biased. In England, the media is robust and objective (almost to a fault you might say Nick); but they're informed. You'd never get a British achore - as Channel Seven have - asking what would happen to the 800m should it rain.

In Australia they've never gotten over Bradman, they've basked for so long in the rays of sporting success that failure has come to be considered as 'un-Australian'. Look at players like Mike Hussey who had to wait till his 30s to get into the national cricket side. England, in all sports, have dropped to such unbelievable depths in the past, that anything above average is applauding as the work of the Gods. But sport in England is about teams, individuals, participation, the moment, the glory, the resolve.

In Australia, it's always been about winning. Remember Prime Minister John Howard's graceless gesture when he rushed handing out England's World Cup winners medals in the 2003 RWC final - that was a Prime Minister. And he was speaking for a nation. Losing on Australian soil was, after all, a very 'un-Australian' thing to do.
Losing to the Brits 03:29am on 20 Aug 2008 Australians have no excuse for blaming their smaller population for underachieving in the Olympics - maybe they should increase the baby bonus, or start picking up the immigration intake - they've probably got a huge pool of Olympic track talent locked up in one of their detention centres... failing that, maybe they should start investing seriously in Aboriginal sport, instead of shelling out cash to their elite sporting institutes. How many black Australians competed in Beijing again?
Losing to the Brits 02:45am on 20 Aug 2008 Anyone who lived here during the RWC 2003 (and 2007) and the Ashes 2005, will know that the Australians still look on these victories more as an abberation than a sign that the auld enemy had picked it's game up. Good to see the British Olympians ramming it home.

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