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boknows34

Listed below are comments made by boknows34 between Friday, 15th August 2008 and Wednesday, 12th August 2009.

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Seven sports seek Olympic love 8:00pm on 12 Aug 2009 #83 and #84.

Once again just because a sport gets virtually zero coverage in Britain does not mean it doesn't exist worldwide.

How many countries play baseball or softball? Well, more than play rugby for a start. Softball has just under 130 countries in the ISAF. Baseball has 112 nations in the IBAF. Rugby has 96 full members in the IRB. I wish people would take the blinkers off when it comes to looking at these sports. The IOC look at it from a world perspective, not one from a British point of view.

Now I'm not advocating baseball and softball as Olympic sports as I think baseball is hurt that it clashes with the MLB season and has so far refused to send its best players. I'm also not a fan of adding more teams sports as the IOC insist on keeping a limit on 10,500 athletes for the entire Games. That's probably why baseball are proposing to scale it back to 8 teams. Softball has a better chance as the IOC are advocating more women.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Softball_Federation

Cuba have won 3 of the 5 Olympic baseball tournaments and two silver medals so I'm sure they'd be surprised to hear that only USA play it and to a lesser extent Japan, Sth Korea and Puerto Rico. Japan after all are the two-time World Baseball Classic champs and Korea the Olympic Champs. Venezuela and the Dominican Rep with its MLB superstars like Albert Pujols and Johan Santana will also be stunned. MLB rosters are loaded with Hispanics from Central and South America. Surely the IOC would love to get these countries more involved. Holland and Italy also have professional leagues while Australia have some pretty good talent breaking through into MLB rosters.

As for why they call it the World Series? No idea. Why does UEFA call it the Champions League when most of the teams in the group stages are not actully champions of their respective leagues. England, Spain and Italy send 16 teams into the Champions League. Only 3 of them can actually call themselves champions.

Squash gets my vote. No to golf and remove football and tennis too.
Big moment for Rio and Chicago 07:46am on 15 Jun 2009 #4

Who else will even have a baseball team? I think Sth Korea might. After all they are the defending Olympic champions. Dominican Rep, Venezuela and Puerto Rico also have incredibly strong teams. The problem fot the sport like Mihir Bose said is that they don't send their best players to the Olympics as the MLB season runs from April to October and therefore always clashes with the Summer Games. Football and basketball don't have that problem.

And basketball is far more competitive than some Olympic sports like table tennis where China totally dominate. Spain are still the world champions and pushed the USA very hard in Beijing. You also forget that Argentina won in 2004.
Seven sports seek Olympic love 7:36pm on 27 Mar 2009 Mr TimF

Why is it a travesty to have handball?

It is a very popular sport in mainland Europe (just like basketball) and certainly has a bigger following there than rugby and cricket. It is also played in Sth America, Africa and Asia and is an established Olympic Sport.

Some posters have to be reminded that the Olympics cater for a worldwide audience and not just a British one.
Let the great G.O.A.T debate commence! 11:58am on 18 Aug 2008 Pointless trying to compare them both. There will never be a definitive answer.

However some of the comments here against Phelps and swimming in general are incredibly naive and ignorant.

I'd rather sit back, watch and appreciate two great sportsmen rather than argue an unwinable argument.

I'm afraid reading this blog does nothing to dispel what the Aussies say about the British. The glass does seem to be half empty in this country.
Phelps 100m away from matching Spitz's magnificent seven 07:15am on 16 Aug 2008 Well he's now matched Spitz with 7 golds. Phelps with 5 individual golds has actually gone one better than Spitz who won 4 individual events in 1972.

No matter what happens in the medley relay, Phelps' performance is even greater than Spitz with that extra individual gold imo.
Phelps 100m away from matching Spitz's magnificent seven 01:21am on 16 Aug 2008 No doubt at all that Coventry has been nurtured in the NCAA but she's still a born and bred Zimbabwean who has gone to the USA to maximise her potential. Her parents still live under Mugabe's regime.

The same can be said for track stars Frankie Fredericks of Namibia and Maria Mutola of Mozambique leaving home for the NCAA.

So far at these Games I have seen Germany with a Syrian swimmer and a Mongolian shooter. On the flipside Togo had a French canoeist while all the Qatar runners are Kenyan. At least Coventry is representing her country.
Phelps 100m away from matching Spitz's magnificent seven 00:17am on 16 Aug 2008 There will never be a consensus 'Greatest Olympian' ever.

The only thing we can do is put Redgrave, Owens, Nuurmi, Blankers-Koen, Spitz, Lewis, Phelps and a few others like Aladar Gerevich (7 gold from 1932-60) and Birgit Fischer-Schmidt (won gold in each of 6 Games from 1980-2004) in a class by themselves.

Greatest Games Ever: If Phelps gets 8 then yes you can say he had the greatest performance ever at one Games. Spitz, Lewis and Owens are the best 'Games performances' we have seen so far.

Greatest Individual Moment: Comeneci getting the first perfect 10, Bob Beamon's long jump and Michael Johnson's 19.32 for me are the best 'one-off individual performances'.
Phelps 100m away from matching Spitz's magnificent seven 11:55pm on 15 Aug 2008
Sorry but I can't hold my tongue anymore. The ignorance towards swimming is beyond belief. Phelps will have to cure cancer before some people here give him the credit. If he was British he'd be the greatest thing since sliced bread.

andimc: A joke that there are different events??Every sport has different events. Skiing has slalom, giant slalom, super G, downhill and the combined event. Look at the shooting events in Beijing and you will see rifle and pistol events at various distances 10m, 25m and 50m along with trap and skeet events.

Each event is very specialised in those sports but there is nothing to stop a competitor from competing in and winning them all. Phelps has to spread his training across all 4 strokes and distances from 100m to 400m and therefore has less time to dedicate himself to each event. THAT'S why his achievements are so remarkable.

Kitajima specialises in the breaststroke, Piersol is strictly a backstroker. They can concentrate all their efforts into just one stroke and two events at 100 and 200m. Phelps is truly world class at 3 strokes and the medley over 100, 200 and 400m.

Of the individual events he is not competing in, he's the 3rd fastest ever at 100 free and 200 back and the fifth fastest ever at 100 back without really taking the time to train for them properly. When you look at his 200 free and 400 medley times there is no doubt he would dominate the 400 free as well if there were 36 hours per day and 10 days per week.

Winning the medley events in swimming is the equivalent of the decathlon in that you have to be a great all-rounder. Phelps has now won both medley events in two Olympics. Only ONE other swimmer in history has done the 'double-double' - Tamas Darnyi - and he never competed in the individual events let alone dominate them.

What Phelps is doing is the equivalent of winning the decathlon then going out and winning some of the individual events. It would be like Daley Thompson also winning the long jump - then doing it again 4 years later.

How is the standard in swimming poor? So far 10 countries have won gold and 17 have won medals - from every continent on this planet. Swimmers from Brazil, Slovenia, Zimbabwe and Korea have all been on the medal rostrum. Its a world sport and hugely demanding and competitive.

Ian Thorpe, who many believed to the best swimmer ever until Phelps arrived, said breaking Spitz's record of 7 Olympic golds was 'impossible'.

As great a swimmer Thorpe was strictly a freestyler. He tried backstroke and medley but wasn't that good. Thorpedo was Olympic champion 5 times - 3 in individual events and 2 relays over 2 Olympics.

Phelps has 12 Olympic gold and counting - 8 of them individual - and he still has London 2012 to come too.

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