London 2012 - Track & Field/Athletics

These athletes are just so inspiring. Not just our amazing Brits...but all of them. As other have mentioned, when I think about our overpaid, egotistical pampered Premier league footballers - it kind of leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. No footballer, even taking a penalty in the final minute to win something, experiences the kind of pressure that these guys go through. Hours and hours and hours of painful training, hurting to reach a dream. So dam inspiring....

I'm not a patriot as such, I mean I'm not a flag waving junky, but I make absolute no excuse or apology at all for feeling a huge surge of pride in GB over this Olympics. These guys have worked so dam hard for this. It's a bloody brilliant games, we really have put on a great show and we should feel really proud of that. Our Olympians WANT us to feel patriotic, they are.....that is part of what drives them, so yeah....I'm waving the paper union jack my five year old drew for me....and loving it....
 
Big up Michael Johnson for getting so into that too. He looks like he's riding Colin Jackson's seat. He's been a great Beeb pundit over the last few of years. Hopefully he'll be doing this again by tonight.

 
Disagree that footballers don't experiences the kind of pressure that these guys go through. Taking a penalty in a World Cup final is as big a pressure moment that you can get in sport.
 
I think the BBC have done a great job in picking the pundits for the Olympics from Ian Thorpe to Mark Cavendish and as you say Michael Johnson. Shame it can't be like this for the football. During the athletics last night I switched over to BBC3 to see how Team GB were getting on, you had Martin Keown, Robbie Savage and Mark Lawrenson on commentary.
 
DixieDean said:
Disagree that footballers don't experiences the kind of pressure that these guys go through. Taking a penalty in a World Cup final is as big a pressure moment that you can get in sport.
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I'd go as far to say that top level footballers are under more pressure than athletes, they live their entire professional lives under the microscope.

For athletes like Ennis and Daley who the media have adopted for years: yes they are under a very lot of pressure and the weight of that expectation definitely affected Adlington and probably Daley too, which is why my admiration for Ennis is through the roof.

For the majority of British athletes who we have scarcely heard of before the Olympics: they only have the eyes of the country and world on them for the briefest of moments and the fact remains that home advantage largely inspires rather than burdens athletes. That is applicable in all sports.
 
Jimy_Hills_Chin said:
James Corden won the 2012 Tony award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play for his role in 'One Man, Two Guvnors'. The Tonys are the Oscars for theatre and he beat Frank Langella, Philip Seymour Hoffman, James Earl Jones and John Lithgow to the award.

I saw a clip from the play and it was highly impressive, you might not like him but some more important people than you certainly do.
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I also thought 'One Man, Two Guvnors' looked shit. Although I'm willing to concede that some people, certainly more important than me, probably liked it.

Rah rah rah!
 
Jimy_Hills_Chin said:
I'd go as far to say that top level footballers are under more pressure than athletes, they live their entire professional lives under the microscope.

For athletes like Ennis and Daley who the media have adopted for years: yes they are under a very lot of pressure and the weight of that expectation definitely affected Adlington and probably Daley too, which is why my admiration for Ennis is through the roof.

For the majority of British athletes who we have scarcely heard of before the Olympics: they only have the eyes of the country and world on them for the briefest of moments and the fact remains that home advantage largely inspires rather than burdens athletes. That is applicable in all sports.
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A lot of these athletes will have been training and working hard for 4 years, with the main focus being on winning a medal at these Olympic games. If they don't perform in their one chance, then not only was it all for nothing, but they could potentially lose all of their future funding and sponsorship money. Footballers sign 4-year, multimillion pound contracts, then can pick up an injury and sit on the physios bench for a year, still receiving a huge wage.

The pressure on these athletes to perform at these games is huge. It's not just about media coverage and expectations.
 
Last night was magical, just a shame in my eyes that some people feel the need to always have pop at football. Why can we not just enjoy the moment and not use it to put down another sport? It happens like clockwork, be it the rugby world cup or the ashes in '05, it's an odd British phenomenon.
 
Does anyone know when and what time the 100M final is?
 
Semi's 19.45 (GMT)

Final 21.50 (GMT)
 
Cheers. Edited now. :)
 
I have a theory that Bolt is making out he's in bad form, and 'injured'. When in reality, he's smashing it in training, and gonna come out tonight and destroy the world record.
 
Said yesterday but I still think it'll be Bolt, Gatlin and Blake to pick up the medals.

Reckon Gatlin for Bronze an not sure on the other 2.
 
I think Blake will win gold.
 
I'll be interested to see if the French lad gets sub-10 seconds again. The only white guy to ever do it.

But we all want the world record smashed again. I'm getting giddy already!
 
Bolt is amazing.

He could be even better if he was more serious not that he isn't now.Those who have read up on him will know what I mean.

An amazing natural athlete.
 
Erm, anyone saw that Turkish athlete false start at the hurdles heat? Wasn't even a close one, she took off just after the announcer said "set". Bit shady that.
 
Yay- here we go.
 
kps88 said:
Erm, anyone saw that Turkish athlete false start at the hurdles heat? Wasn't even a close one, she took off just after the announcer said "set". Bit shady that.
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Was quite funny, wasnt even like they had been set for a bit and she tried to judge it to get an advantage, she just went as soon as they were set, she looked more embarressed than anything when they dq'ed her
 
Holy shit, I thought Powell was going to win the 100m. He might not even go through now!
 
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