I think you miss read me Belly. I said all we can ask is their best on the day.

You'd be a fool not to realise there are times when we don't have many "best in the world" this year, or any other year. This is one of them, but I'd be damn proud to be an Olympian, coming home with no medal, if I'd done my best.

Some like the Chinese are putting massive efforts into some sports, especially gymnastics, where they seen to excel, along with diving. We may not see gold in some of these sports again, or only rarely.

I was a young bloke in Margery Jackson's era, & a mates sister took gold at consecutive Olympics in track & field, in that for us golden era. We can't expect these things to go for ever.

So mate you won't find me knocking the competitors, all though, I will not be so kind with many of the officials.

Not harsh Belly the Olympics is a place to show humility and grace under pressure, the competitive spirit, and to represent your country not yourself.

I'm happy with the effort and performance Belly, I'm talking about the attitude that we 'lose' gold medals, rather than recognising that other countries were just better on the day, or better overall.

The athletes like to talk it up big before the event and sook when they lose, and if they don't sook the meeja does it for them.

What is with asking an athlete who has just one a silver Olympic medal 'are you disappointed?'. It's the hight of arrogance to presume the medal is ours before the race, and that it's solely a personal misstep or lame excuse that has allowed the other athlete to beat us.

EVERY athlete must first recognise they were beaten by a better competitor. There is NO room for lame excuses. Just, 'I wasn't good enough today, the opposition was better'. Is that so hard to say?

I think it must be the everyone gets a prize times we live in all this shock and horror that they didn't get a medal for turning up. Life is about the moment, the test, not assessment tasks.

With the attitude of especially the swimmers, it's as if there is no need for the Olympics they should just give the gold to whoever has the best recent lap times.

Winners are grinners and you have to win on the day.

Australia has a reputation of being sore losers. Largely I think its because the media treats them like gods and then spits them out when they are shown to be just humans.We see special treatment given by the courts to our gods.

Hewitt was outstanding in winning a couple of grand slams at a time when so many countries play tennis (unlike previous times). He went from hero to zero in many peoples eyes when he started to lose and have every excuse under the sun. In recent times he has matured and admitted that Federerer, the Joker etc are just to good for him. I think he realises it is only a game of tennis. Some of our track athletes can't make a final but want to be regarded as a Usain Bolt. A little humility might endear themselves to the public.

To be fair HB and hasbeen I think much as you both do.
And not blaming ANY official or coach.
I openly am unhappy with one swimmer who fought to get there, then swam 2 seconds less than his PB, the bloke is trouble.
And the racism claims, held over and maybe true from the games in China?.
Mundane, yes spelling suits the bloke, is a racist.
But we will not ever get the results we once got, now nations put millions in to sport to beat each other again.
We have gold waiting , it will take place this games.
And maybe some who did not make it this time will be our next stars.
I do however think every country, rightly so, is giving more time to its own.

one hundredths of second put Magnussen into second place. That's just so ridiculous to say that he wasn't as good as the its place. He's as deserving of being recognised as just as good.
The sports commentators hyped everything & everyone up so much that most people came to believe that Gold for Australia was just a formality. They are the failures not our competitors.

I think this has been the wake-up call we, our media and our athletes have needed. And I'm mighty proud of those who have won silver or bronze in their events. They may not have been the best in the world on the day, but they have been second- or third-best. That's pretty impressive!

That said, two things have disappointed me, and they're both interlinked.

The first has been the 'sooking over silver'. I understand that, when caught up in the moment, silver can look like failure. Especially when you have trained for years to build up to that one pivotal moment (though in most sports it's one of many pivotal moments over a four-year cycle). But seriously - it takes some arrogance to discount the mere possibility that somebody else might swim that fraction of a second faster than you on the day. It bothers me that many attribute their silver medals to personal failure rather than somebody else's personal triumph.

The second thing that bothers me is the way this has been fuelled by our media. Our swimmers in particular have long been lauded as superstars, so you could almost forgive them for believing their own hype. An interesting article on news.com.au saw our long jump silver medal winner sticking up for the athletes:

http://www.news.com.au/sport/london-olympics/silver-is-not-a-dirty-word-says-australian-olympic-chief-nick-green/story-fndpu6dv-1226443541786

The journalist goes on to tell us that the media has been supportive of our athletes. That's true - they talked them up and talked them up BEFORE the event. Then, after 'failing' to win gold, they dumped them. One headline read 'MISSILE FIZZLES'. The use of the word 'failure' has spiked in recent days. I'm more ashamed of our press than I am of our athletes. I'd be close to tears if I could imagine the headlines 'the morning after'.

Like I said - I think this is the wake-up call we've needed. Not so we can win more gold - rather, so we can celebrate silver in future Olympics, rather than making our athletes feel like abject failures.