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Yeah, I know. And that corrupt ice-dancing is. Go figure.
I suppose it's impressive at times when they don't fall down...
How about cricket or rugby, are those Olympic sports?
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But they'd have loads of opportunity to get the basics - skiing. Here, you can't even get that, unless you live in the east and are fairly well off. And it's a very short season here. Much better chance of someone really good at skiing taking it further in countries like Canada.
I suppose we might have a longer season in southern Ontario (Canada's second-mildest climate) than southern Oz, but Ontario has no real mountains...
If Oz's mountains are any good, then they'd likely offer a more intense skiing/snowboarding experience.
Then again I can't see someone interested in competing in Olympic skiing or snowboarding and not leaving Ontario to train.
I don't suppose New Zealand would let Aussie athletes use their South Island for training?
NZ's South Island looks at least as good as Canada's best (Rocky Mountains), though maybe with a slightly-shorter snow season.
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And then there's the funding, which is probably a bigger reason for success at the Olympics. Australia's sport funding I read somewhere is way more than Canada, and it's pretty much concentrated on summer type sports because there's a bigger pool of talent for that here.
Pretty much all of Canada's Olympic athletes have "day-jobs" if they can't get enough sponsorship, or if they've been successful enough to be asked to do commercials.
Last edited by ColdCanadian; 02-03-2010 at 08:29 AM..
Wow, scary. I've never even heard of the "skeleton" event.
And they still go 130km/h, only skeleton means FACE-FIRST at maybe 10 cm above the ice.
The Can-iwi athlete in the triathalon?
She trains whenever it's above -20 C, with nothing covering her face?!?
I don't think I could do that myself without frostbite. (part of the reason I rarely do winter sports )
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I believe we only have about 12 or so athletes going, still I cannot wait!
I assumed Oceania was fairly under-represented in the Winter Olympics,
so I thought it'd be interesting to draw attention to who is competing.
Well, curling would have the same problem as ice-hockey in this country - a dearth of ice rinks. There's a few in each major city, or maybe less. The whole ice thing just isn't big here, for obvious reasons. Kids learning to skate and playing hockey in backyard or park outdoor rinks is a rite of passage in much of Canada. I doubt there'd be too many spots in Oz that you could turn your hose on your back lawn in winter and get a rink by the next day.
Funny you should mention curling and lawn bowls in the same sentence. I find it weird that curling is an Olympic sport. Lawn bowls should be a summer Olympic sport then.
We had that Alicia Camplin a couple of Games back.
Given that we have an environment where snow and ice sports are a rarity for most Australians, we're not going to have a big pool of competitors to pick from and get into the Olympics.
We shine at the summer Olympics for obvious reasons.
Alisa like Jacqui Cooper was a Freestyle Aerial skier. Not the ski jump, which is spectacular, the only person I can remember is Eddie the Eagle from England. The reason is, that like ice hockey, the dearth of facilities.
I think at most the major cities have two ice rinks and usually they are not up to ice hockey size wise. Not only that you have the problem of getting rink time as figure skaters also need the facilities to train along with the casual skaters who go out for a bit of fun. Unlike Canada and the US where one can just go to the local frozen pond.
Ah lawn bowls and netball, two games that are only seen at the Commonwealth Games which are also this year I believe.
I think at most the major cities have two ice rinks and usually they are not up to ice hockey size wise. Not only that you have the problem of getting rink time as figure skaters also need the facilities to train along with the casual skaters who go out for a bit of fun. Unlike Canada and the US where one can just go to the local frozen pond.
Ah... When I thought "indoor ice-rink",
I automatically envisioned a rink size of about 30 metres wide and 75+ metres long.
How big are Aussie ice-rinks?
Where I live, no "local frozen ponds",
but we have plenty of local indoor rinks, as well as some outdoor rinks with built-in refrigeration.
(in case of mild spells and to extend the season) They are almost as common as public pools here.
Occaisionally someone might put boards up in their backyard and flood it,
sometimes schools too, but that's pretty uncommon in urban areas.
The Acacia Ice Rink hear in Brisbane has a mens ice hockey league, I have never being to it, but its obviously big enough for a game of mens hockey.
Most rinks in Australia are 30 by 60 which is pretty close to being the bare minimum for a game of ice hockey. The other problem is that there only being one or two serviceable rinks you're never going to get the critical mass of players required to play ice hockey to a standard you can make it in the Olympics.
Lack of funding?
It seems to me you don't have to be "good" at a sport to enter Olympic competition;
you are just supposed to be your country's best at that sport.
Lack of funding?
It seems to me you don't have to be "good" at a sport to enter Olympic competition;
you are just supposed to be your country's best at that sport.
lack of funding, lack of facilities, lack of acknowledgement....and the list goes on! What government funding there is gets aimed more at Summer sports. There's just very little interest in the Winter sports and the athletes struggle to be taken seriously.
When it comes to the Winter Olympics. Our "best" often fails in comparison, to the "best" from other countries. We just don't have what it takes, to even qualify for most events.
Last edited by Kangaroofarmer; 02-05-2010 at 07:59 AM..
lack of funding, lack of facilities, lack of acknowledgement....and the list goes on! What government funding there is gets aimed more at Summer sports. There's just very little interest in the Winter sports and the athletes struggle to be taken seriously.
It seems like winter sports are probably more expensive in equipment costs too.
How about in NZ?
It seems to me that the South Island is the kind of place where you can find snow at least 6 months a year;
just depending on how high up in altitude you need to go to find snow.
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