Commonwealth Games

[mrbojangles]

Found this site, to keep up with the Medals for the Commonwealth Games. Click on the country and it breaks down into the disciplines and what medals have been won.

http://www.melbourne2006.com.au/Schedule+and+Results/Medals

I was amazed to see that Australia only won one (able bodied) Gold medal in the Men's Swimming, the 4x100m Medley Relay. A sport that Aus usually dominate??

[sadman]

I find it very interesting that the Australian women are a country mile ahead of the rest of the Commonwealth. I know that Oz places greater emphasis on sport in general, and the climate must have a lot to do with it, but are there cultural influences in relation to the staggering success of the Aussie women athletes?

Also, many of us Brits are amazed at how well we're doing. I don't know what's causing it, but keep it going!

[chumbles]

I think one of the factors for the home nations doing so well is we habe adopted a newish selection process, BBC done a documentary about it last week and rather than just let the youngsters pick which sport they want to compete in they are now handpicked for specific sports. At a relatively young age, I think, pretty much all school children are measured and weighed to find out which sport there physique is most suited to. This selection process has been sucessful for Germany and the USA and we are already seeing some sucess with our young athletes in Melbourne, it will be the 2012 olympics before we see how sucessfull the process has been but its looking up! (apart from our spritners)