Gāman Paddy!
Thanks for the updates, great win by the sounds of it.
Great stuff by Barnes. Made shit of the Pole who barely hit him in the last 2 rounds
3 of us here in work watching it. Class stuff. Brilliant. Great boxing by Paddy Barnes. Never heard of him before last week but can state now Iām his #1 fan now.
IRELAND IRELAND IRELAND IRELAND IRELAND
What stage of the competition was that in lads?
Quarters.
Barnes is excellent, very accurate. Prone to a few haymakers now and then but heās through. Definite gold in this fella.
Katie Taylor not looking half bad there-wouldnāt mind looking at her box! Ahem.
Katies no a bad looking bird, but jaysus sheās rough.
Great win for Paddy. Boxed cute enough, held on at the right times but didnāt stand back from the pole either. A lesser boxer would have tried to hide in the last round but he was still looking to land punches. Fair play to the lad.
Chinese lad is through to face him in the semi-final. Didnāt look unbeatable but heās world champion so must be decente anyway.
Barnes seems to be a great little boxer. Heās a bundle of energy and gets stronger through his fights.
The scoring system baffles me - most of the time when I thought a scoring shot had been landed nothing happens and then points are scored for what look to me like nothing shots. When barrages of punches are being thrown its totally inadequate because three judges have to count a shot within one second. Barnes threw about seven punches at the start of one of the rounds and I donāt think any of them scored.
Katie Taylor comes across as a bit slow to me. Talks like sheās stoned.
[quote=āsid waddellā]
Katie Taylor comes across as a bit slow to me. Talks like sheās stoned.[/quote]
Few too many belts to the head maybe.
[quote=āsid waddellā]
Katie Taylor comes across as a bit slow to me. Talks like sheās stoned.[/quote]
Its the norm out in Bray, donāt worry!
Barnes is still only 20 too. Irish Senior champ since he was 18. Could go for London 2012 if heās not lured into pro. Egan is in for a great shout too.
any one else think our Olypics participation is fairly pathetic? I mean, for the amount of sports that is in the olympics, we are shite every year at it, and only get one or 2 medals at most without any drug implications after the last 2 winners (Waterford Crystal and Michelle Smith). The medal table makes interesting reading, especially some of the small countries at the bottom with fook all money or sports programs.
Togo, Tajikstan, Panama, Mongolia, Finland etc. Iād like to see a medals table comparison with population too, as I know that is one argument people love throwing out, ah sure, we are only a small country, we dont have the population.
A quick search for that showed me the medal haul per popluation at Sydney games, and kind of proves the point. Even in comparitave terms, Australia has about 4/5 times our population at about 20m, yet they win heaps of medals.
Oh, and before I forget, fair play to Barnes for a great bout. good to see him win well, hopefully can go on and claim a gold.
[quote=āGmanā]any one else think our Olypics participation is fairly pathetic? I mean, for the amount of sports that is in the olympics, we are shite every year at it, and only get one or 2 medals at most without any drug implications after the last 2 winners (Waterford Crystal and Michelle Smith). The medal table makes interesting reading, especially some of the small countries at the bottom with fook all money or sports programs.
Togo, Tajikstan, Panama, Mongolia, Finland etc. Iād like to see a medals table comparison with population too, as I know that is one argument people love throwing out, ah sure, we are only a small country, we dont have the population.
A quick search for that showed me the medal haul per popluation at Sydney games, and kind of proves the point. Even in comparitave terms, Australia has about 4/5 times our population at about 20m, yet they win heaps of medals.
Oh, and before I forget, fair play to Barnes for a great bout. good to see him win well, hopefully can go on and claim a gold.[/quote]
Think it was John Treacy on the radio the other morning and he asked the Irish public not to be slaggin our athletes as Ireland have done way better than expected (his words). Pure crap really.
Although you could say, just on the countries youāve named there (Togo, Panam etc) donāt have their own native games, arenāt strong at soccer or rugby so less competition there.
Still think our medal haul is crap though.
Chinese lad hasnāt lost any fight since 2005. Paddy Barnes fought him in November in World championships and the Chinese lad beat him 22-8.
Ya never know though.
[quote=āGmanā]any one else think our Olypics participation is fairly pathetic? I mean, for the amount of sports that is in the olympics, we are shite every year at it, and only get one or 2 medals at most without any drug implications after the last 2 winners (Waterford Crystal and Michelle Smith). The medal table makes interesting reading, especially some of the small countries at the bottom with fook all money or sports programs.
Togo, Tajikstan, Panama, Mongolia, Finland etc. Iād like to see a medals table comparison with population too, as I know that is one argument people love throwing out, ah sure, we are only a small country, we dont have the population.
A quick search for that showed me the medal haul per popluation at Sydney games, and kind of proves the point. Even in comparitave terms, Australia has about 4/5 times our population at about 20m, yet they win heaps of medals.
Oh, and before I forget, fair play to Barnes for a great bout. good to see him win well, hopefully can go on and claim a gold.[/quote]
Gman - out of interest, how did Finland end up in that list??
Finland are a very good comparison with us. They have their own native games and they excel at plenty of winter sports. Add to that the fact that their soccer history is roughly on a par with ours. And now go look at their Olympics history.
They have 295 Summer Olympics medals compared to our 20. They have another 150 odd winter medals to add to that.
Our boxing record in the Olympics is very good. Apart from that weāre abysmal.
[quote=ātherock67ā]Finland are a very good comparison with us. They have their own native games and they excel at plenty of winter sports. Add to that the fact that their soccer history is roughly on a par with ours. And now go look at their Olympics history.
They have 295 Summer Olympics medals compared to our 20. They have another 150 odd winter medals to add to that.
Our boxing record in the Olympics is very good. Apart from that weāre abysmal.[/quote]
Was in Helsinki earlier this summer for a week. its miles ahead of anything this country has in terms of technology or infrastructure. In sporting terms - their biggest sports stars are arguably car drivers. The main national sport is ice hockey (apparently theres huge rivalry between Sweden, Russia and Finland) and they export most of their best soccer players (Litmanin, Kuqi, Hypia etc.)
The facilities they would have within the country for professional athletes or any discipline are light years ahead of what we have.
as Rocko points out in his post, they are a country comparable to ours, but are so much better. They have a massive interest in Ice hockey and other winter sports, a huge motorsport following, but yet still more than hold their own at the summer olympics.
Were you trying to get at the point that most of the other countries are unrecognisable, but yet we know about Finland? Reason they were last is coz I was working my way from bottom up of the medals table list and they are already after winning a few medals this year.