He wont be happy until he gets the gold, thats what makes true Olympians!!

Typical Irish response. Somebody else did well-now we have a reason to go on the lash. Will this attitude we have to drink ever chance? No wonder we are the joke of Europe.

Michelle, who said anything about alcohol?

Michelle, stop talking through your hoop. You’ve just trolled through nearly every article in the past hour on the journal.

Oh dear Michelle, must be you with drink on the brain for introducing the subject on a section of the thread where the original poster never mentioned it. Bet you’re scarlet now…

I’m so proud of all the Irish and other Olympians, their joy and enthusiasm is so infectious, thank you one and all. I for one am not ashamed to raise a glass to all of them.

Sure does. And when you have to beat the best in the world to earn a place on an inter-county GAA team before the match ever starts, in open competition against players from all over the world who’ve trained their whole life for the competition, then you’ll have a point worth making…

Mark, my point (whether worth making or not) is not that we should have a villification campaign for anyone who didn’t win a medal. Its that intolerance of any negative comment makes any praise pretty hollow when its really deserved.
Everybody is always terrific regardless of how well or badly they do? May as well have the welcome home celebration before the Olympics so.

I think a congratulations for just having qualified would be in order, and maybe a broad commitment to better funding and support in future would be more appropriate, personally. We’re talking about our Olympians, our finest athletes, whether they medalled or not. They represented us extremely well and deserve a massive cheer for that. Now, hopefully we’ll see a tenfold increase in the pathetic level of sports funding, a revision of the funding mechanisms and some real investment in sport at a level where it will produce a healthy competitive field over the next decade or so.

If you’re making an informed negative comment, that’d be one thing. But this constant crap – and it’s not just posters here, it’s in the press as well – where we decry athletes with absolutely no contextual information or for that matter, knowledge of their acheivements; that’s not on.

Hell, read the Indo today. You have Cliona Foley ranking athletes as successful or not; but I *know* she doesn’t know what she’s on about with half their sports, because I’m the person she called during the Athens game to ask about clay pigeon (she even got the wrong governing body). But there she is, dumping over half the modern pentathlon team and our clay pigeon shooter, both of whom have exceeded what any reasonable person could have expected of them. That kind of thing is just not on; it’s not analysis, it’s not informed comment, it’s just slinging mud because it’s easier and faster to try to tear something down than it is to learn about it so you could actually write something worth reading.

Mark,
You’re right, I’m not particularly well informed about the efforts and circumstances of many of the athletes.
My point is much more general and not targeted at any individual athletes or events – universal praise regardless of performance is meaningless.
I see that you care a lot about this and certainly a lot more than I do and I’m not trying to rile you or anyone (this time!) so I’m backing away……

The point, Gagsy, is that performance meriting Olympic qualification is worthy of praise.

Your a roy keaner

Seamus they don’t get large amounts of taxpayers money. The GAA gets more from the ISC than most of the Olympic sports get *put together*. Hell, some Olympic sports don’t get any funding at all. And they’re going out there to compete against people who are properly supported, who don’t have a shambles of an administrative organisation and who get promoted by the media instead of ignored or lambasted.

And if you think that getting into the top 100, let alone the top 30, *worldwide* in an Olympic sport is easy, then you’re sorely mistaken. There’s not one person on that flight back today who’s not done everyone proud. They competed against the best in the world and more than held their own. They trained in obscurity, without funding or facilities, for *years* to be able to do so. And when they got there, they dealt with enormous pressure, with competition that had all the advantages they didn’t, and in at least one case, ignored injury to give their all on that stage.

Not justifying the pittance spent on them?

You don’t know what you’re talking about.

How bout you qualify for the Olympics & we can all be sarcastic towards your achievements then too?

It’s also about being there and taking part John, how many Olympics have you been in????

Boom!!!!!! Best comeback I have seen on this in a long time Lynn. Well played

Jaysus Tracey, give it a rest allready…

Yeah ,and anyone that thinks Enda Kenny is doing a poor job can shut up until they’ve been elected to the office of taoiseach.

Under no circumstances should anyone say anything critical about anyone unless thay are at least as successful as them.

I bet that was copy and pasted from Roy Keanes twitter, only him could be such a degenerate.

Jaysus John, you are a miserable auld sod.

John, WUM’ing again yet but not responding to the massive holes punched straight through his arguments.
“Only the boxers can be pleased?” What about Cian O’Connor’s medal?
Only in Ireland do you get “…….the ones “delighted” with 9th place, or “proud” of 57th place,”, however on BBC coverage there were plenty of Team GB athletes in the same boat. The walker that finished dead last who was happy just to finish the course springs to mind. Many other athletes from many other countries are the same.

A bad Olympics you claim this to be for Ireland yet on the per capita medal table we’ve finished ahead of GB, USA, China, Russia, Germany and France…….those who are considered a success apparently.
John if you think the primary focus of the Olympic movement is to win medals then you have missed the point entirely. The mission statement of the Olympics itself is: “It’s not the winning but that taking part that matters”. This Irish team was full on young athlete, many of whom are competing for the first time, many of whom were not happy with their performance but the experience will stand to then in Rio and in the Boxers, Heffernan, Murphy, Natalya Coyne, McMahon, Murphy 2, Nocher we have some great medal prospects for Rio. Throw into that the golfers and the women’s 7′s rugby team and we may be on course to break our medal record in 4 years time. Congrats to the Team and the supporters for representing the country with style and grace over the past couple of weeks. They are very much welcome home as heroes.

Check out these Thai kids singing with passion about Katie Taylor: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YB3pzhbCh9Y

You don’t have to be amongst the best in the world to compete in a sack race…

“Its not all about taking part its about winning.”

If you caught the opening ceremony you’ll have seen that it was said quite prominently that the reverse is true. If you don’t agree with this fundamental aspect to the olympics I suggest you refuse to participate when you are selected.