DFL

Celebrating last-place finishes at the Olympics. Because they're there, and you're not.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Results for Wednesday, August 20

A comparatively quiet day, medals-wise.

Athletics: In the women's hammer throw qualifying round on Monday, 17-year-old Galina Mityaeva of Tajikistan met her Dr. Horrible in group A, with a best throw of 51.38 metres. Only one other competitor was under 60 metres; the gold medallist's best result in the final was 76.34. Three athletes had no mark. In round one of the men's 200 metre, the slowest time came in heat five: Juan Zeledon of Nicaragua, 22, had a time of 23.39 seconds; the gold medallist's freaky-fast record time in the final was 19.3 seconds. There were three DNSes and one DNF in the heats. The first round of the women's 400-metre hurdles was held on Sunday. Galina Pedan had the only time in excess of a minute; the 25-year-old Krygyz athlete's time was 1:00.31, compared to the 52.64 second-time put in by the gold medallist in the final.

Sailing: In the men's RS:X, Colombian sailor Santiago Grillo, 21, was 35th. In the women's RS:X, 34-year-old Sedef Koktenturk of Turkey was 27th.

Swimming: In the women's 10-km marathon, 16-year-old Antonella Bogarin of Argentina finished 24th. Her time of 2:11:35.9 was 12:08.2 behind the gold medallist; she and one other swimmer were considerably behind the main pack. There was also one DNF, who I really hope was fished out.

Synchronized swimming: In the duet event, the Egyptian team of Dalia El Gebaly, 26, and Reem Abdalazem, 25, was 24th in both the preliminary and technical rounds, and did not advance to the final.

Standings to date: Colombia, Turkey, Egypt and Argentina add their third DFLs, Nicaragua and Tajikistan their second.

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2 Comments:

  • At 2:22 PM, August 20, 2008 , Anonymous Philip Brown, the Brit said...

    Hello there, despite being British I am a regular visitor to your quite unprecedented website.

    I say despite being British as currently the British media is uber-excited about riding high in the medals table (3rd - I know North America uses another one which has us 4th.) but moreover it is (justifiably!) excited about beating the Aussies as I'm sure you may be if you were fortunate enough to. Perhaps this BBC blog http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/olympics/2008/08/britains_cycling_succcess_is_i.html - where they are clearly trying to suit their public service remit of being neutral - shows the animosity the table generates for the public.

    I also earlier said "despite being British" as the issue of DFL does not seem to be affecting our nation at the moment. However, I've never liked the sense of "we must beat x y & z" (except Australia I grant - a bit of friendly rivalry is OK it's the nastiness I don't like) that you described with Canada and Togo a few days ago.

    This British success has led to a lot of talk about the medal table, with this mainly being centered around people saying it should be changed, from the European system of listing by Gold, then Silver then Bronze.

    I've often agreed with this, it's unfair for people like Armenia currently - 5 Bronze and nothing else, leaving them in 69th. The North American system is far better as it promotes them to 26th. Incredibly some complain about the North American system as it relegates us.

    I personally like the system but would prefer if we would all adopt a 3 points for Gold, 2 for Silver and 1 for Bronze as it puts more priority on winning.

    Back to the Aussies though, they want it to be based on medals per capita. Meanwhile British broadcaster channel 4 backs them up with this interactive medal table. http://c4news.com/livepages/olympics2008/c4/olympicsResults.html

    As a seasoned expert in medal tables (clearly as you were so upset you are going at great lengths to create your own) which medal table other than your own would you tell the IOC to introduce?

    I look forward to a fascinating response on your riveting website!

     
  • At 2:31 PM, August 20, 2008 , Blogger mcwetboy said...

    If the argument is that a system in which a country with one silver should be ranked higher than a country with five bronzes is unfair, yes, that's something I could agree with. I'd much prefer the method that counts medals, full stop, then breaks ties by their colour.

    It's interesting that the ranking systems being proposed always end up going back to self-interest -- it's not which is most fair, but which makes us look best. Typical. Then again, with Jamaica in play, Australia actually drops one place in the per capita standings.

     

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