Olympics '08 - the Saddo thread

[OumaFan]

I love the Olympics. I find myself watching gymnastics and thinking why are you watching gymnastics. But its the Olympics, its like gymnastics actually matters.

[Chris Nagel]

Who are the boxers on the USA team?

[amat]

Raushee Warren is probably the most talented on the US team, but the best chance for gold is Demetrius Andrade imo. Though Warren caught a big break being a division above Zou Shiming who at this point is pretty close to a lock for gold. Not sure who the main competition is now since he moved up in weight.

Andrade won the world championships at welterweight, fairly easily he beat a Thai opponent in the finals who at the time was 1 in the world and he pretty well handled him.

Gary Russel Jr., Raynell Williams, Javier Molina, Sadam Ali round out the squad and there are a couple other's who's names I forget.

[Chris Nagel]

Looking forward to Andrade, he's always looking for an opportunity to excite.

[CutMeMick]

I love the Olympics....

Love them try to watch all the televised events.

[Youngblood]

Our countries boxing system and sport(other then hockey) is so terrible and poor I don't forsee us making any kind of impression in boxing. At one time the city I lived in was a hotbed for boxing and produced many of the nations best boxers who competed regularly and well internationally. Due to a lack of funding it all but totally died. Only came back some 6-7 years ago raised by the hopes of a few older local boxers, who cared to get back in shape and maybe keep some kids off the street in a city now plagued with crime.

It has to be run as a non-profit organization just to survive, and say out of that there are some fighters like myself who happen to have a bit of ability and a dream at going to higher places with it...well there is zero support from city, from province, and from country in getting there. We raise every bit of money ourselves, and often cannot afford to travel to major tournaments, or have the expenses to put shows on to get the experience and fights we need here. This goes for many of our sports in our country.

It's embarrassing that a country of our standing economically has such little pride in its athletes that Olympic athletes going to Bejing are going door to door with their friends and families, raising money so they can actually do the trip. That private donation boxes are set up at cash registers for the citizens to contribute to 'keep the dream alive'.

Those athletes from our country that do get there, they overcame some serious odds making it through a broken system with next to no help from our government.

I love Canada, but a giant sized FU to our government for how it treats its athletes.