Whilst true, you have to wonder how GB would do, we only had 70ish million in the region last census...

Yes it was kind of sad really. Nothing worked for the British, and after Netherlands scored 4 goals in 10 minutes, they weren't looking very happy anymore. Ah well, guess the judges should've let us win the gold in dressage earlier today .

Anyway, I hope both our women and men's teams win the gold in hockey tomorrow and saturday against Argentina and Germany respectively. Would be pretty awesome.

Well done Servet Tazegul! Gold in taekwondo for turkey :D

Silver to Alison/Emanuel (beach volleyball) for Brazil.

I was counting with Gold this time but the duo made a mistake in tiebreak.

Yes, I've been following women's football over the past two decades and it's fun to follow the development of national teams in this sport. Currently France, Canada are catching up to the leading countries USA, Japan, Germany and Brazil, the once top female football nations Sweden and Norway are falling behind a bit atm it seems. It's also interesting to see that South European countries which are huge in men's football (Spain, Italy, Portugal) and important Middle and South American football nations like Mexico and Argentina still don't play a real role in women's football (a female German football national player once said there's a simple reason for this: These are macho countries).

The US team is the only one that was on top all of the past 21 years. Only Germany came close (Olympics not counted), but still not close enough.

Mia Hamm was the dominating player of the 90s. After her retirement Germany's Birgit Prinz became the women's football superstar and today it's Brazil's Marta (who still needs to win a big title to really be considered a legend like Hamm, Prinz or Wambach).

Also: Hope Solo is the sexiest goalkeeper ever. What a name, what a beauty. http://tinyurl.com/cdonk6f

Up to the heady heights of 38th in the medal table. Katie Taylor is amazing.

huh? why not? we are discussing how rules would limit a country's ability to win more medals, are we not?

besides, even by your rule, the case of table tennis is still exactly the same. In 2004, every country was allowed to have 3 players for men and women's single, two teams for men, women and mixed double, which was a maximum of 12 athletes and 12 medals for a country, a powerhouse like China was fully capable of contend for all 12 medals. In 2008 the double matches were replaced by team match, each country could only have 1 team of 3 players, so it was a maximum of 8 athletes and 8 medals per country; this year the rule changed again, each country is only allowed to have 2 players for men and women's sginle and 1 team for each gender, which is a maximum of 6 athletes and 6 medals per country, so by reducing the amount of athletes allowed in the competition, China effectively lost 6 potential medals permanantely comapres to 8 years ago.

cycling also ristriced the number of athelets allowed to compete, hence limiting stronger country's chance to win more medals, how are they not the same?

Been pretty awesome so far. Im hanging for the mens marathon. The womens was pretty awesome, the Russian ran a nice PB to come third. Great stuff.

In cycling you now have to have ONE person competing in the singles events. The Chinese are still allowed to have multiple compeyitors doing the same events. For it to be the same, China would have to enter only one member of the team into mens single competitions. One team in doubles. Etc. Its similar, but its not the same.

The way I see it... Both China and GB have been held back. For unknown reasons too. Why not limit USA in Swimming and Athletic events if they do it to other dominating countries in certain events?

ah, I see, but on the other hand, cycling offers way more medals than table tennis, which only has 4 gold right now, at the rate this is going, give them a couple more games and they probably really will limit it to 1 player per country, maybe badmington as well.

and you're also right about swimming and athletics, earlier today I was looking at the medal tally for taekwondo and just realised how bad Korea was doing, obviously Korea does not have a single athlete to compete for quite a few divisions because they felt the new rule worked against them too much so they just quitted, really a shame that the heartland and birthcountry of the sport has to suffer, while swimmers and sprinters from US and Jamaica are swooping down on every medal there is.