Monday 30 July 2012

The London 2012 Olympics are underway

LONDON OLYMPICS TEAM SA

This weekend the Olympics began, they began with an opening ceremony just like any other world competition. I was not that impressed by the opening ceremony but it had its moments of awesome entertainment like when Mr Bean was doing what he is famous for (making people laugh). I also enjoy it when all the athletes from all the participating nations walk into the stadium. The big teams like America, China, Great Britain and other countries have hundreds of participants thus increasing their probability to win more medals, whilst the smaller sporting nations have fewer participants. South Africa, my country does not have a lot of participants as always but hopefully we are going to get more medals than in the last Olympics in Beijing.

Some events like rowing, tennis, badminton, hockey, soccer, basketball, archery, gymnastics, cycling and possibly other sports which are not that popular have already began with China and America leading the medals(no surprise there). Oh I forgot to mention that swimming has also been one of the main attractions on the early days; there have already been a few finals and Olympic/world records broken.

How South Africa Is Doing So Far


4 years ago South Africa only managed to win 1 medal and it was a silver medal. That was a very disappointing year for us. This year on day 2 we have already managed to win 1 gold medal in the pool. Last time no medals were won in the pool even though the swimming pool is one of our strongest events.

The South African soccer team Banyana Banyana managed to qualify for the Olympics, being only one of two African representatives at the London Olympics. Banyana Banyana is the lowest ranked team in at the Olympics so basically the odds were stacked against them. They were beaten 4-1 during their opening match against Sweden, and then beaten 3-0 by Canada, they face Japan tomorrow, and it is not looking good for the South African ladies as the Japanese ladies are the current world champions. They were unlucky to be grouped with teams that are all in the top 7 in the world when they are not even ranked in the 50s.

South African Swimmers


A few of our swimmers managed to do well in the heats in the first couple of days on to do badly during their semi-finals and finals.  But the highlight of the London Olympics so far has been Cameron Van Der Burgh who became the first home-bred male South African to break a swimming world record. He got better with each round, he broke the Olympic 100m Breast stroke record and went on to break the world breast stroke record during the final to win South Africa’s first gold medal during the London Olympics. The South African 100 relay team did well during the qualifiers and were neck to neck with the French, who eventually won the gold in the final, but South Africa’s performance during the final was disappointing and they did not win a medal.

That is all for now, let us hope there are still more medals to be won by South African Athletes in the coming events.

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