A filter like this is obviously biased against nations with large populations, especially China, but what's telling is the scale of difference between Australia and the much larger democracies of Western Europe. Australia has not only outperformed them in absolute terms in Athens, but outperformed them five-fold in per capita terms.
What is striking about Australia's Olympics success is its longevity, now extended by Athens. Australia's teams have finished in the top 10 nations in 11 of the 14 Olympics of the modern era, which began at Helsinki in 1952. The remarkable performance in Athens is not the first time it has been the most successful nation, per capita, among the Olympic top 10. Australia also finished No.1 in 1956 (Melbourne), 1960 (Rome), 1996 (Atlanta) and 2000 (Sydney). Also remarkable has been the breadth of Australia's success, not just the depth. In Sydney, Australian athletes won medals in 20 sports, matched only by the US. In Athens, Australia's 49 medals (to Sunday) were across 14 sporting disciplines. Only the super-heavyweights - the US, Russia, China - exceed this breadth.
It doesn't come cheap. I estimate the cost per Olympic medal at about $5million in direct government spending, which does not include corporate sponsorship, which is not measurable. The Australian Sports Commission says the amount spent on "high performance funding" for Olympic sports for the past four years was: 2001-02, $45,668,670; 2002-03, $46,092,396; 2003-04, $48,476,032; and
This refers to email from Saturn below..I fuly appreciate his boldness to speak the truth. He is absolutely right...gavaskar has not only played with careers of Pandurang salgaonkar but with also many highly talented cricketers who deserved to be selected for Indian eleven, but he made sure that undeserving players from mumbai are selected and as I said selectors and Cricket board for unknown reasons always played into his hand and danced to his tunes. He called the shots and the selectors and BCCI very obidiently followed his instructions, The cricket players whose careers were cut short by gavaskar are Pandurang Salgaonkar, Dilip Doshi, Ghavri, T Srinivasan, Atul Bedade, Kirmani, Dhiraj Parsana, Sadanand Vishwanath, Ved Prakash, Rajendra Goel, Kanwaljit Singh, Shivalkar, Mohinder Amarnath, Ashok Malhotra, Gopal Sharma, Ashok Patel and the list will run into hundreds, This list is apart from Extremely deserving Ranji players who could not make to Indian Eleven due to Gavaskar.... Really it is baffaling that still today gavaskar make BCCI dance to his tunes, by default you see his name figuring in any committes and important decision making bodies of BCCI... I would like to ask BCCI is gavaskar is the only cricketer who has played for India??? This angle needs to be probed and also how come his son Rohan gavaskar was sent to Australia as replacement when extremely deserving cricketers were waiting for the call...
RE:Players who have no God father
by pranam on Oct 09, 2007 07:39 PM
True, That is why rift between North and West started. Kapil and Bedi vs West.Sheer talent of Kapil wasw a stumbling block Otherwise Bombay lobby would have finished him off
Pravin Amre was really a great player. There are likes of him who either did not have a godfather or those were in bad books of senior players for playing better than them!
Sudhakar Adhikari was a Mumbai player who consistently scored double centuries in 1st class cricket but had no godfather and was not ever included in the Indian team.
Pandurang Salgaonkar from Kolhapur was the fastest ever bowler India had. I have witnessed his bowling in quite a few matches. When he bowled, the ball was literally invisible to the spectators. He was that fast, even faster than Shoaib Akhtar. He was included in the Indian team on the tour to Sri Lanka and performed very well. But as luck would have it, he bowled a bouncer to Sunil Gavaskar, the then captain of the Indian team and injured him. Gavaskar immediately got him removed from the Indian team and that was the end of his career.
RE:Players who had no godfathers
by tarun on Oct 09, 2007 07:13 PM
You are absolutely right...gavaskar has not only played with careers of Pandurang salgaonkar but with also many highly talented cricketers who deserved to be selected for Indian eleven, but he made sure that undeserving players from mumbai are selected and as I said selectors and Cricket board for unknown reasons always played into his hand and danced to his tunes. He called the shots and the selectors and BCCI very obidiently followed his instructions, The cricket players whose careers were cut short by gavaskar are Pandurang Salgaonkar, Dilip Doshi, Ghavri, T Srinivasan, Atul Bedade, Kirmani, Dhiraj Parsana, Sadanand Vishwanath, Ved Prakash, Rajendra Goel, Kanwaljit Singh, Shivalkar, Mohinder Amarnath, Ashok Malhotra, Gopal Sharma, Ashok Patel and the list will run into hundreds, This list is apart from Extremely deserving Ranji players who could not make to Indian Eleven due to Gavaskar.... Really it is baffaling that still today gavaskar make BCCI dance to his tunes, by default you see his name figuring in any committes and important decision making bodies of BCCI... I would like to ask BCCI is gavaskar is the only cricketer who has played for India??? This angle needs to be probed and also how come his son Rohan gavaskar was sent to Australia as replacement when extremely deserving cricketers were waiting for the call...
RE:Players who had no godfathers
by Desi on Oct 09, 2007 06:59 PM
Reaaly? Gavaskar got him removed for hitting him? That does not make sense. As a captain he would have preferred to have the same bowler bowl so that he could hit Zaheer Abbas, Javed Miandad, Viv Richards, Allan Border, Graham Gooch etc. all good batamen of his era. Did Pandurang Salgaonkar ACTUALLY tell you this?
RE:RE:Players who had no godfathers
by Sikander on Oct 09, 2007 07:08 PM
Well said!!! Ha! Ha! The fastest Bowler India have produced must be Mohd Nissar from what I have read.He must have been the only genuine quickie.Others like Srinath, Zaheer,Munaf, Agarkar,Sreesanth and recently R.P.Singh have at times bowled between 145-150 kmph but NEVER consistently to be called Genuine Quicks like Akhtar,Lee, Bond and Tait.Right now, I think Tait and Lee are the quickest.I think a genuine Fast bowler should be clocking 147-150 within his second over.R.P. after the Chandigarh ODI gladdened my heart.Hope he can keep it up. Problem is most Indians are not physically strong and hardly do any Weight Training.Therefore guys like Zaheer / Munaf start well in their careers and then end uo being Fast Medium bowlers.SAD but True.
RE:RE:RE:Players who had no godfathers
by saturn on Oct 09, 2007 07:30 PM
No Nisar, the fastest was Pandurang Salgaonkar. There were no speed measurement techniques available at that time, but I have witnessed the fastest then like Fazal Mahmood of Pakistan, Graham Mackenzy of Australia and Freddie Truman and Brian Statham of England. I could see their balls landed on the pitch and till they could be dealt with. But I had then tried hard to see the ball after leaving Pandurang Salgaonkar's hand and I must say, I never never saw it! The ball could only be seen after hitting the bat or in the wicket keeper's gloves. Never in between.
Further, Pandurang Salgaonkar had the style like Wesley Hall, the fastest West Indian baller so far. You can just imagine what Salgaonkar was like. But I have witnessed him as well as the present fast ballers all over the world. No comparison absolutely. Salgaonkar was a gem.
The further tragedy with him was that after his exclusion from the Indian team, the company where he was working, sponsored him and sent him to England to Alf Gover Academy of cricket for 'training'. (Actually, he did not need any!) This academy tampered with his balling style and completely spoilt him.
However, the real initial culprit to end his career was surely Gavaskar.
RE:RE:RE:RE:Players who had no godfathers
by pranam on Oct 09, 2007 07:54 PM
U R right saturn.u should have along with tarun would have played some serious cricket.Sachin was too young at that time. Ravi Shastri Ashok Malhotra Yasphal were not all test material. Of course Ravi made it He was nursed by Sunil.T.E.Srinivasan was an excellent explosive batsman Bang Bang type He was snuffed out by same Sunil.Gavaskar was a legend allright But he was a very cunning selfish despotic captain
RE:Players who had no godfathers
by saturn on Oct 09, 2007 07:14 PM
Gavaskar's was a more or less facist type of captaincy. He used to remove whatever came in way of his ego. But those, who were his 'yesssirs' got place in the team by wild cards! Ravi Shastri and Sachin Tendulkar are two such examples. Of course, both of them were good and proved themselves. But imagine, had Sachin confronted Gavaskar that time, India would never have seen him in the team! Gavaskar's ego was like that.
Pandurang Salgaonkar's removal at that time because of Gavaskar was a known fact and it was in all papers and sports related magazines. You can even find it in Google Search.
RE:Players who had no godfathers
by Surag Singh on Oct 09, 2007 07:37 PM
Apparently people have no qualms when Bollywood star kids enter the business with zero talent. Leading being Abhishek Bachchan.
RE:Players who had no godfathers
by Indian Analyst on Oct 09, 2007 07:14 PM
There was Dhansukh patel from Gujarat. Dhansukh was a fast bowler (not medium pace). In the nets, Kapil hit him for 4 sixers. He was never called again. Chetan Sharma etc... prevailed. There were once 7 players from karnataka in our national team including sunil joshi, prasad, srinath etc... At that time, even Dravid did not deserve his place in the One Day team. Kumble bowled faster than Prasad and Srinath's shoulders would droop at the first boundary hit against him. Of course, prasanna stays opposite to dravid and this was a similar case like mumbai's players getting selected bcos of the regional selectors. Now prasad (sorry excuse of a bowler) is a national coach. It will be agarkar next. To play for India, you need talent and connections (Ganduly, Dravid, kumble, yuvraj, dhoni etc are well connected) tendli was just too talented to be ignored. People rushed to be his god father.
DHONI HAVE ALL MATERIAL TO BECOME A GREATEST INDIAN CAPTAIN. HE LOOK SO COOL,CALM,PATIENCE, WELL PERSONALITY, SELF PRESENTING CAPABILITY,UPGRADED CRICKETING SKILL, VERY GOOD PEOPLE HANDLING CAPABILITY, HAVING AGGRESSION WITH DIPLOMATIC FASHION.HE NEED ONLY PRAISE FROM GOD AND ENCOURGE FROM US AND SUPPORT FROM SENIOR CRICKETERS. THEN I AM SURE HE WILL BE BECOME ONE OF THE GREATEST CRICKETER IN THIS WORLD.
RE:DHONI WILL BE GREAT
by shayantan on Oct 09, 2007 07:13 PM
ei khanki magi, ingreji ta chhoriyechhish ... banglaye lekh. just kiddin dude - we all want dhoni to do well
Dhoni should not be burdened with captainship of all the three versions of cricket. Infact, India should ideally have 3 separate teams and captains for each version of cricket. Given the talent pool that has emerged from 20-20 and India 'A' matches, it will be in best interest of the country to have 3 professional teams, each one focussed on one type of game only.
RE:I LOVE MY INDIA
by Rajpal Yadav on Oct 09, 2007 06:19 PM
no body said that it is the best team in terms of play, but we being indians, should appreciate it for the sake of devotion of the players and one shud respect their spirit
RE:I LOVE MY INDIA
by Sikander on Oct 09, 2007 07:16 PM
We should remember that we are playing Aus the BEST Team in the World so if we can compete well, we should be happy.The first 2 we gave in without a fight, that was sad but winning the third was AWESOME.We should be happy that even if we lose the series, we should give a good fight.Let us give the Indian Team a break. They just won the T20 cup.Its ok if we lose because it would be to Aus.But a ending Scoreline of 4-2 or 3-3 should also be appreciated.We should do it with unselfish batsmen like Dhoni, Uthappa and Yuvraj and good bowlers like Pathan, Harbhajan, RP and Sreesant.
