New Zealanders rub salt in Australia's wounds

[okjazz]

from stuff.co.nz

Hey Aussies, we want to draw your disordered attention to a little line item on the Olympic Games gold medal table," Fairfax Media's stuff.co.nz website said in a comment piece.

"We're talking about the line that seems to have been censored in Australian newspapers. The one that puts New Zealand ahead of Australia, the self-styled world's greatest sporting nation."

A cartoon in the New Zealand Herald showed an Olympic official warning there was a chance Australia could miss out on its usual medal, depicting him holding a giant gold gong marked "for insufferable cockiness".

Fom NZHerald

The Aussies have a history of claiming New Zealand successes, be it Crowded House, Phar Lap or pavlova.

Now, with Australia trailing behind their smaller trans-Tasman cousins on the Olympic Games medal table, New Zealand's three gold medals are being "embraced".

On the back page of today's Sydney's Daily Telegraph, "Aus Zealand" sits proudly at ninth place on their medal table, with four gold, 12 silver, and 11 bronze medals. Of those, only one of the gold medals is actually Australia's.

Over the weekend, the Sydney Morning Herald's Richard Hinds wrote that while Australia is not living up to pre-Olympics expectations, "Team Oceania" is having a great games.

While some in the media have approached the situation with good humour, others have perhaps been more bitter. In displaying the medal table over the weekend, Channel 9 showed only the top nine nations, therefore not showing New Zealand who were then sitting in tenth.

It's not the first time the Aussies have tried to claim New Zealand sporting success. After Australia was smashed 4-0 by Germany at the 2010 Football World Cup and New Zealand claimed a historic draw with Slovakia, the Sydney Morning Herald's headline read "Australasia 1 - Slovakia 1".

From tvnz

Australians are still smarting over their disappointing Olympics medal tally, which has seen one television broadcaster delete New Zealand off its medal table.

In an attempt to save face over the lack of gold medals the team have won at the London Games, Aussies are now taking to saying "silver is the new gold".

Another New Zealander celebrating in Kiwi House, Helen Shaw, is quoted as saying: "We love Australia, we definitely want them to do well. But, right now, we are still loving kicking their #$%."

More salt has been added to the Aussies' wounds when it emerged that a single county in England has more medals than they do.

A tweet by a Leeds-based sports journalist, claiming that Yorkshire would be 11th in the medal table - above Australia - has been retweeted more than 3,400 times.

And Channel 4 news reader Krishnan Guru-Murthy tweeted: "My Aussie relatives must be despondent. 1 gold. After 9 days. Matilda needs a hip replacement."

"And we're not doing it by halves, either, not by a long shot," he said, adding that with 12 silver medals it puts the country among "one of the three Silver Superpowers of these Games".

"I'm not surprised really, they are so competitive. Friends in Oz are saying that the medal table isn't even being shown on television and when a colleague sent a screen grab of it to a colleague yesterday … " His response was unprintable.

Proudly wearing his All Blacks rugby shirt, Hanah Huston, 24, is slightly less generous to the Australians. "They choked in the pool,"

The nzherald.co.nz website pointed out, hurtfully: "To put our achievements into perspective, the small South Island town of Picton has won the same number of gold medals as all of Australia."

[Tbite]

Australians are not taking this victory well.

An Australian newspaper mX said that in the spirit of National Pride...they would pretend that Silver was Gold, placing them 4th on the table (At the time of publication)

In the swimming category and other events, the Australians have blamed many things such as disharmonious system. They noted that many of the international swimmers are actually using Australian coaches/training etc. They also said that the Australians themselves are engaging in a free for all rather than adhering to a standard. They have also blamed social media and overconfidence.

[soothsayer]

Australians are not taking this victory well.

An Australian newspaper mX said that in the spirit of National Pride...they would pretend that Silver was Gold, placing them 4th on the table (At the time of publication)

In the swimming category and other events, the Australians have blamed many things such as disharmonious system. They noted that many of the international swimmers are actually using Australian coaches/training etc. They also said that the Australians themselves are engaging in a free for all rather than adhering to a standard. They have also blamed social media and overconfidence.

Sounds like a national crisis....

[phantomjournalist]

Nigeria still without a medal of any color in case you guys haven't noticed.

[Oba]

Nigeria still without a medal of any color in case you guys haven't noticed.

No surprise or 'disappointment' there. The truly surprising nations, IMO, are Australia and Russia.