(edit title) Sweden was mentioned in the UK newspapers today Albeit the daily mail Options

[byke]

I know its the daily mail, but there is some cracking photos in there.
There is even what some would see as british royal association in it ... even though the were not at the same game or sport.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-21...t-handball.html

[icedearth]

I love the polo shirt

[Bender B Rodriquez]

And then there's also this: http://i.minus.com/iCNR9DLxlvj6V.gif

[Jamtjim]

One thing that I have to admire about all these royals is the incredible amount of effort which they must have put in to getting all those tickets.

I have an Olympic mad friend back in the UK who spent many hours and must have applied for a hundred different events but only ended up with back row tickets for the Greeco-Roman wrestling semi-finals or something like that. Yet you see Will and Kate at virtually every event and now King Kalle and his mrs at all the Swedish ones. They must have applied for literally millions of tickets in order to get the ones they wanted!

I guess thay are able to spend so much time doing it as they haven't got proper jobs but yet are paid vast amounts of money to shake a few hands and smile gormlessly!

[sometimesinsweden]

Along with the other 64 million British people, I had to ask - what the fck is handball?

Congrats to the winners, but out of all the sports in the Olympics, handball must be the most unknown in the UK.

[byke]

I was really surprised at how well Denmark and Belarus was doing compared to Sweden.
Especially if you look at their population stats and GDP.

It would be immensely funny if Denmark started to advertise Denmark as "The capital of fitness in Scandinavia"

1 United States 41 26 27 94
2 China 37 25 20 82
3 Great Britain & N. Ireland 26 15 18 59
4 Russian Federation 17 21 28 66
5 South Korea 13 7 7 27
6 Germany 10 18 14 42
7 France 9 9 12 30
8 Hungary 8 4 4 16
9 Australia 7 15 10 32
10 Italy 7 6 8 21
11 Netherlands 6 5 8 19
12 Kazakhstan 6 0 4 10
13 Japan 5 14 17 36
14 New Zealand 5 3 5 13
15 Iran 4 5 1 10
16 Ukraine 4 2 9 15
17 North Korea 4 0 2 6
18 Belarus 3 4 4 11
19 Jamaica 3 4 3 10
20 Cuba 3 3 4 10
21 South Africa 3 1 1 5
22 Ethiopia 3 0 3 6
23 Spain 2 9 3 14
24 Romania 2 5 2 9
25 Denmark 2 4 3 9
26 Czech Republic 2 3 3 8
26 Kenya 2 3 3 8
28 Brazil 2 2 8 12
29 Poland 2 2 6 10
30 Turkey 2 2 1 5
31 Croatia 2 1 1 4
32 Switzerland 2 1 0 3
33 Canada 1 5 12 18
34 Colombia 1 3 4 8
35 Sweden 1 3 3 7

[sometimesinsweden]

The Australian Olympic boycott would be more successful if they told us what their demands are

[klubbnika]

Why is His Majesty so dark skinned?

[klubbnika]

I was really surprised at how well Denmark and Belarus was doing compared to Sweden.Especially if you look at their population stats and GDP.It would be immensely funny if Den ... (show full quote)

I was really surprised at how well Denmark and Belarus was doing compared to Sweden.
Especially if you look at their population stats and GDP.

It would be immensely funny if Denmark started to advertise Denmark as "The capital of fitness in Scandinavia" ... (hide full quote)

Why would the GDP and the population size matter to individual perfomers?

[Willy]

Along with the other 64 million British people, I had to ask - what the fck is handball?. Congrats to the winners, but out of all the sports in the Olympics, handball must be the most unknown in the UK.

By the way, on behalf of fellow Swedes, what the h*ll is field hockey? Looks like bandy without skates or proper sticks...

[byke]

Why would the GDP and the population size matter to individual perfomers?

Population size always comes into the equation when Sweden is mentioned in regards to achievements.
In fact its one of the things that gets my goat - AKA "But Sweden only has 9 million people".
Even more so than the generic "but this is Sweden" quote which is also abundant to failures or short comings as some sort of justification (aka excuse).

GDP in recent months has also become a hot new term and claimed factor in regards to any area that fails to meet the expectations of its people. I have read some comments on TL's news section where the debate over the climate being a negative aspect for Swedish sportsmen playing a large role. Even though many professional sportsmen train abroad to achieve such high levels of talent.

But - So I dont get accused of being anti Swedish for pointing out the short comings of certain aspects of one nation.
I will include the following which criticizes another nation (irrespective of it has any relation to the thread) I hate it when people in the UK use the term "At the end of the day" - A common expression that has close to little value in relation to the cretins who use it as a way to comfort or describe a moment in a light that doesn't always mean to be truthful . Oh aand Danny Boyles olympic ceremony had fun bits in it ... but was heavily influenced by politics and corporate advertising - so a large part of it was shit.

[gplusa]

Great link, brilliant photos. Excellent seeing them out supporting the team. I was starting to think that only one country was being allowed to support their athletes. I got to get me one of those shirts.

[SimonDMontfort]

The Swedish king looks frustrated - maybe at not having a bigger part of the action (after seeing Britain’s 86-year old queen parachuting out of a helicopter on opening night? )

I know what Jamtjim means about the wealthy and privileged at the Olympics:

My partner are I ordinary ‘plebs’ and applied, long ago, for tickets and took what we could get. As it happened, we saw Rutherford win the long jump gold for UK so we ‘scored’ on that one.

We had a letter from G4S telling us to allow 1.5 hours to get from central London to Olympic Park – and then a further hour to get to our seats!! It didn’t take as long as that to reach our seats – and we weren’t travelling to and from central London anyway.

We were in row 69 (at the cauldron end). The screen at the other end was visible - but the infield displays (on those little triangles next to each event) were hard to read.

We could see the events at our end and the race track easily but could only see the men’s long jump with binoculars. It was frustrating that the ‘scores’ for the men’s long jump were displayed on a screen above our heads (which we couldn’t see) although we had no difficulty seeing ‘scores’ for other events (shown on the screen that we could see)

Still – not complaining: we’re glad we went there, there was a special atmosphere, and may not see the Olympics in my native country during my lifetime

[klubbnika]

Hehe.. In my lifetime, I have seen TWO Olympics in the cities I lived.
Anybody can beat that?

Three Olympics, anyone? Four?

[AW1]

Population size always comes into the equation when Sweden is mentioned in regards to achievements.In fact its one of the things that gets my goat - AKA "But Sweden only ... (show full quote)

Population size always comes into the equation when Sweden is mentioned in regards to achievements.
In fact its one of the things that gets my goat - AKA "But Sweden only has 9 million people".
Even more so than the generic "but this is Sweden" quote which is also abundant to failures or short comings as some sort of justification (aka excuse). ... (hide full quote)

True.

I think our only hope is to encourage more people who can run, jump etc to move to Sweden and compete for us.
Who knows, maybe If we manage to get enough South Africans we could even get a decent Cricket team?