Good countries as measured by paralympics medals

[Bruce Tuncks]

I notice that only "kind" countries have lots of medals . Nasty, religious countries are just not there or doing badly.

On this reckoning, the US is a nasty religious country.

[Jerry_Atrick]

At time of writing, US is 4tho n the medal tally and Australia is 7th:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=paralympics+2021#wptab=s:H4sIAAAAAAAAAOMwe8QYxi3w8sc9YSnfSWtOXmN05-IJLsgvKin2TU1JzCkWMudiDU7OL0gV0hPS4RKASiWWJGe4F-WXFghJcLEFpyYW5-cJ8UnxcHHp5-obVBgaZyQb8yxiFQ9ILErMqcwtyEwuVjAyMDJUyAWbCQDIP2K2dQAAAA

 

China is 1st.. Are you saying China is a kind country with no ideology and the the US is a kinder, less ideological country than Australia. And NZ (which is way down the ladder) is a cauldron of religious hatred, except they could be bothered to turn up?

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Jerry_Atrick

[Bruce Tuncks]

I reckon I mentally correct for population and consider medals per head.

And yes it is a very rough and ready accounting.

But I still am impressed by the  comparison of the US and China.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I just looked up google for a table of paralympic medals per head of population and only came up with olympic medals per head in which the nordic countries were way ahead.

[red750]

Item on Yahoo today regarding the disparity between Olympic medalists and Paralympic medalists in Australia. 

 

Olympic medalists get cash bonuses of $20,000 for gold, $15,000 for silver and $10,000 for bronze.

 

Paralympic medalists get nothing.

[Dax]

Those competing in the Paralympics are amazing people irrelevant as to what country they come from. Who cares how many medals countries have, it's what they achieve that's important and what it does for their lives. The bloke with no arms playing table tennis with his teeth and one playing with his feet, they'd beat most armed people.

 

Although most are playing for their countries and want to get as many medals as possible. What's a nice country anyway, every country has it's problems and we have ours. 

[Dax]

3 minutes ago, red750 said:

 

Paralympic medallists get nothing.

That's pathetic, but totally expected from our politicians. Paralympians should get more money for their medals, they deserve it considering the amount of work and dedication they have to put in to compete.

[Bruce Tuncks]

I like the idea of subsidising sport, and para sports in particular, but I'm not sure if I like cash for medals for anybody. I had no idea that this was done.

 

[red750]

This table comes from www.visualcapitalist.com and is quoted in US$:

 

[kgwilson]

Medal tallies don't mean much until the games are over. China is going to do well as it is right next door as well as having a lot of people with disabilities in a nation of 1.4 billion people to choose from. Based on gold medals only at this stage Australia has 7 Gold and China 36 & on a per capita basis with Australia having 7, China should have about 390. This is of course absurd. There probably aren't that many awarded in the entire games.

[Jerry_Atrick]

I am not sure per head of population is particularly useful; but it probably should be per head of disabled population, possibly adjusted to cater for both naturally "born with" or developed disabilities versus acquired (e.g. car crash) disabilities. To work out a county's niceness score, it is probably not the medal count, but their investment per head of disabled person - I would argue that the medal count at the Olympics is, prima facie, irrelevant, and that the more oppressive regimes probably will probably invest heavier in the sports side of things, but across the board a lot less, because it suits their domestic and international propaganda objectives.

 

In fact, come to think about it, even per head of disabled people is not really relevant if the regime invests very little except for those that have a likely positive outcome for propaganda purposes and lets a lot of them die.

 

Who's at the top of the table? (BTW, I am in no way suggesting China acts with impropriety with respect to its disabled people - but pointing out a regime which is not known for the benevolent treatment of its people is at the top).

 

 

Edited August 29, 2021 by Jerry_Atrick

[Bruce Tuncks]

I too believed that the Chinese people were treated badly, and years ago I was flabbergasted to see some elite disabled athletes who had the oversized shoulders that they get after many years.

The very existence of disabled athletics in China was so contrary to everything I had been told about the place that it made me decide I had been lied to.

In fact, this made it onto my list of " big lies I was told or allowed to believe in the absence of proper information".

Also on that list, I have the  stolen generation, the bombing of Darwin and the Coniston massacre. Somebody needs to start a list.

[pmccarthy]

The world was entering a "big freeze", we would run out of petroleum by 1995, we would have a nuclear war before I grew up (well that wasn't a lie, just a pessimistic forecast), the Japanese would buy up much of Australia, there were very few massacres in Australian history, there were no dinosaurs in Australia, asbestos was pretty much harmless, like smoking.

[facthunter]

You don't believe the bombing of Darwin??  Broome was too. but I didn't know that for a long while. We were kept ignorant of these facts for the purpose of not panicking us ' I think the term stolen is not quite appropriate although it's application was wrong and some/most? were treated badly. There's plenty of discrimination and injustice to be found. Plenty of white poor lived in  inhuman circumstances too.   Recruited Sailors were picked up drunk in pubs and woke up out at sea.  The famous miner's strike in Wales during WW1 happened after a mine accident in which 400 miners were killed and the (english) owners offered no compensation.. Nev

[Bruce Tuncks]

I thought the bombing of Darwin was a one-off thing. It was only on later years that I found out there were many raids.

Later again, I found that the Japanese base was in New Britain, and it was a long round trip for those bombers.

[onetrack]

There were plenty of things that happened during WW2 that were never reported. What is not widely known, is that the "Japanese menace" terrified the Australian population during 1942, and rumours fed those fears.

It's never been widely reported that a large contingent of troops and civilians abandoned their posts and their homes after the bombing of Darwin, and lit out for the Southern regions, often in commandeered military vehicles, in abject fear that the Japanese were landing a huge invasion force, right after the bombing.

Some of them even made it to Adelaide, but a lot were stopped at Alice Springs and turned around - or jailed if they refused to go back.

In addition, there was substantial looting of both military and civilian property and materials in Darwin after the bombing, that brought no glory to the Darwin population, or its defenders.

 

Here in Perth in early 1942, a wild rumour spread rapidly that a large Japanese invasion force had landed at Cottesloe Beach, N of Fremantle Port, and was heading inland to take the City.

Sizeable numbers of people panicked, left right and centre, as they scrambled to leave Perth by any means possible. Most were stopped at Northam and turned back. 

 

There was a large Ordnance Base in Bellevue, adjacent to the suburb of Midland, and the Midland Railway Workshops, about 20 kms E of Perth. The rumours hit the Ordnance Depot, and irrational fear took hold in such a manner, that vehicles were driven straight through the fence of the Depot by some members of the military, to get away from the "Japanese that were on the road to Midland"!

 

These military absconders were all stopped at Northam and charged with desertion. Others, less culpable, were turned around and told to return to their depot. I can remember my mother telling me of this Japanese invasion rumour and another older gent told me about the desertion of the Ordnance Depot at Bellevue. None of this ever made the newspapers of the day, censorship was absolute in that era.

 

http://kokodahistorical.com.au/history/bombing-of-darwin

 

Edited September 1, 2021 by onetrack

[Bruce Tuncks]

My parents were in Alice Springs when a bunch came down the Stuart Highway from Darwin to say that they were only 3 hours ahead of the japs and so clear out of town.

 

I wonder what I would have done... a lot sure did go out camping for a week or so.

[Bruce Tuncks]

The Coniston massacre was the last official ( police led ) massacre of aborigines and it was in 1928! Less than ten years before my parents moved there.

There is a good reason why it was the last one...  the government was most displeased. The massacre was in retaliation to a dingo-trapper killed there, but it is doubtful if those aborigines killed by the posse had any knowledge of the dingo guy. They were certainly a fair distance ( 20 to 30 km) away.

[red750]

Back to the original subject of this thread and my comment in post #5. I see in an ABC post on facebook that the Prime Minister has announced that Paralympic medallists will get the same cash bonuses ans Olympic medallists. 

 

[red750]

From Yahoo Sport:

 

"Australia's Olympic medallists will receive an additional $5000 payment in addition to existing medal bonuses after billionaire Harry Triguboff pledged to donate $645,000.

 

Triguboff, the founder of the Meriton hotel chain, pledged the money on Thursday afternoon, with his unsolicited donation welcomed by the Australian Olympic Committee."

 

The annuncement came on the same day as the Government announced bonuses for paralympians in line with Olympic medallists. It is not known at this stage whether Harry Trigaboff will extend this donation to paralympians.

[Bruce Tuncks]

The medal itself is worth more than any sums thrown about for competitors...  so I still don't see the need for cash payments to anybody.

Alas I am a clueless dreamer huh.

[Yenn]

We have come a long way since the Olympics was for amateur sportsmen and women only.

Personally I reckon sport has overtaken religion as the god to be worshipped. Our premier has let a load of NRL players family into Qld, even though NRL players have demonstrated that they will not comply with health regulations. Supposedly they are not taking quarantine places from Queenslanders as they go into hotels paid for by NRL.

[Dax]

1 hour ago, Yenn said:

Our premier has let a load of NRL players family into Qld, even though NRL players have demonstrated that they will not comply with health regulations.

I really enjoy watching sport, but NRL, who wants to watch a bunch of drug addled violent drunken thugs. They've already proven NRL players end up with addled brains and yet they still revel in the violence of it makes no sense whatsoever. When there is a lot of money involved, politicians always break rules to suit themselves. The number of breaches assaults and outright abuse coming form the NRL ranks, shows the state of their minds. Other sport seem to be able to do the right thing, AFL teams have mainly stuck to the rules, with just a couple idiots breaching quarantine and they were dealt with pretty harshly but the competition.

 

1 hour ago, Yenn said:

Personally I reckon sport has overtaken religion as the god to be worshipped.

With the Olympics, AFL, netball and NRL, continuing, it's given many people some relief from the draconian conditions the idiots have imposed. When we could have got away with no shut downs at all if they had instantly moved to keep those coming into the country outside CBD's.

 

Our wonderful PM seems to think he is not subject to the rules everyone has to follow and continues to break them to suit himself.

 

Sport has always been on top in Aus, when I was young that;s all kids did was play sport, in summer it was cricket, winter footy and in between every other sport, it was part of our DNA and a major aspect of schooling and life in Aus. Now most kids just sit round their phones and get fat.

Edited September 7, 2021 by Dax

[Yenn]

When you were young you played sport.o youngsters play sport now, or do they watch someone else play on their square faced baby minder?

[facthunter]

Not sure about this team stuff and bonding etc. I (being forced) HAD to play Rugby UNION at Teacher's College (Newcastle) till I had a serious leg injury as a result of a pushbike accident. That rotten game is not for me. I'd prefer to surf. Who wants to mingle with big sweaty blokes in scrums etc and get bootstops in your face.? Nev