"and the abysmal performance of some other (apparently similar) countries." I hope you are not referring to Australia. With one gold, twelve silver and seven bronze medals, our athletes have produced 20 performances that are in the top three in the world. We made the finals of just about everything in the pool, on the rowing course and at the velodrome which puts us in an elite group of the best eight or six in the world. I do not regard such a result as "abysmal". So other teams are winning gold while we are winning silver, so what? Our athletes do not warrant the criticism they are getting from the media, they are doing the best they can.