Men's 800 Free Relay

If Russia had the three best defensemen in the world in hockey should they be able to have an extra person on the ice during games? ... snip... Perhaps the USA should be satisfied that it can draw it's team members from the largest population of any country in the developed world? Lindsay, I understand exactly where you are coming from, but please don't mistake my comments for anti-non-americanism. I was born in Chile and have quite a bit of Eastern European ethnicity in my name (ask Mrs. Swim Stud for verification on that), and I certainly don't think it'd be fair to lump me into the "avatar bias" category. I am all in favor of having as level playing field as possible, but in the interest of seeing the best athletes compete for worldwide glory, I'd also like to see the best athletes competing at the same time. I don't care if they're Klim, Thorpe and Hackett, or three Germans, South Africans, Chileans, Iraqis... whoever! If the top three figure skaters can all be from the same country and compete for the same three medals, I don't see why the same can't be for swimming (not knocking the skaters - i certainly know first-hand how hard it is to do what they do - but just pointing out another individual sport example). I don't think the same can be applied to team sports, however, as there are a fixed number of players allowed. What position they play is another story - load up the ice with 5 defensemen if you like - they'll probably do better than the folks the USA can put out on the ice anyway :p . And on the team sports, I'm not advocating that Russia and Canada send their A and B hockey squads to the olympics either... but they can certainly assemble one awesome team. Re: Developed world; way to sneak in the adjective "developed" :wave: (courtesy US Census Bureau, data as of 8/24/2006): Countries Ranked by Population: 2006 -------------------------------------------------------- Rank Country Population -------------------------------------------------------- 1 China 1,313,973,713 2 India 1,111,713,910 3 United States 298,444,215 4 Indonesia 231,820,243 5 Brazil 188,078,227 6 Pakistan 165,803,560 7 Bangladesh 147,365,352 8 Russia 142,069,494 9 Nigeria 131,859,731 10 Japan 127,463,611

If Russia had the three best defensemen in the world in hockey should they be able to have an extra person on the ice during games? ... snip... Perhaps the USA should be satisfied that it can draw it's team members from the largest population of any country in the developed world? Lindsay, I understand exactly where you are coming from, but please don't mistake my comments for anti-non-americanism. I was born in Chile and have quite a bit of Eastern European ethnicity in my name (ask Mrs. Swim Stud for verification on that), and I certainly don't think it'd be fair to lump me into the "avatar bias" category. I am all in favor of having as level playing field as possible, but in the interest of seeing the best athletes compete for worldwide glory, I'd also like to see the best athletes competing at the same time. I don't care if they're Klim, Thorpe and Hackett, or three Germans, South Africans, Chileans, Iraqis... whoever! If the top three figure skaters can all be from the same country and compete for the same three medals, I don't see why the same can't be for swimming (not knocking the skaters - i certainly know first-hand how hard it is to do what they do - but just pointing out another individual sport example). I don't think the same can be applied to team sports, however, as there are a fixed number of players allowed. What position they play is another story - load up the ice with 5 defensemen if you like - they'll probably do better than the folks the USA can put out on the ice anyway :p . And on the team sports, I'm not advocating that Russia and Canada send their A and B hockey squads to the olympics either... but they can certainly assemble one awesome team. Re: Developed world; way to sneak in the adjective "developed" :wave: (courtesy US Census Bureau, data as of 8/24/2006): Countries Ranked by Population: 2006 -------------------------------------------------------- Rank Country Population -------------------------------------------------------- 1 China 1,313,973,713 2 India 1,111,713,910 3 United States 298,444,215 4 Indonesia 231,820,243 5 Brazil 188,078,227 6 Pakistan 165,803,560 7 Bangladesh 147,365,352 8 Russia 142,069,494 9 Nigeria 131,859,731 10 Japan 127,463,611