Going for Gold

Well, its that time again, another Olympiad has past and Beijing 2008 kicked off in impressive style. The events have kicked off today, with a few green stripes appearing. So, in a quick run down, I'm posting my tips of the games.
Ireland has won medals at 7 the last 8 games. Granted the gold last time was taken away, and Michelle Smith was disgraced (She however did retain her medals). So. I like to hope that we can pick up something this year.

So we have a 54 strong squad in china. Most made the A grade (Ireland's Olympic council decided to only send A grade to be a competing nation), with three exceptions, two swimmers and a runner who each just missed the A times.
Out of the 54, I reckon we have two who might be in a medal position.

Historically, Ireland's best Olympic event is boxing. With 9 out of 20 medals in the ring. So my first medal pick is John Joe Nevin at Bantamweight. 40-1 to pick up any medal. Also, the captain Ken Egan is in at 8-1 to pick up a medal, although this is a poor price due to his easy draw in round one.

Derek Burnett was a hopefull, as he is the only irish team member to have beaten everyone of his oppondents at soome time. A poor first round has seen him slip.

Following on from last year, I think we can save facr with a win in the showjumping under Dennis Lynch.
So thats it, only real hop is with Lynch and Nevin. Fingers crossed.


Poker
I played the Weds €40 freezeout in the jackpot. 59 runners. I took it down for €920 and a ticket to a winterfest sat. Overall I was happy with how I played, got it in behind twice, obviously sucked out. But even with the good old 20/20 hindsight. I wouldn't change how I played.

Next in poker, I'm hoping to quailify for Big Slick's Irish festival in Kerry this october. So, i've spend a week gettingused to laddies software and will shortly try a few sats.

I know that the general poker world loves stories of degeneracy. Sadly, its been a quite week. Are the poker loons start to cop on, have they started to quiten down, or is this the calm before the storm. I like to think it's the latter.