Talk:Australia at the Winter Olympics

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[edit] What could this article contain?

Ideally, it'd be good if this article could be a featured article before the start of the 2006 Winter Olympics (February 10 2006). But failing that, it'd be nice if this was one of the best "country X at the Winter Olympics" article" in wikipedia.

Currently, the article links to sub-articles on "Australia at the X Winter Olympics", and mentions Australia's claim to fame as the only southern hemisphere country to have a gold Winter Olympics medal.

What could be potential improvements?

  • Summaries of each game in the main page, of a paragraph or two in length, like Winter Olympic Games#History.
  • Winter sports organisations, and their history.
  • Summaries (some of it in sub-pages?) of how Australia has gone at particular sports.
    • The best result by Australia in every event (eg best Australian male slalom).
    • What kind of talent pool different sports have.
    • Availability of facilities (good for short-track speed skating, not-so-good for ski jumping).
    • Cross-training (for example, gymnists getting into freestyle (aerial) skiing).
  • Other aspects of history:
    • Changing attitudes of general sporting organisations towards winter sport.
    • Changing public attitudes towards winter sport.
  • Biographies of winter athletes
  • Pictures of winter athletes
  • Maybe something on the Australian psyche and winter sport.

Do the above make sense? Too ambitious? Is there anything missing?

Thanks, Andjam 05:30, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

Andjam,

I think that you are off to a good start. One thing I would mention is the Australian Institute of Sport Winter Program see [1] officially known as the Olympic Winter Institute of Australia. You might also want to mention Michael Milton who won four gold medals in the 2002 Winter Paralympic Games and who has won 11 World Championship medals in total see [2].

Capitalistroadster 08:48, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Bradbury

Would it be accurate to say that Bradbury's competitors 'fell over'???. It seems more accurate to say something along the lines of 'mass pile-up' or '4-way collision'. Bradbury himself on a radio interview on the ABC's 25 greatest sporting moments, asserted that the Chinese swimmer (skater) caused the carnage by deliberately trying to take out Anton Apolo Ohno. Short-track seems a bit like formula one in the regard that there is often some tactically delibreate collisions.Blnguyen | Have your say!!! 05:06, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

I've added a couple of inline references in this article and some references in a related article (the Malcolm Milne article). Is there anything else that I need to add inline references for? Andjam 08:06, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What are the specific races?

I'd personally like a description on the actual races of each category and what they entail. For instance, is a slope race simply a skier riding down a slope? Are there tricks involved or is it fastest to the finish? These sorts of nuances in the different races of the winter olympics should be clearly outlined in your article. Apart from that, i'd say that it is indeed a good start and thank you for contributing to Wikipedia. =] —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Frankcube (talk • contribs) .

Could you be thinking of mogul skiing? Andjam 06:56, 19 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] FAC failure

Please don't give up on it. I know I objected, but it's a good article already, and with some more research, should be a truly great one. :) Ambi 09:54, 28 January 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Ambi. I've really enjoyed working on this project. I have pleasantly surprised myself with what I have done, and it's exercised my writing skills. I still hope to have a FAC by the time the Winter Olympics come around (at least before it finishes). :) Andjam 10:10, 28 January 2006 (UTC)


I can only repeat what Ambi wrote above. You've done a great job improving the article since it went through FAC. I still feel that it is too short, but it is hard to indicate specific points that could be improved, because I don't know enough about the topic. Two more ideas maybe:

  • The section about the paralympics is very short, and the corresponding article is quite short too. Maybe you could merge both in this article, and make the paralympics article a redirect to this page ?
  • One question that comes to my mind when reading such an article is: where do the Australian winter sports people train, and what kind of support do they get from the Australian Olympic Federation ? Don't get me wrong — I have skied in Victoria many times, so I know that you can ski in Australia. But I guess for many "North Hemishpere" people, the simple idea than an Australian can be part of a ski competition can be baffling. Is there anything to say about that ? The Axams center is mentioned, but for example, the fact that Alisa Camplin used to practice jumps in a pond (as mentioned in her article) seems interesting from this point of view.

Anyway, these are just quick ideas. Schutz 00:05, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Schutz,

Thanks for your feedback. With regards to the paralympics, one reason I have a separate article for them is that if I had the paralympic medal tally in the main article, an inattentive reader may get it confused with the Olympic medal tally. The medal tally that we got in the 2002 Paralympics would put us in sixth position in the Olympics, and we aren't that good (yet!).

Fair enough; so maybe add the information only in text form ?

With regards to training facilities there's also info in Sport in Australia#Winter Sports that I should incorporate into the article. Thanks, Andjam 03:57, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Along the same line, you could maybe describe what the Australian audience thinks about the games ? For example, what is the coverage on TV and in newspapers ? Again, many non-Australian would believe that Australians don't care about the winter games, but I don't think it is the case. Schutz 15:51, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
Coming up with verifiable info on this topic may be a little challenging. I guess seeing if the winning of winter medals makes the front page would be one way of evaluating interest. I've currently got stuff about Bradbury and Camplin getting postage stamps, and mentioned "The Ice Dream". Maybe I could mention that the Mt Buller World Aerials received tv coverage by channel seven as an example of tv coverage outside of the Olympics. Andjam 12:38, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] AWB-assisted edit.

Hi there. I've just used Wikipedia:AutoWikiBrowser to do a minor clean up of this article. If you have any concerns about the result, please don't hesitate to drop me a note on my talk page. Thanks! Very kind regards —Encephalon 06:09, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Images for article

There's been some comments in this article's FAC that there's not many images (not that that's a criterion for FA status). Any suggestions on what can be (legally!) included? Photos of ice rinks? Andjam 15:08, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

Getting images of sporting events is nearly impossible. --Robert Merkel 08:34, 7 April 2006 (UTC)
They don't necessarily have to be photos of events. Pictures of athletes would do just as well. Ice rinks are plausible. Maybe a team photo of that ill-fated hockey team? I'm not entirely sure on fair-use practices, but it seems like a lot of sports articles have photos like these (such as the Miracle on Ice, for instance). For all I know, though, they're breaking fair-use practices...Fantastic article, though, I hope it passes FAC. Best of luck! The Disco King 05:54, 8 April 2006 (UTC)

A photo by an Apolo Ohno fan site co-webmaster has been licensed under the GFDL. Andjam 13:09, 20 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Curling

I don't know how many times Australia has competed in curling as a demonstration sport, but it did so at least once, as it competed in 1992. Andjam 12:56, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

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