Beijing 2008: The Cost of Gold

What price for an Olympic Gold? How much would you pay?

I recently came across an interesting article from The Science of Sport website. The article can be found here:

www.sportsscientists.com/2008/08/beijing-olympic-medal-price.html

It turns out that each bronze medal will set you back a cool Aus $15 million, while gold and silver will cost you about Aus $40 million!

The point is there is a relationship between money invested and medals won. If you want 20 gold medals, then spend Aus $800 million every four years. The graph above was used to project how many medals Australia would win in Sydney - the dashed line in the graph.
 

Melbourne Half Marathon

On Sunday the 9th of October I ran my first half marathon (21.1km) as part of the Marathon Festival.
It was a great day for running - cold with a touch of rain at the end. It was a tough run especially the last 5kms.
My final time was 1:32:38
I finished 363rd out of 7514 runners in the half marathon
Females 20 to 39 years - I finished 45th out of 2736

Deakin University - Alumni Awards

Deakin University recently announced the inaugural winners of the Deakin Alumni of the Year Awards 2011.
I have been announced along with fellow alumni Benjamin Hayward as Young Alumni of the Year Award winners.

My award was in recognition of her exceptional sporting achievements particularly in diving.

http://www.deakin.edu.au/alumni/profiles/awards/briony-cole.php
There were seven recipients of Alumni of the Year Award winners.
The awards ceremony will be held on the 19th of October.

Pacific Rim - Wellington, New Zealand

On the 17th of August I was off to Wellington, NZ for a week for a diving competition. This time things were different, this time I was going as an official. Well actually I had a few titles - Victorian assistant coach, Victorian team manager and judge. The Victorian team included 14 divers from 11 years to 18 years, also Helen and John Hillard and Tom Michaels as head coach.

It was a great trip - the Victorian divers did a great job coming home with lots of medals.

I learnt a great deal being on dry side of the pool deck and I had an excellent time catch up with lots of old diving friends!

There was the divers showing us how to do a handstand, then it was John, Helen and my turn - I was pretty happy with my handstand!

On the last night we had one of the best farewell functions (and i have been to plenty of those!) There was lots of dancing and laughs!