The Tokyo 2020/1 Olympics Thread *spoilers* (not the road race cycling)

morstar

I enjoy the sport and I do enjoy the British wins but it’s sport first, British wins second and medal tables are one for those who worry about projecting power to concern themselves with.

Stevo_666

First.Aspect said:

Stevo_666 said:

Yep, cycling and swimming were very good for us. Rowing and track athletic less so compared to expectations, but these things go through cycles and overall we are doing pretty well and punching above our weight, as ever.

Loved watching some of the new stuff like the BMX freestyle, skateboarding and speed clibing.

And only 3 years 'till Paris.

Are we punching above our weight? We perform well in expensive sports, moderately in more open sports, but provide funding across a huge range of sports compared to most countries. Without wishing to be rude to the pentathletes out there, but some medals are more equal than others.

I was thinking in terms of country size (population). Don't know enough about the funding to comment

kingstongraham

Absolute stars: Sunisa Lee, Barsham & Tamberi, Sifan Hassan, Charlotte Worthington, Ganna, Eliud Kipchoge

Pross

First.Aspect said:

Stevo_666 said:

Yep, cycling and swimming were very good for us. Rowing and track athletic less so compared to expectations, but these things go through cycles and overall we are doing pretty well and punching above our weight, as ever.

Loved watching some of the new stuff like the BMX freestyle, skateboarding and speed clibing.

And only 3 years 'till Paris.

Are we punching above our weight? We perform well in expensive sports, moderately in more open sports, but provide funding across a huge range of sports compared to most countries. Without wishing to be rude to the pentathletes out there, but some medals are more equal than others.

There's very few countries that perform well across a whole range of events. China are probably the only ones where someone seems to pop up in pretty much every sport. Some countries excel in sports like volleyball, handball etc. which have very little participation in the UK.

I'm not sure athletics underperformed much. I'm struggling to think of any events / athletes where we expected to take medals and failed other that the women's sprints due to DAS carrying an injury and KJT, also carrying an injury, in heptathlon. Missing gold in the men's 4x100m was frustrating but I suspect they'd have taken silver in advance.

TheBigBean

China aren't very strong in team sports.

rick_chasey

https://medalspercapita.com/

morstar

Pross said:

First.Aspect said:

Stevo_666 said:

Yep, cycling and swimming were very good for us. Rowing and track athletic less so compared to expectations, but these things go through cycles and overall we are doing pretty well and punching above our weight, as ever.

Loved watching some of the new stuff like the BMX freestyle, skateboarding and speed clibing.

And only 3 years 'till Paris.

Are we punching above our weight? We perform well in expensive sports, moderately in more open sports, but provide funding across a huge range of sports compared to most countries. Without wishing to be rude to the pentathletes out there, but some medals are more equal than others.

There's very few countries that perform well across a whole range of events. China are probably the only ones where someone seems to pop up in pretty much every sport. Some countries excel in sports like volleyball, handball etc. which have very little participation in the UK.

I'm not sure athletics underperformed much. I'm struggling to think of any events / athletes where we expected to take medals and failed other that the women's sprints due to DAS carrying an injury and KJT, also carrying an injury, in heptathlon. Missing gold in the men's 4x100m was frustrating but I suspect they'd have taken silver in advance.

The athletics one was me questioning it. I’m a bit on the fence though as we lost top sprinters in both male and female events, KJT bowed out and didn’t we have a few DQ’s for false starts?

I completely accept sometimes it’s just bad luck and coincidence with injuries and other problems but sometimes maybe that’s turning a blind eye to a systemic problem given the concurrent issues.

Does anybody think G and Ritchie Porte are just unlucky?

surrey_commuter

morstar said:

Pross said:

First.Aspect said:

Stevo_666 said:

Yep, cycling and swimming were very good for us. Rowing and track athletic less so compared to expectations, but these things go through cycles and overall we are doing pretty well and punching above our weight, as ever.

Loved watching some of the new stuff like the BMX freestyle, skateboarding and speed clibing.

And only 3 years 'till Paris.

Are we punching above our weight? We perform well in expensive sports, moderately in more open sports, but provide funding across a huge range of sports compared to most countries. Without wishing to be rude to the pentathletes out there, but some medals are more equal than others.

There's very few countries that perform well across a whole range of events. China are probably the only ones where someone seems to pop up in pretty much every sport. Some countries excel in sports like volleyball, handball etc. which have very little participation in the UK.

I'm not sure athletics underperformed much. I'm struggling to think of any events / athletes where we expected to take medals and failed other that the women's sprints due to DAS carrying an injury and KJT, also carrying an injury, in heptathlon. Missing gold in the men's 4x100m was frustrating but I suspect they'd have taken silver in advance.

The athletics one was me questioning it. I’m a bit on the fence though as we lost top sprinters in both male and female events, KJT bowed out and didn’t we have a few DQ’s for false starts?

I completely accept sometimes it’s just bad luck and coincidence with injuries and other problems but sometimes maybe that’s turning a blind eye to a systemic problem given the concurrent issues.

Does anybody think G and Ritchie Porte are just unlucky?

To answer your last question imagine that ghosts, god, witches and luck do not exist and then without resorting to any of that mumbo jumbo explain why Geraint falls off his bike more than average.

In athletics we only have one or two potential golds so I suspect there is more pressure to start, some bod in the relay squad with a niggle won’t even travel

TheBigBean

surrey_commuter said:

To answer your last question imagine that ghosts, god, witches and luck do not exist and then without resorting to any of that mumbo jumbo explain why Geraint falls off his bike more than average.

He's not as good at bike handling as someone like Sagan. Or to put it another way, the amount that he needs to be knocked in order to fall off is much less than for some other riders.

Pross

In terms of athletics I was quite happy to see men and women taking middle distance medals again and getting so many runners into the finals.

elbowloh

Stevo_666 said:

First.Aspect said:

Stevo_666 said:

Yep, cycling and swimming were very good for us. Rowing and track athletic less so compared to expectations, but these things go through cycles and overall we are doing pretty well and punching above our weight, as ever.

Loved watching some of the new stuff like the BMX freestyle, skateboarding and speed clibing.

And only 3 years 'till Paris.

Are we punching above our weight? We perform well in expensive sports, moderately in more open sports, but provide funding across a huge range of sports compared to most countries. Without wishing to be rude to the pentathletes out there, but some medals are more equal than others.

I was thinking in terms of country size (population). Don't know enough about the funding to comment

Definitely if we compare ourselves to similar sized nations with similar GDP e.g. France, Germany, Italy.

surrey_commuter

TheBigBean said:

surrey_commuter said:

To answer your last question imagine that ghosts, god, witches and luck do not exist and then without resorting to any of that mumbo jumbo explain why Geraint falls off his bike more than average.

He's not as good at bike handling as someone like Sagan. Or to put it another way, the amount that he needs to be knocked in order to fall off is much less than for some other riders.

I have always wondered if he zones out as a way of dealing with the boredom and pain

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

https://medalspercapita.com/

Statistical analysis for simpletons. You can't enter a number of althletes in an event proportional to population. Nor take a number of althletes to the Olympics proportional to population.

Bit like football always having 11 plyers on each side, even if Iceland are playing India.

morstar

Medals table shmedals table.

We spunk a load of money on it and do well. No sh!t Sherlock.

Sport isn’t solely statistics. One amazing swimmer can beat many small nations. Phelps achieved in one games what has taken Kenny 4 Olympics to achieve and you can argue he has been lucky to have 3 chances at each games (ignoring entry restrictions by UCI).

The medals are not evenly distributed across sports and the entry criteria vary greatly across events.

The medals table obsession is weird for anybody not a fervent nationalist or not managing an elite programme with a medals linked funding target.

morstar

Speaking of money and medals. This table is interesting.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/olympics/58112331

TheBigBean

Wikipedia has a good table of medals per sport for Paris 2024. Break dancing is in.

morstar

surrey_commuter said:

morstar said:

Pross said:

First.Aspect said:

Stevo_666 said:

Yep, cycling and swimming were very good for us. Rowing and track athletic less so compared to expectations, but these things go through cycles and overall we are doing pretty well and punching above our weight, as ever.

Loved watching some of the new stuff like the BMX freestyle, skateboarding and speed clibing.

And only 3 years 'till Paris.

Are we punching above our weight? We perform well in expensive sports, moderately in more open sports, but provide funding across a huge range of sports compared to most countries. Without wishing to be rude to the pentathletes out there, but some medals are more equal than others.

There's very few countries that perform well across a whole range of events. China are probably the only ones where someone seems to pop up in pretty much every sport. Some countries excel in sports like volleyball, handball etc. which have very little participation in the UK.

I'm not sure athletics underperformed much. I'm struggling to think of any events / athletes where we expected to take medals and failed other that the women's sprints due to DAS carrying an injury and KJT, also carrying an injury, in heptathlon. Missing gold in the men's 4x100m was frustrating but I suspect they'd have taken silver in advance.

The athletics one was me questioning it. I’m a bit on the fence though as we lost top sprinters in both male and female events, KJT bowed out and didn’t we have a few DQ’s for false starts?

I completely accept sometimes it’s just bad luck and coincidence with injuries and other problems but sometimes maybe that’s turning a blind eye to a systemic problem given the concurrent issues.

Does anybody think G and Ritchie Porte are just unlucky?

To answer your last question imagine that ghosts, god, witches and luck do not exist and then without resorting to any of that mumbo jumbo explain why Geraint falls off his bike more than average.

In athletics we only have one or two potential golds so I suspect there is more pressure to start, some bod in the relay squad with a niggle won’t even travel

So I think we’re on the same page with Geraint clearly having a propensity to fall.

I am suggesting that possibly (and I genuinely mean possibly) the athletics team is not set up for success quite as well as it should be given the budget.

I completely accept it may just be a statistical glitch although I’m inclined not to. I think we underperform in track and field and don’t produce the strength in depth the budget should. I also accept it will be impossible to repeat what cycling has achieved due to the greater depth of competition.
Maybe you could argue that the funding within athletics should be really focussed where we can create depth and internal competition. Maybe it already is.

surrey_commuter

morstar said:

surrey_commuter said:

morstar said:

Pross said:

First.Aspect said:

Stevo_666 said:

Yep, cycling and swimming were very good for us. Rowing and track athletic less so compared to expectations, but these things go through cycles and overall we are doing pretty well and punching above our weight, as ever.

Loved watching some of the new stuff like the BMX freestyle, skateboarding and speed clibing.

And only 3 years 'till Paris.

Are we punching above our weight? We perform well in expensive sports, moderately in more open sports, but provide funding across a huge range of sports compared to most countries. Without wishing to be rude to the pentathletes out there, but some medals are more equal than others.

There's very few countries that perform well across a whole range of events. China are probably the only ones where someone seems to pop up in pretty much every sport. Some countries excel in sports like volleyball, handball etc. which have very little participation in the UK.

I'm not sure athletics underperformed much. I'm struggling to think of any events / athletes where we expected to take medals and failed other that the women's sprints due to DAS carrying an injury and KJT, also carrying an injury, in heptathlon. Missing gold in the men's 4x100m was frustrating but I suspect they'd have taken silver in advance.

The athletics one was me questioning it. I’m a bit on the fence though as we lost top sprinters in both male and female events, KJT bowed out and didn’t we have a few DQ’s for false starts?

I completely accept sometimes it’s just bad luck and coincidence with injuries and other problems but sometimes maybe that’s turning a blind eye to a systemic problem given the concurrent issues.

Does anybody think G and Ritchie Porte are just unlucky?

To answer your last question imagine that ghosts, god, witches and luck do not exist and then without resorting to any of that mumbo jumbo explain why Geraint falls off his bike more than average.

In athletics we only have one or two potential golds so I suspect there is more pressure to start, some bod in the relay squad with a niggle won’t even travel

So I think we’re on the same page with Geraint clearly having a propensity to fall.

I am suggesting that possibly (and I genuinely mean possibly) the athletics team is not set up for success quite as well as it should be given the budget.

I completely accept it may just be a statistical glitch although I’m inclined not to. I think we underperform in track and field and don’t produce the strength in depth the budget should. I also accept it will be impossible to repeat what cycling has achieved due to the greater depth of competition.
Maybe you could argue that the funding within athletics should be really focussed where we can create depth and internal competition. Maybe it already is.

I think it is very hard to game athletics (unlike niche/expensive) sports so I would suggest that we seem to be playing to our par.

It did cross my mind that getting medal hopefuls to switch allegiance is probably the best value if all you see the Olympics as is a bit of nationalistic flag waving.

Pross

surrey_commuter said:

morstar said:

surrey_commuter said:

morstar said:

Pross said:

First.Aspect said:

Stevo_666 said:

Yep, cycling and swimming were very good for us. Rowing and track athletic less so compared to expectations, but these things go through cycles and overall we are doing pretty well and punching above our weight, as ever.

Loved watching some of the new stuff like the BMX freestyle, skateboarding and speed clibing.

And only 3 years 'till Paris.

Are we punching above our weight? We perform well in expensive sports, moderately in more open sports, but provide funding across a huge range of sports compared to most countries. Without wishing to be rude to the pentathletes out there, but some medals are more equal than others.

There's very few countries that perform well across a whole range of events. China are probably the only ones where someone seems to pop up in pretty much every sport. Some countries excel in sports like volleyball, handball etc. which have very little participation in the UK.

I'm not sure athletics underperformed much. I'm struggling to think of any events / athletes where we expected to take medals and failed other that the women's sprints due to DAS carrying an injury and KJT, also carrying an injury, in heptathlon. Missing gold in the men's 4x100m was frustrating but I suspect they'd have taken silver in advance.

The athletics one was me questioning it. I’m a bit on the fence though as we lost top sprinters in both male and female events, KJT bowed out and didn’t we have a few DQ’s for false starts?

I completely accept sometimes it’s just bad luck and coincidence with injuries and other problems but sometimes maybe that’s turning a blind eye to a systemic problem given the concurrent issues.

Does anybody think G and Ritchie Porte are just unlucky?

To answer your last question imagine that ghosts, god, witches and luck do not exist and then without resorting to any of that mumbo jumbo explain why Geraint falls off his bike more than average.

In athletics we only have one or two potential golds so I suspect there is more pressure to start, some bod in the relay squad with a niggle won’t even travel

So I think we’re on the same page with Geraint clearly having a propensity to fall.

I am suggesting that possibly (and I genuinely mean possibly) the athletics team is not set up for success quite as well as it should be given the budget.

I completely accept it may just be a statistical glitch although I’m inclined not to. I think we underperform in track and field and don’t produce the strength in depth the budget should. I also accept it will be impossible to repeat what cycling has achieved due to the greater depth of competition.
Maybe you could argue that the funding within athletics should be really focussed where we can create depth and internal competition. Maybe it already is.

I think it is very hard to game athletics (unlike niche/expensive) sports so I would suggest that we seem to be playing to our par.

It did cross my mind that getting medal hopefuls to switch allegiance is probably the best value if all you see the Olympics as is a bit of nationalistic flag waving.

It was noticeable that the Dutch and Belgians took marathon medals through Somali refugees (the one actually encouraging the other in the last few hundred metres). Our most successful Olympic distance runner was also a Somali refugee. In all those cases these are people who arrived in their adopted country as child refugees and I'm certainly not suggesting they have been "poached" in any way but I wouldn't be surprised if at some point countries take "talent identification programmes" to the next level.

There's been some switching in the past. Kipketer springs to mind but arguably that was before he came to prominence and after going to Denmark as a student then choosing to stay and gain citizenship. Then there was Fiona May switching from GB to Italy.

pblakeney

Remember Zola Budd?

surrey_commuter

pblakeney said:

Remember Zola Budd?

Sky Brown is a far more recent example

First.Aspect

Mo Farrah was a refugee. Get over it guys.

kingstongraham

First.Aspect said:

Mo Farrah was a refugee. Get over it guys.

That's literally what Pross said.

First.Aspect

kingstongraham said:

First.Aspect said:

Mo Farrah was a refugee. Get over it guys.

That's literally what Pross said.

Yeah, I got that. He's not one of the guys who need to get over it.

Uncomfortable thread direction. I think we agree.

pblakeney

surrey_commuter said:

pblakeney said:

Remember Zola Budd?

Sky Brown is a far more recent example

British father so as British as Brad, or Chris, or....

morstar

First.Aspect said:

Mo Farrah was a refugee. Get over it guys.

??

Who has taken the thread in an uncomfortable direction?

Flags of convenience in sporting terms is a legitimate topic.

Even the Eurosport commentators were discussing it during the women’s marathon.

Quite openly clarified in many cases that the athletes being discussed had emigrated at young ages.

Discussing the nationality of Zola Budd and Chris Froome is a legitimate sporting debate if you want to remove any potential race element.

In a sporting context, it partly goes full circle back to athlete numbers and included sports. Should East African nations be allowed to have a dozen or so entries in the marathon if enough meet qualifying criteria? Or do you include sports such as men’s football?

If you allow more entries under a true flag, there is less motivation for flags of convenience.
Other reasons such as infrastructure (e.g. Froome) may apply to switching nationality purely for sporting reasons.

rick_chasey

Wtf is a true flag

Stevo_666

It didn't take long for a simple 'well done team GB' to send the debate 'off on one'...

morstar

rick_chasey said:

Wtf is a true flag

Someone competing for the nation they actually consider home rather than one that will gain them Olympic entry.

Don’t confuse this with anti-immigration. This is about sporting flags of convenience.

e.g. Zola Budd could in no way be considered British other than legally. Her heart, soul and residence was South African.

I’d rather she could compete as a South African than a fake Brit. I am pretty sure she felt the same. For clarity, her motivation was to get round a SA sporting embargo rather than athlete numbers.

pblakeney

morstar said:

I’d rather she could compete as a South African than a fake Brit. I am pretty sure she felt the same. For clarity, her motivation was to get round a SA sporting embargo rather than athlete numbers.

There was also a bit of "We'd like to add to our medal tally.".