2021 Summer Olympics (Tokyo)

Pogue Mahone said:
Yeah, I was just saying that to the kids. No way am I jumping off that 10m platform. Never mind diving. Heights freak me out (which is weird considering how much I like climbing)
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It gives me chills seeing them teeter on the edge, plus I don't like water I can't touch the floor in, there was a diving pool at the swimming centre I learnt to swim in, I used to give it a wide birth in fear I'd slip in, it was very deep, and very dark.

Although there's no way I'd competitive walk 50k it looks grim!
 
Samid said:
The French guy leading took a toilet break after 30 mins of walking. Lost his 30 sec lead.

2 mins later he has to go again. This time he can't find a toilet. He's last now :lol:
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This is me in the morning, before and after my coffee.
 
United Hobbit said:
Watching the climbing, the speed one looks fairly accessible, though nowhere near at that speed, the bouldering and lead walls however look so so difficult the way they are swinging their whole body weight off 2 fingers :eek:
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Did the beeb show it ? Missed it :( Was looking forward to it.
 
Gringo said:
Did the beeb show it ? Missed it :( Was looking forward to it.
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They've shown sections of it through the week, the mens speed climb was on Tuesday, approximately 11 or 12 ish as we had it on in the office, not sure if it was BBC or red button. It may even have its own section on iplayer.

Yesterday was women's but I can't recall what time, as we had new internal doors fitted and I spent most of the afternoon stressed cleaning up the mess that resembled a bomb going off. I want to say a bit Earlier than the mens?

Today's showed a bit from each event which was good, my BF had loaded it up so I'm not sure which section its in, I don't recall him having to search for it, so it may have its own section on iplayer but don't quote me on it! Having a quick look on iplayer, red button between 12 and 3 looks promising for day 13.
 
Just saw that the top 3 in the men’s 400m hurdles all broke the world record, that’s pretty special.
 
Kopral Jono said:
The Olympics have always reminded me that Australia, Britain and New Zealand are fantastic sporting nations. The combined population of said three countries is less than a hundred million people and yet they would be top of this year's medal tally if they compete under one flag -- which they kind of already have with the Union Jack situation!
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Australië and New Zealand definitely, Great Britain isn’t *that* good. Loads of European countries are better.

https://www.medalspercapita.com/
 
So Neil DeGrasse Tyson has explained that the difference between the guy who won the 400m hurdles and the guy who came in 2nd was because the winner hit hurdles with a left leg lead and the second placer hit them with a right leg lead, which added 2.5m to his total distance.
 
Eendracht maakt macht said:
Australië and New Zealand definitely, Great Britain isn’t *that* good. Loads of European countries are better.

https://www.medalspercapita.com/
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True, but that chart further proves my point that Britain punches above its weight especially at recent Olympic Games. It stands head and shoulders above other European countries with similar population size such as France, Germany and Italy.
 
You can't really play down GB's medal haul too much. They have become a major player in the games and John Major's decision to fund Olympic sports through a national lottery has proven ingenious.

The consistency of racking up over 50 medals is quite an achievement, no matter which way you spin it.

Sport is littered with examples of money being thrown at things in a haphazard fashion, but the GB athletes have had to go out and ultimately win medals, which aren't exactly handed to them.
 
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LDUred said:
You can't really play down GB's medal haul too much. They have become a major player in the games and John Major's decision to fund Olympic sports through a national lottery has proven ingenious.

The consistency of racking up over 50 medals is quite an achievement, no matter which way you spin it.

Sport is littered with examples of money being thrown at things in a haphazard fashion, but the GB athletes have had to go out and ultimately win medals, which aren't exactly handed to them.
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Not playing it down. There are just several countries in Europe better.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Doubt there is over the past 4 Olympics. We finished 2nd over China in the last Olympics which was a pretty incredible achievement. We were in the wilderness for quite a long time time as our athletes were amateur up until 2000 whilst most other developed nations were funding athletes.
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Last four summer olympics you were always around 25th place with medals per capita. You can see it on the site I posted.

Japan (so far) 14 European countries better 13 if you exclude San Marino
RIO: 10
London: 14
Beijing: 16

Not saying it’s bad but it’s not as good as some make it out to be. Above average though.
 
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Eendracht maakt macht said:
Last four summer olympics you were always around 25th place with medals per capita. You can see it on the site I posted.
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Yes I noticed it which is why I deleted the post but then if you look at gold medals per capita (which is how the medal table is usually measured), when it comes to Western European countries then perhaps only one would finish ahead of GB as a guesstimate over the past 4 Olympics.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Yes I noticed it which is why I deleted the post but then if you look at gold medals per capita (which is how the medal table is usually measured), when it comes to Western European countries then perhaps only one would finish ahead of GB as a guesstimate over the past 4 Olympics.
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If you only include Western European countries and you only look at gold medals than only Norway and the Netherlands are better. But that’s a narrow view. Estonia, Georgia, Croatia, Lithuania are better most of the time too for instance. Armenia, Hungary and Azerbeidjan also regularly on quick glance.
 
Ayush_reddevil said:
Amazing win by Lauren price despite being docked a point in the second round
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Felt like Fontijn was desperate to draw attention to the clinches and ref got suckered into penalizing Lauren, who was a bit unfortunate to be docked imo.

Not much in it for me but Lauren took the final round when she started using her feet more and using feints. Not sure why she didn't do that from the start when she's boxed Fontijn before.
 
LDUred said:
Felt like Fontijn was desperate to draw attention to the clinches and ref got suckered into penalizing Lauren, who was a bit unfortunate to be docked imo.

Not much in it for me but Lauren took the final round when she started using her feet more and using feints. Not sure why she didn't do that from the start when she's boxed Fontijn before.
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Price deserved to win.
 
Eendracht maakt macht said:
If you only include Western European countries and you only look at gold medals than only Norway and the Netherlands are better. But that’s a narrow view. Estonia, Georgia, Croatia, Lithuania are better most of the time too for instance. Armenia, Hungary and Azerbeidjan also regularly on quick glance.
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I don't think it is a narrow view. Looking at Europe there seems to be an interaction between GDP size per capita, population size and efficiency in producing Olympic medals per capita. Perhaps one explanation could be that in richer countries there are more avenues for societal advancement so there's a lower concentration of talented people in sports, that's only a guess. Regardless of the reasons it seems more pertinent to compare the Northern and Western European countries as a single group.

That said, if you went round in the UK claiming that we are better a Olympic nation than the US or China based on the per capita medal table then people would just laugh at you.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
I don't think it is a narrow view. Looking at Europe there seems to be an interaction between GDP size per capita, population size and efficiency in producing Olympic medals per capita. Perhaps one explanation could be that in richer countries there are more avenues for societal advancement so there's a lower concentration of talented people in sports, that's only a guess. Regardless of the reasons it seems more pertinent to compare the Northern and Western European countries as a single group.

That said, if you went round in the UK claiming that we are better a Olympic nation than the US or China based on the per capita medal table then people would just laugh at you.
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That’s true but it’s also true that medals in certain sports like rowing and track cycling that are very expensive are almost exclusively won by rich countries like GB or The Netherlands. I never said the UK was terrible by the way but they are also not at the top. They are a good sport nation but not a great in my opinion of course. At the olympics at least.
 
Eendracht maakt macht said:
That’s true but it’s also true that medals in certain sports like rowing and track cycling that are very expensive are almost exclusively won by rich countries like GB or The Netherlands. I never said the UK was terrible by the way but they are also not at the top. They are a good sport nation but not a great in my opinion of course. At the olympics at least.
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Who was it that said “Great Britain excel at any event at the Olympics which involves sitting down”. I think it’s wholly accurate.
 
Isn't it also a huge factor what kind of sports a nation focuses on and excels at? It seems like some disciplines heavily skew the medal table. Swimming would be the most obvious, where there are so many different combinations of strokes and distances that you can bring home a substantial number of medals if you have a few great swimmers. Gymnastics could be another one. If you are better at team sports you can have 10-15 world class athletes, but still only get a single medal from it.

Maybe it is mostly a factor for smaller nations, but seems like something that should be considered when comparing medal tallies.
 
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Mike Smalling said:
Isn't it also a huge factor what kind of sports a nation focuses on and excels at? It seems like some disciplines heavily skew the medal table. Swimming would be the most obvious, where there are so many different combinations of strokes and distances that you can bring home a substantial number of medals if you have a great swimmers. Gymnastics could be another one. If you are better at team sports you can have 10-15 world class athletes, but still only get a single medal from it.

Maybe it is mostly a factor for smaller nations, but seems like something that should be considered when comparing medal tallies.
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Agreed counting medals isn’t perfect. And you are right about swimming for instance. Also there is a limit to the amount of athletes a county can send for certain sports so in the trials in the USA for example athletes fail to qualify who are easily medal candidates if they were allowed to compete.
 
Mike Smalling said:
Isn't it also a huge factor what kind of sports a nation focuses on and excels at? It seems like some disciplines heavily skew the medal table. Swimming would be the most obvious, where there are so many different combinations of strokes and distances that you can bring home a substantial number of medals if you have a great swimmers. Gymnastics could be another one. If you are better at team sports you can have 10-15 world class athletes, but still only get a single medal from it.

Maybe it is mostly a factor for smaller nations, but seems like something that should be considered when comparing medal tallies.
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Definitely. GB seem to be picking up a lot of medals in the newer sports, which isn’t surprising seen as they were probably added because of popularity. But if we had the same events as 20 years ago, I’m assuming we wouldn’t be anywhere near as high.
 
Eendracht maakt macht said:
Agreed counting medals isn’t perfect. And you are right about swimming for instance. Also there is a limit to the amount of athletes a county can send for certain sports so in the trials in the USA for example athletes fail to qualify who are easily medal candidates if they were allowed to compete.
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Same applies for the UK though. In 2012 we had three heavyweight boxers in contention for our team: Anthony Joshua, Joe Joyce and Frazer Clarke. Joshua ended up winning gold in 2012, Joyce silver in 2016 and Clarke bronze in 2020. Tyson Fury missed out on our 2008 Olympic team to David Price who won bronze, as an example. They also changed the number of competitors allowed from one nation in track cycling a while back because GB were too dominant.

Dan_F said:
Definitely. GB seem to be picking up a lot of medals in the newer sports, which isn’t surprising seen as they were probably added because of popularity. But if we had the same events as 20 years ago, I’m assuming we wouldn’t be anywhere near as high.
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It's hard to say. The real reason that we've got so much better is because up to 2000 our athletes were still amatuer. We were poor for a long time. Since then they have been generously funded by lottery money, that coupled with very capable teams behind the scenes. If the new sports didn't exist then all those resources would go into developing athletes in the traditional sports.
 
Classical Mechanic said:
Same applies for the UK though. In 2012 we had three heavyweight boxers in contention for our team: Anthony Joshua, Joe Joyce and Frazer Clarke. Joshua ended up winning gold in 2012, Joyce silver in 2016 and Clarke bronze in 2020. Tyson Fury missed out on our 2008 Olympic team to David Price who won bronze. They also changed the number of competitors allowed from one nation in track cycling a while back because GB were too dominant.
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USA was just an example. The bigger the nation the more it will occur maybe so that skews the medial per capita thing too. I was just saying that the method I used and the site used of course isn’t perfect at all.
 
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