Same as that, I’ve been obsessed these last 2 weeks, constantly checking results, timetable etc to see where we can win medals. And watching the events as well it’s been a real success overall. I said at the start that 15-20 golds would be a great games. We massively over achieved the last 2 games, and that’s just not sustainable. And tbh, we’ve had so many near misses (nearly 20 silvers) that we’ve probably been a little bit unlucky The Aussies have been the stars of the games imo
Well true but we’ll probably be rubbish so won’t be enjoyable. Nice for Holly Bradshaw to get a medal - been close a few times but got over the line this time .
You can always pick a lower league team to support as well . Now if I was a betting man I'm sure you'll be cheering Posh on this Saturday
Yeah I think we've done well overall. The medal hauls from London and Rio were clearly unsustainable and we knew a correction was coming particularly in the cycling where other nations have caught us up. The swimming was our biggest success with 3 golds which is a phenomenal achievement compared with our historical average performance. Swimming is a very tough sport to get medals in with some real powerhouse nations to compete with and to take the medal haul we have is brilliant. We've also really nailed it in the equestrian this year along with the sailing where we usually do well. The fighting sports have been a tale of near misses with some strong gold shots going begging particularly in the taekwondo with a succession of last second defeats. Been a few silvers in the boxing too but they have mostly come after being beaten by somebody who clearly performed better. We've also done well in the extreme sports too with golds in BMX and a bronze in skateboarding. On the negative side you have to say the rowing team massively underachieved even if you take into account a correction factor from over performing in previous Olympics. The bitter recriminations have already started and there seems a lot of work to be done in uniting the team and agreeing a performance strategy going forward. It seems the younger members of the team are more in favour of a softer approach with greater emphasis on mental health, with older people disagreeing and saying that the reduction in intensity of the training and change of coaching regime from the strict Jurgen Gröbler is behind the drop in performance. There's likely to be pressure to reimpose a tougher regime and getting the younger rowers to agree to that could be tough. Cycling we've experienced a decline but I think in this case it's more in line with a natural correction after more than a decade of overachievement with credit needing to be given to the opposition for catching and passing us. Our times are faster than London and Rio yet still isn't good enough and it's taking World and Olympic records to beat us. Credit to the opposition I think, and we're still winning medals including a gold today. Just not the landslide we've gotten used to. And athletics I'd say we've just about broken even so far considering we lost Johnson-Thompson and Asher-Smith to injury who were two of our biggest medal hopes. We've picked up a couple of unexpected medals and still have the relays to go.
La Cruz who's just won the heavyweight boxing gold looked superb . Why are the Cubans so far ahead of any nation in the boxing ? As stated earlier Team GB used to rule the rowing lakes & the velodrome but have unfortunately taken a back seat at these Olympics , here's hoping some new blood comes through to re energise our position once more .
They've got a proud boxing history, but it's because you can't turn professional in Cuba as it's a communist state so they retain the vast majority of their boxers at amateur level. The highest stage for any Cuban boxer is the Olympics. In recent years there's been a few Cuban boxers who've defected to the United States to make it professional such as Luis Ortiz and Rigondeaux, but even then not before long amateur careers. They haven't got the option of turning professional at a young age, and generally have to have success and drum up some form of interest from America with strong performances at the Olympics to defect, unless they're able to leave the country through other means.
I think Team GB recorded 6 4th places in rowing events so were frequently competing for medals but mostly falling a bit short. Is there a danger that this will now become a slippery slope? Not sure exactly how the funding works but thought medal success was a driver for which events secure the most financial backing moving forwards.
They're lucky the funding for the next Olympics is already decided due to pandemic delay else they would certainly face funding cuts. From what I've read anyway.
I think you usually need a couple of poor Olympics in a row to lose funding and GB's previous excellent record in rowing will probably protect the funding for now. But there will be tough questions asked to justify missing the targets and what action will be taken to improve things. There seems to be a lot of disharmony in the rowing squad right now with huge differences in opinion over the way the training programme should be run. It might be difficult to find an approach that gets everybody on board.
The Aussies nearly always seem to punch above their weight. I wonder how much of their general sporting prowess can be attributed to the vast majority of the population living in warm, coastal cities perhaps encouraging a generally more outdoor, active lifestyle.
that’s exactly what I have always thought. They also provide good funding for their athletes like we do now. Aussies and NZ are both fantastic sporting nations. Imo they are world leading based on their populations. They have 30m citizens between them and would be 3rd in the medal table combined. I probably enjoy beating the aussies in sports than any other nation. That’s a testament to their success over the years
they’re not miles ahead! We’ve actually won more medals than Cuba this year. And have pretty much matched them for success these last 3 games. Eastern Europe and Central Asia are also really strong at the moment what cotterill said is the main reason though. This is not a stepping stone to go pro for these guys. This is their boxing career. Rough average, most of the competitors at these games have had 40-50 fights, maybe less. The top Cubans have had hundreds of bouts in some cases, and are older and far more experienced. Their 3 gold medallists have nearly 500 fights between them. They are way more experienced than their European or Asian counterparts Ami boxing in Cuba is mainstream which is not the case anywhere else in the world
Gold in the women’s modern pentathlon. Fantastic run/shoot from Kate french, starting 15 seconds behind first, but actually winning it by a further 15 seconds
Yeah the climate and coastal living are definitely major factors in the Australian success. You can do outdoor sports pretty much all year round and there's lots of access to water too for water based sports with favourable water conditions. It's the main reason they're usually far better than us in the cricket too because they have a much more favourable climate. Brilliant gold medal. But modern pentathlon is such a weird sport. Like how the horses are allocated at random which really screwed over the German woman who was in the lead up until that round. The horse she was allocated, ironically called Saint Boy, simply refused to jump and nothing she could do could persuade it to do so. So she was unable to complete the round and was forced to leave the competition. It wasn't because she wasn't good enough to control the horse either, the same horse was also allocated to another competitor and it behaved in exactly the same way so it was clearly a problem with the horse. I know it's an occupational hazard with the competition but for me that's a little too much randomness to be introducing to a sport. I think you should be able to use your own horse.
