2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo

[SimonB]

Disappointing performances for France in sports like athletics or swimming but great successes in team sport.

3 finals in Basket Hand Volley for the men, out of them two gold medals. First time since USSR 1988 they said.
Gold in handball and bronze in basket for the women.
First that a country wins gold in handball in men and women since Yugoslavia 1984

I expect that tickets for those team sports will be hard to get in three years time. It was the French men's volleyball team that surprised me the most, although after the quarter final I began to think that they had a chance.

[Lyonnais]

Disappointing performances for France in sports like athletics or swimming but great successes in team sport.

3 finals in Basket Hand Volley for the men, out of them two gold medals. First time since USSR 1988 they said.
Gold in handball and bronze in basket for the women.
First that a country wins gold in handball in men and women since Yugoslavia 1984

I expect that tickets for those team sports will be hard to get in three years time. It was the French men's volleyball team that surprised me the most, although after the quarter final I began to think that they had a chance.

Indeed this was the major upset. They lost their two first games so it’s like a miracle to win the tournament afterwards. And we don’t have a major history in volley-ball compared to handball.

[greenbay]

Who actually won the medal count?

The US for the most overall medals?
Or China for the most gold medals?

In Germany, the ranking is usually by number of gold medals, not overall. How do they do it in your country?

Edit: I just noticed that the US have outscored China on closing day with respect to gold medals... but the question still remains. Gold medals first or overall medals?

[Lorric]

Who actually won the medal count?

The US for the most overall medals?
Or China for the most gold medals?

In Germany, the ranking is usually by number of gold medals, not overall. How do they do it in your country?

Edit: I just noticed that the US have outscored China on closing day with respect to gold medals... but the question still remains. Gold medals first or overall medals?

Gold count > medal count.

[mavano]

Who actually won the medal count?

The US for the most overall medals?
Or China for the most gold medals?

In Germany, the ranking is usually by number of gold medals, not overall. How do they do it in your country?

Edit: I just noticed that the US have outscored China on closing day with respect to gold medals... but the question still remains. Gold medals first or overall medals?

Gold count > medal count.

From a ranking purpose, yes. But from a "succes" purpose. No. 7-3-4 is better then 6-8-9 but I would rate the 2nd as a better sports nation.

[mavano]

Highly successful games for the Netherlands. The start was bit underwhelming (although not nearly as bad as some claimed it was) but especially in the 2nd week the medals just kept coming leading to 36 (10-12-14) . We had 12 Golds (out of 25 total) in Sydney but 8 of those 12 were won by 3 people. This result is so much more impressive.

Biggest success was Athletics. 8 medals is just bonkers. We never won more then 1 since 1948 and cycling as whole and on track especially was a great succes obviously. Still some disappointments. Judo under performed with just 1 bronze. Sailing wasn't terrible but had much more potential than a single gold and some bronze. And 1 medal between the 5 teams was disappointing as 4 of them came in as reigning (vice) world champion. Only the hockey women who are head-and-shoulders above everyone else delivered. And plenty of individual disappointing events. Other then a few of the athletic medals I never got the impression that we were overachieving.

The source of succes has similarities with GB.
1. Focused and ruthless funding on sports and/or athletes with medal potential. (although the amount of money is dwarfed by what GB pumps into sport)
3. Focusing on facilities and coaches. They are a constant while athletes come and go through the years. If you focus on individual talents everything collapses when they quit.
2. Bringing all athletes together in 1 centralized world class training facility for most Olympic sports. Living, training and competing together as that will push the most out of each individual athlete.

I have to say though that I discovered one downside to this many medals. Their value deflates a bit. Some get lost and overshadowed by others. Just a +1 in the medal standings...

[Lorric]

Who actually won the medal count?

The US for the most overall medals?
Or China for the most gold medals?

In Germany, the ranking is usually by number of gold medals, not overall. How do they do it in your country?

Edit: I just noticed that the US have outscored China on closing day with respect to gold medals... but the question still remains. Gold medals first or overall medals?

Gold count > medal count.

From a ranking purpose, yes. But from a "succes" purpose. No. 7-3-4 is better then 6-8-9 but I would rate the 2nd as a better sports nation.

I said it earlier on in the thread but I do value it the same way as the ranking table. In your example the first one has 7 World Champions, the other has 6. So the first succeeded 7 times, the second 6, The rest lost. Thus the first was more successful. Though you'd probably think going forward the second country's future prospects were brighter than the first's. I would also surely have taken more pleasure following the latter country, getting to so many finals and bronze medal contests, even though the first was more successful. I enjoy watching all my country's athletes from the sports that interest me, even if I know their chance to actually medal is slim to none. I still enjoy the journey, and every victory, even if it's just say a British archer winning through the first round, when I know they're almost certainly not going to medal.

[SimonB]

Gold count > medal count.

From a ranking purpose, yes. But from a "succes" purpose. No. 7-3-4 is better then 6-8-9 but I would rate the 2nd as a better sports nation.

I said it earlier on in the thread but I do value it the same way as the ranking table. In your example the first one has 7 World Champions, the other has 6. So the first succeeded 7 times, the second 6, The rest lost. Thus the first was more successful. Though you'd probably think going forward the second country's future prospects were brighter than the first's. I would also surely have taken more pleasure following the latter country, getting to so many finals and bronze medal contests, even though the first was more successful. I enjoy watching all my country's athletes from the sports that interest me, even if I know their chance to actually medal is slim to none. I still enjoy the journey, and every victory, even if it's just say a British archer winning through the first round, when I know they're almost certainly not going to medal.

I know that we are looking at a lot of sports here but in an athletics team competition for example to determine the strongest nation if there are 8 teams competing for example 8 points are awarded for the first place down to 1 for the lowest in each event and that gives you a good measure of the overall strength like that. So i suppose the equivalent for this would be to give 3 points for a gold 2 for a silver and 1 for a bronze. As Lorric has already said though the normal way here is to go by number of Gold first. For me though the main thing is just to enjoy the events upon there own merit, and if we can win plenty of medals then so much the better.

[Lorric]

From a ranking purpose, yes. But from a "succes" purpose. No. 7-3-4 is better then 6-8-9 but I would rate the 2nd as a better sports nation.

I said it earlier on in the thread but I do value it the same way as the ranking table. In your example the first one has 7 World Champions, the other has 6. So the first succeeded 7 times, the second 6, The rest lost. Thus the first was more successful. Though you'd probably think going forward the second country's future prospects were brighter than the first's. I would also surely have taken more pleasure following the latter country, getting to so many finals and bronze medal contests, even though the first was more successful. I enjoy watching all my country's athletes from the sports that interest me, even if I know their chance to actually medal is slim to none. I still enjoy the journey, and every victory, even if it's just say a British archer winning through the first round, when I know they're almost certainly not going to medal.

I know that we are looking at a lot of sports here but in an athletics team competition for example to determine the strongest nation if there are 8 teams competing for example 8 points are awarded for the first place down to 1 for the lowest in each event and that gives you a good measure of the overall strength like that. So i suppose the equivalent for this would be to give 3 points for a gold 2 for a silver and 1 for a bronze. As Lorric has already said though the normal way here is to go by number of Gold first. For me though the main thing is just to enjoy the events upon there own merit, and if we can win plenty of medals then so much the better.

And then there are the imbalances. Australia do well because there are so many medals for swimming and they're very strong there. They got 9 of their 17 golds there and 21/46 of their total medals.

[bugylibicska]

I said it earlier on in the thread but I do value it the same way as the ranking table. In your example the first one has 7 World Champions, the other has 6. So the first succeeded 7 times, the second 6, The rest lost. Thus the first was more successful. Though you'd probably think going forward the second country's future prospects were brighter than the first's. I would also surely have taken more pleasure following the latter country, getting to so many finals and bronze medal contests, even though the first was more successful. I enjoy watching all my country's athletes from the sports that interest me, even if I know their chance to actually medal is slim to none. I still enjoy the journey, and every victory, even if it's just say a British archer winning through the first round, when I know they're almost certainly not going to medal.

I know that we are looking at a lot of sports here but in an athletics team competition for example to determine the strongest nation if there are 8 teams competing for example 8 points are awarded for the first place down to 1 for the lowest in each event and that gives you a good measure of the overall strength like that. So i suppose the equivalent for this would be to give 3 points for a gold 2 for a silver and 1 for a bronze. As Lorric has already said though the normal way here is to go by number of Gold first. For me though the main thing is just to enjoy the events upon there own merit, and if we can win plenty of medals then so much the better.

And then there are the imbalances. Australia do well because there are so many medals for swimming and they're very strong there. They got 9 of their 17 golds there and 21/46 of their total medals.

Talking about imbalance. In the 1960 Olympics in Rome Turkey finished 6th in the rankings with 7 gold and 2 silver = 9 medals, while the next Hungary had 6 gold, 8 silver and 7 bronz = 21 medals. All the medals for Turkey from wrestling.
In my time in Hungary the unofficial ranking was counting the top 6 athletes and giving points for gold 7, silver 5 and so on the 6th got 1 point. This would give you a good idea about sport in general in a given country.
Hungary had their 2nd worst Olympics in Tokyo 2020 after Beijing 2008, though I wouldn't call it a failure, rather the reality of our times. After all many countries would be happy with 6+7+7=20 medals. The Magyars were spoiled for so long - I consider only the Olympics after the WWII, since 1948 London. Our best one is Helsinki 1952 with 16 golds, 10 silver, 16 bronz = 42 medals and 3rd on the table after the Americans and the Soviets!

[red81]

the Olympics are heading from bad to worse.
these genders in IOC and France are introducing breakdance?! in Paris 2024, while in the meantime wrestling is threatened to be scrapped after Paris.
we have skateboarding and surfing, BMX racing and freestyle (wtf is that?!), sports climbing, of course at the expense of constant reducing of the categories in traditional Olympic sports like weightlifting and wrestling.
we don't like karate, but we don't mind taekwondo.
we have 35 medals sets in swimming dominated by the Americans and Australians. and doping is not a problem there, unlike other sports mentioned above.
we have 10 medals in sailing ... wow, if 10 medals in sailing is OK, why not put 10 categories in motors sports. bring F1 to the Olympics.

this is getting utter bullshit and ridiculing the whole idea about the Olympics.

[Ricardo]

agree with above post. the balance of number of medals per 'sport' is not well. One athlete can win 7 medals in 1 olympics with swimming, but a football player max. 1.
And who decides whioch sports are olympic and which are not. Yes I would like to see F1 on Olympics, I don't think it is very hard to organise even!
I will be just like tennis, one of the many tournaments,
Breakdance, sorry no way. Bring first normal dancing on the olympics then: Tango, Rumba, etc. that would mean a lot of medals

And in one sport there is max. 1 person per country and in others there are multiple. WHY? why can there be only 1 judo, 1 surfer/sailer per class, but multiple swimmers, athletic, per class.

I would suggest that 1 person can participate in max. 1 class. So max. 1 medal. Maybe an individual and 1 group possible...

[Lorric]

agree with above post. the balance of number of medals per 'sport' is not well. One athlete can win 7 medals in 1 olympics with swimming, but a football player max. 1.
And who decides whioch sports are olympic and which are not. Yes I would like to see F1 on Olympics, I don't think it is very hard to organise even!
I will be just like tennis, one of the many tournaments,
Breakdance, sorry no way. Bring first normal dancing on the olympics then: Tango, Rumba, etc. that would mean a lot of medals

And in one sport there is max. 1 person per country and in others there are multiple. WHY? why can there be only 1 judo, 1 surfer/sailer per class, but multiple swimmers, athletic, per class.

I would suggest that 1 person can participate in max. 1 class. So max. 1 medal. Maybe an individual and 1 group possible...

Unless it's a team sport, I think it should be possible in all sports to have 3 athletes from one country, make it possible for one country to stand on all three steps of the podium.

Sometimes I wonder if team sports should count as multiple medals on the medal table. After all this effects funding. Why fund multiple people to go for one medal when you can fund multiple people to go for multiple medals?

The host has some discretion to choose the non-core sports:

https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-appro ... tokyo-2020

[Ricardo]

if we ever hold the Olympics in the Netherlands I propose to put Korfbal, Kaatsen, Fierljeppen on the program..

[EarlofBug]

if we ever hold the Olympics in the Netherlands I propose to put Korfbal, Kaatsen, Fierljeppen on the program..

I would like to see that