Which are your Nation's Best and Worst Olympic Games ever?

[Olympian1010 7,542]

5 minutes ago, LDOG said:

Summer games: Best in numbers were Amsterdam 28 & London 48 (3-3-1 both times). 

 

Worst were Montreal 76 and LA 84, zeroed both times with over 60 athletes. A very dark age for both the country and it's sport. 

 

In winter olympics it has been always been the same: nothing.

Argentina has been increasing its participation over the years though at the Winter Olympics.

[Olympian1010 7,542]

Just now, uk12points said:

Best - Rio 2016 becoming the first nation ever to win more medals at the subsequent games than at their home games! And beating China to second place on the medals table. 

 

Worst - Atlanta 1996 we won just 1 gold medal, but it turned out to be exactly what we needed! The government and national lottery decided to invest in elite sport to ensure such a humiliation never happened again and it's only got better ever since!

 

 

Yes I do love the British Sports System. It has a few flaws, but I fell like there are more pros than cons.

[MHSN 3,306]

I think worst or best depends on the expectations. we had Olympics with 1 medal but that was OK in that period of time because of the war, 8 years boycott etc.

 

worst - Beijing 2008, that was a nightmare for me. only 1 bronze until the last day when our very last athlete won the gold to make it at least less worse.

 

best - London 2012, the interesting thing is we are still receiving medals from that Olympics Iran finished the games with 4 gold medals (already an all time high) but re-testing gave Iran 2 more already and we are waiting for one more. 13 medals, 7 gold medals is not something we can repeat in near future. and actually when i look back to the Games, we could easily had 3 or 4 more gold medals. our best gold medal chance in Greco Wrestling got robbed blatantly, another guy in freestyle beat his main (and only) rival from Russia and was on his way to the gold medal but got injured in the semifinal and went to the hospital.

 

but my best Olympics was 2000 Sydney and that's why I use that logo in my avatar, winning 3 gold medals for the first time.

[intoronto 4,374]

 

 

Best:

Winter: Without a doubt the Vancouver 2010 Games, which arguably were the best games of recent memory. Not only did Canada break its national record for total medals, Canada won a record 14 gold medal, which has yet to be surpassed, even with the two following editions have much more events. Those games were special for Canadian sport and it concluded with the last gold medal in men's hockey. Cannot be beaten I think in the future for Canadian sport. 

 

Summer: The COC looks like at overall medals first, so counting that Rio (holds tiebreak over Atlanta) for summer games. I did not include the boycotted 1984 games, which were by the most successful games for Canada.

 

Worst:

Montreal 1976 and Calgary 1988, only country to never win Gold in hosting a Summer Olympics, managed to repeat it in 1988. This is in contrast to Vancouver 2010.

In recent memory, Athens was a disaster and so was London. So if the pattern holds, Tokyo looks like a disaster waiting to happen, but with all these new medal events, I am hopeful for a record total of medals (again excluding LA 84).

[Griff88 1,747]

Easy.

 

1952-1984 won't count because we're busy building sports and boycotting this and that.

 

Best: Barcelona 1992, we won two golds. 

 

Worst: London 2012, not even a single medal in badminton, became part of a scandal instead.

[heywoodu 13,611]

1 hour ago, Laraja said:

Winter games: What can I say?  A special mention to Isabel Clark, the best result from a brazilian athlete at winter games so far. 9th place in Snowboard Cross in Turin 2006.

 

Summer games: In terms of number of medals, the worst Olympic Games were in Paris 1924, Los Angeles 1932, and Berlim 1936 without any medals. But, recently, Sydney 2000 was the worst, I remember the frustation when it finished without any gold medal, after a few participations improving Brazil's performance.

 

The best, of course, was Rio 2016.

I still can't believe Clark Ribeiro didn't do that 4 or 8 years later, but she did it in a time I wasn't paying attention to Brazilian winter sports yet Still, 9th. Wow.

[Jinzha 540]

1 hour ago, heywoodu said:

I could look at the medal tables but that doesn't really say that much about good or bad Olympics, and I'm not old enough to remember those from the early 90's or before, so...tough question  

 

I remember the speed skating at Salt Lake City and Jochem Uytdehaage's epic sub-13 made a big impression on young me  

 

Based on the medal table Sydney 2000 are the best (Summer) Olympics for the Netherlands with 25 medals.

 

The crazy thing is that 4 athletes were involved in 14 of those 25 medals, including 9 golds. The individual talent of Leontien van Moorsel (cycling W), Pieter van den Hoogenband (swimming M), Inge de Bruijn (swimming W) and Anky van Grinsven (dressage W) carried us in those games.

 

I grew up in the same neigbourhood as Pieter van den Hoogenband, so his medals were always special to me. I even got to touch them as a little kid at the local ceremony where they honored him after the games!

[heywoodu 13,611]

12 minutes ago, Jinzha said:

 

Based on the medal table Sydney 2000 are the best (Summer) Olympics for the Netherlands with 25 medals.

 

The crazy thing is that 4 athletes were involved in 14 of those 25 medals, including 9 golds. The individual talent of Leontien van Moorsel (cycling W), Pieter van den Hoogenband (swimming M), Inge de Bruijn (swimming W) and Anky van Grinsven (dressage W) carried us in those games.

 

I grew up in the same neigbourhood as Pieter van den Hoogenband, so his medals were always special to me. I even got to touch them as a little kid at the local ceremony where they honored him after the games!

Did you play football with him where he was substituted for being just really bad?  

 

For the non-Dutch: in 2010 the biggest peanut butter brand had a commercial with a young 'Pieter' playing football, who was really bad and ended up being substituted by his coach, who told him "it's going better and better!". Some kid in the dugout tells him "You really can't play football!" to which young Pieter answers with a smile: "Nope." and then jumps into the local canal  

 

Spoiler

 

Edited September 2, 2019 by heywoodu

[Vektor 3,196]

Best: Helsinki 1952. I mean, it's pretty obvious, 16 gold medals, 42 medals, 3rd on the medal table. We won the football tournament with one of the most legendary teams ever in the history of sport (the Golden Team), dominated men's sabre once again with some true legends like Gerevich, won two gold medals in Gymnastics, four gold medals in Swimming. It's crazy how strong this team was.

 

But if you want a modern example for the best Olympics, I would go with Barcelona 1992. 11 gold medals. 30 medals. Our two legendary swimmers, Egerszegi and Darnyi won 5 gold medals, plus for the first time ever we won the women's K4 in canoe sprint. 

 

Worst: Beijing 2008. 3 gold medals. 10 medals. Worst placement on the medal table (21st) in the history of the Summer Games. Unlike the two "best" examples, I watching these Games live and it was a disaster for us. We had to wait for the first gold medal for sooo long that at some point everybody started to worry that we might not win any. It was a huge relief for the country when Vajda won C1 1000m. But despite the overall performance we still had some great moments, Cseh had an amazing SOG, won 3 silver medals, and only peak Phelps was able to beat him. Our men's water polo team won for the third time in a row, partially thanks to the Serbian team's total collapse and inability to beat the Americans in the SF. And the C2 bronze medal was the most emotional moment ever for all Hungarians, because Kozmann was able to win a medal with his new partner Kiss just a few months after his former partner, two-time Olympic champion György Kolonics died from heart failure while preparing for the Olympics. 

 

We don't have a "worst" Winter Olympics for obvious reasons, and the best is clearly Pyeongchang 2018, because we won our first ever winter gold medal there. 

[hckošice 13,313]

1 minute ago, Vektor said:

And the C2 bronze medal was the most emotional moment ever for all Hungarians, because Kozmann was able to win a medal with his new partner Kiss just a few months after his former partner, two-time Olympic champion György Kolonics died from heart failure while preparing for the Olympics. 

 

man, I remember this very well.