Team GB Daily: Day 12

[Orangehair43 251]

2 minutes ago, Olympicsnell said:

Because I think that's roughly where a country with our population size/ money invested/ and talent capable should be finishing. 20 golds is about where GB should be at, we wont this time and thats fine, next is to avoid the "worst gold medal return since athens" kind of talk. Therefore aim for beijing total. Not everyone in the country supports the amount of money we spend on sports and will be happy for a reason to have a pop.



Would you genuinely not be disappointed in the squad a whole if, lets say, we end up with 14 golds and finish 6/7th in the medal table?  

Certainly going to putting UK sport under a lot of pressure if they don’t get top 5 even if we reach 60 medals which is still quite possible. 

[Rich 23]

Gutted for Matt. Love watching him. Same with Josh and Molly. But there's no divine right and I'm sure the two men would take their performance over Molly's. I'm equally sure both would have good words for her - they've lived through their own athletic disappointments.

 

The silvers are frustrating when so close, no question. But there is a reason that the target is about medals not golds and it's because GB success has been built on controlling the controllables. Sometimes, like tonight and yesterday, no matter what you do to prepare, no matter how extraordinarily fast you run, no matter how much you want it, somebody else is just better.  Medals not golds allows for that uncontrollable.

[Orangehair43 251]

7 minutes ago, Rich said:

Gutted for Matt. Love watching him. Same with Josh and Molly. But there's no divine right and I'm sure the two men would take their performance over Molly's. I'm equally sure both would have good words for her - they've lived through their own athletic disappointments.

 

The silvers are frustrating when so close, no question. But there is a reason that the target is about medals not golds and it's because GB success has been built on controlling the controllables. Sometimes, like tonight and yesterday, no matter what you do to prepare, no matter how extraordinarily fast you run, no matter how much you want it, somebody else is just better.  Medals not golds allows for that uncontrollable.

Half the target is medals but the other half is top 5 so some golds are expected. 

[Epic Failure 355]

7 minutes ago, Olympicsnell said:

Because I think that's roughly where a country with our population size/ money invested/ and talent capable should be finishing. 20 golds is about where GB should be at, we wont this time and thats fine, next is to avoid the "worst gold medal return since athens" kind of talk. Therefore aim for beijing total. Not everyone in the country supports the amount of money we spend on sports and will be happy for a reason to have a pop.



Would you genuinely not be disappointed in the squad a whole if, lets say, we end up with 14 golds and finish 6/7th in the medal table?  

Why should we be at 20 golds? How can we control what people from outside our country do?

 

Some of the events that existed in Beijing don't even exist now  - we won 4 medals in the individual pursuit, including both golds! We couldn't match those even if we wanted to, or had the athletes to do so.

 

We're going to pass the number of top 8 finishes from Beijing quite comfortably - we're only 8 behind right now. We're only 2 total medals behind that as well.

 

Again, I'd be disappointed for the squad, not really in them. Because the focus on gold takes away from how they have generally performed. There are relatively few of the 300 plus that I think have under-performed. That's what we can control. Not what others do.

 

If anything, a cycle where we get a large number of medals but not the crazy number of golds might actually do some people some good. It feels like people have taken for granted gold medals and don't realise how difficult they are to achieve.

 

The people that want to have a pop will do. They'll always find a reason. That's what they do.

[Rich 23]

2 minutes ago, Orangehair43 said:

Half the target is medals but the other half is top 5 so some golds are expected. 

Sure, but it's also a target that you can't really hold anybody accountable for. If each governing body has met their target then what you going to do.

 

The rest of the world had raised its game. And just like we learnt from the Aussies post 96 so, in turn, others have learnt from us - the Aussies themselves to some extent but also the Dutch and others I'm sure.

[cjsavory 44]

27 minutes ago, Olympicsnell said:

Because I think that's roughly where a country with our population size/ money invested/ and talent capable should be finishing. 20 golds is about where GB should be at, we wont this time and thats fine, next is to avoid the "worst gold medal return since athens" kind of talk. Therefore aim for beijing total. Not everyone in the country supports the amount of money we spend on sports and will be happy for a reason to have a pop.



Would you genuinely not be disappointed in the squad a whole if, lets say, we end up with 14 golds and finish 6/7th in the medal table?  

That's extremely unlikely to happen though? We're 5th as things stand (and 4th for total medals), with lots of good opportunities still to come. If 20 golds is 'about' where we should be at, and we finish on 17 or 18, plus make it to the upper half of the target total medal band, plus finish 5th in the medal table, shouldn't that actually be considered a success, by UK Sport's own criteria? 

[Olympicsnell 300]

11 minutes ago, cjsavory said:

That's extremely unlikely to happen though? We're 5th as things stand (and 4th for total medals), with lots of good opportunities still to come. If 20 golds is 'about' where we should be at, and we finish on 17 or 18, plus make it to the upper half of the target total medal band, plus finish 5th in the medal table, shouldn't that actually be considered a success, by UK Sport's own criteria? 

Yes. i would happily take 18 and consider the Olympics a success for Team GB. I think if we get that we are more likely to be 4th, but sure 5th would be ok.

What wouldn't be ok, in my own personal opinion, is slipping behind korea and japan....netherlands dare i say as well with 13/14.

Either of the two above scenarios could happen at this stage i think

Edited August 7 by Olympicsnell

[Orangehair43 251]

The press are having a go - all the back page headlines are about GB missing out again on gold. 

[Rich 23]

55 minutes ago, Orangehair43 said:

The press are having a go - all the back page headlines are about GB missing out again on gold. 

That's not really the press having a go. Nobody has been called a flop of a turnip. I've seen four back pages and it's words like 'pipped'. They reflect frustration not anger.

[RussB 189]

Tomorrow is a big day:

- jade jones

- Bradley sinden

- Emma in the kite finals

- Emma finucane in keirin

- Ethan Hayter in Omnium

- kjt in heptathlon

- pentathlon - very important fencing round

- 2 boys in the 3m springboard final

- bainbridge in men’s kite semis

 

im still confident tomorrow sees at least 2 golds. With a small chance of a bumper day. Hopefully the mood on the forum will be far more positive in any case.