Only one Athlete per Nation rule: Keep it? Drop it?

[De_Gambassi 1,297]

 

Il y a 1 heure , dcro a déclaré:

Yeah, more quotas for powerhouses means less medals and less participation for smaller nations. In the long run that just makes sport less competitive as it's the Olympics medals or just participation that is the key of sport development and general interest around the World...

 

The last time that canoe slalom had multiple quotas was in 2004. Then both Japan and New Zealand didn't participate. At all. In Rio last year they both got a medal, so there is no need at all to go back at multiple boats.

 

Having multiple (two actually) boats from the same nation will have slightly lessen the chances for that to happen, not preventing it

 

That's not how sport is developping in a country anyway, a slightly better chance of making to the olympics or even a very, very marginal chance to win a medal are not going to propel a new sport in a country with no solid fundations. Whithout fundations, that one off, will be simply that: an one off, and will be quicly forgotten. 

 

Let say, than in 2020, a german-croatian cannoeist wins a medal for Croatia in slalom. Do you really expect your countrymen  will care a single bit about that sport once the Games are over ?

 

Keep in mind, that I'm not advocating to just select the best xx of each discipline regardless of anything else. it's the Olympic Games, it's the Global Games, I get that. There is a need for global inspiration We need the Benjamin Boukpeti or Éric Moussambani of this world. That's fine

 

Still, having world champions left home because of one arbitrary, relentless, rule is simply too much. We simply need to move a few quotas here and there to make room for most (if not all) serious medal contenders.

 

A balance needs to be found between international representation and the strength of the field and not much is needed to reach a much better than the actual one. It's really too bad, there is much to gain, and not a lot to lose.

[De_Gambassi 1,297]

 

il y a 38 minutes, hckosice a déclaré:

I´ll say it this way, it´s not entirely fair to have for example a clean sweep in Beijing 2008 womens fencing sabre by USA but we didn´t had the chance to do it in the mens canoe slalom C1, I am not going to say that it would have happen for 100% but let say the truth in the 2008 year it definitely wasn´t impossible to happen. If they want this 1 per country rule so let do it in every sport then not only in some privileged sports with team events.

 

Alexander Slafkovský one of the best canoe slalom C1 rider in the world in more than last decade, won almost everything but never had the chance to compete at the olympics just because we can send only 1 athlete in this event..and is not easy to beat names like Michal Martikán or Matej Beňuš in a internal qualification...same with the Škantár cousins they were always second behind the Hochschorner bros in C2, so they didn´t got the opportunity to compete under the 5 rings, they finally did it at 33 years old for Rio and in their first olympics they immediately won gold

 

Is it a self imposed ICF rule, or is it from the IOC ? I don't know that.

[hckošice 15,984]

1 hour ago, De_Gambassi said:

 

 

Is it a self imposed ICF rule, or is it from the IOC ? I don't know that.

 

Imposed from IOC. After Sydney 2000 the situation of canoe slalom was probably the worst, in fact canoe slalom was (is and will be) always under threat, because the organizers for some reason try to build supermodern extremely expensive venues and the same thing happened with Athens 2004, the situation became so dramatic that there signs that the competitions will not even being held few moths before the start of the games, even ICF gave up, but only after immediate strong lobbying from SVK, CZE, FRA, GER and GBR ICF started to "fight" to save the sport. But then had to submit doing some compromises with IOC regarding huge reduction of quotas and in order to still have larger worldwide representation they created this rule 1 boat per country since Beijing...

 

so because of this in Rio 2016 for example the canoe slalom competitions were without olympic champions Štěpanka Hilgertová, the Hochschorner Bros, Elena Kaliská, Emilie Fer world champions Vavřinec Hradílek, Jasmin Schornberg or as you know Boris Neveu etc..

[Bearas 617]

I agree that top 4-6 athletes should always be in Olympics regardless of nation, but dismiss those "Chinese or Kazakh athletes that nobody cares for"  (like somebody mentioned here before) and it's no longer the Olympics for me. Let's take such an undeveloped sport as Canoeing slalom and remove those asian/african/small-oceanian quotas and you are left just with a smaller part of Europe + US/CAN/AUS. Is this really an event that deserves to be kept in Olympics then? NO! 

 

And if you disagree -  then why just stop with canoeing slalom? Let's remove all of the continental quotas from basketball and let's have 4 teams from USA, 2 from Spain, 2 from Serbia, 2 from Lithuania and 2 from Argentina, because let's be real - who cares if Africa or Asia sends a team to basketball tournament... And let's have 60 out of 64 archers from South Korea, instead on wasting archery quotas on Slovakia or Finland... And my favourite Table tennis - 100% Chinese NOC, because let' be realistic - all top 180 players in China will be way stronger than any other table tennis player around the world.

 

I understand that I'm overreacting here, I'm just not a fan of isolating poor countries from opportunity to participate at the Olympics.

[De_Gambassi 1,297]

il y a 14 minutes, Bearas a déclaré:

I agree that top 4-6 athletes should always be in Olympics regardless of nation, but dismiss those "Chinese or Kazakh athletes that nobody cares for"  (like somebody mentioned here before) and it's no longer the Olympics for me. 

 

It was me, and I'd say "very few" (at least, their familly will...). I chose these two countries specially because they have other interests during the olympics, and that the media attention that these hopeless cannoeists will get from their home countries will be about non existent.

 

Having, (most of) the top athletes and retaining some international representation is doable anyway, even with only 16 entries. (It will much easier be done with ~20 athletes though).

[phelps 8,456]

32 minutes ago, Bearas said:

I agree that top 4-6 athletes should always be in Olympics regardless of nation, but dismiss those "Chinese or Kazakh athletes that nobody cares for"  (like somebody mentioned here before) and it's no longer the Olympics for me. Let's take such an undeveloped sport as Canoeing slalom and remove those asian/african/small-oceanian quotas and you are left just with a smaller part of Europe + US/CAN/AUS. Is this really an event that deserves to be kept in Olympics then? NO! 

 

And if you disagree -  then why just stop with canoeing slalom? Let's remove all of the continental quotas from basketball and let's have 4 teams from USA, 2 from Spain, 2 from Serbia, 2 from Lithuania and 2 from Argentina, because let's be real - who cares if Africa or Asia sends a team to basketball tournament... And let's have 60 out of 64 archers from South Korea, instead on wasting archery quotas on Slovakia or Finland... And my favourite Table tennis - 100% Chinese NOC, because let' be realistic - all top 180 players in China will be way stronger than any other table tennis player around the world.

 

I understand that I'm overreacting here, I'm just not a fan of isolating poor countries from opportunity to participate at the Olympics.

 

no need to write about those "less mediatic" sports...

just take Athletics and Swimming...with no limitations even for only the top 8 of the world ranking, we would see a repeated USA vs JAM in almost every final (not even talking of podium places, just making the final) of speed events and/or KEN vs ETH in all endurance events for what concerns athletics and a US clean sweep (if not a full final with US athletes only) in at least 50% of swimming disciplines (and I'm keeping myself "fair"...it could be even more)...

 

are all of you sure that this is what you want to see at the Olympic Games?

 

to me, this is not what I like...I like outsiders, small Countries entering at least in a few finals (if not making the podium) and a fair distribution of gold medals (frankly, the idea of having the USA or China winning 90% of gold medals would kepp me well far away from watching the Olympic Games...I'd probably focus only on those 2 or 3 full PRO sports that nothing have to do with the Games and lose my interest in almost any of the wonderful "minor" disciplines I'm in love with right now)...

 

that's why I say "keep those sometimes unfair rules" and not only...even enforce it by forbidding multiple starts for any athlete in sports like rowing or canoeing (and many more) and not allowing more than 2 individual starts in swimming and athletics (and 2 starts overall in Cycling, within all disciplines of the sport)...

 

probably we wouldn't have any "legend" like Phelps or other "sport's Stakanov", but I'm sure that the Games in general would be more "open" and in a certain way more interesting...

Edited September 5, 2017 by phelps

[De_Gambassi 1,297]

il y a 5 minutes, phelps a déclaré:

 

no need to write about those "less mediatic" sports...

just take Athletics and Swimming...with no limitations even for only the top 8 of the world ranking, we would see a repeated USA vs JAM in almost every final (not even talking of podium places, just making the final) of speed events and/or KEN vs ETH in all endurance events for what concerns athletics and a US clean sweep (if not a full final with US athletes only) in at least 50% of swimming disciplines (and I'm keeping myself "fair"...it could be even more)...

 

are all of you sure that this is what you want to see at the Olympic Games?

 

to me, this is not what I like...I like outsiders, small Countries entering at least in a few finals (if not making the podium) and a fair distribution of gold medals (frankly, the idea of having the USA or China winning 90% of gold medals would kepp me well far away from watching the Olympic Games...I'd probably focus only on those 2 or 3 full PRO sports that nothing have to do with the Games and lose my interest in almost any of the wonderful "minor" disciplines I'm in love with right now)...

 

that's why I say "keep those sometimes unfair rules" and not only...even enforce it by forbidding multiple starts for any athlete in sports like rowing or canoeing (and many more) and not allowing more than 2 individual starts in swimming and athletics (and 2 starts overall in Cycling, within all disciplines of the sport)...

 

Which would either mean:

- that the number of olympics athletes will grow tremendously with the cost that comes with it (if you keep the same number of entrants per event)

- that in many cases, the qualification process will be of much higher standard that the proper event during the olympics.(if you drop the number of entrants per event)

[Jur 689]

hace 9 horas, De_Gambassi said:

Doest it makes sense to had one these two gold contenders stay at home to make room for a kazakh or chinese that very few cared about ?

 

Well, I'd rather had a global representation than having europeans +north americans + australians dominating all over the place.

 

And well, you don't care about a chinese athlete the same way they don't care about how many frenchs can win a gold medal.

[Jur 689]

Olympics is a global competition, and the fun in the thing is watching athletes for all over the world compiting. For me, it adds more to the event having a girl from Cambodia over 3 hours in marathon than the chance of having the worlds 50 fastest kenyans racing.

 

 

Giving rich countrys the chance of upraising their chances takes the spirits of the games away.

[De_Gambassi 1,297]

il y a 23 minutes, Jur a déclaré:

Giving rich countrys the chance of upraising their chances takes the spirits of the games away.

 

That's very personnal... and quite contrary to the history of the Games. Many would argue that the modern games have allways been about setting the stage for the best of the best to compete.

 

And, can't we just stop pretending that the proposal is about to annihilate global representation from the olympics, when it really is just about moving anywhere between 150 to 200 quotas  (from over 11,000....)

 

Edit: can we also stop prentending the discussion is about slalom and rich countries only, when it is also about combat sports (which are heavely dominated by rich countries as we all know)

Edited September 5, 2017 by De_Gambassi