Great Britain National Thread

[Grassmarket 3,627]

Well, things have fairly turned around. Rowing stunk up the first few days, but was the only serious failure. Athletics looked bad for a while, but our historically strongest events - middle distances & relays - just about rescued us. A huge number of success stories in sports major & minor, new & old.  Far more gold than anyone predicted, far more medals than anyone predicted & a far higher placing in the medal than anyone predicted.  And there’s far more good young athletes going forward to Paris than there will be retirees.  
 

[Orangehair43 258]

  On 8/7/2021 at 3:30 PM, Grassmarket said:

Well, things have fairly turned around. Rowing stunk up the first few days, but was the only serious failure. Athletics looked bad for a while, but our historically strongest events - middle distances & relays - just about rescued us. A huge number of success stories in sports major & minor, new & old.  Far more gold than anyone predicted, far more medals than anyone predicted & a far higher placing in the medal than anyone predicted.  And there’s far more good young athletes going forward to Paris than there will be retirees.  
 

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And even rowing will probably improve as the last twenty years have showed most sports are able to improve after a poor showing. 
 

Britain has more athletics medals than Germany and France combined which never felt that likely at the start of the Athletics. 
 

 

[Nickyc707 382]

  On 8/7/2021 at 3:30 PM, Grassmarket said:

Well, things have fairly turned around. Rowing stunk up the first few days, but was the only serious failure. Athletics looked bad for a while, but our historically strongest events - middle distances & relays - just about rescued us. A huge number of success stories in sports major & minor, new & old.  Far more gold than anyone predicted, far more medals than anyone predicted & a far higher placing in the medal than anyone predicted.  And there’s far more good young athletes going forward to Paris than there will be retirees.  
 

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I think you're being a little unfair to rowing. As always margins are small. In 2016, seven GB crews had top four finishes. This time eight did so. The problem was too many fourths of course. Of the 41 rowers selected 33 were making their debut which helps to explain the reduction in medals but hopefully they will benefit from the experience gained in Tokyo in three years time.

 

Incidentally rowing didn't have the biggest fall off in medals. Three sports had a reduction of more than one medal between 2016 and 2020:

 

Gymnastics  -4

Rowing         -3

Canoeing     -2

 

 

 

[Grassmarket 3,627]

  On 8/7/2021 at 6:08 PM, Nickyc707 said:

I think you're being a little unfair to rowing. As always margins are small. In 2016, seven GB crews had top four finishes. This time eight did so. The problem was too many fourths of course. Of the 41 rowers selected 33 were making their debut which helps to explain the reduction in medals but hopefully they will benefit from the experience gained in Tokyo in three years time.

 

Incidentally rowing didn't have the biggest fall off in medals. Three sports had a reduction of more than one medal between 2016 and 2020:

 

Gymnastics  -4

Rowing         -3

Canoeing     -2

 

 

 

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The results were misleading. What actually happened in all the races was that all the crews were in medal position at half-way then faded away outside. So that argues that something went wrong in the preparation.

[JamDH 44]

That rounds up a fantastic showing for GB, I recant any doubts I had up to the first few days of the games. If 22 golds and 65 medals is a 'worse' Olympics then British sport is in superb shape. 

[Sindo 1,516]

 

As one of the most active National Threads on Totallympics, I would like to inform you that if you are interested I could create a sub-domain only for British sport fans, named like greatbritain.totallympics.com (and where instead of greatbritain we can put any word you prefer), with the same structure of Totallympics (sections, threads etc.).

 

You can find more info in this thread. Let me know if you are interested

[Orangehair43 258]

Wow at Jason Kenny and Lauren Price. 
 

 

And British Athletics still needs a rethink because why did they let Callum Hawkins run with a bad ankle injury when injured marathon runners never manage to have successful races. 

[Orangehair43 258]

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/aug/08/uk-athletics-christian-malcolm-defends-performance-at-tokyo-2020
 

With how Team GB has a habit of meeting dramatic sporting predictions I am not ruling out GB getting near that ridiculous target Christian Malcom has predicted. 

[Orangehair43 258]

I wonder if they will be a review of the funding made in December - it looks bizarre swimming has had its funding cut just when more is needed to help develop the next generation of elite British swimmers to follow this one. 

[Orangehair43 258]

I am going to put a bet on no GB medals in Athletics at either of the two upcoming worlds or at the 2024 Olympics  - it feels like it’s got to happen some day.