Col_Frost

and today is exactly 40 years from the only Olympic team sports Gold for Czechoslovakia.
 
The 2nd of August 1980 former Czechoslovakia defeated in the last Moscow 1980 event the former   1-0 in the Men Football tournament to win the only and single Olympic Team sports gold in the history of the country (Until Nagano 1998 Ice Hockey triumph of Czech Rep.) 
 
The team played its group stage in former Leningrad (St. Petersburg) beating 3-0 and despite two later quite disappointing ties against 1-1 and 0-0 won the group to stay in Leningrad for the quarterfinal where they eliminated 3-0. In the semifinal in Moscow Czechoslovakia defeated the former 2-0 to qualify for the gold medal match
 


 
Interesting enough, Despite winning only this single gold Czechoslovakia won in total 14 medals in team sports at the Olympics in its history (1920-1992)
 
2 in Football  (1-1-0)
 
Gold in Moscow 1980 and Silver in Tokyo 1964. Fun fact Czechoslovakia was in the Gold medal match also during its olympic debut in Antwerp 1920. But the history mention the team as DSQ. After the players left the field in protest against the refereeing in favor of host Belgium during the final the team was DSQ and removed from the results.
 
1964 Silver medalists, the only Czechoslovakian team in history of the Olympics in whom the Slovak born athletes were in majority (9 of them)
 
2 in  Volleyball  (0-1-1)
 
Silver iin Tokyo 1964 at the Volleyball Olympics debut and bronze in Mexico City 1968. One of the best ever Slovak Volleyball players Bohumil Golian played in both toutrnaments. He was even honored being the flag bearer of Czechoslovakia at the Mexico City 1968 Opening Ceremony parade of nations
 
 
 
1 in  Handball  (0-1-0)
 
Silver in Munich 1972 with 3 Slovak players the team lost to in the final 16-21
 
1 in  Field Hockey  (0-1-0)
 
Silver in Moscw 1980, Already wrote about tis total WTF miracle, a team with 3 Slovak girls was send to Moscow only as a replacement of many other decling replacements at the very last momet. the girls were literally "collected" just a couple of days before the games began. many of them were at work or on vacations, they came, and returned home with a shocking silver. Despite this success, the sport never succeed to gain any particular popularity or attention in both countries sadly. And is still almost inexistant.
 
4 in  Ice Hockey  (0-4-4)
 
The most popular and national sport in both countries. Sadly Czechoslovakia never won Gold at the Olympics (a triumph that later achieved Czech Republic in the memorable Nagano 1998 tournament of the century)
 
First bronze already in Antwerp 1920 during the Summer Olympics as the best team behind the giants from and . There were no Slovaks in the team tough.
in the first post WWII WOG in 1948 St- Moritz the team won Silver (lost gold) only via goal average rule, the team shockingly tied with 0-0 but the overall goal average of the tournament ended in favor of the Canadians 69-5 to 80-18 for Czechoslovakia). The team was led by One of the biggest star of Slovak hockey history Ladislav Troják.
In Innsbruck 1964 Another Bronze with 3 Slovak players in the team including huge stars like one of the best world goalies Vladimír Dzurilla and top winger Jozef Golonka.
In Grenoble 1968 another silver again with 3 slovaks including Dzurilla and Golonka, the team lost the gold in the last day after the 2-2 draw with Sweden. Was a real shame to lost this such way a day after the heroic win over the 15 years unbeaten . A match that had a huge political background in the country followig the unfortunate 1968 politic affars...was full of blood and dirty provocations,
with one of the most famous Golonka putting his ear to the ice after scoring the winning goal as if listening to the Russians not turn off the gas
 
 
In Sapporo 1972 another Bronze disappointement and 3rd medal for the slovak goalie of history Vlado Dzurilla.
1976 the Innsbruck silver without slovaks in the team.
Silver in Sarajevo 1984. One of the best TCH hockey teams in history led by Slovak elite line Vincent Lukáč-Dárius Rusnák-Igor Liba were among the top favs for gold, sadly the lost the most important final game to USSR 0-2 and finshed nce again with Silver.
and the last Czechoslovak Team sport Olympic medal in Albertville 1992. a Bronze won also by slovaks in the team like Robert Švehla, Igor Liba, Peter Veselovský or the goalie Jaromír Dragan
 

Day 9, Sunday,
That would be one of the most entertaining days for me.
 
1. Last swimming finals (I hope Paweł Juraszek will make it to the 50m free final),
 
2. Athletics - my beloved high jump (no serious Polish contenders, but at least Mutaz has a Polish coach - and I am so happy to see Gianmarco Tamberi back after this terrible injury - I wonder what he could have achieved and how high he could have jumped if it hadn't happen to him - but he's back and still capable of doing big things)
100m semis and final (hopefully without Justin Gatlin and Christian Coleman)
and yes, 800 semis - and 400m hurdles semis may be interesting, too - a very strong field here these days
 
3. First individual gymnastics apparatus finals (Nina Derwael winning gold on bars I hope)
 
4. Tennis - men's singles final (Novak Djokovic (I like the way he plays, I don't like some other things about him and his team members) vs Stefanos Tsitsipas I hope, that would be very entertaining)
and mixed doubles final maybe (there are not many mixed doubles pairs playing in Grand Slams with both players from one country - so this tournament is very open competition and a really hard-to-predict one). I would advice Łukasz Kubot and Iga Świątek to focus on it and maybe something spectaculiar will happen. But it;s a bit of wishful thinking again I'm afraid - Polish players haven't shown much in the olympics yet, even Agnieszka Radwańska imploded heavily both in 12 and in 16).
 
5. Equestrian cross country in eventing (i like to watch this in the olympics very much - but I don't understand why they don't let the riders start with dressage results in a reversed order - it is very interesting already, but maybe maybe it would be even more interesting with this change)
 
6. Golf - final round, especially if there would be 2-3 players with similar score after first 3 days (I wonder how many top players would show up in Tokyo - I think more than in Rio, but sadly still there would be some significant absentions). Adrian Meronk in top 30 would be a very good result for us. Maybe they would show him on tv here a few times, which would make golf more popular in Poland. That would be nice.
 
7. Volleyball - men's - POL vs CAN - the last match in the group stage. I hope we would secure a QF spot before and it will not be an all-or-nothing game. Because otherwise... well, it will be 9 a.m. Japanese Time - and sadly Polish athletes have some history of bad olympics performances before noon  - still can't figure out why ;-)
 
8. Beach volleyball - 1/8 finals with one or two Polish pairs probably
 
So it's a long day. But very entertaining.
 

Couldn't write yesterday so I'll catch up if you don't mind.
 
So 8th day:
- archery men's finals
- athletics - especially 4x400m mixed; I don't like idea of mixed events very much but I love 4x400m relays on the other hand so... 
- badminton doubles finals
- rugby 7 women's finals
- sailing RS:X medal races
- shooting mixed team trap (same problem as in athletics)
- triathlon mixed relay (and again)
 
And now 9th day:
- artistic gymnastics finals
- athletics - probably men's 800m semis would be more exciting for me than men's 100m final
- badminton women's single finals
- sailing laser and laser radial medal races
- swimming - all my favourite distances would be that day: 50m freestyle, 4x100m medley and 1500m
- first day of wrestling 

That's quite harsh opinion, don't you think? I would understand if you would name like that boxing for judges problems or weightlifting because of doping but luge? C'mon.
 
It's only your opinion, unless you have some proof to confirm it  I also have opinion and I think that many lugers wouldn't do it, especially older ones. Naturals and artificials aren't very similar disciplines. I think many lugers rather change to bobsleigh or even skeleton than natural luge. Some of them probably end their carriers.

Don't be afraid There's summer events every year. Competition would be probably in Wisla where summer Grand Prix is nothing new so arena is checked and secure. I don't think that there would start many athletes who doesn't start in summer GP or Continental Cup so all of them should be experienced.
 
I feel the same. Also I am wondering if motosport should be run in this kind of event. But maybe it's some kind of Polish tradition? At Wroclaw's World Games there was speedway, now trial in Krakow  

Normally I would say Canoe Slalom but women's C1 still doesn't convince me. I'm sure in future that'll change but today this competition is too young for olympics and little bit amateurish. So rowing would be most interesting for me - four finals. After that trap, I love shotgun competitions and fencing because it's women's foil team which I have great memories with.

Time to start contest "What the hell this picture shows?" 
 
It's possible. There has been annouced list of 27 sports from which in September they going to choose 20. This is a full list:
- archery
- athletics (track & field)
- badminton
- basketball 3x3
- boxing
- break dancing
- canoeing (slalom and sprint)
- cycling (road and mtb)
- fencing
- gymnastics (don't know which one, maybe all of them)
- judo
- modern pentathlon
- rugby 7
- shooting
- sport climbing
- swimming
- table tennis
- triathlon
- volleyball (beach and indoor)
- weightlifting
- wrestling
- beach handball
- electric trial (not sure is this a proper English name of this event)
- karate
- mountain running
- teqball
- summer ski jumping (there they are  )

Normally I would say Canoe Slalom but women's C1 still doesn't convince me. I'm sure in future that'll change but today this competition is too young for olympics and little bit amateurish. So rowing would be most interesting for me - four finals. After that trap, I love shotgun competitions and fencing because it's women's foil team which I have great memories with.

Time to start contest "What the hell this picture shows?" 
 
It's possible. There has been annouced list of 27 sports from which in September they going to choose 20. This is a full list:
- archery
- athletics (track & field)
- badminton
- basketball 3x3
- boxing
- break dancing
- canoeing (slalom and sprint)
- cycling (road and mtb)
- fencing
- gymnastics (don't know which one, maybe all of them)
- judo
- modern pentathlon
- rugby 7
- shooting
- sport climbing
- swimming
- table tennis
- triathlon
- volleyball (beach and indoor)
- weightlifting
- wrestling
- beach handball
- electric trial (not sure is this a proper English name of this event)
- karate
- mountain running
- teqball
- summer ski jumping (there they are  )

I think most of us thinking that way but some sports are most interesting for somebody than others. You can't like everything the same. But you can try of course  
 
My number one would be basketball 3x3 I think. First olympic finals is something I just must to see. I'm interested in this sport since YOG in Nanjing. I saw both YOG tournaments, many WCh, other tournaments. Even at last years Urban Games it was event number one for me. So I would watch olympic finals no matter who will be play in it  
 
After that rowing session with many finals and cycling time trials.

The start of the 2021 Tour de France has been brought forward to 26 June to allow cyclists to take part in the Tokyo Olympics with its Mount Fuji road race.

there's no luge program in AUS in any case...Ferlazzo is using his AUS passport to participate in the luge world events, but "professionally" he grew up in Park City, where he trasferred in 2010 at the age of 15 to start training in ATL...
 
as far as I know, however, there are a few more AUS kids (and also from other "exotic" Nations) trying Luge in North America...sooner or later we might see them on the world circuit, who knows?

For me it's again canoe slalom. I just love this sport same as triathlon, so women's run would be also very important for me. Besides that I believe rowing. First finals and already two chances for medal for  Same reason for women's epee and even women's MTB (Włoszczowska woudn't be a favorite but maybe some bronze, who knows). 

For me it's again canoe slalom. I just love this sport same as triathlon, so women's run would be also very important for me. Besides that I believe rowing. First finals and already two chances for medal for  Same reason for women's epee and even women's MTB (Włoszczowska woudn't be a favorite but maybe some bronze, who knows). 

I would be interested in literally anybody else hosting.
 
Qatar really doesn't have a great record when it comes to major events.

Well, I was talking about today. Who knows what future can bring? But claiming that in naturals for sure will compete more nations than in artificials is a little hasty in my opinion. It's possible, why not, but not certain. But talking about todays numbers. I personally prefer to compare WC than WCh. Not every nation compete at WCh but if someone doesn't compete in WC even once in four years, than he probably doesn't compete at all. And because we're talking about number of countries competing in whole discipline let's compare theme together not with spliting them into events, shall we?  
 
So, if I didn't miss anybody, in four last seasons in artificial WC competed athletes from 34 countries. In natural it was 24 countries. This 24 included    and  which didn't compete on artificial at all. Countries which competed only on artificials was    (!)      (!)      and  Some of this countries probably wouldn't have problems with making their own natural lugers, especially Canada, China and Latvia but the rest of them? Probably it would depends on that naturals would replace artificials or would be with them at the olympics. In this last possibility I wouldn't count that many of them would try.

I hope I'm not leaking any secret, but my source didn't say anything like it's top secret or something. So...
 
 

It wasn't a problem when in Sochi we get four new competitions on both Snowboarding and Freestyle Skiing. Winter Games are not so big as summer edition and IOC seems to not affraid of adding new competitions at big scale. This is one of the reasons that there is smaller and smaller number of candidates for host every four years.
 
I disagree. There are more countries competing on artificials. The track had to be build unless you get rid off bobsleigh and skeleton too. And of course there is something called tradition  

well, maybe not my true wet dream, but for sure I strongly hope to see NTL among the Olympic disciplines in 2026...

Yes, funny how nobody cries over the truly racist organization of Saint Louis 1904.
 
Yes, the 1936 were shadowed by Nazi propaganda; so were the 1968 with the Tlatelolco massacre, the 1980 with good old Soviet cheating, the 1996 who were a huge Coke fest and so on.
 
Yet each and every single of those editions had their moments. Remembering Berlin edition just because the Nazi propaganda simple hinder such stories of true Olympic spirit like the story behind Jesse Owens and Lutz Long friendship; Owens own achievements which were "diplomatically" recognized by Hitler, while being snubbed by FDR, and meanwhile, the Democratic party was ruling the Southern US states with Jim Crow laws; the first relay of the Olympic flame and so on.
 
But of course, let's just please those who think they're so correct in their popular views.

I don't know about that. After all there are not so many Chinese olympic medalists competing under different flag. In Rio we had two girls in German team but before that? I'm not sure if it ever happened except this one case.
 
I would say that's brave statement considering that our last judo medal was in Atlanta and that last year WCh medal of Kowalczyk was a big suprise. And all this assuming that Kowalczyk will compete in Tokyo (there is also Borowska who beat Kowalczyk at Polish Championships). But as always in such cases, I hope I am wrong.
 
But let's back to the subject. Number one event for me would be C1 final, definitely. After that Archery, MTB, Skeet and Triathlon. Except that Basketball (both), Badminton, Sailing and Swimming.

Women’s Large Hill will debut at the 2021 World Championships (should they be held).

The prospects for an opening ceremony for Tokyo2020 on 7/23/21 are unclear. Do you view the stadium as half full or half empty? I see it as half full, and believe the Tokyo Olympics will take place. Here is why I believe - in three film clips.
https://theolympians.co/2020/07/23/one-year-to-go-redux-why-i-believe-tokyo2020-will-happen-in-three-scenes/

Sorry, I need to change it to my style:
 
De Coubertin's views were just those an average French/European in those days. Brundage's views were just those an average French/European in the days of De Coubertin.

Meanwhile in Poland Stal Mielec (2x champions in the 70s) returned to top flight after 24 years of absence. 1974 World Cup top scorer Grzegorz Lato played for them back them as well as three other members of the WC team (Kasperczak, Szarmach, Domarski).