Epic Failure

Just catching up…!
 
I appreciate the frustration when we’ve been so close but some of the sentiment and obsession with gold is a disappointing read. Writing off our athletes achievements particularly when they’ve medalled regardless takes away from the fact that our athletes are actual people. People who have made huge sacrifices, managed a thousand other commitments and have still put in a shift of a lifetime for Team GB.
 
Very much hoping for a more positive day tomorrow and highly recommend reading this article from double Bronze medal winner Kimberly Woods for a snapshot into just one of the many journeys our athletes have been on to get to the games: Team GB article

As it should be. Winning *any* Olympic medal is an incredible achievement. Winning a gold medal is a spectacular achievement.
 
Reading some of the comments on here, you would think that people believe that have some kind of God given right to win golds and that the other nations don't train just as hard as our folk do.
 
Yes, it is frustrating that we haven't won as many golds as we would like. But that's all it is. Each and every medal we win should be cheered to the rafters. Not frowned upon because it isn't the colour we want.

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.
 

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.

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.

Neah. And yes she definitely should be in contention for a medal.
the men’s Maddison is wide open. GB have a good chance at a medal or even winning; it’s very open.
 
as for the long list of projections above, there are slim chances at golds (KJT - Thiam has quite a buffer over her on recent form) and strong chances (Emma in 2 events; Ethan; women’s kite, Bradley sinden and Jade in TKW (caden and rose have chances too but less strong I’d argue)
 
I think minor medals where a clear favourite has underperformed then I’d accept people moaning. But today, MHS runs a huge European record; and the men’s team pursuit kept a tenth down to a team who smashed the WR for 95% of the race before the mishap.
 
Im still confident we finish above France even though Aussies look out of reach currently. The cyclists will need to clean up what’s left to get us close 
 

Oh god, it's frustrating for sure! But I don't think it warrants gnashing of teeth and rending of garments to quite the extent that some maybe do. And it's certainly not a sign that a) we're victims of terrible luck, or b) individual athletes are irredeemable failures because they just missed out on gold. 

OMG I completely forgot KJT is yet to compete lol

Exactly. Can’t have any qualms about that as much as it hurts as a near miss. Men’s relay is going to be fierce.

Wouldn't say he 'lost it', but rather Hall won it.
 
5th and 6th fastest performances of all time.

Most of 'the media" isn't worth the paper that it is written on, so I don't frankly care what they think. Or what 'the general public' thinks if they agree with it. As a wise man once said, people like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis; you can't trust people.
 
There's always frustrations in an event like this. The only ones I'm upset about are the shooting mistake, the boxing judging and the sailing wind fiasco. The others are just sporting incidents.
 
I mean, this TP was almost certainly Ethan being on the ragged edge and expending every ounce of energy. At that level, even the slightest mistake can be fatal to your chances. Fair play to the Aussies for putting us under that stress, in my opinion.

I’ll take it!

Without Katie and Neah this is very impressive. They got so close to the US in a ridiculous time. Well done girls!!

All of the talk from the GB team is how Ethan did an insane turn at the end of 5 laps due to his legs being much better than the rest of the team.
 
bring on the Omnium tomorrow and the Madison.

Honestly the negative comments on here are ridiculous. Agree completely with the above post.
 
I can’t wait to be in the velodrome tomorrow to cheer on Emma and Ethan and the rest of the GB team.

Well said! 

As it should be. Winning *any* Olympic medal is an incredible achievement. Winning a gold medal is a spectacular achievement.
 
Reading some of the comments on here, you would think that people believe that have some kind of God given right to win golds and that the other nations don't train just as hard as our folk do.
 
Yes, it is frustrating that we haven't won as many golds as we would like. But that's all it is. Each and every medal we win should be cheered to the rafters. Not frowned upon because it isn't the colour we want.

In honour of the source of that quote, I would be content just to stick some of the judges in front of a firing squad.

Great performance from Lizzie Bird, 7th in a new NR.

I'm old enough for Seoul to be relevant. And my bad back reminds me of that fact every day.

Great performance from Lizzie Bird, 7th in a new NR.

He blocked Hoecker once on the behind and then made a choice to drift wide again to block Josh giving up the inside. Petty really but not unexpected, my solace is him finishing 4th

Cosigned. The idea that the Olympics have 'turned south' for Team GB because we're racking up silvers and bronzes instead of golds is just absolute nonsense. 

Winning any medal at the Olympics needs to be celebrated, regardless of the disappointment of some near misses.
 
Team GB have been performing extremely well across sports.

Jakob's focus on Kerr cost them both there. Even in the last 200m he was drifting wider to block Kerr and not thinking about Hocker on the inside.
 
Still, that's a new NR from Josh there. He ran his best race ever. All you can do sometimes.