cjsavory

And a mixed field hockey event besides the current two tournaments
 

Thank you! I plan to stand in my garden this evening, and solemnly wave a comically large flag back and forth to mark my victory.

You're now Tom Pidcock standing next to his punctured tyre, needing a final lap miracle... 

Athletics: Any Brits in the top twenty? YES
Ceremonies: Who is/are the flagbearer(s)? KJT and Tom pidcock
Cycling Track: Any golds? NO
Modern Pentathlon: Gold? YES
Weightlifting: Does Campbell get a medal? NO
 
 
Disclaimer* These are not my real opinions ive just answerd the opposite to what cjsavory has said 🤣

It is always good to ask questions. But:
 
UK Sport work on medals, not golds, and do that for a reason. The number of paper-thin 2nd places this time has been rather astonishing, 2 in the pool, three in the athletics, arguably one on the cycle track. Similarly a lot of hard luck fourths, perhaps most notably Lichfield who swam a blinder. In addition, as sometimes happens some other countries found the superman de jour - Harry Levreysen, Leon Marchand, etc. GB had that previously with Hoy or Kenny, but the table for multiple medalists this time is remarkably short for GB - therein lies your first issue.
 
Building on the last point, a big drop in golds, but no drop in medals suggests underlying relative health. We snigger at the US system of listing nations by number of medals rather than gold first - and its good to mock it - but under their system, GBR are third. More medals than the host, more than Australia. I'd rather be third on our list, but there's no way that's a disaster.
 
One of the biggest failures of the last games, rowing, has come Roaring back after just one cycle. Those sports that have underperformed this time don't need 'punished', they need a decent review, a bit of honesty and some critical thinking.
 
Sport by sport:
 
Archery: Havers and Hall rather took the bad look of the tournament with decent little runs in the individual. but generally, it was a shambles. Healey and Pitman are clearly both talented, but  that's not really cutting it here. I'm not suggesting we copy the South Koreans, because they are, frankly, loopy on this sport. Pure loopy. But there is no reason GB - the GB of robin hood and agincourt should not be looking at how the GB divers have made themselves the significant force beneth all conquering china and saying, we could do that.
 
Artistic swimming: We live in the age of miracles - what those two girls have done is nothing short. I admit, I don't understand the sport, and I'm not entirely certain I want to, but to even have one pair of this talent is the stuff of fantasy. GB Aquatics must be in pieces at this luck.
 
Athletics: As always with a sport this big, a curates egg. I heartily disagree with UKA attitude to selection, and I think the unfancied Fincham-Dukes wonderful 5th place bears that out. The non-medal result for the team for me was this morning Emile Cairess, 4th in the Olympic marathon - in a sense carrying on the good work of Callum Hawkins. This games has been a watershed, probably heavily linked with doping scandals, but the supernatural African dominance of distance events is clearly over - they will continue to be very strong, but they won't be unbeatable.
 
as for the rest, 5 relays medals is both good and bad - Women's 4x1 had gold at their mercy, the rest were brave bronzes. GB has Keely, Josh and Possibly Matthew all able to stretch to LA, it has Phoebe and Amber and Louie coming through, but this feels like a slightly aging team - Georgia Bell is not going to be Laura Muir's successor, sadly, though her medal was magnificent. KJT is unlikely to make it to LA. There is a lot of young talent concertinaed into certain events/areas - notably middle distance, but e need to start envigourating field events and decathlon - Jade's respectable debut suggest heptathlon will be all right long term.
 
UK athletics will be delighted to have justified its funding with 10 medals and a few near misses, and one or two chokes that might fix themselves. But the underlying problems remain. A stay of execution - but when your on death row, and stay is welcome.
 
Badminton, Table tennis: Very poor. just not at the races in these sports.
 
Swimming: Frustrating games, but not at all an actually bad one. Most of the big hitters got something, targets will have been safely met. but like athletics this is an aging team. We have a legendary generation likely to fade out at roughly the same time. And the female side remains frustratingly weak, which is my key takeaway. I have more faith in GB Aquatics than in UK Athletics, but the jr side also seems to be going downhill. Still, their cash should be very safe.
 
Diving - no golds for first time since 2012, but 5 medals, all the synchro, possibly dropped a couple more chances in Jack and Andrea, but the depth is excellent, the youth is coming through, Tom and Jack can now go off, their labours complete.
 
Equestrian : Excellent team work, some disappointments on the individuals. The post Games debrief on Dujardin may be brutal - the question will be do they try and rehabilitate her, given she remains a major talent, or do they throw the book at her for the good of the sport. Hester will be a significant player in that game. Other than that, obviously they are in good shape
 
Climbing : Absolutely excellent, topped off with gold from a prodigy. Could not have asked for more, and can see this going on to be a huge thing for GB
 
Canoe Slalom - slightly disappointed not to get a gold somewhere, but all in all a very, very creditable performance with only Mallory missing out, and she held the fort last time; we seem to have good reserves on men's side, not so sure on the women's. But the system obviously works. For slalom. 
 
Cycling - still one important day to go so caveats, but a bit of a malaise seems to have fallen on almost the entire UK cycling scene. Given the pretty dreadful madison today - and, really Netherlands, headbutts? - I'm not convinced there's not some illness in the camp. Pleasantly surprised at the men's sprint under the direction of that stout yeoman Jack Carlin (4 medals in two games - he may not be Hoy or Kenny, but in historic context, that's excellent). not to cross about Beth or Kye, that shit happens, tom did Tom things but the men's road squad disappointed. The problem for cycling is they get a LOT of money as the medal factory, and other sports are possible entitled to say, hold on, they aren't the factory any more. By the same token cycling still produces umpteen medals. rather than lose funds, I suspect there may be some coaching turnover - though CArlins success probably means a bigger role for Jason Kenny who passed his first test.
 
Gymnastics - one of those sports with a lot of near misses. The  women's team nearly produced a team miracle, and if the Gadirovas and Achompng return fit, there's a squad there. Notwithstanding disappointments, the boys side actually look in good shape going forward, as do the trampolinists who will come to the fore now Bethany Page is probably done
 
Golf, not really an issue, great medal for Tommy.
 
Hockey, Rugby 7s...I think GB need a root and branch review of how team sports outside football operate, from grass roots to would be elite. Obviously the current UK sport model doesn't work with that kind of sport, and we should stop trying to make it fit that paradigm, it's pointless.
 
Judo, Boxing...It's been a pretty brutal cycle all round for these two combat sports. Sometimes, the talent is not there...but neither should the sports be waiting around for talent to magically appear. Judo, in particular, concerns me
 
Modern pentathlon - girls doing absolute fine, but boys...disastrous fencing rounds from Joe Choong and Charlie brown killed any challenge - Choong, frankly, looks like he's sick of the whole thing, perhaps understandably. I predict he quits the sport before the obstacle race gets added - indeed, they all might; it's hard to underestimate how important equestrianism is domestically to populate this sport - some countries come  to it through a fencing culture; GB always came through a pony club culture.
 
Rowing - The big winner in my view, they really got their mojo back, A+
 
Sailing - begorrah, but Eli Aldridge saved your bacon this week - very, very mediocre regatta otherwise, and a few questions to ask
 
Shooting - at the other extreme, the shooters have done well. Seoniad was a bit of a disappointment, but what should have been two golds is an excellent return on limited investment
 
Skateboarding - in women's park there seems to be a good clutch of girls to come through. But it's not our natural milieu
 
Tennis: Issues go beyond Olympics as with golf, but it was a fun ride all the same. Thanks, Andy
 
triathlon - excellent returns on investment.  some issues on male side but Sam Dickinson did trojan work, and I see reasons for hope heading to LA
 
taekwondo - 1 medal seems a low return, but it's not really, in context, the arcane qualification rules, and Bradly's unfortunate injury have to be taken into account. Somewhat relieved Jones did not medal in context. Time to move on I think from that generation.
 
Weightlifting - pretty sure injury has removed any realistic chance of a medal tomorrow, but lets see.
 
 

Yep! It's sort of the anti-London. 29 Golds from 65 medals in 2012 was a ridiculous ratio, even accounting for the fact it was a home Games. To drop down to 14-15 from what looks like it'll end up being 65+ total medals is not far off equally ridiculous in the other direction. Them's the breaks sometimes, I guess! 

I'd say 64-66 for total medals, not 60-62. Already on 58, plus the guaranteed Gold/Silver from Cunningham. Then you've got the 4x400s, the MP women, Finucane/Capewell, Carlin, Men's Madison, Women's Omnium, Artistic Swimming, Muir... Hard not to see another 4-5 medals out of that lot. 

On total medals, I think we can pretty much count on 3 more from the Cycling (between Finucane/Caldwell, Men's Keirin, Men's Madison, Women's Omnium), plus the two Athletics relays. That's 62.
 
Think it's fair to project that between the two Modern Pentathlon women, two Taekwondo fighters, Muir, and Artistic Swimming, we might get another two. That's 64.
 
Anything beyond that (Emily Campbell, McNeice, Noah Williams, Burgin, or additional medals from the cyclists/pentathletes/Taekwondo fighters) would be a nice bonus, and take us past Tokyo. 

Pretty exciting flurry of medals right there! Madison and W4x100 *could've* got Gold, but ultimately did brilliant work to secure Silver, and that's fine by me. The margins are so fine here - literally hundredths of a second - and in both cases 2nd feels like a perfectly good result. 

Seriously the misery guts in this forum need a sit down with a therapist.
 
it wasn’t a case of attacking too late; Neah was suffering from doing 2 lap lead out sprints on multiple occasions. Elinor couldn’t have got the lap herself at the end. 

AMAZING!!! That might be a top 3 moment of the Games for me so far - I literally yelped when Anraku came off! Just a superb climb from Toby Roberts.

AMAZING!!! That might be a top 3 moment of the Games for me so far - I literally yelped when Anraku came off! Just a superb climb from Toby Roberts.

AMAZING!!! That might be a top 3 moment of the Games for me so far - I literally yelped when Anraku came off! Just a superb climb from Toby Roberts.

Sorry, but this is an absolutely ridiculous comment. Hayter absolutely rode his balls off in an excellent Team Pursuit performance, and is still well in contention in the Omnium.

Sorry, but this is an absolutely ridiculous comment. Hayter absolutely rode his balls off in an excellent Team Pursuit performance, and is still well in contention in the Omnium.

Yessss, great work Bradly Sinden! Will definitely fight for a medal.

Great Lead run for Erin McNeice in the Sport Climbing. She started 10th, with 8 going through to the Final. So far she's overtaken two of the climbers ahead of her, so looking in good shape to advance.

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? 

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.

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. 

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. 

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.

I may be off by a couple in either direction (and I'm sure/I hope people will point out where I'm wrong!), but I reckon we have 33 legitimate medal chances left, in addition to the 46 already won, and the 1 secured in the Men's Team Pursuit:
 
Should Medal (15):
 
MHS (400m M) 4x400m M 4x100m W KJT (Heptathlon) Emma Finucane (Sprint W) Emma Finucane (Keirin W) Team Pursuit W Ethan Hayter (Omnium M) Hayter/Wood (Madison M) Barker/Evans (Madison W) Jack Laugher (3m Springboard M) Joe Choong (Modern Pentathlon M) Gimson/Burnet (Mixed Nacra 17) Ellie Aldridge (Kite W) Bradley Sinden (-68kg M)  
Could Medal (18):
 
Shortman/Thorpe (Artistic Swimming Duet) Ben Pattison (800m M) 4x100m M Amber Anning (400m W) Laura Muir (1500m W) 4x400m W Jack Carlin (Sprint M) Jack Carlin (Keirin M) Noah Williams (10m Platform M) Charley Hull/Georgia Hall (Golf W) Kerenza Bryson/Kate French (Modern Pentathlon W) Connor Bainbridge (Kite M) Michael Beckett (ILCA7 M) Toby Roberts (Boulder & Lead M) Hector Pardoe (10km Open Water M) Jade Jones (-57kg W) Rebecca McGowan (+67kg W) Emily Campbell (+81kg W)  
Bold = Gold contender.
 
Obviously not all of the 15 will come in, but from that list of 33 it's not unreasonable to think we could get 18-20 medals and 6 Golds, which would leave us on 18 Golds and 65-67 total medals...

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.