OlympicIRL

2012 Olympic champion Katie Taylor  has announced she will retire after her fight in Dublin this summer.
 
 
https://www.rte.ie/sport/boxing/2026/0225/1560357-taylor-to-retire-after-dublin-fight-this-summer/
 

2nd best all time performance 
 
 
 

I am quite optimistic almost anyone into the Olympic history know this song. Local media here sometimes use Olympic Fanfare for videos about Indonesian Olympic history

Meant to ask this during the Olympics, but how many of you non-USA peeps are familiar with this song?  In case you don't know, this was written for the LA84 games by John Williams, renowned film score composer (Star Wars, Superman, Jurassic Park, etc.).  NBC now uses this all the time in their Olympic promos, intros, etc.
 
I had a friend who moved from the US to England, and when the Olympics came on, he commented that he missed this song.  So, perhaps this song is unknown to non-USers...but I have a sneaky suspicion that you Olympics nerds might have heard it.  
 
 
 
Another one NBC uses (though I just learned myself that this was originally by French-American Leo Arnaud, called Bugler's Dream, dating back to the 1964 Tokyo games...apparently in 1996, John Williams combined it with Olympic Fanfare): 
 
 
The combined version:
 
Edit: I'm hoping to make it to an athletics session at LA28 so I can be in the stadium where he directed the orchestra to perform this song during the Opening Ceremony.  Williams is still alive, and at 94, I hope he can hang in there two more years to see the Olympics return to LA and receive some honor.  He also composed music for Atlanta '96, and the opening theme of Summon the Heroes also gets used by NBC a lot:  
 
 

2012 Olympic champion Katie Taylor  has announced she will retire after her fight in Dublin this summer.
 
 
https://www.rte.ie/sport/boxing/2026/0225/1560357-taylor-to-retire-after-dublin-fight-this-summer/
 

Hello everyone, and yes, on the road to LA28! I’m sure there will be some great discussions here.
 
I made a profile here four years ago and now I’ve finally become active
 
Better late than never. 

Some new members for us to welcome 
 
 
@MichiganGold  nice to have you here on the road to LA    
 
@Learphollach welcome in! Great to have a fellow Irish on here . Glad to hear you enjoyed the Winter Olympics and hope you stay with us to enjoy the road to LA 

 
@Daniel999 from one Daniel to another, welcome to the forum. Glad to have you    


@Nashorn88 great to see another active member from Finland! We hope you stay and enjoy participating in the threads    
 
 

Some new members for us to welcome 
 
 
@MichiganGold  nice to have you here on the road to LA    
 
@Learphollach welcome in! Great to have a fellow Irish on here . Glad to hear you enjoyed the Winter Olympics and hope you stay with us to enjoy the road to LA 

 
@Daniel999 from one Daniel to another, welcome to the forum. Glad to have you    


@Nashorn88 great to see another active member from Finland! We hope you stay and enjoy participating in the threads    
 
 

Some new members for us to welcome 
 
 
@MichiganGold  nice to have you here on the road to LA    
 
@Learphollach welcome in! Great to have a fellow Irish on here . Glad to hear you enjoyed the Winter Olympics and hope you stay with us to enjoy the road to LA 

 
@Daniel999 from one Daniel to another, welcome to the forum. Glad to have you    


@Nashorn88 great to see another active member from Finland! We hope you stay and enjoy participating in the threads    
 
 

Quite easily my favourite Winter Olympics ever - probably because I had the chance to see much more of it than usual, through personal difficulties. The games have been a light in the dark spell of the past while. The love and joy shone through right the way through from the opening ceremony - and there was little controversy, as it should be. Grazie mile, Italia. I love you all. 

Hi, Y'all.
 
Nice to meet everyone.  I'm in MI (obviously). 

I enjoy mostly every sport, but my favorites include Baseball, Ice Hockey, Sport Climbing, Curling & T20 Cricket. Looking to discuss the road to LA28, and the subsquent olympics beyond that. 

So, time for a recap! Hopefully there's still someone in this thread.
 
First of all, these Olympics were spectacular from the very beginning. Ever since the opening ceremony kicked things off, I felt something big was happening. Such a global event and a celebration of sports couldn't have been set in a better location this year. It's great to have the winter edition in Europe once again. Wonderful sceneries and great venues just fueled the atmosphere. I really enjoyed switching from one event to another, admiring the landscapes, just like every other Olympics.
 
The mascots were amazing. They're so adorable. I'm not really an avid collector of Olympic memorabilia, but I feel like I have to get my hands on one of these plushies. Not saying the last mascot was bad, but these stoats are perfect in every sense. The opening sequence rocks, the tune has been stuck in my head for days, it's really catchy. It gives off this dramatic vibe while still keeping a classy coating.
 
Interesting medal table this year! Norway showed up once again. Honestly, Klæbo, you're mad. I'm pretty sure the guy would place in the top ten of the leaderboard if he competed by himself, absolute legend. Both the United States and France recorded their best ever campaigns, very impressive. Some other countries locked in as well, unfortunately, some did not.
 
That brings me to a more subjective review.
 

 
What do we have here? It's not really pleasant to look at, but that's something we all expected. The last Summer Olympics were supposed to be successful, we had plenty of medal hopes before the start. That one was a disappointing campaign. This time, it wasn't that surprising.
 
Just as expected, not a lot to be cheerful about. However, I always try to pick something positive. Even these Olympics brought us some successful and memorable stories. There's definitely stuff to go through:
 
Alpine skiing: This is one of the memorable stories. Petra's comeback is already a victory on its own. It's even more symbolic when you realise the slopes of the Italian Alps marked her return to competitive skiing. Not a disappointing finish from her at all, she even improved her result in the second slalom run. Biathlon: Now this is the sport I'm closely following during the entire year. Well, to say it was disappointing is an understatement. No individual finish in the top twenty is a disaster. No matter how we look at it, it's a failure, especially after all the promising things we've heard during the last few races, building up to the main part of the season. I'm not saying I expected medals, but the results are horrific from every angle. Paula not being able to shoot with less than three misses just sums up the hopelessness of Slovak biathlon in Antholz this year. The women's relay also didn't live up to the expectations. Disappointing. Figure skating: Adam Hagara is the first male competitor to reach the final round since Nagano. Very impressive. Despite not improving afterwards, it's a great debut for him. His time will definitely come, it will be interesting to watch him skate in four years from now. Ice hockey: Now this is where it gets interesting. Again, there wasn't much to expect from us at the Olympics this year compared to the past, but I definitely did not expect hockey to be our best shot at a medal. And what a ride it was! No matter how easy our path to the semifinal was compared to other teams, we rightfully earned it down to the last detail. Damn, winning a group with Sweden and Finland at the best tournament in twelve years feels like a dream. Absolutely surreal. If only we could change the outcome of the last weekend, it was disappointing, although definitely not as painful as Vancouver was, @hckošice definitely remembers that one better than me. In all seriousness, I'm glad we didn't disappoint, fourth place is a pleasant shock, something no one in Slovakia or outside the country predicted to happen. I suppose we know how to move the puck, we don't suck as much as we used to. Ski jumping: This is what I'm looking forward to. I know pretty much nothing about this sport outside of the basics, but Hektor Kapustík looks so promising. He's already reached several milestones of Slovak ski jumping in the last couple of months. I'm very excited to see what the future brings, he's definitely got the potential. I can picture myself watching him being a serious medal contender in a few years, the kid has wings. Ski mountaineering: I don't know, this whole sport was very anti-climatic. Not sure if it's because of the events happening almost at the end, the execution being pretty disappointing, or our athletes being unlucky, that's a Slovak classic. Just as I thought, we could have had a serious medal contender in the women's event if it wasn't for snow getting in the way. Stuff happens.  
Other sports didn't really stand out.
 
There should be a big warning sign coming out of these Olympics for Slovakia. The brightest of our hopes did not come from a working state-sponsored system of support. They had to rely on their families and self-sacrifice plenty of times. There's not much support for young talents, nepotism and corruption are prioritised instead. I know that's something happening not only in Slovakia. Many countries suffer because of this, but it's still not something to be proud of.
 
To end with something more positive, our hockey future is so bright and I'm really excited to watch these young guys improving as time goes by. We've had the youngest squad on average, many of those players are eligible for multiple Olympic tournaments, including the World Championships we're hosting in three years. If these players are already the core of the team in their early twenties, we can only imagine how much glory they can bring in a few years. Finally, it looks like Slovak hockey is not getting worse. Let's keep it that way.

Final table:
 
  NOC   points gold silver bronze 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th total 1 NOR Norway 446 18 12 11 11 9 15 5 6 87 2 USA United States 414 12 12 9 12 15 9 10 13 92 3 ITA Italy 361 10 6 14 9 14 10 9 6 78 4 GER Germany 310 8 10 8 14 3 6 10 8 67 5 FRA France 291 8 9 6 9 10 7 7 8 64 6 CAN Canada 265 5 7 9 3 14 9 9 6 62 7 SUI Switzerland 265 6 9 8 8 5 9 8 3 56 8 AUT Austria 233 5 8 5 5 9 4 12 10 58 9 JPN Japan 232 5 7 12 6 1 8 4 5 48 10 NED Netherlands 210 10 7 3 6 5 1 3 4 39 11 CHN China 197 5 4 6 5 7 5 8 9 49 12 SWE Sweden 178 8 6 4 4 4 1 4 1 32 13 KOR South Korea 103 3 4 3 2 2 2 2 5 23 14 GBR Great Britain 88 3 1 1 5 2 4 3 0 19 15 FIN Finland 86 0 1 5 3 3 4 4 2 22 16 AUS Australia 77 3 2 1 2 3 1 2 4 18 17 CZE Czechia 67 2 2 1 0 4 2 2 5 18 18 POL Poland 55 0 3 1 2 0 3 2 5 16 19 SLO Slovenia 42 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 8 20 LAT Latvia 37 0 1 1 3 2 0 0 1 8 21 NZL New Zealand 33 0 2 1 0 0 2 1 5 11 22 BEL Belgium 27 0 0 1 1 1 3 1 1 8 23 AIN   26 0 1 0 1 1 3 0 1 7 24 ESP Spain 24 1 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 4 25 KAZ Kazakhstan 20 1 0 0 0 0 1 3 3 8 26 BUL Bulgaria 19 0 0 2 1 0 0 1 0 4 27 EST Estonia 14 0 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 4 28 GEO Georgia 12 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 29 DEN Denmark 9 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 30 UKR Ukraine 9 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 1 4 31 BRA Brazil 8 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 32 HUN Hungary 8 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 3 33 SVK Slovakia 5 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 34 ROU Romania 4 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 35 LTU Lithuania 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 36 HKG Hong Kong 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 37 IRL Ireland 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1  
 

Nevertheless, it was exciting to watch the Olympics in this community for the first time!

FINAL STANDING
 
Sunday 22.02.2026
Total Medal Events: 116/116  
Rank Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total 1 Norway 18 12 11 41 2 United States 12 12 9 33 3 Netherlands 10 7 3 20 4 Italy 10 6 14 30 5 Germany 8 10 8 18 6  France 8 9 6 23 7 Sweden 8 6 4 18 8 Switzerland 6 9 8 23 9 Austria 5 8 5 18 10 Japan 5 7 12 24 11 Canada 5 7 9 21 12 China 5 4 6 15 13 South Korea 3 4 3 10 14 Australia 3 2 1 6 15 Great Britain 3 1 1 5 16 Czechia 2 2 1 5 17 Slovenia 2 1 1 4 18 Spain 1 0 2 3 19 Brazil 1 0 0 1 - Kazakhstan 1 0 0 1 21 Poland 0 3 1 4 22 New Zealand 0 2 1 3 23  Finland 0 1 5 6 24  Latvia 0 1 1 2 25 Denmark 0 1 0 1 - Estonia 0 1 0 1 - Georgia 0 1 0 1 28  Bulgaria 0 0 2 2 29 Belgium 0 0 1 1  
 
* Silver Medal won by an Neutral Olympic Athlete is not included in the table.
 

Congratulations to China for clinching the fifth gold medal on the final day to wrap up the event! Although many opportunities were missed in the early stages of the competition, the Chinese team performed brilliantly in the last five days. The gold medal tally has equaled the best result from Vancouver, and the total number of medals is also the best ever achieved overseas. Keep up the good work in four years' time!

You make it seem so easy. Yet, there is not a single country in the world that's structurally successful at skiing, snowboarding, ski jumping etc. without close access to mountains and/or snow. You'd almost think there's more to it than you're suggesting. There is no ski, snowboard or skeeler culture here, which means there are no resources and coaches, which means there is no hope of structural succes unless we spend tens of millions. And why would we, if we can also spend that money in shorttrack and speed skating with guaranteed 15+ medals every time?

And, a kid with a talent for sports is far more likely to chose a sport we are already succesful in. Because the infrastructure is there and the media coverage is there, so he/she will have been exposed to that sport. A kid is far more likely to chose Judo, where we have (had) considerable success, with a local club almost everywhere than Wrestling, where we have no history whatsoever.

And how do you envision there to be any skiing or snowboarding prospects if there is not a single place for them to start practicing from a young age in the first place? Like seriously, what exactly do you suggest, just start sending a bunch of Dutch kids to the Alps in hopes that they become the next winter sports prodigy?
 
Because we are already doing the things you said with a couple of snowboarding athletes that train with other international athletes in the Alps, but the problem is that they 'wasted' the most important years of their development by simply not being surrounded by snow/mountains and being able to train whenever they want, which is a disadvantage that no amount of money can make up for.

Well, it still hasn’t settled in an hour later.
 
This team has given me so many heartbreaks over the years it’s actually insane. I can’t imagine having to endure to this for multiple decades. Even if we have some luck, we’re just not destined to finish the job.
 
I don’t know. This sucks. Everyone in the country would be over the moon if someone told us about finishing fourth before the tournament, but it just sucks. Not getting to see them with the medals, not getting to see them cheerfuly answering questions from the media, I don’t know.
 
I mean, yeah, fourth place is great. No matter how the games looked like, we can claim we’re the fourth best team after the tournament, no one can take that away. But to imagine we were one game from celebrating with the players on the main square in the capital, I don’t even want to imagine. I don’t know.
 

Feel sad for our Slovakian friends here
Losing a medal match sucks but getting to the semis is still a magnificent achievement.

Fourth place is amazing. I’m sure we will appreciate it more in the following days, but man, it sucks so much right now.

Congrats Denmark!!!