OlympicsFan

Maybe that is the case, but in the end this isn't the discipline where you are supposed to win medals and your federation is smart enough to know that. If Jozwik and your female high jumper (i forgot her name) would still be at their best, then one could even argue that Poland is the best european nation in athletics. Right now you have somewhat of a golden generation with Lewandowski, Kszczot, Fajdek, Nowicki, Haratyk, Bukowiecki, Lisek, Wojciechowski, Wlodarczyk and Fiodorow + you have some good talents in women's 100 m hurdles, women's javelin throw and men's javelin throw. I hope for you that you don't make the same mistake that Germany made a couple of years ago that lead to Germany losing its "safe" medals in the throwing events by focusing on other disciplines. I don't really see any talents right now that could take the place of Fajdek/Nowicki/Wlodarczyk/Kszczot/Lewandowski/Lisek/Wojciechowski in a couple of years and then your only realistic gold medal contender might be Bukowiecki.

Maybe this doesn't belong in this thread, but i think it would be interesting to hear what other people think about which nation will make the biggest improvements compared to 2016 (if we only take events into consideration that were already contested in 2016)? My money is on Japan (obviously), the Netherlands, Australia, Italy and India.

Turns out you were too negative about german medal chances in swimming ... Germany won 4 medals and it very well could have been 8 (Men's 800 free, men's 200 IM, women's 200 fly, women's 800 free). Let's see what the athletics world championships will bring. Of course it doesn't help that so many athletes are either injured or out of shape (Heß, Freimuth, Przybylko, Harting, Storl, Dutkiewicz, Gierisch).

Still on paper this should be your best relay while it isn't even Germany's B team.

Interesting to see that Germany finished 3 spots ahead of Poland in women's 4 x 100 m relay despite Germany missing its 6 best runners. Poland definitely deserves the victory considering that Germany and GB aren't taking this competition seriously.

Any of your best players declined a spot (like most canadian/american "superstars")? On paper i would say the US will win gold and you will fight for silver or bronze against Spain, France, Greece and maybe Australia. It will be interesting to see how much impact Giannis and Jokic have at this level. Australia, Spain and France have great depth, Greece has a superstar but not much depth and Serbia is the only team with a superstar and a good depth, so i would favor you for silver. I hope we will get to see a battle between Giannis and Jokic.

I think all of his throws would have been good enough for the victory ... quite a low level overall. I still feel sorry for him considering that he wasn't nominated for the world championships despite currently being number 8 in the world and Germany being allowed to nominate 4 athletes (Röhler, Vetter, Seifert and Hofmann) for Doha.

I think Poland will win this, Germany is just missing too many of their top athletes (the best german athletes in women's 100/200/400/1500/3000/5000 m, women's 400 m hurdles, women's high jump, women's javelin/discus throw, men's 400 m, men's 400 m hurdles, men's 3000 m SC, men's triple/long jump, men's pole vault and men's javelin throw won't compete)

Boglioglo might very well be the biggest cheater in european athletics since Tuka. Until 2017 her PB was 13.44 and then at age 23 and age 24 she suddenly improved by about 0.7 seconds. If she won't be caught very soon, then it is a clear sign that the system isn't working.

I am a bit sad that Krafzik, Roleder and Kwayie just missed the standard. I think Kwayie can still get it with a bit more tailwind, but i don't see Krafzik ever going faster than this. So far Germany has been pretty unlucky with those standards: - Müller missed it by 0.18 seconds in men's 200 m - Reuther missed it by 0.02 seconds in men's 800 m - Ringer missed it by 0.93 seconds in men's 5000 m - Traber missed it by 0.05 seconds in men's 110 m hurdles - Wrobel missed it by 14 cm in men's discus throw - Dutkiewicz missed it by 0.07 seconds in women's 100 m hurdles - Onnen missed it by 2 cm in women's high jump - Gambetta missed it by 10 cm in women's shot put - Fuchs missed it by 32 cm in women's javelin throw Of course there are also cases where Germany got lucky, but i would say overall it was a rather unlucky qualification period for Germany so far, esepcially because i am not sure if Müller, Reuther, Ringer, Onnen or Fuchs will ever get that close to the standard again.

Definitely true for the shot put, but i don't think it is true for men's 400 m hurdles. Currently the 4th fastest guy is at 48.48, it takes 48.70 to make the top 10 and there are 20 guys sub 49 seconds. At the end of 2016 the 4th fastest guy was at 47.97 and it took 48.49 to make the top 10 + there were 28 guys sub 49 seconds. We have to wait until the end of the season, but right now i see no reason to think that this event got deeper in recent years. What actually changed is that the top 3 have gotten much faster and that they are actually able to run those times week after week and not just once a season. In the past the fight for the medals was much more open then it currently is. I think men's pole vault would be a better example of a discipline that got deeper. In 2016 the 4th best guy was at 5.91, it took 5.75 to make the top 10 and there were 34 guys over 5.70. This year the 4th best guy is at 5.95 already and it takes 5.81 to make the top 10 right now, in addition to that there are already 36 guys over 5.70.

I think you will win exactly 3 gold medals, 2 by Hosszu and one by Milak. I don't see any chance for anyone else to win gold. Also you must have some safe gold medals in caneoing sprint.

I think if we only look at olympic events, then the medal table would look like this: 10/8/5 5/8/5 4/0/0 3/5/3 3/2/2 3/1/3 2/2/3 2/1/3 2/0/6 1/1/0 0/2/2 0/1/2 0/1/0 0/1/0 0/1/0 0/1/0 0/1/0 0/0/1 0/0/1 Better than expected: Italy, South Africa, Greece, Norway, Switzerland, New Zealand Worse than expected: USA, Sweden, Ukraine Also interesting: GB without a single medal on the women's side and Japan with only a bronze medal on the women's side, while Sweden won 4 medals on the women's side! So if we would make a medal table for women's olympic events only, then GB and Japan would have placed below Sweden, South Africa and Germany. Crazy to think that all female swimmers in GB and Japan combined were only able to win 1/4th of the medals Sjöstrom won.

Could you maybe quote my posts from this thread?

Congrats! I would say less medals than expected but 1 more gold than expected.

What about Canada suddenly exploding on the women's side? Where did MacNeil come from or Oleksiak in 2016?

I don't think anyone on here thinks that any of the medallists are clean, but if you feel the need to say that again and again, then why even watch? Just enjoy this freak show and take it for what it is, same as the athletics world championships or the Tour de France.

I preferred mens 800 free relay to be honest, but of course this result was far more surprising, considering that GB should have won bronze at best on paper. Still hard to see them replicating this result in 2020 with a 53.9 back split. I think both Murphy and Rylov clearly are already working towards 2020 where i expect both of them to be well under 52 seconds. Also hard to see Scott ever coming anywhere near this split again.

Translates to a 46.7 flat start ... crazy considering that he was more than 1 second slower in the individual race, he channeled his inner Lezak today.

Shocking gold for GB, thanks to a horrible split by Murphy and a once in a century split by Scott. I think USA and Russia will beat them in 2020, but nevertheless amazing result for GB.

I only checked the first world championships so far (1973) and already found a younger (gold) medallist: Ulrike Richter won two gold medals at the 1973 world championships while being 14 years and a bit over 2 months old, so she was clearly younger than Pilato, won 2 medals instead of one and won gold instead of silver. There could very well be other younger medallists.

I think Lochte will focus on the 200 IM, we don't know what he can do while only focusing on one event.

Glad that Shiwen is back, really disappointing for Pickrem though.

We will see, there are many guys who could spoil his party (for example Kalisz or Lochte).

Amazing medal for New Zealand, although the time was super slow! I can't believe that you can win bronze with 4:12 ... i think it will take at least 4:09 to win bronze next year.