OlympicsFan

Please ... just stop, reading your comments physically hurts me. The 2021 olympics were the best for german swimming since 2008 and it is the first time that more than one person won a medal since 2004 and the first time that a german men won a medal since 2000. Seeing how you constantly write bullshit with absolute conviction, when you clearly have no clue what you are talking about, actually makes me angry. One last point: Unlike many other countries Germany doesn't try to push the athletes to dope by offering crazy rewards (Germany pays less than half for a gold medal than Slovakia for example). When i see the rewards for bulgarian athletes and look at the state of their anti-doping-system, it seems like a no-brainer to dope if you are a remotely talented bulgarian athlete.

German athletics gets more money than british athletics. German athletics has the same problem as many other fields in Germany. It is lead by people who are too naive and actually think that you can compete without doping. I guess in a nation that is lead by a person who thinks that she can convince Putin/Erdogan/Orban to change their course by asking them nicely this isn't too surprising ... I think the last two olympic champions in a track event were Dieter Baumann (got caught) and Nils Schumann (strong suspicions) ... and i don't believe that this was a coincidence. Germany chose to not use the GDR know-how anymore and instead those coaches went abroad ... and for example took over british rowing. France has a different "problem", unlike GB and Germany they are actually relevant in team sports. Imagine how good France could be in sprinting, if they could use all their volleyball/handball/basketball talent there ...

Of course they do, only the other doping super powers (Jamaica, Kenya, Ethiopia, USA) win more track medals. Germany for example hasn't won a single track medal at the olympics since 2000! Klosterhalfen is as much part of the german system as Farah was/is. A lot of german journalists raised questions after she decided to join Salazar. Until recently my view was that anyone who wins a track medal at world level is dirty (regardless of nationality), but now i think that it might be possible to win a medal in the hurdles/steeplechase without doping. Klosterhalfen won a medal in the 5000 m, so there you have your answer ...

It is shocking how you can get almost everything wrong in such a short comment ... 1) Klosterhalfen turned 24 this year and won a world championship bronze less than two years ago. She also just finished 8th at the olympics, which made her the best european runner in this event. What was the best finish of a polish woman in a track event? 2) So you are saying Germany isn't relevant in women's javelin (number 2 in the world this year), women's discus throw (olympic silver medalist) and men's decathlon (defending world champion who turns 23 this year and 99 % would have won at least bronze at the olympics without the injury). I believe that Germany had more top 8 finishes at the olympics than the Netherlands/Italy and as many as Poland (thanks to their gold in the joke mixed relay). Those countries had generational fluke performances, but their actual level in athletics is much lower than the medals make it seem. 3) You are correct that Germany got much worse in doping sports over the last decades. Not too long ago Germany was still great in speed skating, rowing, biathlon, (men's) cross-country and women's canoeing sprint. I wish you were trolling, but sadly i don't think you are.

Yes, espcially swimming ... also we ignore the miracle rise of british cycling because ... ? I feel sorry for you if you actually think that GB achieved this ridiculous improvement without systematic doping.

No, she isn't. She planned to move to his training group, but couldn't do it thanks to COVID. Please inform yourself in the future before accusing everybody who isn't british.

USA definitely, not sure about IAAF. Obviously this won't happen, since american TV owns the olympics/IOC.

Maybe they should take a serious look at british sports and how it went from irrelevant to top 3 within a decade ... or british cycling ... or Paula Radcliffe ... or Mo Farah. British people are the last that should point fingers when it comes to doping.

Obviously Ujah being doped was expected, but i am extremely surprised that british coaches allowed him to get caught (that easily). Usually GB is extremely good at not getting caught. When was the last time that a british athlete at this level got caught? Ohuruogu? Extremely impressive streak for a nation that usually wins a lot of track medals. Will be interesting to see if he actually gets a ban and not just a slap on the wrist.

1) Slovakia must be really rich (although not as rich as Italy) to pay more for bronze than Germany pays for gold. 2) So an 8th place pays more than a 6th place? 3) I don't like the dividing of the prize money, but i guess otherwise it would be too expensive. Personally i am not a fan of having the same prize money structure for all sports. I would like to see what would happen (experiment) if a nation would for example try something like the following: Athletics: Athlete gets full prize money (and can decide if he wants to have it paid out in full or have it as a monthly payment) (for example 200k for gold) Swimming: Athlete gets half the prize money and the other half goes to the coach Rowing: Athlete gets 1/3 of the prize money, coach gets 1/3 of the prize money, club gets 1/3 of the prize money Cycling: Athlete gets 1/2 of the prize money and federation gets 1/2 of the prize money And so on ... It would be interesting to see which prize money structure would produce the best results.

Yes, i realize that competitions between nations are something like a substitute for war. If there would be no nations, then we could still have competitions like the olympics (or Eurovision), but as a competition between individual athletes and then it wouldn't be about finding out which nation is the "best", but about finding out what humans are capable of. Totallympics could obviously still exist, but we would talk about performances regardless of nationality (and in this Utopia/Dysopia (depends who you are asking) we would all speak the same language ... so i guess not too much would change). Obviously this will never happen, since nationality (just like ethnicity/gender/politics/sexuality/social status/religion) is a wonderful way to divide people and keep them from realizing what their real problems are and how they could actually improve their life/society.

I believe/hope you are trolling, but in case you aren‘t i will try to clarify the things you are having trouble with understanding: I am not angry about Germany not winning more medals, It only makes me sad to see people cheering for obviously doped athletes (who are coincidentally from the same nation as them). I have lost all illusions about sport and I certainly am not biased towards German athletes (you can go back and read what I wrote after the German women set a new world record in the team pursuit). I realized that people who follow sports at this level support doping and I will try not to watch any sports at this level anymore. It has become impossible for me to enjoy any performances, because I can’t stand the injustice anymore, regardless of the nationality of the winner. When you look at the medal table, you realize that mostly countries with very nationalistic populations (USA, China, Russia, GB, Hungary) are doing well and I don’t believe that this is a good thing. Sport in this form is used to divide people of different nationalities/unite against people of other nationalities and I don’t believe that this is a good thing. We saw this as well at the football European championships. Personally I believe that the concept of nationalities/nations should be abandoned and obviously this would also mean getting rid of competitions between nations.

If that justifies a 0/10, then Germany probably would have to be -5 on your scale, considering it was the worst medal count since 1968 ...

Germany did worse than expected, i think 45 medals would have been realistic and this result isn't representative of the current state of german summer olympic sports. The low medal count was mainly due to Germany losing too many safe medals (men's 800 m freestyle, men's javelin throw, women's javelin throw, men's decathlon, men's K1 1000 m canoeing sprint, men's C1 1000 m canoeing sprint, women's keirin, women's sprint, 1-2 x hockey, women's modern pentathlon, rowing men's single sculls, rowing women's quadruple sculls, shooting rapid fire pistol) and on the other hand not winning enough surprising medals (2 x diving, 1 x archery, 2 x athletics, 1 x judo, 1-2 x sailing). Summary by sports: Underperfomed: Athletics, canoeing sprint, rowing, shooting, cycling track, hockey, fencing, handball, modern pentathlon Overperformed: Diving, canoeing slalom, sailing As expected: Rest I think german sports will bounce back a bit in 2024 as it did after the horrible 2018 olympics. In order to win 60+ medals, there would need to be some big changes. Obviously it would be a good start to have more funding, but even without that there is major room for improvements. In my opinion Germany should focus on less sports. Here is how i would distribute funding (with the current funding/year in paranthesis): Diving+swimming+open water swimming: 8 million (4 million) Athletics: 10 million (7 million) Badminton: 1.5 million (0.9 million) Boxing+wrestling+judo+taekwondo: 12 million (6.2 million) Canoeing sprint+canoeing slalom: 5 million (3.5 million) Mountainbike+road cycling+track cycling: 6 million (4.1 million) Hockey+basketball+handball+volleyball+beach volleyball: 12 million (8.5 million) Artistic gymnastics+trampoline: 6 million (2.4 million) Rowing: 4 million (5.5 million) Climbing: 1.5 million (-) Table tennis: 1.5 million (1.1 million) Tennis: 3 million (0.8 million) Triathlon: 1.5 million (1.1 million)

Does anyone know why Russia did so badly here? Is this representative of their current level or did they have bad luck?

I made a list of U20 athletes who could win a medal in Paris and didn’t win an individual medal in Tokyo already. I know that at least one Hungarian athlete definitely made it in sports other than swimming (in taekwondo) and some others (in judo, Mountainbike, fencing) narrowly missed the age limit, so good perspectives for Hungary. In swimming Mihalyvari-Farkas, Kos and a girl in the 200 free made it, not sure if I should also include Bettina Fabian and Szombori (not sure if he was born in 2001 or 2002). I will post the full list tonight. Something I also noticed is that there are basically no U20 athletes anywhere close to world class in some sports (probably most notably canoeing sprint/rowing/triathlon ... I think except for two Cuban girls in canoeing sprint if I remember correctly) which could be interesting for funding. In fighting sports and trap/skeet shooting you also barely find U20 athletes who are anywhere close to world class, if I remember correctly In boxing for example I only found two girls born in 2001 (from GB/India -> maybe I will use U23 instead of U20 for those sports instead). In Germany for example there often isn’t enough patience, which leads to those athletes losing their funding before they can become world class. It also makes me think that from a monetary point of view it might make more sense to find swimmers for example, because they can win medals for a longer period of time (since they usually become world class earlier). Edit: I think I will use U23 in athletics/fighting sports/triathlon/rowing/canoeing and a couple of other sports, so I will have to adapt my list.

Kesely? She has regressed lately ... From Hungarian swimming alone I would have rather mentioned Kos or Mihalyvari-Farkas.

This competition perfectly sums up the olympics for Germany. Even safe golds are lost somehow. At least it happened in one of the most pointless sports. How the hell do they randomly draw horses and accept that you are screwed when you get the wrong horse? The result (mainly) being determined by luck is the opposite of what sport should be. I guess in a world where boxing is still an olympic sport, modern pentathlon might as well get a free ride ...

Kenya sweeping all short track medals at the next Olympics would be a smaller fluke than what Italy did here. Realistically even 1 bronze would have been an amazing result for them and now they already stole 4 golds. Very bad news for the EU, considering that Italy pays close to 200k for a gold and obviously isn’t able to come up with the money on its own.

His improvement percentage wise is about as big as that of Warner, the difference is that Warner is half a century older than him ... Also the 50 km race walk is contested far less often than the decathlon, so big improvements are far more likely.

Didn't know that this was still an olympic event. I guess it isn't any less pointless than the mixed relay.

Sounds like a bunch of excuses to me. I think France just took a different approach, focusing more on team sports. Objectively this is a better approach, because it increases social cohesion. For society as a whole the best strategy would be to mainly fund sports that a) increase social cohesion (team sports) and/or b) help integrate people (for example boxing/athletics) and/or c) are very healthy (rowing/athletics/swimming/cycling). It doesn't make much sense to fund sports like shooting, equestrian or fencing, unless your main goal is to win as many medals as possible out of pure vanity.

Another final in men's team sprint? Brilliant strategy to catch China in the medal table ...

Netherlands should win at least 2 more golds in track cycling, also 1 or 2 more golds in athletics and 1 gold in field hockey. There is no reason to feel sorry for the german athletes you mentioned: Unruh: Won individual silver in 2016 and team bronze in Tokyo Handball: They were completely hopeless against Egypt, with such a performance they only deserve criticism. Judo: 2 medals was a solid result for Germany. Shooting: Very poor performances, but Karsch and Reitz already won olympic medals. Beach volleyball: Pretty much the expected results. If anything you should feel sorry for women's quadruple sculls and Niklas Kaul, both of them lost a safe medal due to bad luck. Also maybe Elisabeth Seitz deserves some sympathy after narrowly missing bronze again (at her last olympics). I also feel a bit sorry for Christopher Linke in men's 20 km race walking for missing a medal again, here are his results at the last 4 global competitions: 2020 olympics: 5th place (22 seconds behind bronze) 2019 world championships: 4th place (19 seconds behind bronze) 2017 world championships: 5th place (17 seconds behind bronze) 2016 olympics: 5th place (23 seconds behind bronze)

1) Hassan isn't part of the dutch system. Also her form is horrible, which makes her performances even more absurd. 2) Two medals in heptathlon definitely is a monster fluke. 3) A medal for Bol obviously was expected.