OlympicsFan

Sure, they absolutely planned to be the inferior team to Germany in front of their home crowd because ... No remotely knowledgeable fan who watched that game can come to the conclusion that the Netherlands are far superior to all other teams. They had home advantage at the European championships and still were the worse team in the final.

I think your men’s 800 free relay is a far bigger favorite than Asher-Smith. I think even your women’s 4x100 m relay has a better chance to medal (bronze behind the US and Jamaica) than Asher-Smith individually.

Are you sure that your basketball team has a better medal chance than some of your athletes in canoeing slalom?

No. Dawson certainly isn’t a bigger favorite than Scott (200 free), Dean (200 free), men’s medley relay, men’s 800 free relay, or mixed medley relay (and I didn’t even mention events from other sports, like rowing men’s eight).

Tsitsipas so far wasn’t very convincing on outdoor hard court, but maybe he can surprise in Tokyo.

Women’s field hockey? Did you watch the European championship final (where Germany was the better team)?

For Germany 3 out of the following: Dressage team Dressage individual (Werth) Bunch of sprint canoeing events Eventing individual (Jung) Swimming men’s 1500 m (Wellbrock) Swimming 10 km (Wellbrock) Mens javelin throw (Vetter) Rowing men’s single sculls Rowing men’s eight Edit: Also women’s team sprint and women’s individual sprint (Friedrich or Hinze)

Did France qualify in 1998?

If you exclude his first competition of the season, Baehre jumped at least 5.70 m in 4 out of 5 competitions this year. On Saturday it took 5.60 m to medal.

No, this is only true at the World Cup.

This is surprising, considering that Italy naturalized half of Brazil for their team. So you are basically cheering for Brazil ... ?

Not sure why you would feel that way about their fans or their coach, but I would understand if you would feel pity for their players. Personally I clearly would have preferred Denmark/Spain/Switzerland to win. Almost impossible to cheer for Italy/England.

In most events the best athletes competed. Also it is a very nice chance and a Great experience for all athletes who are present. Many of them will never have a chance to medal at senior level. I think it is a good idea to give athletes a chance to compete internationally as long as they aren’t good enough yet to compete at senior competitions. I think only the following medal contenders decided not to compete: Bol, Schwab, Miller, Healy, Vicente, Patta, Schulte, Ansah-Peprah, Dustin, Miron, Ingebrigtsen, Heyward, Baehre, Duplantis Others like Knoroz, Kienast or Benfares didn’t compete for other reasons like injuries.

No, Klaver is too old.

In men’s high jump the level was disgustingly bad (2.17 m winning silver ...) and in women’s 4x400 m Germany didn’t use their (by far) best runner. This again shows that people shouldn’t just look at the medals, but at the actual performances. In many disciplines some of the best athletes didn’t even compete.

Obviously I was only counting Olympic events. Did Ireland win 2 medals in Olympic events?

Are you sure? I thought the standard was 5.80 m.

Germany won 8 medals, GB and the US won 4 medals, Switzerland/Netherlands/Italy won 3 medals, Greece/Poland/Turkey/Croatia won 2 medals and Lithuania/Canada/Ireland/Romania/Czech Republic/France/Belgium/Bulgaria/Denmark/South Africa won 1 medal.

Usually Germany/Italy/Romania are always dominating at U23/Junior level, but then at senior level other nations like GB, New Zealand or The Netherlands are doing better. Either Germany/Italy/Romania are training too much too early or they just don’t offer enough support for their athletes after they are too old for the U23 level.

I think he should be very happy with silver. Guttormsen looked stronger today and Duplantis + Baehre didn’t even compete, otherwise he would have won no medal.

Highly unlikely.

You should take a look at the results. In the 200 m, 400 m and 400 m hurdles half of the competitors achieved PBs. It is more than obvious that the „conditions“ (wind, track very fast/too short, timing not working correctly) are more than perfect. Most of the athletes won’t come close to those performances again, at least for some time.

With a time like that she would make the final for sure, but it is more than unlikely that she will be able to repeat that time in Tokyo.

Would be glad, if you could send me a link to the study/survey you conducted on this matter. Thanks! Of course when you think like that, you never really have to deal with criticism, because you will always find a reason why someone else shouldn’t be allowed to criticize you. Obviously athletes from certain countries have it far easier to dope, but in the end when someone is world class, he is most likely doped, no matter the nationality. The US has dominated athletics and swimming for years, when you also take the systematic doping in other college sports and the number of American elite athletes who were caught in recent years into account, then the only logical consequence is that American sport is extremely dirty and probably not much different from Russian sport. You can’t dominate sports like athletics or swimming without doping, no matter whether you are the US, GB, Russia or China. You also can’t deny that western countries are investing more in anti-doping measures, which means that it is more difficult for western athletes to get away with doping, therefore the sentiment of SOME western people you mentioned is somewhat understandable, although of course those same people often ignore possible doping of their own athletes.

To me it is simple: If you are a medal contender, you are doped. You could ask yourself how likely it is that someone without doping is faster than the most talented Chinese/Russian swimmers (talent pool of 1.5 billion, countries that have no problem with doping to say the least). For me the probability of something like that happening is zero. Doesn’t change the fact that he might have the most beautiful stroke of all active freestylers (alongside Sun Yang) and has a lot of room for improvement once he starts lifting weight. Paltrinieri for example has an ugly stroke and should never be as fast as he is. Also the rise of Turkey (thanks to another Italian magician, just like Ethiopia/Kenya/Uganda in athletics) makes you question how clean Italy itself is.