OlympicsFan

"Half an ounce of gold. In the 7th century, that’s how much Christians in what is now Syria had to pay for the privilege of living under the protection of the Caliphate. If they didn’t want to pay, they had two other options: they could convert or, as some interpretations of the pact between Muslim rulers and their Christian subjects suggest, “face the sword.” In February, the 20 or so Christian families still living in the northern Syrian town of Raqqa were given the same choice. The cost of protection is now the equivalent of $650 in Syrian pounds ..." https://time.com/57168/christians-and-tyrants/

I don't think that Argentina could be at the same level as Canada or Australia, but Argentina definitely should have a much higher GDP per capita. Canada and Australia (in my opinion) have a better geographical position (proximity to the US/Asia) and also more natural resources + they have the huge advantage of being english speaking countries. Argentina developing closer ties with China/BRICS probably isn't in the best interest of the US/Europe, so Argentina should definitely try to "blackmail" the most out of the US/Europe. Culturally Argentina seems much closer the US/Europe. To me it is interesting that Argentina (apparently) doesn't "attract" a lot of refugees from Venezuela. Maybe it will change if the US (under Trump) becomes less welcoming. Milei will/would have a hard time to get anything done when the institutions are working against him. It takes time to "restructure" the institutions and Milei might not be given the time to do that. It would also be interesting to see what Milei would do about the Falkland Islands situtation. https://worldview.stratfor.com/article/geopolitics-argentina-superpower-wasn-t https://www.wilsoncenter.org/blog-post/argentina-and-brics-port-storm-or-geopolitical-launching-pad https://eprints.lse.ac.uk/120342/1/Gonz_lez_Levaggi_M_gica_Navigating_Argentina_s_BRICS_Entry.pdf https://www.arte.tv/en/videos/103960-019-A/mapping-the-world/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/afontevecchia/2022/06/01/fear-uncertainty-doubt-a-paradigm-shift-for-argentina-geopolitics-and-cryptocurrencies/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1391017/total-refugee-population-argentina/ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/09/10/falklands-islanders-rights-respected-if-javier-milei-wins/

Yes, everything is a genocide nowadays ... https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/21/saudi-arabia-mass-killings-migrants-yemen-border https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/02/persecution-driving-christians-out-of-middle-east-report

Personally i am not quite sure why many right wing politicians are so strongly against abortions. I don't believe that it has religious reasons, so the most obvious take would be to assume that they just want as much cheap labour as possible, which would hurt their voters (lowering wages). It is rather rare to see left wing politicians who are against mass migration and right wing politicians who are in favor of abortions ... As far as I know minorities are less likely to vote for conservative politicians and they are also more likely to get abortions, so by banning abortions conservative politicians would hurt the chance of their party to get elected in the future.

Some of those things sound stupid/unreasonable, but i don't really see any "conspiracies" (maybe except for denying man-made climate change). He sounds pretty pro-american. The US would probably be happy with him winning, not allowing China to gain more influence in their "backyard". Argentina should try to use this position to "milk" the US/China. For the sake of Argentina i just hope that he will try his best to develop renewable energies in Argentina (despite apparently denying man-made climate change).

I don't agree on this perspective. Argentina is in a pretty bad situation. If you want to have a higher standard of living, you have to take risks. Argentina is far away from pretty much every major market and of course that hurts them, but the same applies to Chile and they have a much higher GDP per capita. Argentina probably has a way too big population (The goal should be to reduce the population to 20 million people at most). I think Argentina has a lot of potential as an energy exporter (to Europe) (wind power -> hydrogen -> fertilizer etc., lithium). Maybe south american countries can form something like a "lithium OPEC". Maybe countries like Australia or Norway could be role models for Argentina. Argentina has roughly the same population size as Canada/Saudi Arabia, but not the abundance of natural resources of those countries. At the beginning of the 20th century Argentina was one of the richest countries in the world (8th most prosperous country in the world). The argentinian GDP per capita was way higher than the italian, japanese or brazilian GDP per capita. Nowadays agriculture isn't as important anymore, so clearly Argentina has to find a new business model. If you want to know what you have to do going forward, you first have to understand how you got where you are right now. Some interesting quotes i found: "Canada and Argentina were once equals, but bad decision by bad decision, Argentina declined." https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-canada-argentina-economic-output/ "Since 1950, Argentina has spent 33% of the time in recession, second in the world behind the Democratic Republic of Congo." https://santandertrade.com/en/portal/analyse-markets/argentina/economic-political-outline Some (potentially) insightful reads: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-10-05/argentina-is-dealing-with-100-per-cent-inflation-heres-how/102930048 https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/argentinas-lithium-pipeline-promises-white-gold-boom-chile-tightens-control-2023-04-24/ https://time.com/6275197/south-america-lithium-opec/ https://www.cpreview.org/blog/2023/9/the-rise-of-a-lithium-opec-should-latin-america-follow-in-the-footsteps-of-the-gulf-states https://www.oxfordenergy.org/publications/will-argentina-become-a-relevant-gas-exporter/ https://www.ft.com/content/a3982bb1-75cb-4988-8677-07499337fbda https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/argentinas-vaca-muerta-shale-boom-is-running-out-road-2022-12-27/ https://www.agora-strategy.com/post/the-geostrategic-importance-of-argentina-and-brazil-as-partners-for-europe-1 https://hir.harvard.edu/argentinas-economic-downfall-which-party-will-save-the-citizens/ https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2023/10/19/can-argentinas-next-president-fix-the-economy-dont-count-on-it https://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/BRIE/2023/753938/EPRS_BRI(2023)753938_EN.pdf https://www.ft.com/content/778193e4-44d8-11de-82d6-00144feabdc0 https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication Files/LAER Introduction to Argentine Exceptionalism_3c49e7ee-4f31-49a0-ba21-6e2b726cd7c5.pdf https://archive.nytimes.com/economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/06/what-happened-to-argentina/ https://manifold.bfi.uchicago.edu/read/case-of-argentina/section/9905ef24-8c94-42ad-adf7-068efb4d9afb https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2000/03/pou.htm https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w19924/w19924.pdf https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/argentina-dollar-love-affair-agonizes-over-divorcing-peso-2023-09-05/

As an outsider i hope that Milei will win. 1) I really want to see what happens when someone like him becomes the head of state. Will he be able to follow up on his promises? 2) Argentina seems to be in a situation where they don't have too much to lose. Electing the same politicians over and over again probably won't change anything for the better.

Really sad for the german women. Without all the injuries they easily would have qualified and probably finished top 6. I hope that Kevric will still have a chance to qualify. The men overperformed, hopefully some of the promising guys (Mousichidis, Kovalenko) will break through soon.

Shocking bronze for France, GB and China both must have underperformed. France could have challenged for silver with Nemour on the team.

Very good point. It should be easier to compete in multiple events. It would decrease the number of athletes. Maybe they should go from heats straight to the final. No reason why one athlete should be able to win multiple medals in canoeing, swimming or biathlon, but not in rowing.

No problem. Next time you will know better than to talk about topics you have no clue about.

1) German distance swimming is one Training group (Bernd Berkhahn). Their performance doesn’t really have anything to do with the German federation. This is also the training group of Sharon Van Rouwendaal. Also one of the athletes who won a medal at the world championships (Leonie Beck) has been training in Italy (with Paltrinieri) for many years now. Thanks for making it clear that you know nothing about German sport but still somehow are delusional/stupid enough to think that you are qualified to talk about it. 2) Germany used to be great in endurance sports like rowing or speed skating, but then most of the GDR coaches went to nations like GB (track cycling & rowing) or China. Obviously those nations had no problem with hiring former GDR coaches. Surprisingly this gave a huge boost to British rowing and track cycling … 3) Everyone who thinks that you can win medals in endurance sports without doping has to be considered braindead. We all know that countries like China or Russia (combined population of roughly 1.7 billion people -> their talent pool is 100 times bigger than the Dutch talent pool) have zero problems with doping and yet a tiny country like the Netherlands still destroys them in sports like speed skating or rowing …

Would be interesting to see mixed teams in team sports. 11 players, 5 men, 5 women, for one half the goalkeeper is a man and for the other half the goalkeeper is a woman ...

Good god ... You said that the main reason was the lack of quality and i brought up Morroco + Argentina (current world champion) + Croatia (finished 3rd at the world cup) to prove that you can easily contend for the title or at least make the semifinal with less quality than Germany has. When you say something like "Germany usually had its star players ..." i have to assume that you are either trying to troll or just have zero understanding of german football and still somehow feel qualified to give your opinion. Germany pretty much never had the most amount of talent, they always relied on "german mentality" and great teamwork. When they reached the final in 2002 or 3rd place in 2006 they had a bunch of nobodies that outperformed teams with tons of stars (France, Brazil, England, Portugal). The players that started the last world cup final for Argentina played for the following clubs: 2 x Benfica 2 x Atletico Brighton Lyon Aston Villa Juventus Tottenham City (Alvarez was mostly a bench player for City if i remember correctly) PSG Only 2 of their starting players played for top 10 clubs and one of them (Alvarez) wasn't even a starter (if i remember correctly). The players that started the 3rd place match for Croatia at the last world cup played for the following clubs: 3 x Zagreb Bayern (Stanisic was lightyears away from being a regular for Bayern) Leipzig Tottenham Rennes Chelsea Real Hoffenheim Split Only Gvardiol, Modric and Kovacic would have (maybe, not sure if Kovacic would have started over guys like Kimmich/Goretzka/Gündogan) started for Germany.

Germany uses the same system in pretty much all sports and it shows that it isn't really working anymore. Germany doesn't have an infinite amount of talents across all sports and can't continue to assume that there will always be enough talent coming through no matter how bad they are at maximizing the potential of every single athlete. Germany can learn a lot from smaller countries. Also german football has the problem that talents don't get enough playing time at the highest level, instead clubs just buy talents from France or England. Another problem is that Germany focuses too much on physicality and tactics from a very young age and the talents don't get enough touches and therefore doesn't have the same technical level as players from France or England. It isn't a coincidence that the best german player (Musiala) was trained in England for most of his youth. It is also interesting to look at the number of medals that West Germany won and compare it to the number of medals that East Germany won, despite having a much smaller population. Obviously doping was a factor, but sadly after reunification officials from West Germany completely ignored everything that East Germany did right (like having a much better scouting system).

Extremely weird take. Argentina just won the world cup with grandpa Messi and a bunch of role players. Morroco and Croatia also did a lot better than Germany despite having inferior talent. Same goes for Italy at the 2020 european championships. Germany still has Ter Stegen, Rüdiger, Kimmich, Goretzka, Gündogan, Musiala, Sane, Gnabry, Havertz (and Wirtz), who are all playing for top 10 clubs. Argentina/Croatia/Morocco in 2022 or Italy at the 2020 european championships all didn't have that.

The quality obviously isn't the problem, but maybe the mentality/self-awareness of the top players. It is extremely easy to form a successful national team, but german officials are completely resistant to learning. Germany until 2014 + Morocco/Argentina/Croatia last year + Italy at the 2020 european championships + the german basketball team at the world cup this year have shown what it takes: Mentality (over quality) Chemistry Great coach Germany needs to get an experienced coach and then chose players with the right character and allow them to build chemistry. National teams always have very little time to train/play together, so when a team (like Italy at the 2020 european championships for example) with a great coach allows players to build chemistry, they almost always outperform teams that have superior individual talent, but not as much chemistry. France was lightyears ahead of all other teams in terms of individual talent at the 2022 football world cup, but the other teams made up for it elsewhere. Edit: Two important factors i forgot: - Players should be in game shape -> You probably shouldn't play guys that don't get a lot of playing time for their clubs - There are more club games every season, so many of the stars are usually "burned out" by the time the national team competitions start -> It can be an advantage to select players that didn't play insane amounts of matches for their clubs (clubs that go far in cup competitions)

Really interesting split in endurance sports. GB and the Netherlands super strong while New Zealand and Germany fell off. Germany should up their doping program or cut their funding for endurance sports and focus on more technical sports. Trying to compete in endurance sports without doping is like going to a war with nothing but slingshots.

Interesting that the serbian coach is Svetislav Pesic, who coached Germany at the 1993 european championships, when they won their only international gold medal ever.

Are the canadians in here who complain about potentially finishing 4th actually serious or are they trolling? Canada just had one of the most absurd streaks of luck at the athletics world championships, winning 4 golds out of nowhere and now they are almost instantly back to whining how unlucky they are always finishing 4th?

So after all the discussion whether the US or Canada would be the favorite going into this tournament we get a Serbia vs. Germany final. Almost looks too scripted to be true ...

Has to be super tough for you seeing the US getting thrashed by Germany in basketball of all sports. Of course the success in basketball has nothing to do with the decline in other sports, but i am sure that you weren't interested in a serious discussion and just wanted to give a backhanded compliment, so nevermind ...

Thanks for clarifying! Weird rule indeed. Still don't see how teams that are already qualified can be allowed to interfer with the qualification of other teams. If the french women feel that team A would be an easier opponent for them at the olympics than team B, they can lose against team A and win against team B to make it more difficult for team B to qualify.