OlympicsFan

First he needs to qualify ... Niklas Kaul improved by almost 500 points last year, if he can make another jump like that (he has 2 years time for that) it is very hard to imagine him not beating Mayer. Mayer is extremely inconsistent. He bombed out at the last two mayor competitions and I think he never scored more than 8834 points at a big competition (which is only roughly 150 points more than what Kaul scored last year). If the olympics would have taken place as scheduled, Kaul would have been the heavy favorite but in 2021 it should be more open. Apart from all that it is almost grotesque to predict Warner ahead of Kaul ...

Men‘s 800 m: I think Amos will be back to win a medal. There are tons of guys who could medal in this event (Murphy, Boss, the polish guy, Rop). Men‘s 200 m: Sadly I expect Coleman to win a medal in this event. Men‘s Greco-Roman -67 kg: Bronze would be really disappointing for Stäbler. I think the postponement really helps him to get used to the new weight category.

Interesting prediction for men‘s 100 m fly (and to some degree for women‘s 200 back). Who is Meniakov?

Don‘t worry, thanks to climate change it will look like this in Europe too in a couple of decades. In some places in Germany it hasn‘t rained in almost a month and there are wildfires all over the place.

Women's 200 m: Who is Brittany Brown? I think her not qualifying for this event is more likely than her winning a medal. I think there are at least half a dozen women who are more likely to win a medal. Men's K1 1000 m: I think Germany will win a medal here, hopefully gold.

Some really interesting predictions ... Gold for Germany in women's 8 but no medal for the german men ... ? No medal for the US in women's 200 m breast?

A medal for Japan in team eventing? That's a very interesting prediction. Personally i would have considered Germany, France, Ireland and the Netherlands as bigger favorites. I would be surprised to see a) Only one medal for european countries b) No medal for Germany.

This should be a good day for Germany, at least 3 gold medals. I have to mark that day on my calendar.

No medal for Germany in eventing? Donald Trump admitting that he is an idiot is more likely than Germany not winning a gold medal in eventing.

I can‘t agree with your prediction for women‘s 5000 m. Currently Hassan has to be considered the favorite for this event of she decided to compete. The favorites for the other medals should be Klosterhafen (who was in an amazing shape earlier this year and is still pretty young), Gidey (who is also very young) and Obiri. Ayana or Dibaba could be darkhorses.

Didn‘t China have around 80k cases and 3k deaths? If that is the case, then they should have a very high recovery rate by now, probably north of 90%?

It‘s the negative flynn effect at work. There are many possible reasons. Recently i read that children nowadays have a shorter attention span than goldfish... I guess the old saying „Use it or lose it“ works here too. When you don‘t need to use your brain to survive, it will slowly atrophy. I guess it also doesn‘t help that poor People on average have More children.

Seriously? That's a crazy "schedule". How did you have time to actually analyze those books? In Germany we maybe read 3 or 4 books per year in school. About the list: Doesn't sound like a lot of poetry (Walt Whitman? Robert Frost?) or contemporary literature (Paul Auster? Jonathan Safran Foer? Jonathan Franzen? Philip Roth? Thomas Pynchon? Michael Chabon? Don DeLilllo?). When i was in school we also didn't read a lot of contemporary literature, but at least it is understandable here, since Germany doesn't really produce great authors anymore. The US produced a lot of great authors in the last couple of decades, so i am a bit surprised that your curriculum ignored them mostly. Also: Which of those books was/were your favorite(s)? When you say "Metamorphosis" you mean the book by Franz Kafka? I also somewhat agree with you about the highlighted part, but only when it comes to novels. There are great non-fiction/poetry books that can't be "replaced" by cinema/movies.

I don't think that what Slovakia did is all the extraordinary. I believe that Israel did something similar with some ultra-orthodox communities and all over Europe different hotspots (northern Italy, Heinsberg in Germany, some small city near Barcelona) have been "locked off" to contain the spread.

In my opinion there is a bigger difference in the handling of this situation between european countries (Sweden on the one hand, Italy/Spain/France on the other hand), then between the different american states, so i am not sure how much sense it makes to lump all european countries together. This is almost like saying that european countries should take the approach that Florida and New York have taken as an example on how to deal with this pandemic (despite those two states having a completely different response to this situation).

I brought up one point about India's historic olympic performances, because i discovered it in a book that i currently read (by Esther Duflo and Abhijit Banerjee ...) and thought that it might fit in this thread. Personally i find it very interesting that India has shown such weak performances at the olympics historically, despite being richer and having a much larger population than many other countries that have historically clearly outperformed them at the olympics. Some people might say that it has something to do with genetics (asian people being smaller on average than people from other countries), but studies have shown that 3rd generation asian immigrants in western countries reach about the same height on average as all the other people there if they adapt the same eating habits. This suggests that (one of) the main reason(s) for asian people being shorter on average could very well be their eating habits. At the same time there are countries in Sub-Saharan Africa that have clearly smaller populations than India and are also poorer, but at the same time they managed to outperform India. Therefore naturally (at least for me) you have to ask yourself about the reasons. Like i said earlier studies have shown that severe malnourishment during childhood/pregnancy has a strong impact on the height a person will reach as an adult. Surprisingly severe malnourishment of children is more common in India than in Sub-Saharan Africa (despite those countries being poorer and having less money for food), so there very well might be a connection there (if you are less likely to reach your full potential for height/strength, then you are less likely to become a world-class athlete). At this point you should have realized that the point i am trying to make is in no way racist (I am not saying something like: Indians are worse in sport because they have inferior genetics), but the complete opposite: In my opinion there is a very good chance that India would be much better at the olympics if they would manage to lower the percentage of children that are severly malnourished (by changing their eating habits).

Sorry, i don't get the point you are trying to make ... ? 1) India has 1.3 billion people, while pretty much all the other countries that are good at field hockey or cricket have far less people. If all the indian talent would focus on those 2 sports, then they should be at least as dominant as the US in basketball. You have to keep in mind that (to my knowledge) in none of the countries that are great in field hockey (Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Australia, England, Argentina), field hockey is anywhere close to being the most popular sport. 2) I have no clue about baseball, so i can't say how representative that fact is for the american strength in baseball. Maybe the reason why the don't win every time is the same as in basketball. They don't play with their best players and then there are also different rules. The difference between the US and India is that the US is dominant in tons of other sports (despite having less than one fourth of India's population), so you can clearly tell that a lot of their talent is "diverted" into other sports. I am also not sure whether baseball in the US has the same importance as hockey in India? I would say football is more important in the US and basketball is about as popular as baseball. In addition to that the US not always winning in baseball might have something to do with the fact that (in my opinion) they have a stronger competitor in baseball than India has in cricket or hockey. Baseball is super popular in Japan (a big and rich country), while on the other hand hockey isn't anywhere near as popular in countries like Germany, Argentina, England or Australia.

If you look at the dutch numbers provided by the Johns Hopkins University, then it seems pretty likely that they have a recovery rate of less than 50 % so far: They have around 31k cases and roughly 4k deaths. During the last 14 days they had on average more than 1k new cases every day. Since people who have been tested positive during the last 14 days can't be considered recovered, they at best have 13k recoveries (31k total cases - 4k deaths - 14k active cases). Therefore at the absolute best the Netherlands could have a recovery rate of 42 % and that's only if we assume that noone who has tested positive more than 14 days ago and hasn't died isn't considered recovered yet ... If we assume that at least 1k of those people haven't recovered yet, then their recovery rate at best would be 39 % and if we assume that at least 2k of those people haven't recovered yet, then their recovery rate at best would be 35 %.

Not sure how you can say all those things about Malaysia and especially Iran? I think all those things would be far more accurate when talking about countries like Norway, Iceland, Taiwan, Singapore or New Zealand (maybe also Israel). Of course it is much easier to deal with this virus if you are living on an island. For countries like Sweden, Denmark, Norway, New Zealand or Australia it was much easier to contain it then for some countries in the middle of Europe. When we take this into consideration, the english failure becomes even more impressive. I would also like to point out that Greece apparently has done a great job. I don't know how they did it, but somehow they handled this very well. I was sure that Greece would suffer at least as much as Italy, but their response (apparently) was absolutely brilliant. I never thought that Greece would become a role model for countries like Spain, Italy, France, England or even Belgium, considering that they were in a much worse situation to begin with.

Both recovery rates and death rates are pretty meaningless/impossible to compare between countries. Countries like Spain, Italy, England, France or the US have horrible recovery/death rates because they have been horrible at testing and missed most cases. I would say the number of deaths and the reproduction rate are far more important numbers. In addition to that you just have to look at the hospitals to see what is truly going on.

Sure ... only 22 % of Germany's cases, but 81 % of Germany's deaths, while having only 21 % of Germany's population.. The Netherlands are doing a tremendous job and their recovery rates for sure are through the roof.

There are 8 countries with more than one tenth of India's population (USA, China, Brazil, Indonesia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Russia, Pakistan). Of course Indonesia and Nigeria aren't way ahead of India (and i think India will easily outperform both of those countries in Tokyo), but you have to ask yourself why India (Pakistan/Bangladesh/Indonesia) aren't way outperforming countries that are both much smaller and poorer. For example at the 2016 olympics India, Pakistan, Indonesia and Bangladesh (with a combined population of roughly 2 billion people) won 5 medals combined, on the other hand: - Kenya with a population of 47 million people won 13 medals - Jamaica with a population of less than 3 million people won 11 medals - Cuba with a population of 11 million people won 11 medals - Uzbekistan with a population of 34 million people won 13 medals - Colombia with a population of 50 million people won 8 medals - South Africa with a population of 59 million people won 10 medals It's not like any of those countries are super rich either ... and despite a much smaller population they are far more successful.

The writers suggested that it had something to do with prenatal malnutrition/malnutrition during childhood. In Sub-Saharan Africa the percentage of children with severe acute malnutrition is only half as high as in India.

It's funny that you mention it ... since they discussed that point too. According to them it's not an explanation, because if all of "India's talent" would focus on cricket, then they should be very dominant in that sport, but they (according to the writers (i have no clue about cricket ...)) have never been as dominant as Australia/England or even the West Indies (apparently they are/were good in cricket?).

Today i read some interesting stats (not sure how up to date those stats still are) and thought that it might fit in this thread. In the book "Poor Economics" by Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo it says: - At the last 22 olympics India on average won 0.92 medals, - There are 79 countries that won more medals on average and India has at least 10 times more people than 73 of those 79 countries, - Among those 79 countries are for example Cameroon, Ethiopia, Ghana, Haiti, Kenya, Mozambique, Nigeria, Tanzania and Uganda. All those countries are poorer than India and have won at least ten times more medals per capita than India, - No country that won less olympic medals than India has even one tenth of India's population, expect for Pakistan and Bangladesh ... coincidence? The book offers an interesting possible explanation that doesn't have anything to do with funding or politics.