OlympicsFan

Not so sure if it would be a bad thing ... For athletes in many countries (i think i don't have to give names) nothing much changed, the only difference might be that athletes in countries that are usually more "strict" had more "possibilities" during that period.

Women's 1500 m: Where is Hassan? Women's 4x100 m: Would be great to see a medal for Germany, but i think the US will be back strong next year. Beach volleyball women: Germany not winning a medal here would be a disaster. Women's field hockey: I don't see a chance for Ireland winning a medal. Cycling men's sprint: I am sure that GB will win a medal. Table tennis men's team: No medal for Japan???

1) Coutinho or Hernandez weren't world-class players for you last season? 2) Sane's contract only lasts one more year, so there is absolutely no way that Bayern will pay 80M or even 100M for him, 50M would be the absolute max in my opinion. 3) How does Bayern really need a central defender? Alaba has played great this season, Süle will come back soon and then they also have Hernandez and Pavard. If there is one position were Bayern doesn't need to sign a new player, then it is central defender (and maybe a left back). 4) Bayern easily could have had Werner last season and i think they still could have him if they wanted, but the truth is that they don't need him. Up front they already have Lewandowski (who is obviously better than Werner) and Werner can't play as a number 10 or a winger. Werner would be completely unnecessary (which sadly doesn't mean that Bayern would buy him). Havertz would make much more sense position-wise. I am still convinced that Bayern can still get most Bundesliga players if they wanted to (it is looking good with Upamecano and Havertz from what i can tell), but the truth is that there aren't many players in the Bundesliga that could help to reach their goal of winning the Champions. I think Sancho is the only player in the Bundesliga that could improve their team right now. Bayern needs a right back/central midfielder (depending on where Kimmich will play), a new goalkeeper (when Neuer retires), a number 10 and a at least new winger. Currently there is no goalkeeper/right back in the Bundesliga who is world-class or could become world-class soon. The only central midfielder who could become world-class in my opinion is Zakaria and the only number 10 who could become world-class is Havertz, so those 3 (Havertz, Zakaria, Sancho) would be good signings in my opinion, but sadly Sancho is out of reach for Bayern.

I think it's May 9th ... ? Apparently the plan is to test all the people who are going to be in the stadium before every game, which would mean that they need roughly 20k tests to finish the season. Some people in Germany said that they couldn't do it, because other people need the tests more, but from what i can tell Germany currently can test 800k to 850k people a week and there are a lot of free capacities (not surprising when you only have 1000 - 2000 new infections every day), so they wouldn't take anything away from anyone. It has been said that the Bundesliga would lose around 700 million € if they would end the season now, so economically speaking it for sure would be great news if they could finish the season. Aren't you a fan of Bayern Munich? If that's the case ... how do you feel about possible signings for the new season (Upamecano, Sane, Dest)?

Just because for example Manuel Lombardo only won silver doesn't mean that he got unlucky. You could also say that he got lucky to even reach the final. In general i would say that there are not many events where you could say that there is a certain athlete X who would have to get unlucky to "only" win silver, especially in fighting sports.

1) Just because you win far more silver than gold doesn't mean that you got unlucky. In many sports you can win silver without losing a final. In fact only 7 out of the 16 silver medals came in sports where there is a 1 vs. 1 final (taekwondo, judo, fencing, track cycling). Of course you could say that losing 7 out of 7 1 vs. 1 finals is extremely unlikely, but you can't really say much about the actual likelihood of that happening, not every 1 vs. 1 final is 50/50, normally there is one favorite. At the same time you could also say that maybe all those athletes actually were pretty lucky to even reach the final. It doesn't make much sense (in my opinion) to say "Italy should have a better percentage of gold medals, so i am gonna predict a gold medal for them in an event where i actually don't expect them to win gold", instead you should look at all events separately and just ask yourself whether they are more likely than not to win gold in those events. 2) I agree that Italy not winning a single gold medal in fencing and shooting combined is very unlikely. I would expect them to win 3-4 golds in those 2 sports. 3) In his prediction Italy won 8 silver medals for every gold medal, Azerbaijan in 2016 won 7 silver medals and only 1 gold. 6 out of those 7 silver medals came in sports with 1 vs. 1 finals (wrestling, judo, boxing). Edit: About 1) If we assume that all the finals with italian athletes are 60/40 in favor of their opponents, then the probability of Italy losing all those finals would be around 3 %. If we assume that all the finals with italian athletes are 70/30 in favor of their opponents, then the probability of Italy losing all those finals would be around 8 %. If we assume that all the finals with italian athletes are 80/20 in favor of their opponents, then the probability of Italy losing all those finals would be around 21 %. If we assume that all the finals with italian athletes are 90/10 in favor of their opponents, then the probability of Italy losing all those finals would be around 48 %.

Could Italy become the new Canada (concerning percentage of gold medals)? I just looked it up if that would be some record, but apparently it wouldn‘t. Azerbaijan won 18 medals in 2016, but only 1 of them in gold. Still not as bad as Germany in 1952 with 24 medals in total and none of them in gold, which is the record for most medals without a single gold medal.

Some interesting predictions in athletics ... I am very certain that none out of Zambrano, Uibo and Preiner will win a medal.

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.