Noorderling29

Sure, but I am baffled by this Wikipedia-only fight somehow finding it's way to Totallympics, instead of staying there. For people who aren't really into the minute details of editing Wiki pages, this thread is so incredibly....odd  

Here we go again.

Yeah, I can very much understand people having this in their top-3 and understand people having this in their bottom-3, but anything in between...impossible  You either really dislike it or really like it  

You’ve missed Justin Kluivert in the centre.

You’ve missed Justin Kluivert in the centre.

Not me refreshing the CAN/JPN box score multiple times, without realizing the game is tomorrow 

Given that TeamNL won a total of 6 medals in athletics in the 17 games from 1952 to 2016, nobody would have predicted 4 medals at the start of 2020.
 
Bol’s rise started that year (but more clearly in 2021) and Vetter dropped out of the 2019 World Champs with psychological complaints and was far from certain to compete again, let alone at top level. Even in 2021, my guestemation was 4 medals at the very best, with the kamikaze schedule that Hassan chose meaning I had serious doubts about her achieving multiple medals. At least 3 medals (Oosterwegel’s bronze in the hepathlon, and the silvers in the men’s marathon and 4 x 400 meter relays) were totally unexpected. 
 
Multiple medal chances for instance in sailing. 
 
But my point is really how surprising it is that a sport where we basically were dependent on a single talent once in a while, now delivers multiple athletes, likely to make finals and capable of vying for a medal, and a significant number of athletes below that (who on a good day are capable of making a final). In the past our teams consisted almost completely of athletes in the second category.
 
 

The,oppos
The opposite is also true. I’m old enough to remember the Dutch women’s table tennis team making the semifinals of the World championships twice (IIRC) in the 1980s. And three different players becoming individual European champions in a short period of time. Both totally unthinkable now. 

The result on the ISU website has also been adjusted 

According to our national broadcaster the result has indeed been changed, with NL as winner, South Korea as second.

The result on the ISU website has also been adjusted 

According to our national broadcaster the result has indeed been changed, with NL as winner, South Korea as second.

These 4th place jokes are starting to get overused now…

55,433 seconds

According to the specialist speedkating website, schaatsen.nl, the Dutch team has lodged a complaint: they claim the Korean women skated one fewer round. As I understand it, according to our national coach, the jury has acknowledged this, and the expectation is that the result will be changed accordingly, hopefully before the next World Cup event in Beijing in early December . 

As someone of Thai heritage who was born and lives in the US who has been following Thai sports, I think I can give a good summary of what hopes they have in Paris 2024. I think if you have to analyze Thailand's medal aspirations for next year's Olympics, you have to put them in 3 tiers: 1. Does that are gold medal contenders, 2. Does who are minor medal contenders, but can also be darkhorse gold medal contenders, and 3). Those who have the ability to be in the top 8 of their event and have an outsider's chance of a medal:
 
Tier 1: Gold medal contenders
 
1. Panipak Wongpattanakit (Women's Taekwondo, -49 kg): I think it's obvious what she is top of the list. In Thailand's history, there's no amateur athlete who is as consistent as her. Thus, she is still the best gold medal that they have. However, she's at best a slight favorite in her category as she has been beaten by Turkish and Mexican athletes in the two recent world championships, although she's still very unbeatable in the world grand prix  competitions. The biggest challenge to her defense of 2020 championship is not necessary the quality of her opponents, but maintaining her physical fitness until July 2024 as she has been dealing with some nagging knee injuries for the past year. According to her, she opted out from a knee surgery until the end of Paris 2024 because it will take her several months to recover and she wouldn't be able to be ready for the Olympics. 
 
2. Kunlavut Vitidsarn (Badminton, Men's Singles): The main reasons why Vitidsarn is number 2 in this list are 1). He is the regining world champion and 2). His talent and technical ability is in the elite tier in his event. However, those who may hope for him to be successful next summer must be cautious in placing their hopes in him as he struggles to maintain his physical fitness to an optimal level. Since winning the world championship in August, Vitidsarn's performance have been sub-par. He was eliminated in the round of 16 in the recent Asian Games and has been eliminated in the perliminary round of his two recent world tour competitions in Finland and Denmark. While some can point out to the grueling international tournament schedule as the key reason of his physical struggles, IMO, I believe most of this has to do with his playing style, which is defensive and counter-attack oriented that causes to play most of his matches for more than an hour in average as the lack of effectiveness of the physical/sports science program at his club, Banthongyord, as Thailand is lacking behind countries such China, Japan and Korea in that area. I also think his coaches have not been able to find a tactic to counter the schemes that others have used in dealing with Vitidsarn's strengths and weaknesses. 
 
In an ideal world, I would like Vitidsarn to have the ability to hire a foreign fitness coach as well as a badminton coach from a well-renowned country in the sport to help him as I don't think the Thai mindset and training/tactical methodologies are good enough to push him any further. But since his camp will unlikely to admit such faults, the best that I could hope is for him to maintain peak physical condition come Paris 2024. Due to the very competitive scene in the men's singles, I could see Vitidsarn's performance in Paris having a hige variance from being anywhere from winning the gold medal, to failing to be in the podium or even being knocked out in the permliminary rounds. The fact that Thailand has never won a medal in the sport would be added pressure for him to win a medal, and Thais usually don't do well in dealing with pressure. 
 
Tier 2-Minor medal contenders, darkhorse gold medal contenders:
 
1. Weightlifting- (Men's 73 kg-Weeraphon Wichuma, Women's +81 kg-Duangsakorn Chaidee, Men's 61 kg-Theerapong Silachai, Women's 49 kg-Thanyathorn Sukcharoen).
 
The first two in this list can be gold medal contenders and are almost certain to win a medal next year. Weeraphon is this year's world champion and is number two in the Olympic qualification list. He lost to the number one guy in the list from Indonesia at the Asian Games by about 8 kilograms. There is enough time from now until Paris to catch up with the Indonesian, but to win the gold medal, he has to work on his clean and jerk lift in order to win gold. Duangsakorn's performance in 2022 would have been good enough to guarantee a bronze next year. But it seems like she hasn't done well this year for not lifting more than 280+ kg. If she can go 290 kg without doping, then she can at least win the silver. The other two are good enough to win a bronze, but nothing more than that as they don't the ability to beat the Chinese lifters in their weight category.
 
2. Boxing - (Men's 51 kg-Thitisarn Panmot, Women's 54 kg-Jutamas Jitpong, Women's 50 kg-Chutamat Raksat, Women's 66 kg- Janjaem Suwannaphaeng)
 
While there is no Thai boxer who I consider to be a gold medal contender, a several of them have proven to be worthy of medal contention for their perfomances at they year's Worlds and Asian Games. Among these four in the list, I consider Suwannaphaeng and Panmot to be darkhorses to win gold. Suwannaphaeng won silver at both the worlds and Asian Games and from what I heard from Thai webboards, she could have beaten the Chinese world champion if their contest was held at a neutral site. Panmot is known for being more dynamic and has more offense than the typical Thai amateur boxer who genrally relies on counter attacking punches. He made the quarters in the worlds and won silver at the Asain Games. If he can be improve his fitness from this year as he is coming back from an ACL injury prior to the 2021 Olympics, he might have a chance to beat the Uzbekistani world champion. The other two are good enough to win bronze in Paris, but would need to show more to have a chance to win gold. 
 
3. Banlung Tubtimdang- (Men's Taekwondo-58 kg???/-68 kg?????)
 
Tubtimdang won the silver in the worlds and gold at the Asian Games in the -63 kg category. As the -63 kg event is not in the Olympics, he has to chose whether he will try to qualify for the -58 kg event or -68 kg event. If he chooses the -58 kg, he will likely to be a notable medal contender due to his height and skillset and can be a darkhouse gold medal threat. The question is not about whether he is good enough because as some may see him in the Asian games, he has elite tier athleticism and talent, but it is about whether he has the desire and discipline to power his weight and compete in the -58 kg event where he would have a notable height and physical advantage over the competition. 
 
4. Atthaya Thitikul (Women's Golf)
 
Thitikul was the number one player in the world for a good portion of 2022 before having a slight decline and now is currently the 12th ranked player in the world. Despite not winning any championships as of late, she usually makes or is near the top 10 of most of her tournaments. She definitley has elite talent and has an opportunity to win a medal pending on her form during next summer as well as the how well can she adapt to the conditions of the course that will be used for the Olympics. 
 
Tier 3-Outsiders chance of winning a medal
 
1. Boxing (Men's 63.5 kg, Women's 75 kg)
 
There are other notable athletes that has proven to have performances that is worthy of being a medal contenter like the former world champions in badminton mixed doubles of Dechapol and Sapsiree, Skeet shooter Sutiya Jiewchaloemmit, former world champion in women's singles in badminton, Ratchanok Intanon for instance. But the reason that they and others are not included in my list because they either has past their peak and not currently good enough to compete for a medal or don't have the consistency to be counted on to win a medal.
 
Overall, I think the medal target to at least show some improvement from 2021 is to win 2 gold medals and to have an overall of around 4-6 medals. Personally, I think Thailand could slightly improve from how they did in Tokyo, but I can also see them failing to win any gold medals and may have a subpar performance of winning no more than 3 overall medals. The reason that I am vary about Thailand's performance in Paris is that Thai athletes in general don't handle pressure well. I think it has to do with the cultural aspect of Thais not liking to be working in high pressured environments that has contributed to such problem. I also think the fact that the country is lagging in its sport science development is the factor of why their athletes don't have the stamina and endurance that other countries do. Hence, Thailand does not have the level of success in terms of Olympic medals that other B-tier Asian countries like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Iran, Chinese Taipei or India have. It doesn't help that their sport administration capabilities is hundered by a bunch of politicians, social elites and bureaucrats coming into such positions and not implementing policies that advances the sport industry.     
    

Netherlands tail really wagged hard. At the end of 33 overs, Netherlands were 140/6 while South Africa were 147/7

Thank you for jogging my memory. So indeed our best achievement. There’s dancing in the streets of Amsterdam tonight.

Netherlands team: 

A few Swedish football fans (yes, on the whole number of foreigners visiting a city like Brussels on a daily basis, it is only a few) really isn't a reason to raise the alert level significantly. For certain matches, like if it were Belgium playing Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey or something like that, yes, security level would be raised (not so much because of terrorist threats, but because those kind of matches are notorious for resulting in trouble).
 
The much bigger issue is in not kicking people out of the country the second there is a hint of radicalization. Which several years ago there apparently was in the case of this Tunisian guy, so there is still a failure in that sense of course. Although somehow I have a feeling Tunisia wouldn't have accepted him back anyway.

Why should the security level be raised for a match when there are no evident signs of a threat or of hooliganism? Even if it has been raised, would that have prevented an attack of this kind?
 
Most large cities have a significant amount of visitors, both foreign and domestic, every day. Football fans are perhaps more recognizable, especially when they are wearing their team jersey,so are a bit more vulnerable. Unfortunately people get killed by violence, often unprovoked by the victims. It happens in Western Europe, but also for instance in India. 
 
Of course an inquiry must be held and where possible lessons must be learned.
 
 

Thanks! Happy to say I finished the race.  Not proud of my time, but my respect for these professional runners has grown even more.  
 
Even those shoes couldn't have saved my race. 
 
One of my favorite signs I noticed that a supporter was holding said: "Keep smiling, the East Africans have most likely already finished and you only have 25km to go. You can do this." 
 
That was me one year ago when I picked up running in October 2022. This was a bucket list thing, but I started to really love running. Want to join me for next year's marathon? 

Van Dijk scoring a 92nd minute penalty, straight in the face of some Greek loser with a laser light
 
middlefinger.gif

Such transparency!

Breaking turned out - to no amazing surprise - to be anachronistic and tedious as a TV sport - and the affectation of the B-boy and B-girl nicknames/handles rather than addressing athletes by their ordinary name like any other normal human being just made it cringe even worse. Glad its gone, frankly. Chasing 'Yuff' sport with activities that are already a bit passé is incredibly typical of the IOC and Bach, like the Catholic Church thinking it can reach today's youth with 70's folk music.
 
Truth is, increasingly, competitive sport is itself an anachronism for some parts of today's youth. So be it. Chasing that audience is pointless - they won't come, the few that do won't stay, and they aren't loyal. Not everyone can be converted, we need to learn to live with it.
 
If the Olympic Church has a true enemy, it's not the non-sporty, it's the increasing global dominance of one sport, football/soccer to the increasing exclusion of all else. Obviously there are different issues in North America although the principle is the same.