The AH Tokyo 2020 Olympics/Paralympics Thread in 2021

All this talk of how we fare relative to other countries compared to population per capita or country size fails to take into account one key metric, which applies to athletics in particular. Genetics.

There is no way I can be convinced that an Irish person would ever (cleanly) outsprint, outlast or outjump a black athlete in an elite event. Liberia had it's first ever qualifier for the men's 200m final the other day- similar population to ourselves but they couldn't have better facilities or funding.

We will always be competitive in boxing and equestrian, and are a rising force in rowing it seems, but expecting to contend for medals in the athletics is a pipe-dream.

I've seen some bad arguments over the years on boards, but linking Olympic success to geographical landmass is down there with the worst of them!

Shocking performance from the Aussies in that case, sure their country is massive...

Natalya Coyle in 4th with 2 events left in the modern pentathlon. Go Natalya!

Mongolia should be ashamed of themselves

That's not actually true, if you take out the microstates and countries with 1 or 2 medals they're still a good bit down, outside the Top 15. Plenty of well populated countries doing much better than them. In fact their ranking is very similar to our own, except their spend per competitor massively exceeds ours.

Per Capita isn't a great indicator either as the larger countries are denied representation that would be in line with their population.

So many of the sports have max quotas, as little as one per country in the case of boxing.

I understand why the IOC does it this way (no-one wants 10 Jamaicans lining up in the semi's of the Women's 100M or 5 Cuban Welterweights in the quarter-finals) but it does mean that bigger countries have to leave genuine medal prospects at home.

Looks like she's drawn a shite horse for the jumping event. It picked up 54 faults for another competitor (that sounds pretty bad)

The RTE commentators- the 'assistant' to the lead- in most cases have been brilliant. PJ Nolan in the velodrome is a gas man, while Tom Freyne here at the Pentathlon is making it very enjoyable. He has a good eye for the personality of each horse--- 'this lad just wants to go back to the stable and eat some hay!' - 'this lad shakes his head a bit' - 'this horse just won't do what he's told..' she needs to give him a bit of a kick in the belly! Hope Natalya's nag is the more cooperative type

Well off the highs of London and Rio so far for Team GB but still some events to go before the final tally. In fairness they are doing well and when you remember that GB were total also rans for most of the history of the Olympics - they won a grand total of 1 gold medal in Atlanta in 1996 - they are doing really really well in the last 3 or 4 Olympics! In fairness they ploughed a lot of money into it in the last 20 years especially now reaping the rewards in swimming and cycling.

I think GB will be disappointed with their Athletics performance - just a single bronze and a single silver so far.

They'll be even more disappointed in the rowing. I can see funding for that being cut.

Depends on how you want to measure it. They are doing brilliantly compared to most Olympics in my lifetime but poorly compared to recent highs.

I don't think they should be too disappointed as there was always going to be a peak at 2012 followed by a slow decline to a more reasonable level

If you include the winter Olympics in the equation then you have to include all sports which in fairness you should. Some people shot it down here but it is true that if football and hurling didn't exist and the players, energy and resources of the GAA were put into something else we could be up there with NZ in rugby or getting more regular dream runs in soccer like Denmark or Croatia.

France is a very interesting one at the Olympics as there doesn't seem to be the public will to pump billions in to sports and it will be interesting to see how they react to being hosts in 2024. Will they be willing to do what it takes to transform the team like GB did or be a more thrifty host like Brazil

Actually that is more than balanced out though by their increased chances in numerous team events - everything from 8 man rowing to swimming relays to team cycling is massively biased in favour of the larger countries - these are events where it is all but impossible for smaller nations to put out competitive teams l. In these cases the larger countries are quick to take advantage but slow to acknowledge the unfair advantage they have.

That more than compensates for the very rare occasions when big countries would have to leave medal winners at home. I don't think there have been many or maybe any 1-2-3s from the same countries so far in athletics for instance, which suggests no medal winners have been left behind in that sport.

By and large the competitors who don't get to travel because they're from large countries are not medal contenders anyway.

How many horses usually refuse a jump? Any stats? In fairness the studio analysts mentioned that the standard of horse seemed below expectations. But Freyne's analysis and commentary was excellent -- he worked well with Hugh Cahill whose knowledge of horse sport is probably limited

German lady was utterly distraught there with dropping from almost certain gold to outside top 30. It's a cruel sport-- but nothing whatsoever to do with slavery