The AH Tokyo 2020 Olympics/Paralympics Thread in 2021

Team Showjumping for Ireland over already, first horse eliminated (Sweetman)

Re your second paragraph (so terrible that we can't edit the post we are replying to?)

I think your idea that only a 1-2-3 would imply that there are more medal winners left behind is fundamentally flawed. Weight of numbers has to be a factor in these things. Equivalent would in football say, Liverpool won the league and got dumped in the last 8 of the Champions League. Does this imply no other English team could have done better? Well as we know Chelsea and Man City, behind Liverpool in 'national qualifying', both got to the final.

So if a country is limited to 2 contestants and they finish 2nd and 5th, there's still a case that if they'd be able to send all their athletes who met the qualifying standard and were ranked Top 10 in their sport that they could have got more medals.

Imo, as long as countries are prevented sending a 'per capita' amount of athletes, then per capita comparisons are flawed. But I completely understand and accept the IOC rules.

Don't give that 'per head captia' bolloxollogy - do you think your average Joe factors that in when he/she looks at the medals table

sure if you were take the 'per head of pop' slant then you'd have to say that China with a pop of 1billion are doing crap cause they only have 75 medals

but at the end of the day they're at the top of the table, and that all that matters to your average Chinese Joe

enough arguing about who is doing the best, the womens beach volleyball is on.

they all have lovely bottoms.

success matters

Natalya Coyle's interview with RTÉ is up on social media and its absolutely heartbreaking. And after it all she wants to get in there and support Kellie Harrington.

We're very fortunate to have sportspeople like her and like Kellie from totally different backgrounds to inspire kids looking on and she inspires me frankly too. I just wish Arthur had been out there competing too so he could put his arms around her now and be there for her.

When you look at the difference between a country like Ireland compared to the UK the population advantage is massive. It not only gives more to choose from in some situations it is the difference between having any choice at all.

If you want to play a niche sport in most parts of the UK you will find enough people to start a club or league. Here a lot of people have to just plow on alone or give up and switch to a bigger sport which is a common problem. The amount of athletics, cycling, swimming and all the other sports that have clubs, competitions and facilities in every area of the UK is mind blowing when compared to here.

Technically Birmingham alone could have a bigger sports scene than Ireland and certainly has a bigger athletics stadium

Ski cross on the other hand. I highly recommend you start giving a sh1t about that it's unreal.

In general for the casual viewer I would go as far as saying the winter X games has completely transformed the winter Olympics as an event

We must be one of the top countries relatively speaking for being in contention for medals but failing to deliver in the end for whatever reason. Our conversion rate of being in contention to medal must be very low. There has been an awful lot of near misses for us this Olympics.

Ya maybe you're right.

What a summer for Italy between the Euros, the 100m, High Jump and the relay just now

This happens to all countries to a certain extent but I think we've probably had more than our fair share of bad luck in the last two Olympics alright - between the boxing judging shambles last time and quite a few near misses for medals this time. We've been very unlucky not to win at least one more medal. Although we probably had more good luck than bad in 2012 when we won six medals.

Four medals, including a gold (or maybe two) is still well above average for us. If we're getting that and still finding ourselves a bit disappointed at the end then that probably means we're heading in the right direction.