2024 Paris Olympics General (non-Basketball/Track & Field) Discussion Thread

[G R E Y]

WOOT WOOT WOOT!

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[a-French-Fan]

Kaylia Nemour was treated a lot differently by the French fans than Joel Embiid.

Her reasons for not competing for France were different too.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaylia_Nemour

She had no choice.

I'd like so much it would change French Gymnastics Federation's governance... It was a really a shame what they did to her. They used her injury to make her quitting her coach for federal structures. She didn't accept and federation avoid her competing.

And BTW, she had already two nationalities. She didn't ask for a passport. One country was breaking her dream, she turned to her other country and she reached her dream.

[G R E Y]

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(Oh wait this should be in the track thread... Enjoy here for now!)

[Loaded_Hollows]

Omfgggg Noah Lyles!!!! We beat the Jamaicans

[Mamba81p]

USA swimming team was poor but that leasy they won more gold medals than Australia. Cate Campbell can eat ****. hopefully she will not be a "sore loser"

[California Gold]

Gold #19 now for team USA and tied for 1st. China has some gold medal matches tomorrow that they're favored in so it'll be short lived.

[G R E Y]

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[a-French-Fan]

Gold #19 now for team USA and tied for 1st. China has some gold medal matches tomorrow that they're favored in so it'll be short lived.

And one day IOC will give USA the gold for tonight's 4*100 meters medley (M)!

45,92 s for 100 m free swim, I don't believe it !

[madskillz8]

In my opinion, they are distributing way too much medals in swimming, since almost the same set of swimmers compete in slightly different races again and again. TBH it is no surprise for me that the list of countries which are highly influential on IOC decision making and the list of countries on the top of medal rankings in swimming overlapping, but still.

For maybe 95% of athletes in Olympics it is technically impossible to compete for two medals (even Lebron can't attend 3x3), and maybe 4% can compete for two (e.g., individual recurve and team recurve). It is even very rare for 100m finals runners also compete in say 400m finals because it requires different set of skills and training to be able to compete at the highest level. Then, swimming - where it is very common for good swimmers to win 3+ medals. It shows swimming events are not distinctive at all, if you have a great stamina and proper physique for the sport you can compete for 8-10 (!!!) different events. We just had photos in this thread showing how distant the target in recurve. It is 75m. Now make it say 40m 80m 120m different categories and give three medals for the same set of athletes competing again and again. Does that make sense? I know my analogy is not perfect but it was the first comes to my mind as I just watched the recurve final.

I don't personally care about total medal standings but I know it is still a a thing for Olympic teams - and it vastly effects it for only 2-3 dominant countries as well. That's what I observe when I see the medal standings today, for the first time. After all, there was a big competition between USA vs SSCB for a long time. And maybe related with this, the branches which are giving way too much medals are the one USA is very good at today.

This made me think that it might actually be the other way around (I don't know the year by year change in number of medals in each branch and specific countries performance): I mean USA can be good at swimming knowing (thus training extra) there are lots of medals for similar events, - but in the end, it is still interesting to see there are 33 different sports in Olympics, yet out of US's 71 total medals, more than half are coming from just two sports: swimming and artistic gymnastics, coincidentally the sports where top athletes can earn many golds in a single Olympics.

Spoiler:

[ORLMagicGirl15]

USA swimming team was poor but that leasy they won more gold medals than Australia. Cate Campbell [EDIT] hopefully she will not be a "sore loser"

I can’t even begin to understand how the relay men team feel to lose an event that USA have NEVER lost in an attended Olympics. Wow! They were awesome but those words won’t be a source of comfort today. Maybe tomorrow.

[GSWFan1994]

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Pick your gif:

[bisme37]

Handball is actually a lot of fun. I didn't even know what it was until the last Olympics and got into it then. Then forgot about it all over again and got into it again this Olympics haha.

I always thought handball was where you play with the little rubber ball and hit it off the 3 walls with your hand, but this is a different thing entirely and much more exciting.

[GSWFan1994]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/breaking-olympics-team-forfeits-triathlon-final-in-protest-as-teammate-hospitalized-after-swimming-in-e-coli-infested-river-seine/ar-AA1odvh1

Belgium has withdrawn from the mixed (men/women) triathlon because their female participant is in the hospital with e-coli after having swum in the contaminated Seine river for the women's triathlon.

Holy crap (sorry for the pun).

[Doctor MJ]

In my opinion, they are distributing way too much medals in swimming, since almost the same set of swimmers compete in slightly different races again and again. TBH it is no surprise for me that the list of countries which are highly influential on IOC decision making and the list of countries on the top of medal rankings in swimming overlapping, but still.

For maybe 95% of athletes in Olympics it is technically impossible to compete for two medals (even Lebron can't attend 3x3), and maybe 4% can compete for two (e.g., individual recurve and team recurve). It is even very rare for 100m finals runners also compete in say 400m finals because it requires different set of skills and training to be able to compete at the highest level. Then, swimming - where it is very common for good swimmers to win 3+ medals. It shows swimming events are not distinctive at all, if you have a great stamina and proper physique for the sport you can compete for 8-10 (!!!) different events. We just had photos in this thread showing how distant the target in recurve. It is 75m. Now make it say 40m 80m 120m different categories and give three medals for the same set of athletes competing again and again. Does that make sense? I know my analogy is not perfect but it was the first comes to my mind as I just watched the recurve final.

I don't personally care about total medal standings but I know it is still a a thing for Olympic teams - and it vastly effects it for only 2-3 dominant countries as well. That's what I observe when I see the medal standings today, for the first time. After all, there was a big competition between USA vs SSCB for a long time. And maybe related with this, the branches which are giving way too much medals are the one USA is very good at today.

This made me think that it might actually be the other way around (I don't know the year by year change in number of medals in each branch and specific countries performance): I mean USA can be good at swimming knowing (thus training extra) there are lots of medals for similar events, - but in the end, it is still interesting to see there are 33 different sports in Olympics, yet out of US's 71 total medals, more than half are coming from just two sports: swimming and artistic gymnastics, coincidentally the sports where top athletes can earn many golds in a single Olympics.

Couldn't agree with you more that swimming is inflated, and I'd say strategically inflated.

I don't think gymnastics is strategically inflated the same way - why are less women's events? because sexist stereotype - basically all of the men's events are exercises the women did as much as the men before the Olympics re-shaped gymnastics from an exhibition to a sport - but would agree with you that if we're going to make Medal Count a thing, it would be best if sports had an even distribution of medals possible. Never going to happen of course, but I might do an analysis at some point seeing what country truly has the best all-around performance just to see what it looks like.

Re: USA vs SSCB. So a few things:

1. I've never actually heard of SSCB before, so I'm just going to assume it means the same thing as USSR or CCCP. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

2. I'm skeptical the USA has historically had that much power in determining how many events a sport gets. Europeans made the Olympics and all of the major organizations are still based in Europe today as far as I know. Maybe Western Europeans did some things to "beat the Commies", but these weren't American homers.

3. I think there's a case to be made that countries specifically try to develop programs in sports that get more medals, but I think it's important to keep in mind that men's gymnastics has more events than women's but the US has to this point never been able to become dominant on the men's side of things. People have certainly been trying, but the success has been far more on the female side.

4. I think it's also worth noting - as there's a celebration for the gigantic USA beating tiny Jamaica at sprinting - that top athletes in the USA don't prioritize track & field the way some other nations do, and this has everything to do with why the US is not as strong there as it could be. This then to say that the US doesn't quite go "all in" for these big medal sport categories the way it theoretically could - not out of some notion of being fair to other countries, but simply because you can make more money playing other sports if you're an outlier male specimen with the mind to thrive in sports where there are direct opponents you have to respond to in an instant.

5. Back over to gymnastics for a second: I actually think one of the things it really has going for it is that tall people need not apply. Simone Biles might be the most impressive female athlete I've ever seen but at 4'8", hard to imagine her having a chance in most other sports.

6. Finally, what about the US strength in swimming? Well tradition is absolutely a big part of it, but there's another thing kinda squicky: It's still dominated by white people.

As we've seen the internationalization of basketball we're running into this weird thing where apparently white players can still be the best in the world, just not white Americans. White Americans seem to have gotten the message that they can't compete in basketball and a number of other sports. For many that means just not devoting themselves to an athletic career...but if your parents put you in swimming from a young age and you excel, well, maybe you'll be the next Phelps!

[madskillz8]

Lol, sorry, I definitely mean USSR.

Great post, I'll just have a couple of comments:

I was actually trying to say "western" countries are more influential in IOC decision making vs Eastern. Not going to go into politics but are we really surprised when IOC sees country X attacking country Y as a reason to ban X from the Olympics but when country A attacks country B it never garners an actual ban discussion/voting? It is all about who is X and who is A...

To avoid current affairs discussion, I will just give an example from the past: "In 1920, five countries (Austria, Germany, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey) were banned from the Olympics due to their involvement in the First World War. " In the same world war though, Turkey was attacked by troops who were coming allllll the way from Australia/NZ, but Australia competed in the Olympics while Turkey was barred just for defending their soils. This basically provides enough evidence about who was controlling IOC.

And it is just not sports. Not sure if you like literature and philosophy but Sartre's rejection of Nobel is a good summary of what I am referring to.

Sartre declined the prize, saying that he never accepted any official honours and that he did not want the writer to become an institution. Furthermore, regarding the political grounds for his action, Sartre declared about the Nobel prize that it is one that goes only to Westerners "or to rebels of the East". "It is regrettable that the only Soviet work honored was one that was published abroad and forbidden in its own country."

I have no idea if IOC decision making on number of medal events in swimming is somehow biased. But as much as we know, IOC was, is, and will be a highly political organization. Call it euro-centric, call it western-centric, call it whatever you want.

Again, I don't want to derail it but the discussion regarding boxing has traces of the very same fight all over if you read between the lines (IOC vs IBA dispute)- IOC claims the reason why they reject IBA as technical issues like voting system, transparency etc even though they are already working very corrupt organizations including FIFA. The difference is they lost control/dominance over IBA who rejected to ban Russian boxers, for example. Thus, IOC is trying to create "an independent" federation for boxing who will obey their very "non-biased" requests.

[California Gold]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/breaking-olympics-team-forfeits-triathlon-final-in-protest-as-teammate-hospitalized-after-swimming-in-e-coli-infested-river-seine/ar-AA1odvh1

Belgium has withdrawn from the mixed (men/women) triathlon because their female participant is in the hospital with e-coli after having swum in the contaminated Seine river for the women's triathlon.

Embarrassing. Whoever came up with the idea of hosting swimming events in a **** infested river running through a city of 13 million people should be jailed. It's such an unbelievable health hazard that I can't believe humans with functioning brains approved it.

LA will do a better job with this stuff. Embarrassing for Paris.

[Raps in 4]

In my opinion, they are distributing way too much medals in swimming, since almost the same set of swimmers compete in slightly different races again and again. TBH it is no surprise for me that the list of countries which are highly influential on IOC decision making and the list of countries on the top of medal rankings in swimming overlapping, but still.

For maybe 95% of athletes in Olympics it is technically impossible to compete for two medals (even Lebron can't attend 3x3), and maybe 4% can compete for two (e.g., individual recurve and team recurve). It is even very rare for 100m finals runners also compete in say 400m finals because it requires different set of skills and training to be able to compete at the highest level. Then, swimming - where it is very common for good swimmers to win 3+ medals. It shows swimming events are not distinctive at all, if you have a great stamina and proper physique for the sport you can compete for 8-10 (!!!) different events. We just had photos in this thread showing how distant the target in recurve. It is 75m. Now make it say 40m 80m 120m different categories and give three medals for the same set of athletes competing again and again. Does that make sense? I know my analogy is not perfect but it was the first comes to my mind as I just watched the recurve final.

I don't personally care about total medal standings but I know it is still a a thing for Olympic teams - and it vastly effects it for only 2-3 dominant countries as well. That's what I observe when I see the medal standings today, for the first time. After all, there was a big competition between USA vs SSCB for a long time. And maybe related with this, the branches which are giving way too much medals are the one USA is very good at today.

This made me think that it might actually be the other way around (I don't know the year by year change in number of medals in each branch and specific countries performance): I mean USA can be good at swimming knowing (thus training extra) there are lots of medals for similar events, - but in the end, it is still interesting to see there are 33 different sports in Olympics, yet out of US's 71 total medals, more than half are coming from just two sports: swimming and artistic gymnastics, coincidentally the sports where top athletes can earn many golds in a single Olympics.

Spoiler:

This is why I always burn out on the summer Olympics. There is way too much swimming content (37 events!). Swimming literally goes on for the full two weeks. And like you said, it's all the same since the same athletes are winning multiple events. That shouldn't be happening. It leads to a boring fan experience, and it leads to other sports getting fewer events.

[Fencer reregistered]

The play that starts around 5:15 is pretty cool.

Watch on YouTube

[Fencer reregistered]

I've also really enjoyed the rugby highlights.

[madskillz8]

6. Finally, what about the US strength in swimming? Well tradition is absolutely a big part of it, but there's another thing kinda squicky: It's still dominated by white people.

As we've seen the internationalization of basketball we're running into this weird thing where apparently white players can still be the best in the world, just not white Americans.

My opinion: To excel in swimming you have to start training very early and for long years regularly. Phelps and Thorpe started swimming in 7. Katie Ledecky started in 6.

And to do that, you need certain resources. Even when a country X has enough resources (let's say enough indoor Olympic pools-to train year long) in overall, the access still vastly differs for different demographics.

I just think at least 95% of world's population has no to little access to swimming pools, let alone training regularly. For example, I haven't seen an Olympic pool until I was 22 Thus, seeing USA, Canada, Australia, and France but not Brazil, Turkey, or low avg. income ex Soviet countries at the top of medal standings are indeed expected.