The Tokyo 2020 Non Athletics Thread

[alfie]

Very tight for gold medal race with ROC : Bulgaria upset them in the rhythmic gymnastics. So GB still one ahead.

ROC are in the handball final. Price to box for GB in a hour or so. No added pressure then Lauren 😉

[marra]

Jason owes Matt Glaetzer a beer. Was so worried about the Dutchman behind him he forgot about the Brit in front of him! Give a rider of Kenny's quality that kind of a gap and it's game over.

I've seen it happen in the sprint before (famously to Chris Hoy by Robert Forsterman at the 2010 WC) but it doesn't happen as often in the keirin. Delighted for Aziz Awang. Had a soft spot for him for a long time, not least after being in the building when he got a 20cm piece of wood straight through his leg. Was an image that'll stick with me for a long time!

Disappointing for Laura, she clearly had the form to win that but the scratch crash made it an uphill battle with no leeway.

Our worst velodrome performance since Athens and we still came out with 3G, 3S and 1B. Add in the BMX and MTB and British Cycling are the governing body responsible for the funding for 12 of our medals here, almost 20%.

[Ulster-Scot]

Kenny also did it before in the WC sprint to the french guy Gregory Bauge, can't remember the year tho

[RunUnlimited]

Gold #22 for GB arrives in the boxing, as Lauren Price easily handles her Chinese opponent from the opening bell, and dominates the rest of the way. With that, Great Britain have matched the medal total from London 2012.

[SprintRelayFan]

And comr 4th according to bbc

[alfie]

Lauren Price signed off the GB team effort with an emphatic win in the boxing ring. 2 g 2 s 2 b from 11 fighters ... vies with sailing ,cycling and equestrian as value for money , eh ? Not to forget Triathlon and Modern Pentathlon.

Looking back at the "gloom and doom" comments in the first few days might be amusing right now...

[SprintRelayFan]

Nice sport by sport summary here although I can’t see the gym as being right?

https://twitter.com/samfr/status/1424280237236441088?s=21

judging by this cycling escapes censure - of course it had a very good last few days - but rowing in trouble as well as canoeing

[alfie]

Yes , gymnastics is correct. Was 7 in Rio. (Includes trampoline)

Rowing and canoeing were of course down. But I suspect the base remains - just needs a bit of a tweak here and there. Can't win everything...

[SprintRelayFan]

I couldn’t believe We’d had that many! Had forgotten then all!

[Taffy2]

Belgium Holland, Italy and Australia have had a good games, France, Germany, South Korea, Kenya and Ethiopia have underperformed. Toban extent the USA have also underperformed. Russia will win more medals in Paris if they are allowed to send a full team.

It's much tougher now to make finals and get on the podium. This time, GB didnt get medals in Tennis, Golf and Badminton, we underperformed in Rowing, canoeing and kayaking. Athletics is in the balance. Overall GB were superb surely even the eternal pessimists are happy.

[carterhatch]

I was thinking today how, that aside from Hockey, we are poor at the olympic team 'ball' sports, basketball, handball, volleyball, I know there are some compelling reasons (in the lead up to 2012 the talent identification campaign 'sporting giants' tried to encourage rugby types to try out handball) but it is a pity that we dont qualify in our own right, as I enjoy watching, particularly Handball - which according to Balding on BBC is the 'most popular sport after football in europe'.

[Grassmarket]

The issue with team sports is that it’s impossible to get an Olympic team without having a club league that is amongst the top 5 in Europe otherwise we will never get past the highly competitive European Qualifiers. Only Ice Hockey has got to that level post 2012. Basketball is nowhere near it, although women's is better than mens. Volleyball & Handball exist in Britain but they are pretty much EU nationals only.

[larkim]

Also team sports don't benefit from the fact that so much of the international team base for teams coming from the UK arise from the arcane England / Scotland / Wales / NI split. AIUI the GB Hockey team is effectively the England team, but that relies on England qualifying. Perhaps not an issue for hockey, but for some other sports it could well be that the home nation teams miss out on qualificaiton through the normal routes, whereas if we fielded a GB team in all competitions there might be a higher chance of qualifying.

[Taffy2]

Do they still carry out those talent spotting schemes that spotted Helen Glover?

[trickstat]

Not as far as I am aware. That was part of a scheme I faintly remember that was looking for tall people (men and woman each above a certain height) for a certain number of sports, of which rowing was one.

[carterhatch]

it was called 'Sporting Giants' leading up to London 2012... there was also another called 'fighting chance' to identlfy martial artists who could transer skills to Olympic Taekwondo ... there were others... see my post below

[carterhatch]

Taffy2 I used to follow any talent ID intiatives avidly, sending UK Sport various suggestions leading up to 2012. The woman in charge just brushed them off, but one or two were certainly similar to ideas I'd given .... currently, to answer you, there are certainly not enough high profile initiatives...

What would i do ...

Starting with riding Holly Bradshaw's success, I would be working with former gymnasts with 'tasters' for PV and triple jump... but then I am not the 'expert'. Having pre match tryouts in throws at Rugby League and union games (someone like Saracens has the ideal facilites) and we might discover a B-team sunday league lock forward who is a natural at javelin... and taking sports into the inner city, was my original motivation, it was all well and good UK Sport running assessments at Loughborough, but the young people I was working with were never going to attend such an event. Kids who might have had their lives turned around by sport just weren't (aren't) being reached.

anyway... I tried.

[Taffy2]

Well done you. If you listen to many of the stories, their success I'd down to belief and opportunity.

[carterhatch]

With the Tokyo Olympics now over, other sports are already vying to be included in future iterations.

[Search for ...]

Cricket in the Olympics: ICC to bid for sport's inclusion in Los Angeles 2028

Netball Australia intent on having their sport at Brisbane's Olympics in 2032

With skateboarding and speed climbing apparently now mandatory, as it keeps it real, bruv, then where will it end?

May I suggest that the IOC actually just franchise out their brand so that every internationally recognised sport (including mixed team knitting and non-binary tiddlywinks) can run an Olympic tournament, quadrennially, though not necessarily at the same time in a two week period, there, everyone will be happy!

See you in Paris.

[Grassmarket]

Missing a chance to gave cricket at Paris 2024. That would have been an epic troll.

[LoveSprints1]

I loved the skateboarding, surfing and climbing. Found all exciting and yep athletic! As a netballer it would be great to see it in the Olympics. It’s an incredibly fast paced, exhilarating. game to watch - remember the 2018 Commonwealth Games Final where England snatched victory from Australia? Unfortunately the bid may not succeed as it is a predominantly female sport, though there are some mixed teams.

[philipo]

16 sports in 1960; 33 sports in 2021; maybe 40 sports in Brisbane. IOC love it and now cricket is about to submit its request to be in the OG. Think of all those countries playing the game HaHa.!!×We could always add a couple of weeks to the Games schedule. The covid has undeniably addled the brains of sports fans.
Get stuck in you darts players. Soon be your turn and the games players😄😄😄

[philipo]

San marino top of the medal table with its medals and 30000 population but for me New Zealand are the best with 5 million people and 20 overall medals and 7 golds. well done to them.

[marra]

Cricket was in the 1900 Olympics, so presumably those who are opposed to the "trendy" sports can have no complaints about a sport that was in one of the first modern Games?

As for how many countries play it, the Men's T20 rankings have 82 countries ranked. For context, there are 110 rugby teams in the world ranking for that sport and I don't see many people complaining about that being there.

Personally, I don't see what problem people have with more Olympic sports. People watch the Olympics because it is seen as being the pinnacle of sporting success in most sports. Why wouldn't we want to encourage that to be the case for more sports? If it needs to be a month long to do so, it ends up a month long. Nobody really complains that the football world cup takes a month.

[Grassmarket]

Many of the countries listed as playing T20 have teams made up 100% of sub-Continental expats! Germany, Sweden, Spain, Switzerland etc etc.

[Ladyloz]

I think there is a danger that too many sports dilutes things. Be honest how many sports did you watch at least an hour or 2 of? For me I worked it out and it it would be 13 - that's 20 sports I either didn't watch or saw a very small amount of. Additional venues etc. places more burden on hosts too.

And in a 'be careful what you wish for' more sports means quotas get reduced for existing sports. The 50k Walk has been cut for Athletics for Paris and this time the quota for Multi Events was a pitiful 24. Just wait until the next suggestion is to cut other 'unfashionable' events like the Hammer and reducing all Field Events to 24 too.

[marra]

Grassmarket - if we're banning sports because of a large number of expats or similar, Athletics will be quickly removed, given the large number of former Kenyans, Ethiopians or Jamaicans that find their way into national teams! Hell, half the English cricket team were either born abroad or are first generation children of expats. It's hardly a strong reason not to allow a sport.

Ladyloz - 27 of the 33 for me by your criteria. I accept I'm probably an outlier; I'm a sports obsessive.

As for quotas - that's the IOC choosing to limit things for no reason other than their own preference to limit the size. I'm not advocating for that - I've said elsewhere on the forum that my belief around the Olympics is that they should be expanded to allow more competitors in a true festival of sport. Not even limited to one city, but for a region/country to host precisely to reduce the costs to one city (depending on the size of the country obviously - California hosting a Games would be similar in scale to the UK hosting for example).

I would point out however, that the quotas for athletics are FAR more generous than they are in many other sports - there were more men in the steeplechase alone, for example, than there were skateboarders (both male and female) in their entirity. I'm not saying that there should be quotas at all, but athletics is not a sport that is hit hardest by them.

Finally, if we're talking about judging it by "what did people watch" and using that as a potential justification for whether a sport should be there - I'm not sure that the heats of something like the steeple are THAT much of a draw to TV spectators.

[Dundee42]

I believe that if winning a gold medal would not be seen as the ultimate achievement in your sport then it should not be there. Cricket, football, golf, tennis (and I'm an avid tennis fan) shouldn't be there when grand slams, golf majors, Ryder cups and world cups would be the biggest prize. Would rather squash or netball even were included.