The Tokyo 2020 Non Athletics Thread

[treadwater1]

Disappointment for the men’s 4x1 free, just missing out on the final, Whittle the 16 year old was the quickest of our guys, he’s got a bright future

[marra]

He'd be the face of the future of sprinting, if Popvici didn't exist! They could have a rivalry for the ages over the years though.

[marra]

GB's relay gamble didn't pay off there, by 4/100ths of a second. Great splits from Richards and Whittle though. The 4x100 was the least likely of the 3 men's relays to medal but still a disappointing result.

Luke Greenbank the same in the 100BK, missing by a couple of hundreths. Not a catastrophe necessarily - he's much stronger in the 200BK and even making the final in the 100 was unlikely - but could be a bit worrying if it is a wider indication of form, for both the 200 and the medley relay.

[philipo]

Indeed, Great Britain in Rio 2016 became the first nation in the history of the modern Olympic Games that managed to surpass the medal total in the games immediately following one that they had previously hosted. Olympic juggernauts like the USA and USSR have managed that (though the big Cold War Olympic boycotts in 1980 and 1984 probably skew those results somewhat).

That achievement was so amazing that you may well have surmised that it couldn't go on.how we beat the Russians,chinese, germans, aussies is something you would have got great odds for

[philipo]

Well, we have our first guaranteed medal - Bradly Sinden gets either a silver or gold, with the final in around 3 hours time I think.

As for other comments it's worth noting that most of the predictions before 2016 were that GB's medal tally would be around 50. We came away with 67. So let's not place too much faith in 'professional' data predictions. Most of their predictions are based on the same data that we can all read on wikipedia (ie past results) and even then is not flawless - I saw one of them last week announcing that Britain would get a bronze in the Women's 4x200m freestyle, which would be a shock considering that we decided not to enter a team for that event!

As for our promising women's swimmers - they are indeed promising, but they are also not where the majority of the medal predictions for GB have come.

If you look at the world best times this year coming into the games, our swimmers ranked in the top 3 of those competing were as follows:

Women - Wood (200IM), Renshaw (200BR).

Men - Peaty, Greenbank (200BK), Scott (200FR/200IM), Dean (200FR), Proud (50FR).

Times in relays are less of a guide given the potential for people to be dropped in, but none of the women's relays was strongly favoured for a medal. 2 of the 3 men's are - 4x200FR, 4x100m Medley.

If you look at those events, not only are our men reckoned to be by far the more successful this time out, but also, as I've been saying, most of those events are yet to be raced.

Also, we did morning finals at the Glasgow meet, which was the final meet we had before the Games and I know from social media that a lot of the swimming groups have been training for a good while on Tokyo time.




To be clear - I'm not promising we'll medal in them all. That is unlikely. But predicting that we won't, based on events we weren't expected to medal in anyway, seems no more likely to be accurate. It's all guesswork, optimistic or pessimistic.

Good swims in the 200 free by our guys. Dawson has a tough job as we know with the american ,
smith, the aussie ,mckeown and the very good Canadian, Massie. Will need a sub 58 maybe to medal

[philipo]

Marra, top 3 ranking s dont always mean much as the Tunisian will you. The fact that is producing a few surprising results between first time in the pool and follow up the next time has been the change to morning semis and finals and the challenge remains with the swimmers abilities a.m. rather than p.m.
I will stick,foolishly maybe, with my earlier prediction that if Scott performs as he can, then I mentioned 5 or 6 medals.

[trickstat]

GB's relay gamble didn't pay off there, by 4/100ths of a second. Great splits from Richards and Whittle though. The 4x100 was the least likely of the 3 men's relays to medal but still a disappointing result.

It is arguable that the gamble will have been considered to have at least partly paid off if we get a medal in the 200.

[marra]

Agreed, and also in relation to the 4x200m later in the week, as well as potentially the medley relay. Even JG's fly or Whittle/Richards 100m free! Obv certainly no guarantee that they would have medalled if they had made the final. A race or two less in everyone's body might not end up being a bad thing.

Nevertheless, a poor coaching choice right now. Since they announced that Joe Litchfield was not doing the 100back, it's been speculated that he would race today. I thought it was the wrong call then and nothing that has happened since changes my mind. I think letting him focus on the 100bk gave us more chances in the medley and would likely have got us a lane in the final pretty easily.

I don't blame Joe, this is squarely on the coaches.

[LuckySpikes]

Every time I look at BBC1 it's Hazel Irvine chatting to someone or other. Very poor! When polled do they think the British people would say, "Less sport and more chat, please!" ?

The extra Eurosport channels aren't showing on my BT TV but thank God for CBC in Canada!

[trickstat]

Unusually BBC and Eurosport were using exactly the same commentary for the Taekwondo. I've been flicking around between BBC and Eurosport 1 and 2.

[marra]

Probably the world feed - one of the advantages of streaming is that I can watch the world feed online free from any national bias and avoid some of the US commentators as some of them are genuinely good, whilst others are very, very bad.

[Grassmarket]

Yes, the media produced at the Games actually belongs to the IOC - the Olympic Broadcast Service - & they use freelance commentators from all over the English speaking world as a basis to distribute to smaller countries. Some of the are familiar to us from other contexts. The BBC & ES sometimes use those, or put their own comms on for high profile domestic events.

[marra]

Marra, top 3 ranking s dont always mean much as the Tunisian will you. The fact that is producing a few surprising results between first time in the pool and follow up the next time has been the change to morning semis and finals and the challenge remains with the swimmers abilities a.m. rather than p.m.
I will stick,foolishly maybe, with my earlier prediction that if Scott performs as he can, then I mentioned 5 or 6 medals.

Of course a ranking doesn't mean everything, as we've already seen numerous times in various sports over the first two days.

Nevertheless, it is still partially relevent. You yourself were referencing professional medal predicters earlier in this thread - what do you think they rely on, other than rankings and past results?

You can't say we should expect low medals because the data says so, then complain when our athletes who don't have the data backing them don't get the results you want!

In reality, both previous performance and current form are useful in part but we shouldn't rely on either exclusively. Also, it doesn't change the fact that we're still doing pretty much as expected in terms of how we came into this meet, in relation to our likeliest medalists - Peaty, Wilby, Scott, Dean and Dawson all are where you would have expected them to be after heats/SF.

[Grassmarket]

One point that we have already touched on is that because of our twenty-year success, we have become a net exporter of coaching talent. It is absolutely the case that some of these very successful medal winning coaches have effectively been driven out of Britain because of media campaigns against their highly demanding priority on winning. We didn’t want them or their methods, but it seems other people are not so fussy. It remains to be seen whether our new touchy-feely athlete friendly methods are more successful than theirs.

In the case of Jade Jones at least, it seems not. The early evidence from the rowing team also suggests not. We shall see how our track cyclists & paralympic wheelchair runners get on, because they too have famously sacked successful, aggressive coaches.

[jjimbojames]

Good point - the US winner of the women’s taekwondo was coached by a Brit!

[trickstat]

I do think some of these British coaches are just coaching abroad because another country offered them a top job which they decided to take rather than wait until the top job in the UK became available.

[MysteryBrick]

Surely this is on balance a good thing?

[Grassmarket]

I do think some of these British coaches are just coaching abroad because another country offered them a top job which they decided to take rather than wait until the top job in the UK became available.

This is also true. I remember during the BBC’s recent three parter on the history of our Olympic sport Atlanta-London there were many interviews with sleek & prosperous sports bureaucrats & none at all with actual at-the-coalface sports coaches. It’s very likely a similar attitude prevailed when bonuses & rewards were being handed out in 2012 & 2016.

[philipo]

I read that BBC upset viewers and missed live coverage of our two medals so far due to the fact that BBC can only show live two events which was showing other stuff live at the time and that is due to the money grubbing tarts of the IOC immediately granted the American company Discovery the appropriate rights for coverage for a sum of dollars 920 million and nobody else could match it. Well done IOC.

[philipo]

One point that we have already touched on is that because of our twenty-year success, we have become a net exporter of coaching talent. It is absolutely the case that some of these very successful medal winning coaches have effectively been driven out of Britain because of media campaigns against their highly demanding priority on winning. We didn’t want them or their methods, but it seems other people are not so fussy. It remains to be seen whether our new touchy-feely athlete friendly methods are more successful than theirs.

In the case of Jade Jones at least, it seems not. The early evidence from the rowing team also suggests not. We shall see how our track cyclists & paralympic wheelchair runners get on, because they too have famously sacked successful, aggressive coaches.

Well said. i agree wholeheartedly. Politicall correctness abounds
Fascinated to hear maybe by accident, our womens hockey captain, after the first quarter in the match against Germany, which we lost( not just football where we throw away winning leads) berating her team members in the dug out thing and dishing out a severe bollocking. in appropriate language. Good on her.