The Fucking 2024 Olympics

[RoverAndOut 4,726]

1 minute ago, Toast said:

The relay races are great.  Lovely to see people rewarded who were disappointed in their individual races.

Did I hear right, they were the only ones who weren't twins? !  not even sisters. That put them at a disadvantage from the start!

Talking of twins,  only just realised that there are two Nielsens who are identical twins.  Lina and Laviai.  

 

You did hear correct, although they perhaps have a different sort of advantage as apparently their mother's swam together previously! So their partnership also started in the womb. 

 

Not only are there 2 Nielsen sisters who both run (Laviai is slightly better than Lina), both sisters suffer from multiple sclerosis which leaves them fatigued and sometimes unable to run. Quite astonishing really.

 

I like the relays, it means you may not have the quickest runner on the planet, but you can put together 4 good runners who are better than the sum of their parts. Exhibit A is the USA, who regularly have 3 men in the 100m final but haven't won the Men's 4x100m title since Sydney 2000 because they can't get the baton round - team of individuals, who don't care about each other. UK used to be rubbish at relays but the last decade they've really upped their games and we medalled in all 5 relays in this Olympics (Men's and Women's 4x100m and 4x400m and the Mixed 4x400m).

[Master Obit 822]

10 hours ago, msc said:

So 63 medals now with outside shot of another tomorrow? Clearly a mare for Team GB to be practically on par with their greatest ever teams (bar 1908 where we gamed it).

That's only one way of looking at it. It's actually our worst since 2004 in terms of golds. Looking at number of golds as the metric, you have

2004: 9

2008: 19

2012: 29

2016: 27

2020: 22

2024: 14 

 

It doesn't look quite so good when you look at it like that.

[Master Obit 822]

Can someone please explain to me how China did a clean sweep, 8/8 golds, in the diving? Are they really just freakishly good?

[RoverAndOut 4,726]

24 minutes ago, Master Obit said:

Can someone please explain to me how China did a clean sweep, 8/8 golds, in the diving? Are they really just freakishly good?

 

Yes

[RoverAndOut 4,726]

Sifan Hassan is an absolute MACHINE! Bronze in the 5000m, bronze in the 10,000m and now a gold in the Marathon. Insane! 

[RoverAndOut 4,726]

10 hours ago, RoverAndOut said:

Modern Pentathlon - 2 women in the top 5 in the semi-final, I have no idea how the qualifying rounds work, the final is tomorrow and our gold medallist from Tokyo is 5th and our other girl is 1st! So possibilities of 2 medals if it went really well!

 

Scrap the two medals in Modern Pentathlon, defending champion Kate French is ill.  But our other girl qualified 1st, so has a good chance.

[RoverAndOut 4,726]

15 hours ago, TQR said:

The Fucking Madison is a complete shambles. Austria sprinted immediately and fucked themselves up. NZ/Germany crashed into each other, GB were crashed into by the Dutch, huge crash involving Spain and now one Italian has pulled his team mate over on the changeover. GB currently on -fucking9.

 

15 hours ago, RoverAndOut said:

Only just seen our crash (I left the second it happened to go to the loo, knowing chances had gone) - how were there no repercussions for that for the Dutch?

 

The Dutch apparently have been disqualified from yesterday's Madison and the guy who crashed into Ollie Wood has been fined just under a grand. None of this really helps GB, who couldn't compete in the latter stages and who are bumped up to...9th. 

[TQR 14,352]

And Neah Evans crashed at the last minute in the Women’s Scratch Fucking Omnium. Godsake.

[Master Obit 822]

1 hour ago, Master Obit said:

That's only one way of looking at it. It's actually our worst since 2004 in terms of golds. Looking at number of golds as the metric, you have

2004: 9

2008: 19

2012: 29

2016: 27

2020: 22

2024: 14 

 

It doesn't look quite so good when you look at it like that.

Not sure why you're facepalming this Rover. I'm by no means suggesting this Olympics is a disaster or even necessarily offering a personal view, but it's a very one-dimensional statistical approach to only consider number of medals as a success metric when the official table itself prioritises golds.

[TQR 14,352]

The number of medals GB have achieved is astonishing, and we can be so proud of Team GB's mindset and achievements. They truly are amazing ambassadors to their country and their sport, they continue to inspire the next generation and deserve nothing but love and encouragement.

 

That being said, there has been a certain continual agony throughout this because it has always felt like we're capable and deserving of a bit more. Only the US has more bronzes than us. Only Italy (?) has more 4th places than us. Laura Kenny's prediction of 8 golds in the Fucking Velodrome wasn't completely unreasonable, crazy though it sounds at this point. But that's how it goes sometimes. We'll keep pushing and build on our successes in LA.

[RoverAndOut 4,726]

Just now, Master Obit said:

Not sure why you're facepalming this Rover. I'm by no means suggesting this Olympics is a disaster or even necessarily offering a personal view, but it's a very one-dimensional statistical approach to only consider number of medals as a success metric when the official table itself prioritises golds.

 

We are 6th in the medal table, 2 places lower than 2020(1), behind France (the hosts) and Australia (who have set a national record for golds and host in 8 years' time). We finished 10th in 2004 and won half as many medals as we have this year. The margins between gold and silver have been incredibly marginal. For a collective 0.16 seconds, we would have turned 4 silvers and a bronze into 5 golds. For a further 0.25 seconds we'd have another 2 golds instead of a silver and bronze. Half a second for KJT in her 200m and she earns gold in the heptathlon. That could be 8 more golds, 22 in total, 3rd in the medal table behind the big 2 and everyone's saying it's been an incredibly successful games. And there are plenty more close calls. There have been plenty of disappointments and close calls, but UK Sport targeted 50-70 medals - we're above 60, which is upper end. That's a successful games.

 

If you want my working for those numbers:

Mixed Triathlon - Bronze by 0.01s

Adam Peaty - Silver by 0.02s

Matt Richards - Silver by 0.02s

Matt Hudson-Smith - Silver by 0.04s

Women's 4x100m - Silver by 0.07

Men's 4x100m - Bronze by 0.11

Josh Kerr - Silver by 0.14s

 

 

[En Passant 3,731]

You have too much time on your hands!

 

Interesting though. Don't suppose you did the reverse did you? Because we've also won some by some pretty close margins.

And Aus with a population less than half ours, meh, I told you, too much splishy-splashy they always do well in the swimming.

[Master Obit 822]

14 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

We are 6th in the medal table, 2 places lower than 2020(1), behind France (the hosts) and Australia (who have set a national record for golds and host in 8 years' time). We finished 10th in 2004 and won half as many medals as we have this year. The margins between gold and silver have been incredibly marginal. For a collective 0.16 seconds, we would have turned 4 silvers and a bronze into 5 golds. For a further 0.25 seconds we'd have another 2 golds instead of a silver and bronze. Half a second for KJT in her 200m and she earns gold in the heptathlon. That could be 8 more golds, 22 in total, 3rd in the medal table behind the big 2 and everyone's saying it's been an incredibly successful games. And there are plenty more close calls. There have been plenty of disappointments and close calls, but UK Sport targeted 50-70 medals - we're above 60, which is upper end. That's a successful games.

 

If you want my working for those numbers:

Mixed Triathlon - Bronze by 0.01s

Adam Peaty - Silver by 0.02s

Matt Richards - Silver by 0.02s

Matt Hudson-Smith - Silver by 0.04s

Women's 4x100m - Silver by 0.07

Men's 4x100m - Bronze by 0.11

Josh Kerr - Silver by 0.14s

 

 

Gold is gold, silver is silver, and bronze is bronze. As @En Passant has said, unless you're going to also analyse the medals where we won by a fractional margin, you can't really bring this in to it because you aren't doing a fair reflection. There will doubtlessly have been events where we only barely scraped in to a higher place, and either they all get written off as "only just", or none of them do.

 

It's a very successful games, yeah - that's absolutely not up for debate. I don't disagree with you there - we've a lot to be proud of. However, the distinct lack of golds in comparison to previous editions is certainly noticeable and I don't think it's unreasonable to note that.

 

 

[Toast 16,063]

[RoverAndOut 4,726]

46 minutes ago, En Passant said:

You have too much time on your hands!

 

Interesting though. Don't suppose you did the reverse did you? Because we've also won some by some pretty close margins.

And Aus with a population less than half ours, meh, I told you, too much splishy-splashy they always do well in the swimming.

 

Took me 5 minutes - I've watched pretty much all the major moments of these Olympics and knew which events we lost by next to nothing.

 

38 minutes ago, Master Obit said:

Gold is gold, silver is silver, and bronze is bronze. As @En Passant has said, unless you're going to also analyse the medals where we won by a fractional margin, you can't really bring this in to it because you aren't doing a fair reflection. There will doubtlessly have been events where we only barely scraped in to a higher place, and either they all get written off as "only just", or none of them do.

 

It's a very successful game, yeah - that's absolutely not up for debate. I don't disagree with you there - we've a lot to be proud of. However, the distinct lack of golds in comparison to previous editions is certainly noticeable and I don't think it's unreasonable to note that.

 

OK, boys, since it's the final day of the Olympics and it's a lazy Sunday morning, let's check out those 14 gold medals, for your fair comparison. Hard to do as most of them have not been in straight races but I'll play along...

 

Team Eventing:  won by 12.3 points, the equivalent of 3 fences down in the jumping phase - miles basically.

Men's Mountain Biking: overtook in the last minutes and won by 9 seconds, but had to make up 30 seconds after a puncture mid-race, having been comfortably ahead before.

Men's Trap Shooting: won by 4 shots, hitting 48 out of 50 targets, an Olympic record.

Men's 4x200m Freestyle Relay: won by 0.46 seconds, but by comparison silver was 0.06 seconds off ending up 4th. Comfortable.

Men's Triathlon: won by 6 seconds with a late surge to regain the lead having led for most of the race previously.

Women's Quad Sculls: won by 0.15 seconds. OK, lads, I'll give you this one, they overtook on the line to win this, could easily have lost it.

Women's Lightweight Double Sculls: won by 1.72 seconds - comfortable by rowing standards.

Women's Trampolining: won by 0.420 points. Not a lot, granted, but it's a bigger margin than silver to bronze (0.410) and bronze to 4th (0.140).

Men's Showjumping: won by 2 penalties - we had 2 seconds time penalties, the USA knocked a fence off for 4 penalties. We were the only country not to knock a fence down - pretty good!

Men's Eight: won by 1.04 seconds, another comfortable if not massive win in the rowing.

Women's Team Sprint: won by 0.473 seconds in a world record time.

Women's 800m: won by 0.43 seconds but nothing was stopping Keely. 0.51 seconds covered 2nd to 4th for comparison.

Women's Kite Surfing: no real times given, just positions and she won by a country mile in the race.

Men's Combined Climbing: won by 9.8 points but how you measure this is impossible, everyone's one slip away from getting nothing.

 

I'd say a lot more near misses from gold than golds obtained against the odds, but you boys do you.  Give back the 0.15 for the rowing, take the 0.16 for the ones I said before and we were 0.01 seconds off 5 golds instead of the 1 we actually got, and we'd be having a very different conversation.

[En Passant 3,731]

2 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

but you boys do you. 

 

Not at all, I didn't really know, I remember the quad sculls were close and following the earlier question from Grimupnorth about thousandths, simply went on from that to wonder if any were as close the other way as the ones you originally quoted. It's why I asked - far too lazy to do the work myself .

[RoverAndOut 4,726]

1 hour ago, TQR said:

The number of medals GB have achieved is astonishing, and we can be so proud of Team GB's mindset and achievements. They truly are amazing ambassadors to their country and their sport, they continue to inspire the next generation and deserve nothing but love and encouragement.

 

That being said, there has been a certain continual agony throughout this because it has always felt like we're capable and deserving of a bit more. Only the US has more bronzes than us. Only Italy (?) has more 4th places than us. Laura Kenny's prediction of 8 golds in the Fucking Velodrome wasn't completely unreasonable, crazy though it sounds at this point. But that's how it goes sometimes. We'll keep pushing and build on our successes in LA.

 

Interesting figure about 4ths, where did you get that from?

 

I think Laura Kenny went off the potential form of the riders and GB's usual tactic of peaking specifically for the Olympics. It just hasn't happened. I imagine she predicted Finucane to win the Individual Sprint, Carlin and Finucane to win the Keirin, the men and women winning the Team Pursuit, and 2 wins from 4 in the Madison sand Omniums. Unfortunately it's just not been the case. Neah Evans might as well not have got out of bed this morning, absolute waste of time. Losing Katie Archibald has been a massive blow for the cycling team it seems.

[Master Obit 822]

1 minute ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

Took me 5 minutes - I've watched pretty much all the major moments of these Olympics and knew which events we lost by next to nothing.

 

 

OK, boys, since it's the final day of the Olympics and it's a lazy Sunday morning, let's check out those 14 gold medals, for your fair comparison. Hard to do as most of them have not been in straight races but I'll play along...

 

Team Eventing:  won by 12.3 points, the equivalent of 3 fences down in the jumping phase - miles basically.

Men's Mountain Biking: overtook in the last minutes and won by 9 seconds, but had to make up 30 seconds after a puncture mid-race, having been comfortably ahead before.

Men's Trap Shooting: won by 4 shots, hitting 48 out of 50 targets, and Olympic record.

Men's 4x200m Freestyle Relay: won by 0.46 seconds, but by comparison silver was 0.06 seconds off ending up 4th. Comfortable.

Men's Triathlon: won by 6 seconds with a late surge to regain the lead having led for most of the race previously.

Women's Quad Sculls: won by 0.15 seconds. OK, lads, I'll give you this one, they overtook on the line to win this, could easily have lost it.

Women's Lightweight Double Sculls: won by 1.72 seconds - comfortable by rowing standards.

Women's Trampolining: won by 0.420 points. Not a lot, granted, but it's a bigger margin than silver to bronze (0.410) and bronze to 4th (0.140).

Men's Showjumping: won by 2 penalties - we had 2 seconds time penalties, the USA knocked a fence off for 4 penalties. We were the only country not to knock a fence down - pretty good!

Men's Eight: won by 1.04 seconds, another comfortable if not massive win in the rowing.

Women's Team Sprint: won by 0.473 seconds in a world record time.

Women's 800m: won by 0.43 seconds but nothing was stopping Keely. 0.51 seconds covered 2nd to 4th for comparison.

Women's Kite Surfing: no real times given, just positions and she won by a country mile in the race.

Men's Combined Climbing: won by 9.8 points but how you measure this is impossible, everyone's one slip away from getting nothing.

 

I'd say a lot more near misses from gold than golds obtained against the odds, but you boys do you.  Give back the 0.15 for the rowing, take the 0.16 for the ones I said before and we were 0.01 seconds off 5 golds instead of the 1 we actually got, and we'd be having a very different conversation.

We could very easily have lost the triathlon - 6 seconds in a race lasting an hour and three-quarters isn't much at all. 0.43 seconds in the 800m isn't much either. 

 

There was 0.29s between 1st and 6th in the men's 100m breaststroke, but you neglected to mention that. We could have ended up 6th. Matt Richards was 0.13s off not medalling at all etc. Fine margins matter at the elite levels, especially on shorter races. You're only arguing from a perspective of "we could have won more golds", as opposed to applying consistent standards across tables. 

 

If you want a proper statistical analysis, you've got to compare like for like, as opposed to taking a given notion and massaging the data to show it how you want. 

 

This shouldn't detract from us having had a brilliant Olympics and a lot of fine ambassadors, but working in a job where I spend my days analysing data, I feel the urge to point out when things aren't being analysed in a totally fair way.

[harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy 1,683]

20 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

Interesting figure about 4ths, where did you get that from?

 

I think Laura Kenny went off the potential form of the riders and GB's usual tactic of peaking specifically for the Olympics. It just hasn't happened. I imagine she predicted Finucane to win the Individual Sprint, Carlin and Finucane to win the Keirin, the men and women winning the Team Pursuit, and 2 wins from 4 in the Madison sand Omniums. Unfortunately it's just not been the case. Neah Evans might as well not have got out of bed this morning, absolute waste of time. Losing Katie Archibald has been a massive blow for the cycling team it seems.

8 golds from 12 events was a silly prediction but she’s a dame so I doubt they’ll call her out on it on TV. I don’t mind being called out on my guess of 4. I still think GB did ok in track. 
 

Overall, not bad but we’d be second if the table was based on bronzes. Which it obviously should be, right.

 

Favourite GB golds were Yee and Pidcock.

[En Passant 3,731]

2 minutes ago, harrymcnallysblueandwhitearmy said:

I don’t mind being called out on my guess of 4.

 

Yeah, but you're not a Dame. (eta: that I know of anyway)

[RoverAndOut 4,726]

2 minutes ago, Master Obit said:

We could very easily have lost the triathlon - 6 seconds in a race lasting an hour and three-quarters isn't much at all.

 

Yee won silver in Tokyo. He was first out of the water in the swim. He was leading in the bike. He led the start and end of the run. Hayden Wilde came from behind. 6 seconds is nothing? Alistair Brownlee won in Rio by 6 seconds. Alistair Brownlee won by 11 seconds in London. Kristian Blummenfelt beat Alex Yee in Tokyo by 11 seconds. The margin was what is normal for a competitive triathlon. The Mixed Relay was a close finish.

 

6 minutes ago, Master Obit said:

0.43 seconds in the 800m isn't much either. 

 

It's enough. Athling Mu won in Tokyo by 0.67 seconds. Caster Semenya won in London by 0.3 seconds. Kelly Holmes won in Athens by 0.06 seconds - that's a close finish.

 

10 minutes ago, Master Obit said:

There was 0.29s between 1st and 6th in the men's 100m breaststroke, but you neglected to mention that. We could have ended up 6th. Matt Richards was 0.13s off not medalling at all etc.

 

0.02 is 6.8% of 0.29 seconds. You're right, fine margins matter, which is why 0.02 seconds is nothing compared to the chasm of 0.29 seconds. Oh, and the guy who failed to win by 0.02 seconds was the twice defending champion and world record holder, I think it's reasonable to say he was close. (not to mention he had Covid). Duncan Scott was 0.15 seconds off winning gold, but notice I'm not arguing he should have won the 200m. I think Peaty and Richards both being beaten on the touch qualifies as being incredibly close, but as I said, you do you.

 

18 minutes ago, Master Obit said:

If you want a proper statistical analysis, you've got to compare like for like, as opposed to taking a given notion and massaging the data to show it how you want. 

 

This shouldn't detract from us having had a brilliant Olympics and a lot of fine ambassadors, but working in a job where I spend my days analysing data, I feel the urge to point out when things aren't being analysed in a totally fair way.

 

Data is NEVER analysed in a fair way. It is always picked to promote a particular view, not least because the sheer breadth of data available is astronomical. You're being contrary for the sake of it. Context matters, and after these games, UK Sport will be saying we hit our medal target, but what went well (e,g, first medal in artistic swimming, return to form in rowing, record haul in diving), what went badly (e.g. poor performances in field athletics, no hockey medals, one bronze in boxing) and what showed promise (all the bloody bronzes). There are plenty of instances where Team GB can fairly point out to very close margins between victory and not quite victory, from losing out by hundredths of a second in some places, to being on the end of very marginal judges verdicts in early boxing rounds. The questions will rightly be asked what could have been done to alter those things, and there are definitely things we can learn, not least the fact that lots of them are incredibly young (I'm hugely frustrated Finucane only got one gold and 2 bronze but then I remember she's 21-years-old and still learning). It seems you're being contrary for the sake of being contrary and we get enough of that nonsense from Crem thanks very much.

[TQR 14,352]

Another horrible crash in the Fucking Velodrome, involving Jack Carlin in the Keirin final. Looks like the Japanese guy caused that. Malaysian slid over the line on his face.

 

He's okay, luckily.

[RoverAndOut 4,726]

This morning in the cycling:

 

Omnium Scratch Race: Neah Evans crashes - 1 point.

Women's Sprint Semis: Finucane loses to Elleesse Andrews (as anyone was going to today)

Omnium Tempo Race: Neah Evans tries and gets nothing.

Men's Keirin: Jack Carlin bosses the semi and qualifies easily.

Omnium Elimination: Neah Evans disqualified before it begins.

Women's Sprint: Finucane gets bronze.

Men's Keirin: Carlin ends up at the back, crashes, gets nothing.

 

What an absolutely wretched end to a tricky cycling meet. It's not been a disaster, but it's clearly not been what we or they expected.

[En Passant 3,731]

7 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

nonsense from Crem thanks very much.

 

That's a bit harsh no?

Putting a reasonable enough counter to your first post, whether you agree or not isn't crem, he just spouts his opinions with no figures at all (though I note his last few posts have included a link, maybe we finally got through at least a little bit).

[Toast 16,063]

Another bronze in the weightlifting!  I think that takes us past the Tokyo medal total.