The Fucking 2024 Olympics

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

Just now, En Passant said:

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).

 

I think you'll find it was @msc's point he disputed, not mine.  msc had said, in response to Crem's negativity, that we were a medal away from matching Tokyo, which was clearly a "mare" of a games. Master Obit argued it was actually pretty rubbish because it's our lowest golds since 2004, ignoring that we hadn't had as many as 14 golds at any games prior to 2004 since 1920. Of course, that is an argument you can make, but it's a pretty fucking negative argument when we've finished with 65 medals out of a target of 70, which matches our medal haul from London 2012, albeit with as many bronze this time as we had gold that time. Comparing it to previous analyses, I seem to remember it being a hugely celebrated point that we beat our London total (65 medals) in Rio (67 medals) despite the fact we got 27 golds compared to 29 in London. So surely 65 medals and 14 golds is not that much worse than 64 medals and 22 golds in Tokyo? Anyway, I've wasted enough of my day arguing this, clearly there are two different camps here.

[Master Obit 830]

22 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

Yada yada yada

"Data isn't analysed in a fair way, so it's fine for me to not do so as long as it agrees with my opinion"

 

We can do without the insults too, thanks. You're never going to get taken seriously in an intellectual discussion if you aren't willing to go toe to toe on logic without resorting to mudslinging. The fact remains that you've merely cherrypicked a bunch of different metrics for each individual case to try and justify your opinion. There's no statistical rigour in what you've done. First it's margin of victory by seconds, then on the ones where we scraped through it suddenly matters about the margin to other places, then now you're introducing percentages for some. That's cherrypicking. You have to compare equally across everything. If that were to show that there were reasonable grounds for your opinion, I'd willingly accept that.

 

If you really want to debate this further, I'm happy to do so either on here or in private. You accuse me of "crem like content", whilst missing the very irony that crem's very trademark is spouting opinions and cherrypicking to justify them. 

 

Has it been a good Olympics? Yes, certainly. Is there grounds to suggest we've underperformed on golds? Certainly open to debate.

[En Passant 3,741]

1 minute ago, RoverAndOut said:

Anyway, I've wasted enough of my day arguing this, clearly there are two different camps here.

 

FWIW I wasn't arguing, I just asked if you had the stats the other way having quoted the closeness of the ones we missed. Or at least that's what I thought I'd done, shrug.

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

29 minutes ago, Toast said:

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

 

Yep! Not bad at all...

 

On 09/08/2024 at 19:24, msc said:

For the record, GB's all time medal hauls at the Olympics

 

1908 - 146 medals

2016 - 67 medals

2012 - 65 medals

2020 - 64 medals

2024 - 56 medals so far.

 

So, despite all the near misses, 5th most successful games for Britain AT WORST and not out of the question we could get into the 60s yet again. Such a failure...

 

To update these (and provide context since there's so many arguments):

 

1908: 146 medals (56 Gold, 51 Silver, 39 Bronze) - 1st in Medal Table (but, e.g., Tug of War was only contested by 5 teams, 3 of them from GB - we got G/S/B)

2016: 67 medals (27G, 23S, 17B) - 2nd (Behind USA)

2012: 65 medals (29G, 18S, 18B) - 3rd (USA, China)

2024: 65 medals (14G, 22S, 29B) - 7th (China, USA, Australia, Japan, France, Netherlands)

2020: 64 medals (22G, 20S, 22B) - 4th (USA, China, Japan)

2008: 51 medals (19G, 13S, 19B) - 4th (China, USA, Russia)

1920: 42 medals (14G, 15S, 13B) - 4th (USA, Sweden, Finland)

1912: 41 medals (10G, 15S, 16B) - 3rd (USA, Sweden)

1984: 37 medals (5G, 11S, 21B) - 11th

1924: 34 medals (9G, 13S, 12B) - 4th (USA, Finland, France)

2004: 32 medals (9G, 9S, 12B) - 10th (USA, China, Russia, Australia, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, South Korea)

1900: 31 medals (15G, 7S, 9B) - 3rd (France, USA)

 

Take whatever the hell you like from that lot, doubtless you will.

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

4 minutes ago, En Passant said:

FWIW I wasn't arguing, I just asked if you had the stats the other way having quoted the closeness of the ones we missed. Or at least that's what I thought I'd done, shrug.

 

And I provided you those stats. And you took them in good faith, so thank you.  That, I hoped was the end of the matter.

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

6 minutes ago, Master Obit said:

"Data isn't analysed in a fair way, so it's fine for me to not do so as long as it agrees with my opinion"

 

We can do without the insults too, thanks. You're never going to get taken seriously in an intellectual discussion if you aren't willing to go toe to toe on logic without resorting to mudslinging. The fact remains that you've merely cherrypicked a bunch of different metrics for each individual case to try and justify your opinion. There's no statistical rigour in what you've done. First it's margin of victory by seconds, then on the ones where we scraped through it suddenly matters about the margin to other places, then now you're introducing percentages for some. That's cherrypicking. You have to compare equally across everything. If that were to show that there were reasonable grounds for your opinion, I'd willingly accept that.

 

If you really want to debate this further, I'm happy to do so either on here or in private. You accuse me of "crem like content", whilst missing the very irony that crem's very trademark is spouting opinions and cherrypicking to justify them. 

 

Has it been a good Olympics? Yes, certainly. Is there grounds to suggest we've underperformed on golds? Certainly open to debate.

 

This isn't the Team GB Performance Review, I'm on a forum about picking which celebrities are likely to die soon, commenting on the Olympic Games as a Team GB fan, I'm sorry if my discussion wasn't intellectual enough or rigorous enough for you.

 

14 gold medals is lower than 29, 27, 22 and 19. It is more than 9.

65 medals is less than 67. It is the same as 65. It is more than 64, 51 and 32.

 

Both of those statistics are true. Neither of them state whether or not it has been a good Olympic Games for Team GB or in general. I would say I am disappointed in our performances in some events and delighted by our performances in others. So pretty much like every other games. There is a lot of promise for 2028, it is the end of an era for some. I'd be interested to know how many gold medals we've truly underperformed by - how many nailed on golds have we failed to obtain? I look forward to hearing some examples. I would say this is hopefully going to be our new norm: 50-60 medals, 10-20 golds depending on the games. That's a far higher baseline that we had prior to 2008. And it will do me just fine.

[msc 18,439]

13 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

I think you'll find it was @msc's point he disputed, not mine.  msc had said, in response to Crem's negativity, that we were a medal away from matching Tokyo, which was clearly a "mare" of a games. Master Obit argued it was actually pretty rubbish because it's our lowest golds since 2004, ignoring that we hadn't had as many as 14 golds at any games prior to 2004 since 1920. Of course, that is an argument you can make, but it's a pretty fucking negative argument when we've finished with 65 medals out of a target of 70, which matches our medal haul from London 2012, albeit with as many bronze this time as we had gold that time. Comparing it to previous analyses, I seem to remember it being a hugely celebrated point that we beat our London total (65 medals) in Rio (67 medals) despite the fact we got 27 golds compared to 29 in London. So surely 65 medals and 14 golds is not that much worse than 64 medals and 22 golds in Tokyo? Anyway, I've wasted enough of my day arguing this, clearly there are two different camps here.

 

msc was taking the piss out of that "questions will have to be asked about funding" bollocks from a few pages ago. 

 

For the record, I understand Master Obit's point of view, I just personally disagree with it. For me, a medals a medal, especially when a vast chunk of them have come out of nowhere. Sure, the gold medals are down on recent Olympics, and Team GB had a vast number of agonisingly close 4th places, and a few strong events where we underperformed (ahem cycling), but that's just area for improvement next time. 

 

In short, my views are basically that meme about the glass being half full that Toast posted! 

[Toast 16,136]

13 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

Take whatever the hell you like from that lot, doubtless you will.

 

There isn't a fair way to judge it. 

Is it fairer to rank by number of gold medals won, or by total number of medals?

 

It'll never be fair because of the variation in populations and numbers of participants.

Also nobody has mentioned the absence of Russians.

 

[Master Obit 830]

13 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

This isn't the Team GB Performance Review, I'm on a forum about picking which celebrities are likely to die soon, commenting on the Olympic Games as a Team GB fan, I'm sorry if my discussion wasn't intellectual enough or rigorous enough for you.

 

14 gold medals is lower than 29, 27, 22 and 19. It is more than 9.

65 medals is less than 67. It is the same as 65. It is more than 64, 51 and 32.

 

Both of those statistics are true. Neither of them state whether or not it has been a good Olympic Games for Team GB or in general. I would say I am disappointed in our performances in some events and delighted by our performances in others. So pretty much like every other games. There is a lot of promise for 2028, it is the end of an era for some. I'd be interested to know how many gold medals we've truly underperformed by - how many nailed on golds have we failed to obtain? I look forward to hearing some examples. I would say this is hopefully going to be our new norm: 50-60 medals, 10-20 golds depending on the games. That's a far higher baseline that we had prior to 2008. And it will do me just fine.

And that's fine. I've no intention of causing offence and the way you judge the success of an Olympics personally is entirely up to you. What I object to is having insults thrown at me for presenting an entirely reasonable counterview backed up by also reasonable figures. It's not really fair - though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here, it's a hot day and both of us probably got a bit overinvested.

[En Passant 3,741]

8 minutes ago, Toast said:

Is it fairer to rank by number of gold medals won, or by total number of medals?

 

There was a whole Grauniad article devoted to that very topic just the other day. The work it references is here.

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

3 minutes ago, Toast said:

There isn't a fair way to judge it. 

Is it fairer to rank by number of gold medals won, or by total number of medals?

 

It'll never be fair because of the variation in populations and numbers of participants.

Also nobody has mentioned the absence of Russians.

 

I nearly mentioned that actually. But same goes for all the early games (pre-war) when countries were amalgamated and several areas of the world sent few or no athletes. 1984 was boycotted by the Eastern Bloc too. Some Russians were banned in Tokyo 2020 too, although many competed as a neutral Russian team. So many caveats, that's why I just put up the information and left it up to everyone to make their own decisions what to take from it.

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

1 minute ago, Master Obit said:

And that's fine. I've no intention of causing offence and the way you judge the success of an Olympics personally is entirely up to you. What I object to is having insults thrown at me for presenting an entirely reasonable counterview backed up by also reasonable figures. It's not really fair - though I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here, it's a hot day and both of us probably got a bit overinvested.

 

I left it as a facepalm and didn't comment, you wanted the discussion. I apologise if I've insulted you, I think I've been quite reasonable in presenting you with my workings, I said you were being contrary for the sake of it (devil's advocate if you like) and negative which I don't consider as being personally insulting, no more so than you declaring me intellectually unrigorous. I've said my piece, made my arguments, put out the info and will leave it at that. Have a good day.

[Master Obit 830]

8 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

I left it as a facepalm and didn't comment, you wanted the discussion. I apologise if I've insulted you, I think I've been quite reasonable in presenting you with my workings, I said you were being contrary for the sake of it (devil's advocate if you like) and negative which I don't consider as being personally insulting, no more so than you declaring me intellectually unrigorous. I've said my piece, made my arguments, put out the info and will leave it at that. Have a good day.

You too. Have a splendid Sunday.

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

18 minutes ago, En Passant said:

There was a whole Grauniad article devoted to that very topic just the other day. The work it references is here.

 

Interesting read, rather illustrating the pointlessness of the last 2 pages of this thread. I note their research doesn't distinguish between golds and medals. Think it's fair to say that out of 200 countries, the UK is in the top 10 for accomplishments by whatever metric you use, and that will do for me. That said, I said we had 6 chances for medals today - we ended up with 2, both of them bronze. 

[ladyfiona 2,577]

I think where they picked for the windsurfing etc was the wrong place  because they kept postponing and cancelling etc because no wind or not enough wind. At one point we could have got gold or silver, but then a restart happened and we missed out on the medals.

[TQR 14,387]

The one common measure of the success of a nation's Fucking Olympic team is how proud you are of them. And boy am I proud of Team GB. They just happen to have a bloody good haul of medals, some of which I wish were golds, but that's how it goes.

 

Favourite Home Nation Gold: Alex Yee

Favourite Sport: Kayak Cross

Most Impressive Performance: Both Nafi Thiam and KJT in the Heptathlon

Special Mention: Andy McDonald, GB's 51-year-old skateboarder

Biggest Fuckup: Either everyone falling over in the gymnastics, or the decision to make Leon Taylor a diving commentator

 

I absolutely loved these Olympics. I'm so glad I was in a position to be at home for the most part and get properly immersed in it; I'll have to make sure that's the case in 2028. Onwards to the Fucking* Paralympics, starting the 28th!

 

*Or alternative gratuitous word

[BuffaloPhil 926]

2 hours ago, Toast said:

 

The glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

1 hour ago, TQR said:

The one common measure of the success of a nation's Fucking Olympic team is how proud you are of them. And boy am I proud of Team GB. They just happen to have a bloody good haul of medals, some of which I wish were golds, but that's how it goes.

 

Favourite GB Gold: Alex Yee

Favourite Sport: Kayak Cross

Most Impressive Performance: Both Nafi Thiam and KJT in the Heptathlon

Special Mention: Andy McDonald, GB's 51-year-old skateboarder

Biggest Fuckup: Either everyone falling over in the gymnastics, or the decision to make Leon Taylor a diving commentator

 

I absolutely loved these Olympics. I'm so glad I was in a position to be at home for the most part and get properly immersed in it; I'll have to make sure that's the case in 2028. Onwards to the Fucking* Paralympics, starting the 28th!

 

*Or alternative gratuitous word

 

Ok, let's try and make this a thing then. I'll try and vary it up so we don't just have the same choices every time.

 

Favourite Home Nation Gold: Wish I was saying KJT, but I'll take Keely for similar reasons - but Yee's was epic.

Favourite Sport: I'm a traditionalist at heart, so probably the athletics but the climbing was surprisingly watchable and gripping.

Most Impressive Performance: Artistic Swimming girls getting a silver or Georgia Bell's gutsy bronze.

Special Mention: Daryll Neita getting so close to an individual medal in both the 100m and 200m.

Biggest Fuckup: A fighting fit world leading Molly Caudrey not even making the Pole Vault final or Beth Shriever winning every BMX race apart from the one that mattered.

[TQR 14,387]

5 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

 

Ok, let's try and make this a thing then. I'll try and vary it up so we don't just have the same choices every time.

 

Favourite GB Gold: Wish I was saying KJT, but I'll take Keely for similar reasons - but Yee's was epic.

Favourite Sport: I'm a traditionalist at heart, so probably the athletics but the climbing was surprisingly watchable and gripping.

Most Impressive Performance: Artistic Swimming girls getting a silver or Georgia Bell's gutsy bronze.

Special Mention: Daryll Neita getting so close to an individual medal in both the 100m and 200m.

Biggest Fuckup: A fighting fit world leading Molly Caudrey not even making the Pole Vault final or Beth Shriever winning every BMX race apart from the one that mattered.

Shit yeah I forgot about Beth Shriever!

Didn’t watch the Artistic Swimming cos it bores me to tears. That and the Equestrian stuff.
 

Changed the GB Gold to Home Nation gold because it’s not all about GB…my bad, just proud of them atm.

[Toast 16,136]

3 minutes ago, TQR said:

Changed the GB Gold to Home Nation gold because it’s not all about GB

 

I don't remember them calling it 'Great Britain & Northern Ireland' before.  Just Great Britain.

Is there a reason they don't use 'United Kingdom' ?

[TQR 14,387]

8 minutes ago, Toast said:

 

I don't remember them calling it 'Great Britain & Northern Ireland' before.  Just Great Britain.

Is there a reason they don't use 'United Kingdom' ?

 

Officially, Team GB has been 'the Great Britain and Northern Ireland Olympic Team' since the 90s. But Team GB is snappier and works better as a marketing exercise.

[RoverAndOut 4,746]

19 minutes ago, Toast said:

I don't remember them calling it 'Great Britain & Northern Ireland' before.  Just Great Britain.

Is there a reason they don't use 'United Kingdom' ?

 

There's been disquiet in the past that Team GB ignores the "and NI" bit of the team, so I think they're trying to emphasise it a bit more. It's a bit of a tricky one anyway, because some Northern Irish athletes choose to compete in the Olympics for the Republic of Ireland - Rory McIlroy and Dan Wiffen, for example. For the same reason, I suppose United Kingdom would be difficult. I think it also reflects the times it was founded: if we think back to the early days of the Olympics (1896, when the modern games start to 1908, when we first hosted, for instance), I don't think "United Kingdom" was really in everyday usage, as Britain was just the centre of the still expansive British Empire. It's only really post-war that we've thought of ourselves as the UK, but lots of Olympic traditions were already established then, including the British Olympic Committee, which rebranded as Team GB in the 90s and has been ever since. Just another part of the muddled nature of our island nation. 

[En Passant 3,741]

9 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

expansive British Empire

 

Yeah we should still compete as that. Add the Canadian and Australian outposts to the total.

 

 

 

 

*yes, I used the word outposts on purpose for comedic effect, sue me.

[Toast 16,136]

7 minutes ago, RoverAndOut said:

 It's a bit of a tricky one anyway, because some Northern Irish athletes choose to compete in the Olympics for the Republic of Ireland - Rory McIlroy and Dan Wiffen, for example. For the same reason, I suppose United Kingdom would be difficult.

 

I get that, but it's not really any different from someone with dual nationality picking a side so I don't see why UK would be a problem.

I mean in full it's 'The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland', so it's all there anyway.

[ladyfiona 2,577]

Beth Shriever was impressive, but everyone else knew her tactics and so must have had a secret chat before the final and be like "if we bunch her up she won't win".