It is surprising, but it seems from the chronological list at Great Britain at the 2008 Summer Olympics - Wikipedia that GB only really got going on the 15th, which was the seventh day of competition proper. Then the cycling and sailing medals started rolling in. I don’t think we’ll get as quite as many golds in those sports this time, but hopefully more than just one in athletics.
Prior to Beijing, I read that China had used a strategy of maximizing medal output by focusing on specific games. Whereas something like basketball will give you only 1 medal, a sport like diving has 8 different events to medal in. By throwing their considerable weight behind multiple medal sports, China was hoping to beat out the US for most medals. To their credit, it worked spectacularly in Beijing. They were only off on the medal count by 10 but beat the US in total golds by like a dozen.
If the US throws its support behind things the give multiple medals, we can definitely blow by the competition. But we don’t have a state-run official Olympic program that takes kids away from their families at 6 years old. Over here, that’s call kidnapping and frowned upon
Gah! Ninja’d by dzeiger
I take it you haven’t been watching the boxingor the badminton then.
New Zealand’s got it’s first gold (in rowing) and two bronzes so far. The ‘official’ target is ten medals so we’re doing okay I suppose.
(NZ) I’d say chances are fairly good that we’ll have another 2 golds in the rowing by the end of the day too.
lisiate - It’s getting late, so just a quick response right now: (I’ll have a lot more time in the upcoming week…well-earned vacation!) The offending badminton team was disqualified. The grossly incorrect boxing decision was reversed. This is a huge improvement over the old days. Back then, there’d be stonewalling, mealy-mouthed excuses (including the tried-and-true “he blocked a lot of punches”), stalling actions, more stonewalling, and finally we’d all be told to put it behind us or it’d get swept under the rug, and voila, another fraudulent result that would stand forever and ever and ever. THAT’S the corruption, THAT’S what made a mockery of the whole spectacle, THAT’S what made the oath completely hollow, no justice ever. Here, there’s justice, and even better, the offending parties knew they were in the wrong and didn’t make even a token counterprotest.
There will always be attempts to screw the system. If they’re thwarted, that’s just another day at the office. If they’re allowed to stand, justice, legitimacy, and sanity be damned, that’s “controversy”.
Bravo DKW, that a great summary and makes clear how things have changed.
For those interested, the issues around potential boxing corruption wereflagged well in advance so no surprise that they jumped on it quickly.
after reading that article, have a quick guess as to the nationality of the controversial boxer in question.
Amazing start for Jessica Ennis. She’s just run 12.54 in the 100m hurdles, a new PB, which matches the gold medal winning time from Beijing. And she is competing in the Heptathlon, with another 6 events to go.
Lot of work to do though, and she has a serious rival in Chernova, who beat her at the World Championships last year.
This happens every Olympics, it seems. We have a slow start and people start panicking that we’re going to get shut out, forgetting that our medals tend to come in the events that take a few rounds to get, or are scheduled later in the Olympics. Then they all start rolling in and you never hear from those people again.
The U.S. is at the top of the medals charts right now–both most golds and most medals.
This makes me both happy and sad.
I like seeing American athletes win, and always root for them if I’m watching when they are playing–even if what I’m watching is tape-delayed.
But there’s a part of me which would like to see the medals be more spread out. If there’s 204 nations competing, couldn’t 50 of them go home with at least one medal apiece?
It’s hard for me to get excited as well but then I don’t know how fans of powerful college football teams can get all excited about their team crushing some D-II team either.
But maybe we’re not all that. http://www.medalspercapita.com/
Well, right now 44 teams have at least one medal, including Moldova, Qatar and Lithuania. There is a long way to go yet. The diversity of sports on offer gives most countries a chance unlike, say, a pure athletics meet.
You’re right, there are 7 countries tied in 44th place, with one bronze each. I just saw the 44.
That’s it, yes. I didn’t post to correct you, though, I just didn’t notice you’d already said essentially the same thing. Doh.
No problem, corrections welcome.
Not at this level of competition. Most countries can’t afford the training facilities necessary in a lot of sports.
I’m quite happy the way the US is doing, or more to the point, how the Americans I care about are doing. The Olympics are pretty much over for me after swimming, diving, water polo, gymnastics and shooting are over. Everything else is just track.
Go, Gabby!
You, and others, are correct–the list of countries that have acquired at least one medal is longer than I realized by looking at the list in the local paper. Which isn’t surprising–the local paper seems to think that the most newsworthy player on the Men’s Basketball team is Anthony Davis–because he’s “local”.
And yes, plenty of countries lack the resources to develop competitors across the broad range of events.
But still, while I root for every American athlete I encounter, a small part of me feels more greed than satisfaction when I see the medal counts.
Double bronze for Rebecca Adlington in the pool, to go with her two golds in Beijing. Good to see she wasn’t too disappointed. Amazing time by the 15 year old US swimmer, Katie Ledecky. She was just outside Adlington’s world record, but without the benefit of a high-tech swimsuit, which are now banned. In reality, although she doesn’t have the official record, that was the greatest woman’s 800m freestyle ever.
We had an even better day today, and are now up to third in the medal table. Pendleton got gold in the Keiran, and the pace she showed must means she is hot favourite for the sprint. If you’ve never seen the Keiran, I can recommend it. For the first few laps, the cyclists are led around the track by an old bloke on a moped, as it slowly increases in speed. It’s hilarious, I want that job. The last few laps are a sprint.
Fourth, on number of golds, the count traditionally used here. Unless we have adopted the practice of choosing the medal count that favours us.
We were briefly 3rd, but it looks like South Korea have won another gold.