Why are our Olympic efforts not matching up to other countries?

[toffee]

Paris Olympics will end tomorrow, so the medal count won't change much. Our country with a population of 300 million, a strong sports culture and spent truckloads of money on all things sports, is not doing so well in comparison with Australia (pop 26 mils), Japan (130 mils), Britain (67 mils), etc., and we may not even win the most gold.

The communist China is in a different category, as they have a state-run sports program where they identify kids aged 4-8 and put them in specialty schools that start training the kids in whatever sports 5-6 hours a day in a sport the party officials felt the kid would be good at.

What went wrong with our Olympic program?

 

[toffee]

Big boys, USA (300 mil), EU (450 mil)

 

[The Twelvethman]

You could also maybe look at it in terms of the size of the teams that were sent?

The USA team had the most & over 200 more athletes at the games than China (592 vs 388)

• 1. United States - 592
• 2. France - 573
• 3. Australia - 460
• 4. Germany - 428
• 5. Japan - 403
• 6. China - 388
• 7. Spain - 383
• 8. Italy - 371
• 9. Great Britain - 327
• 10. Canada - 315
• 11. Brazil - 274
• 12. Netherlands - 258

• 13. Poland - 210
• 14. New Zealand - 195
• 15. Hungary - 170
• 16. Belgium - 165
• 17. South Africa - 149
• 18. Egypt - 148
• 19. South Korea - 141
• 20. Ukraine - 140
• 21. Argentina - 136
• 22. Ireland - 134
• 23. Switzerland - 127
• 24. Denmark - 124
• 25. Sweden - 117

 

[Crizilla]

Paris Olympics will end tomorrow, so the medal count won't change much. Our country with a population of 300 million, a strong sports culture and spent truckloads of money on all things sports, is not doing so well in comparison with Australia (pop 26 mils), Japan (130 mils), Britain (67 mils), etc., and we may not even win the most gold.

The communist China is in a different category, as they have a state-run sports program where they identify kids aged 4-8 and put them in specialty schools that start training the kids in whatever sports 5-6 hours a day in a sport the party officials felt the kid would be good at.

What went wrong with our Olympic program?

View attachment 66877

Most gold medals or am i reading this wrong?

 

[Chapow]

Most gold medals or am i reading this wrong?

You're not reading it wrong. We finished with the most medals by far with 126. Next closest was China with 91. No other country was remotely close.

It's a strange thread. Our "Olympic program" did very, very well in Paris.

 

[toffee]

Most gold medals or am i reading this wrong?

We tied with China at 40 gold medals for each country but we dominated them in total medals.

 

[SoulfishHawk]

126 medals is bad? Ok

I think we killed it. Not sure where you think this was a bad Olympics for the US.

 

[salamander]

Each country is only allowed a certain number of participants in each event. It's based on country. So the EU with many countries gets way more participants than the US. We had an amazing Olympics if you look at the overall medal count.

 

[Ostatehawk]

Many of Chinas golds were in odd-ball sports - and diving. You can't out dive a ninja.

 

[salamander]

China probably seeks out the least competitive sports to compete in.

 

[toffee]

China probably seeks out the least competitive sports to compete in.

Bingo!

 

[Flyingsquad23]

Ah yes those non competitive sports… like 100m freestyle and Archery, tennis and boxing and let’s not forget Americans favorite shooting.
That doesn’t even include clean sweeps of diving and table tennis.

But hey, you guys know competition when you see it.

Jhina is the boogeyman

 

[SmokinHawk]

Ah yes those non competitive sports… like 100m freestyle and Archery, tennis and boxing and let’s not forget Americans favorite shooting.
That doesn’t even include clean sweeps of diving and table tennis.

But hey, you guys know competition when you see it.

Jhina is the boogeyman

Olympic shooting is lame. We like real guns here.