As for Ukraine, these Olympics were underwhelming since we only finished in 22nd place on the medal table despite previously competing for top 10 placements. There were some additional gold medals opportunities within reach. We completely failed in swimming, tennis, and some other sports. Still, the result is somehow decent considering the circumstances. What about your country?
As a French, how not to be happy ? Obviously not a surprise, but les Bleus beat all records
We missed on A LOT of medals and/or titles. For one point, one tiny mistake, suspicious judging… As a couch supporter it was quite frustrating xD but yeah the overall numbers are pretty good, let’s hope we keep the fundings going so it doesn’t all go to waste in Los Angeles.
I’m french and not happy. No disrespect, but it’s absolutely not normal to be behind Japan and Australia for a country hosting the games and with 67 millions people. Way too many silver medals that should have been gold and if you remove Marchand the alien, the result are really not that good.
If population was the main factor, Japan would have twice as many medals… it’s more complicated than that obviously. But France actually underperformed in Tokyo, so the good results this year is quite fantastic (despite many silvers that could have been golds). That said, a lot of French athletes train have been trained in the US and that raises a lot of questions. Also: elite sports had good Olympics this year, but will it last? Does that translate into sport for everyone? For now, with a government busy cutting budgets everywhere, I’m skeptical.
Population is not the only factor, but it’s one of them. I do not expect for instance a country like Switzerland to perform very well if they were to host the games, but Japan that is literally non existent in swimming and athletics (the 2 disciplines with the most medals) is ahead of us ? You don’t see a problem there ? Bottom line is that Tokyo hosted the games 3 years ago and they were top 3, London hosted the games in 2012 and they were top 3. We host the games and we are top 5 only. You can have a look at it any way you want, sportively speaking those games were not a success. Marchand and breaking the Atlanta record (with 20% less medals awarded overall) are the trees hiding the forest.
I am still amazed how can we have so much medals and greAt athleteS with our poor sport talent research and fund for athletes throughout the preparation or between Olympic games.