2012 Olympics

Look I could get as many pub football teams together as is humanly possible and I can pretty much guarantee that the only way any of them will beat the Spanish national football team is by causing the Spaniards to fall apart laughing.The idea that simply turning up in numbers equates to sporting success by virtue of statistics is silly. Of course. Because both are evenly matched enough to make that the case. But some teams are better than others and the better teams win more matches overall.If this wasn't the case there wouldn't be any point in all that training and improving that goes on would there.......? Sure in a few cases a nation might have such a wealth of talent in one discipline that a truly world class performer gets left out because only one or two are allowed to compete per nation.But I seriously question the idea that the US had this mass of world class athletes sitting at home who would have won the medals that other countries won if the US team had been larger. That is just nonsense.Aside from basketball what disciplines could the US reserve team beat all other nations at?

Individually I mean, in their weight catagory. Jake Varner and Jordan Burroughs both took gold in their respective weight class, but there are many guys in the NCAA bracket that have out wrestled both those guys before, just not during the qualifying for the Olympics. But we could have loaded both of those weight classes with many more wrestlers and taken more medals.You can surely recognize our ability to do that in basketball - but also in track and field, gymnastics, swimming, volleyball, etc.My point being that, for many countries it's all they have to send. For us, it's only as SMALL percentage of the very capable athletes that quite frankly, yeah, just sit at home watching because of the numbers rule.- OniEdited by onifre, : No reason given.

No, but for reasons that have already been expressed, per-capita performance is a nonsensical metric because of the entry limits in the events.Are you seriously arguing that there is some size at which a country ought to ashamed at not being able to field an athlete faster than Usain Bolt? That argument is a non-starter. As I recall, the US 4x100 relay team matched the previous record in losing.Essentially the only people who care about per-capital medal count are people in smaller countries. I would expect that small countries that are at least of a size where they can produce world class athletes in a few sports have a statistical advantage when they only need a few medals to achieve a high medal/head ratio.

Well yes. But if you pitted your country's 100 top clubs against the Spaniards you have a better chance of someone from your country beating the Spaniards than if you fielded only your top club. Well, there was the controversy that Britain faced in the cycling. We'd have arguably won even more medals had they not put those limits on the entries.

EU puts itself top of Olympic medal table...and Britain is nowhere to be seen | UK | News | Express.co.uk"EU CLAIMS IT TOPPED THE OLYMPIC MEDAL TABLE...AND BRITAIN IS NOWHERE TO BE SEEN"

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On the agency's website EU Medal Tracker | The European Union in Olympics comparison, it combines the 27 members of the EU into one, meaning that - with 306 medals - it is placed above both the USA and China.

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It states: "We count and compare how many medals the EU would win if it took part in the Olympic Games as one team. The European Union is the Winning Team."

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Britain, who were in third position at the end of the OIympics with 65 medals in total and 29 golds no longer appear on the table at all. Conservative MEP Marina Yannakoudakis spoke of her outrage at Brussels' attempt to impose a federal identity on nations.

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Funniest part of the article...

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The agency denied it was attempting to upset the people of the UK but then disparagingly referred to Britain as 'the island.'

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A spokesman said: "We didn't do it just to annoy the Brits. But then we have already received tons of mail from the island."

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That's the way people talk about sports. You also didn't score a single bucket in the last NCAA basketball tournament. But I'll bet plenty of your neighbors, if not you yourself, feel proud of 'their' Wildcats.

I like the way the Express has to tell us it is disparaging - presumably because its a perfectly innocuous thing to say. Marina Yannakoudakis is a moron, is Britain alone in having so MEPs that get gripey at Europe at any opportunity? Since when is grouping all the EU countries together and counting the medal totals together 'imposing a federal identity on nations'? It's on the EU website, its not as if its a mandate or anything.Some people...some tabloids.

I heartily agree. And why would someone with a name like that object to being European, FFS!More to the point, there's nothing wrong with the EU pointing out that the Europeans are the most successful Olympians, because it's true, and it's what I've been pointing out on this thread. The EU could split itself into two parts, and take the first two slots on the medal table.Further up the thread, I suggested a United States of Western Europe, comprising the 5 largest countries, because that happens to give the same population as the U.S., which it would easily out-medal. Putting one team rather than 5 into the team sports would be no disadvantage at all, as there were probably few events in which more than one of the five got a medal. Instead, the combined teams would be much more likely to win golds in a few sports (the soccer should be nearly unbeatable).I was interested in a comment that Onifre made about the U.S. putting in extra basketball teams to get extra medals, and it's true that basketball is an American speciality, and their best is hard to beat.But what about having to compete with another population catchment of 310, 000,000 and the players that might be produced from that? Well, basketball is still a minor sport in much of the United States of Western Europe, but let's have a look at what Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Britain could offer combined.For a start, to shake Onifre's confidence, there are five seven footers playing in the NBA, four of them very good. In addition to the Spanish Gasol brothers, who were impressive in the final, there's German superstar Dirk Nowitzki and Italian Andrea Bargnani.There are also smaller forwards, like Britain's Luol Deng, and starting guards in the NBA as well.So, would the U.S. be so sure of the gold every four years, even in an all American sport like basketball, if it had to compete against another "United States" of its own size? Edited by bluegenes, : No reason given.

Are the two parts going to give up all of the extra event entries they get by being actually multiple countries? I note that the Gasol Brothers were beaten by an American team whose only seven footer was Tyson Chandler. In other words, more of the same guys that LeBron and Durant punk on a nightly basis already. Sorry, but now that the NBA's opened up to international players, I'm just not all that willing to believe that there are a bunch of Dirk Nowitzkis hanging around in European leagues (which have a sizeable number of American players who cannot make an NBA roster).

Why would Europe need to send Lawrence Okoye? They could just send Robert Harting, Gerd Kanter and Virgilijus Alekna to pick 1st, 3rd and 4th in discus.Why bother sending Daniele di Spigno when Europe could send Peter Robert Russell Wilson, Hakan Dahlby and Richard Bognar and secure 1st, 2nd and 6th in double trap shooting.I think it wouldn't hurt our medal chances to lose Barbara Benko from the hypothetical European team if we just send for instance Julie Bresset, Sabine Spitz and Esther Suss to take another two medals for Europe.Granted, it's not always the favourites that perform on the day, and currently Europe has the advantage of 'substitutes' essentially in the event of sub-par performances or bad luck or what have you, so the medal numbers would, I would guess, go down.

Certainly. I note that a country of 40,000,000 people was beaten by one of 310,000,000 people. I didn't suggest that there were a bunch of Dirk Nowitzkis hanging around in European leagues, did I? I was pointing out that a group of Europeans as numerous as you are would have far greater resources than the Spanish on their own.I don't think the Spanish, without the help from players from the other four countries I mentioned, really got "punked". They certainly lacked depth, and they were certainly weaker in some areas than the Americans. But the game was hardly one sided.

I did not say they did. I'm commenting on the people you've suggested augmenting the team with. I And I'm suggesting that there is not a single player in all of Europe (800,000,000+) the equal of Lebron, Durant, and Carnelo. And I haven't even raised the issue of the American bigs who were saddled with injuries and did not make the trip. Dirk's the best player in Europe and adding him to the Spaniards is a considerable upgrade. I'm not worried about the rest of those guys.

Hi, Straggler.So, just to be clear, I don't believe relaxing entry restrictions would make the US suddenly dominate all the sports. I also think the entry restrictions are a good thing, because it gives smaller countries a better chance to compete, and broad participation, in my mind, is the most important part of the Olympics.But just for the sake of friendly debate, I want to respond to you. As a counterexample, the US women placed 3rd, 4th and 5th in qualifying for the individual all-around in gymnastics, but only two were allowed to compete. So, the 23rd and 24th best women got to compete, but the 4th best (who had a real shot at a medal) didn't.In beach volleyball, USA had 3 men's teams in qualifying position, but only two were allowed to compete. Both won their groups, but were upset early in the tournament. Without the entry restrictions, the Italian team that beat Dallhauser and Rogers wouldn't have qualified, and it's a whole different tournament with three US teams that all have a reasonable chance of medaling.These are the kind of situations I'm talking about. I'm sure there are more situations in which entry restrictions wouldn't have made a difference for the USA's medal count, but, even so, there are situations in which legitimate contenders are restricted from competing, and this tends to effect larger countries more than smaller ones. Yes, I believe the United States very likely could have swept the basketball medals if they had been allowed to make three teams. But, the fact that the final was so close probably means that the gap is closing.But, I think it makes perfect sense in team sports to restrict a country to one team.

A few too many replies to reply to each one individually, so I thought I'd just bung a general reply in here.On consideration, I'm still confident that an unrestricted Olympics would win the US more than just one extra bronze - they'd win quite a few more bronzes and silvers.However, when arguing with Straggler, I was coming from a position of it only being the US that sent more athletes, because of his bizarre refusal to accept the obvious fact that more entrants means more chance of winning. If all restrictions were removed, there's a good chance it could lose the US a few bronzes in the sports where other countries specialise. To grab one example, South Korea and China could probably field a few more Olympic quality archery teams, which would have made the USA's silver in that event harder to win.I still think the USA would benefit overall, however, since most of the events I could think of in which the US couldn't field more competitive atheletes, like fencing and weightlifting, for example, they didn't get a single medal anyway.

My point is that simply throwing numbers at an event isn’t how medals are won. Getting medals at an event requires being good at that event, Specifically it involves being better than the other competitors from other nations also competing in that event at that point in time.If the US wants to win the 100 metres gold medal then entering 300 million Americans in the US sprint team and saying Well we have maximised our statistical chances of winning isn’t the way to go. The way to win the 100 metre sprint gold medal is (in the short term) to persuade Usain Bolt to change nationality or (in the long term) to find and train someone who can run even more ridiculously fast than he can.It is you who seems to be making the rather bizarre claim that just entering lots of people (or teams) in an event is some sort of statistical route to success because actually being good at that event doesn’t really count for much in terms of winning. This is patently not how competitive sport works.