forestfan wrote:
Yeah, maybe instead of assuming this is a peak we need to work out how we're going to deal with the Yanks, we want that number one spot in Tokyo :wink
I wonder if we will ever get above the American's in the medal table.
I think the only way we could do it is if we went on an all-out talent hunt and ploughed money into the full-time training of these athletes and aimed for the sports with most medals and tried to clear up a good chunk of the medals in these sports.
The Americans cleared up 13 Golds in Athletics and 16 Golds in Swimming. The next best was 4 Golds in gymnastics, other than that their medals were sparse.
As there main influx of Golds are fairly specific to 2 or 3 events, we'd need them to have a year where it goes tits-up for them in Swimming and Athletics.
I'm not sure how we'd ever be able to compete with them in the Pool or at Athletics. They seem to produce a lot of elite athletes in these sports, and with swimming - if you have one or two absolute beasts - then you can clean-up a lot of medals.
It's also going to get even tougher to beat the Americans as the sports coming into the Olympics in 2020 seem like sports Americans would be good at:
Skateboarding, surfing, climbing, baseball, and karate.
Why can't they bring in Cliff Diving and Squash and Darts and Snooker, then we might clear up a few more Golds.