Tokyo Olympics

[Jack the Stripper]

^We’re a big chance for gold in the men’s hockey, playing Belgium in the final tomorrow. Also we have 3 women in the javelin final and our men’s Basketball team comes up against the USA tomorrow for a chance to play off for Gold. Also have a boxer fighting for Gold but he’s coming up against the #1 seed and a couple other medal chances in the K2-1000 and Beach Volleyball.

I’d expect GB to pick up a quite a few golds at the Velodrome over the next few days though.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^
We are waaay behind where we should be on the track and field events. Our two best prospects have both withdrawn through injury (Dinah Asher-Smith in the Womens 200m and Katerina Johnson-Thompson in the Heptathlon) both won at the World Athletics Championship in 2019. We have an outside chance of gold in the Women's 1500m but I think that's about it.

Yes the velodrome should be good for a few golds but I do think the rest of the world have caught us up in recent years.

[Zzzptm]

Australia winning in HOCKEY??? Wow, that's pretty legend, there. I thought there was no ice in Australia?

[Charger]

Australia winning in HOCKEY??? Wow, that's pretty legend, there. I thought there was no ice in Australia?

Not ice hockey!

These are summer games in case if you hadn't noticed...


Another good day for Sara Kuivisto...she ran 4 runs in these olympics and made 4 Finnish records...that I believe is a historic event in Olympics.

[Zzzptm]

That's right, there's field hockey! Forgot about that one!

[Jack the Stripper]

Well Australia managed to win 2 more golds today in the K2-1000 sprint and men’s skateboard but our team sports had a very disappointing day. Our men’s basketball team “The Boomers” lost the SF to team USA after a promising start being 15 points up in the 2nd qtr, the women’s soccer team “The Matildas” lost the bronze medal match 4-3 against the USA and our “Hockeyroos” lost the gold medal final to Belgium in the penalty shootout after scores were tied 1-1 at full time.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Two more Golds for GB today. That puts us 4th in the table again but it's anyones guesswho will finish 4th as GB the Aussies and Ruskies keep swapping places.

First gold was Laura Kenny & Kate Archibald in the Madison (that's a wierd event!); Kenny is now the most successful female cyclist at the Olympics with 5 Gold and 1 Silver... 1 Gold behind her husband Jason Kenny, but she can get another in the Omnium over the weekend.

Secondly we had Kate French in the Modern Pentathlon.

We got a couple of Silvers and a Bronze on the athletics track: Womens 1500m, Mena's 4x100m Relay and Wome's 4x100m Relay. Plus Bronze in the Women's Hockey

[Jack the Stripper]

The men’s 4 x 100 was a great race. Italy have had a splendid Olympics. The British sprinter running the last leg did not look happy though that he seemingly cost his team the Gold.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

All is done now. The last events have yielded their medals and all that's left is the closing ceremony... which I'll not bother with as I never bother with those. I've not seen as much of it live as I would have liked, but I've seen enough to get a good feel for it and the daily review shows do a good job of compressing the action into a couple of hours. I think despite the lack of crowds it's still been a good Olympics because of the high quality of the sportsmen and women.

In the final analysis the USA managed to overhaul the Chinese to top the medal table with not just the most Gold but also the most total medals... and to think the USA underperformed in some events they are usually good at. Japan came third which is fitting as host nation. GB got a couple of Golds on the last day to confirm 4th place from the Russians 5th and Australia 6th.

Our golds today came in the cycling with Kenny (Jason not Laura) winning the Kierin; Laura going for her third Gold in the Omnium was involved in a crash in the first round which scupopered her chances finishing 6th. And Lauren Price won a boxing gold in the Womens middle-weight category.

Jack, you should be proud of your team. Your 17 gold is more than twice what you won in London and Rio (8 in each), and you gave us and the Ruskies a good challenge.

I'm always surprised when certain countries don't do as well as you would expect, the other big European Countries (Germany, Italy and France) all got 10 golds but they are sporting countries and have similar sized populations as GB (or quite a lot larger in the case of Germany)... but maybe they don't have the Olympic Programmes that we have... and then the Netherlands also got 10 gold and they've only a population around a quarter of those other countires.

See you in Paris 2024!

[Jack the Stripper]

Yep Australia bounced back well after the disappointment of Rio and London. Ended up being our equal best gold medal haul with Athens 2004 and our equal 3rd best overall medal tally with 46 which has been such a huge boost to the countries spirits with half of it currently in lockdown.

I’ve always loved the Olympics and its history and these games in particular were up there with my favourite despite there being no crowds to add to the atmosphere. The fact they were in our time zone had a lot to do with that. The ratings here have been through the roof.

I always feel sad and a bit of a void in my life when they finish which usually takes me a good few days to get over but thankfully I have AFL football to fill the void and the NFL season is not far from kicking off and also Paris 2024 is only 3 years away.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Jack, I've only just realised that Brisbane are the host city in 2032... assuming you're out of lock down by then!

But seriously a home Olympics are always special, although it's a bit of a trek from Mebourne.

[Jack the Stripper]

Yep it is special. I was back packing around Europe during the Sydney 2000 games so I missed the whole buzz of it. 2032 seems such a long way away though. Hopefully I’m still around then but tickets will be hard to come by for the prime events. For Sydney they had to conduct a lottery to get tickets such was the demand. They’re going to totally redevelop the Gabba instead of building a whole new stadium elsewhere but I think they only plan on making it a 60,000 capacity stadium making it even harder to snag tickets. Accomodation will be astronomical too.

[Jack the Stripper]

Not good news for Great Britain’s 4 x 100 men’s relay team. Might be stripped of their silver medal.

https://www.foxsports.com.au/tokyo-olympics-2021/olympic-team-faces-being-stripped-of-silver-medal-after-doping-disaster/news-story/1f415952aa245a36e3fe598d5872463b

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Yeah. it's been in the news here too. I'm more dissapointed that the athlete may have been stupid or made an error of judgment -- and of course for the other three runners -- than losing the silver medal (it won't change our overall standings and is still a great medal return).

[Zzzptm]

Oh man, why? Why do athletes play dirty?