GDT: Paris Olympics 2024

[brentashton]

We're doing more than well. The only huge disappointment I think would be the men's basketball team getting knocked out before the medal round because Canada surprisingly has been producing top NBA talent the last few years especially.

I can still remember the 1988 *winter* Olympic games where Canada couldn't even win 1 single, lousy gold medal even while hosting the games on their home turf.

We've come a long ways since then.

Women’s soccer was a kick in the junk too

 

[Cloned]

True but Australia has a distinct lack of winter and almost half as many people.

Our top athletes are split between summer and winter sports.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

Our top athletes are split between summer and winter sports.

We have nearly twice as many people and a larger economy. There’s zero reason we can’t compete with Australia in summer sports.

We could take small children from their parents and put them in state run sports schools for example.

 

[Soundwave]

Women’s soccer was a kick in the junk too

True but given the circumstances, I think it's kind of like almost a win because they defied a lot of the odds after getting a massive handicap thrown their way.

Looking at the '88 Winter games in Calgary is kinda wild actually, Canada couldn't even make the top 10 in medals and had 0 gold total, but even the US didn't do so great, only finishing 9th best with only 6 whopping medals total.

Switzerland had more medals than Canada + US combined. The Soviet Union was (not surprisingly) no.1.

My how times have changed.

 

[Soundwave]

Summer athletes have it rough in Canada because at least half the year in most of the country is basically winter, lol.

Like good for the ladies that won silver in beach volleyball, I imagine they probably train a big chunk of the year in the US.

 

[Cloned]

I’m completely untrained in breaking but that Canadian dude is into the gold medal match.

Although to my highly untrained eye I think he got a reputation win in the semis. Whatever I’ll take it.

 

[Frank the Tank]

Credit to Letsile Tobogo these Olympics. He finishes 6th in the 100m, wins the 200m gold, and just ran a great 400m anchor leg in the 4x400m race for a silver medal. Few sprinters can run all three races well.

 

[Cloned]

We have nearly twice as many people and a larger economy. There’s zero reason we can’t compete with Australia in summer sports.

We could take small children from their parents and put them in state run sports schools for example.

They can focus exclusively on summer sports. Our talent and funding (and climate) are split between summer and winter.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Our top athletes are split between summer and winter sports.

Interesting conversation. Canadian women (I think) tend to lead the medal count over men. I wonder if in part elite Canadian male athletes stream into mainstream North American sports all with professional league options like hockey, football, baseball, basketball.

The U.S. has the population base to develop and funnel elite talent into all sports but Canada does not and loses out on some of its prospective elite talent pool specifically male athletes. I don't know how Australia medal events divide out by event or gender but as an island continent it seems that they are usually elite in swimming competitions. Or how their funding structure differs.

Got drawn into watching a good chunk more Olympics than I had expected to. Some great stories and some disappointments.

 

[Frank the Tank]

Gold for Canada in breaking. Phil Wizard put on a great final performance.

https://x.com/i/web/status/1822356762168824096

 

[oobga]

Let it be known that Canada is the best at breakdancing forever. Assuming it doesn't make it back into the Olympics.

 

[Cloned]

You can criticize breaking for being an Olympic sport but that was some serious talent there by Phil.

 

[rboomercat90]

Vincent gets gold in singles canoe and beats the American by 0.01 seconds, setting a new WR.

Canada sets a new mark for gold medals and total medals at a non boycotted Summer games.

It’s not a boycotted games but it should have an asterisk due to the missing 600 or so athletes from Russia. I’m not saying this politically in any way. The games are better without them but there’s no denying that when they are there that finish in the top 2 or 3 for medals every time. Their absence at these games drives up every one else’s medal count.

Breakdancing was even dumber than I expected it to be.

 

[Cloned]

Interesting conversation. Canadian women (I think) tend to lead the medal count over men. I wonder if in part elite Canadian male athletes stream into mainstream North American sports all with professional league options like hockey, football, baseball, basketball.

The U.S. has the population base to develop and funnel elite talent into all sports but Canada does not and loses out on some of its prospective elite talent pool specifically male athletes. I don't know how Australia medal events divide out by event or gender but as an island continent it seems that they are usually elite in swimming competitions. Or how their funding structure differs.

Got drawn into watching a good chunk more Olympics than I had expected to. Some great stories and some disappointments.

Women aren’t as well supported in lesser developed countries. Canada and other top countries will generally always have an advantage there.

But I agree with mostly everything else.

 

[Frank the Tank]

You can criticize breaking for being an Olympic sport but that was some serious talent there by Phil.

Athletes have talent, fans watched it, and it plays to the younger demographic... IOC will likely take a long look at reintroducing the sport for Brisbane 2032.

 

[Behind Enemy Lines]

Women aren’t as well supported in lesser developed countries. Canada and other top countries will generally always have an advantage there.

But I agree with mostly everything else.

I get that. Was mainly drawing a distinction in Canadian medal results. From my lack of detailed tracking I think the Canadian women tend to lead our medal results.

 

[Cloned]

It’s not a boycotted games but it should have an asterisk due to the missing 600 or so athletes from Russia. I’m not saying this politically in any way. The games are better without them but there’s no denying that when they are there that finish in the top 2 or 3 for medals every time. Their absence at these games drives up every one else’s medal count.

Breakdancing was even dumber than I expected it to be.

Not sure it would have affected Canada’s medal count too much though. Just looking at the medals we got I’m not sure too many of them were in sports the Russians are strong in.

I get that. Was mainly drawing a distinction in Canadian medal results. From my lack of detailed tracking I think the Canadian women tend to lead our medal results.

They probably do and the reasons are not surprising.

 

[Captain Fantastic]

US losing to France in basketball would be like gold to me.
I thought I've become indifferent on the US athletes winning or losing but their cockiness is such a turn off.

 

[Kerberos]

Paris goes down as our most successful Olympics, Summer or Winter, ever.

Boycotted LA games don't count for obvious reasons and though we've had a couple slightly better performances in the Winter Olympics, only 90 countries competing makes for a sporting event that pales in comparison size (and importance) wise.

 

[KCC]

I agree we’re doing well. While we might be “killing it” by our low standards, the country that is really killing it is Australia. Canada should emulate the commitment to amateur sport like they do. They are the gold standard for small countries in my opinion.

I would hardly consider a country with the population of almost 27 million “small”. Small is like a few million people but I get your point. The ratio of medals to the population is impressive though it feels like most of their medals are always swimming. Lol.

 

[Frank the Tank]

Steph Curry clutch again with the insane 3s to clutch gold. Always appreciate watching greatness in action.

 

[5 Mins 4 Ftg]

They can focus exclusively on summer sports. Our talent and funding (and climate) are split between summer and winter.

If we had the same population and size of economy as they did then I would agree with you.

 

[McJadeddog]

You can criticize breaking for being an Olympic sport but that was some serious talent there by Phil.

Yeah I agree. I'm not sure it should be in the olympics, but HOLY SHIT that was impressive, lol.

 

[Drivesaitl]

You can criticize breaking for being an Olympic sport but that was some serious talent there by Phil.

His biggest talent apparently is in thinking this is still the 80s and that breakdancing is huge.

How many competitors were there? 8?

lol what a time tunnel

 

[Drivesaitl]

Paris goes down as our most successful Olympics, Summer or Winter, ever.

Boycotted LA games don't count for obvious reasons and though we've had a couple slightly better performances in the Winter Olympics, only 90 countries competing makes for a sporting event that pales in comparison size (and importance) wise.

Any consideration of this being "best ever" needs to take into account that this Olympics has more events than ever, more medals given out than ever, and Russia and Byelorussian teams not participating.

As a case in point we have 10X the population of New Zealand and yet the same number of golds. We have exactly HALF the gold medals Australia has and yet 15M greater population. Fact of the matter is we have a greater population than Australia and NZ put together and 1/3 of the Golds those countries got.

Canada was expected to be 11th or 12th in Medal total for this games and its exactly where they are.