Medal imbalance in the Olympics

[MadMardigain]

9 hours ago, BarSeries said:

I wished the Olympics would get rid of all the team sports that don't have an individual medal component.........baseball, basketball, soccer, field hockey, rugby, volleyball, etc. Maybe then there would be enough room for all wrestling weight classes??

The team medals actually only count as 1  per medal type towards the total medals the IOC has set a hard number limit on.  i.e. if the US Men’s Team wins a basketball gold that is only 1 gold medal towards the Olympic medal total.  

 

So I would the bigger hit is when the IOC has tons of events in a particular sport as mentioned above or when they add even more like the mixed gender relays they added to both swimming and track.  Not to mention the random sports they get added hoping for more TV appeal.  Or the sports where the athletes biggest prize is some other championship like NBA title, a PGA Open, a Tennis slam with some athletes even opt out of representing their country due to that. Then throw in the Equestrian events where only the ultra rich really participate and the horse does almost all the athletic work. Modern Pentathalon in a similar vein.  

[MadMardigain]

3 hours ago, maligned said:

FYI: Wrestling has the 3rd most medals of any sport, behind only swimming and track. It will continue to be an uphill climb to get more.

I could settle for 1 bronze per weight add a few weight classes. But some counties want to make sure they can sneak a couple medals in each Olympics and wrestling is one of their few possibilities.  

[NewYooper]

Unfortunately, the number of medals is not the most important criteria for the IOC.  They are focused on limiting the number of athletes.  Three more weight classes in men's free style is ~ 60 more athletes.  This is not what the IOC wants.  Wrestling (and a few other sports) get tossed a bone with two bronzes to "make up" for the fewer weight classes.  What the IOC wants is more medal events, but fewer overall competitors.  Hence the mixed relays in track and field and swimming, for example.  Most of those athletes were already at the games for their main event so they can "easily" add the extra event.  More events, more finals, more winners, more television moments, but less athletes.

[Voice of the Quakers]

23 hours ago, 1032004 said:

Did he have to improve on his time from the US trials in order to qualify?

That sounds a little like the Swedish pole vaulter Duplantis (and technically I believe Micic did it pretty early as well?) chose to represent Sweden when he was pretty young 

Winkler had the A standard, but he only finished 8th in the 100 Fly last month (that was his best finish of the four events he entered at trials) and the US by rule can only take the top two finishers so long as they have the A standard (which they almost always do). So, he transferred to Germany mere weeks ago to compete in this year's games. He had represented the US in junior events.

Of note, here are the ages of the swimmers who finished in front of him as of 12/31/24 (Winkler is 18):

28 (Dressel)
17 (Heilman)
22 (Rose)
27 (Harting)
21 (Hayes)
29 (Murphy)
22 (Miller)
18 (Winkler)

You can assume four of those swimmers will attempt to make the 2028 games. And, the pipeline is producing plenty of fast kids who will challenge this group then. So, like our wrestling ex pats representing Mexico, Puerto Rico, and elsewhere, Winkler shuffled off to Germany. I think he will be the first of many US swimmers to find another home.

 

[1032004]

I see the gold medalist in uneven bars for women’s gymnastics had transferred from France to Algeria, but it seems in part over disagreements.  So I guess transfers are likely not uncommon in various other sports as well.

[BAC]

On 7/28/2024 at 2:52 PM, KennyEBHS said:

I've been watching the swimming waiting for August 5 for the wrestling to start. And one thing that has always bothered me is how swimmers can win multiple medals, but sports like wrestling only have one winner. So my proposal is as follows:

1. Wrestling medals are awarded for the best double leg, the best leg-lace, the best gut-wrench, the best feet-to-back, the best pin, etc.

2. The match tournament would be best overall.

Thoughts?

I agree on the first part, with different take on the second part.

On the first point, there's just too many swimming events IMO, which leads to over-coverage. 

You couldn't pay me to go watch a swim meet, and I literally don't know a single person who voluntarily went to a swim meet.  Yet swimming seems to occupy about 40% of NBC's time.  Why?

Yes, we do well in swimming, which partially explains the coverage.  But we do well in other sports too and I don't see them getting coverage.  I honestly think the explanation lies in the fact that the same person can pile up medals by competing in multiple highly-similar events. That drives the media coverage of them being the "most decorated" Olympians, and claims of them being the "best Olympians ever," when in fact it is mostly driven by the number of events they're given.  Someone who wins the 50m backstroke is probably a good bet to win the 100m backstroke, and maybe the 200m too.  Someone who wins the 200m backstroke will be a good bet for the 200m IM too.  

If I were to analogize it to wrestling, I'd say it's like having 3 different freestyle medal events:  a 3 minute match, a 6 minute match, and a 9 minute match.  Or, alternatively, having different weight classes that are just 2kg apart, and allowing the same wrestler to compete for more than one weight class.  If wrestling had that, we'd have lots of wrestlers with stacks of gold medals.

But I don't favor those solutions, because it would be ridiculous -- it's the same event with a modest difference.  I'd rather see the number of swimming events slimmed down for the Olympics.  Instead of the 50, 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1500 in a given stroke, I'd pare it down to 100, 400, and 1500.  If they want to keep the other distances for the swimming world championships, go for it.  Having all those events (and therefore all those medals) takes the spotlight off of some amazing sports (not just wrestling) and artificially shines it on swimming.

Just as I don't favor separate medals for slight differences in match duration, or for tiny weight variations, I don't see how you can do it for best skill.  It isn't like gymnastics where you could separate it out as its own event (e.g. vault vs all-around).  You could have a guy get teched in his first match but still get a gold because he had a nice double before getting streamrolled. 

But if we really wanted to go the multiple medal route, imagine for a moment that the Olympics had freestyle, greco and beach wrestling -- and each country was required to send only a single competitor for each weight.  That single competitor would then have a chance to win up to 3 golds. I'm not saying I would implement that idea, or that I even like it (I don't) but just saying it might drive up the focus on wrestling by creating opportunities to have multi-medal athletes. 

My own preference is to just kill a few swimming events and use those athletic opportunities to add the missing weight classes back into Olympic wrestling.

[Yellow_Medal]

I watched the Judo mixed team championship and it was pretty entertaining. This is something that could easily be done in wrestling (politics aside) and also be very entertaining.

[Dogbone]

Just now, Yellow_Medal said:

I watched the Judo mixed team championship and it was pretty entertaining. This is something that could easily be done in wrestling (politics aside) and also be very entertaining.

Same. I kept thinking why can't wrestling do this too. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

24 minutes ago, BAC said:

I agree on the first part, with different take on the second part.

On the first point, there's just too many swimming events IMO, which leads to over-coverage. 

You couldn't pay me to go watch a swim meet, and I literally don't know a single person who voluntarily went to a swim meet.  Yet swimming seems to occupy about 40% of NBC's time.  Why?

Yes, we do well in swimming, which partially explains the coverage.  But we do well in other sports too and I don't see them getting coverage.  I honestly think the explanation lies in the fact that the same person can pile up medals by competing in multiple highly-similar events. That drives the media coverage of them being the "most decorated" Olympians, and claims of them being the "best Olympians ever," when in fact it is mostly driven by the number of events they're given.  Someone who wins the 50m backstroke is probably a good bet to win the 100m backstroke, and maybe the 200m too.  Someone who wins the 200m backstroke will be a good bet for the 200m IM too.  

If I were to analogize it to wrestling, I'd say it's like having 3 different freestyle medal events:  a 3 minute match, a 6 minute match, and a 9 minute match.  Or, alternatively, having different weight classes that are just 2kg apart, and allowing the same wrestler to compete for more than one weight class.  If wrestling had that, we'd have lots of wrestlers with stacks of gold medals.

But I don't favor those solutions, because it would be ridiculous -- it's the same event with a modest difference.  I'd rather see the number of swimming events slimmed down for the Olympics.  Instead of the 50, 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1500 in a given stroke, I'd pare it down to 100, 400, and 1500.  If they want to keep the other distances for the swimming world championships, go for it.  Having all those events (and therefore all those medals) takes the spotlight off of some amazing sports (not just wrestling) and artificially shines it on swimming.

Just as I don't favor separate medals for slight differences in match duration, or for tiny weight variations, I don't see how you can do it for best skill.  It isn't like gymnastics where you could separate it out as its own event (e.g. vault vs all-around).  You could have a guy get teched in his first match but still get a gold because he had a nice double before getting streamrolled. 

But if we really wanted to go the multiple medal route, imagine for a moment that the Olympics had freestyle, greco and beach wrestling -- and each country was required to send only a single competitor for each weight.  That single competitor would then have a chance to win up to 3 golds. I'm not saying I would implement that idea, or that I even like it (I don't) but just saying it might drive up the focus on wrestling by creating opportunities to have multi-medal athletes. 

My own preference is to just kill a few swimming events and use those athletic opportunities to add the missing weight classes back into Olympic wrestling.

The answer is simple. Swimming is the highest form of sport.

[BAC]

11 minutes ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

The answer is simple. Swimming is the highest form of sport.

If you're a fish maybe.

[Mr. PeanutButter]

46 minutes ago, BAC said:

I agree on the first part, with different take on the second part.

On the first point, there's just too many swimming events IMO, which leads to over-coverage. 

You couldn't pay me to go watch a swim meet, and I literally don't know a single person who voluntarily went to a swim meet.  Yet swimming seems to occupy about 40% of NBC's time.  Why?

Yes, we do well in swimming, which partially explains the coverage.  But we do well in other sports too and I don't see them getting coverage.  I honestly think the explanation lies in the fact that the same person can pile up medals by competing in multiple highly-similar events. That drives the media coverage of them being the "most decorated" Olympians, and claims of them being the "best Olympians ever," when in fact it is mostly driven by the number of events they're given.  Someone who wins the 50m backstroke is probably a good bet to win the 100m backstroke, and maybe the 200m too.  Someone who wins the 200m backstroke will be a good bet for the 200m IM too.  

If I were to analogize it to wrestling, I'd say it's like having 3 different freestyle medal events:  a 3 minute match, a 6 minute match, and a 9 minute match.  Or, alternatively, having different weight classes that are just 2kg apart, and allowing the same wrestler to compete for more than one weight class.  If wrestling had that, we'd have lots of wrestlers with stacks of gold medals.

But I don't favor those solutions, because it would be ridiculous -- it's the same event with a modest difference.  I'd rather see the number of swimming events slimmed down for the Olympics.  Instead of the 50, 100, 200, 400, 800 and 1500 in a given stroke, I'd pare it down to 100, 400, and 1500.  If they want to keep the other distances for the swimming world championships, go for it.  Having all those events (and therefore all those medals) takes the spotlight off of some amazing sports (not just wrestling) and artificially shines it on swimming.

Just as I don't favor separate medals for slight differences in match duration, or for tiny weight variations, I don't see how you can do it for best skill.  It isn't like gymnastics where you could separate it out as its own event (e.g. vault vs all-around).  You could have a guy get teched in his first match but still get a gold because he had a nice double before getting streamrolled. 

But if we really wanted to go the multiple medal route, imagine for a moment that the Olympics had freestyle, greco and beach wrestling -- and each country was required to send only a single competitor for each weight.  That single competitor would then have a chance to win up to 3 golds. I'm not saying I would implement that idea, or that I even like it (I don't) but just saying it might drive up the focus on wrestling by creating opportunities to have multi-medal athletes. 

My own preference is to just kill a few swimming events and use those athletic opportunities to add the missing weight classes back into Olympic wrestling.

Some interesting points here but a few corrections:

There are no "stroke" 50s contested at the Olympics, only the 50 freestyle (fun fact: you can swim any stroke in this event, even sidestroke, but front crawl is the fastest and hence the default). 

On the men's side there was a remarkable dearth of multiple event winners if you ignore the French superstar (who has the same coach as Michael Phelps!) and in general, there has been progressively fewer multiple event winners over the years, but perhaps less so on the women's side. 

As a swimmer, I enjoy the many, many different events but can understand the argument for medal overinflation. If wrestling wanted to compete in this regard maybe the sport should award "best double leg", "best flying squirrel" "best assassin", etc

[ionel]

1 hour ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

The answer is simple. Swimming is the highest form of sport.

Higher than speed wall climbing?  

[Wrestleknownothing]

59 minutes ago, Mr. PeanutButter said:

Some interesting points here but a few corrections:

There are no "stroke" 50s contested at the Olympics, only the 50 freestyle (fun fact: you can swim any stroke in this event, even sidestroke, but front crawl is the fastest and hence the default). 

On the men's side there was a remarkable dearth of multiple event winners if you ignore the French superstar (who has the same coach as Michael Phelps!) and in general, there has been progressively fewer multiple event winners over the years, but perhaps less so on the women's side. 

As a swimmer, I enjoy the many, many different events but can understand the argument for medal overinflation. If wrestling wanted to compete in this regard maybe the sport should award "best double leg", "best flying squirrel" "best assassin", etc

Another fun fact. In high school I swam with a guy who was a 50 flat 100 yard flyer, and about a 52 flat freestyle. In practice he would swim our 10x200 freestyle sets doing butterfly instead. He would also occasionally swim butterfly in freestyle events just to mess with people.

[Wrestleknownothing]

1 hour ago, BAC said:

If you're a fish maybe.

Nah, then it is just transportation. 

[Wrestleknownothing]

12 minutes ago, ionel said:

Higher than speed wall climbing?  

est

[The Kid]

On 7/29/2024 at 6:54 AM, 1032004 said:

I don’t mind the different events for swimming, track, etc.  I can’t tell if the OP’s suggestion is serious but that’s an incredibly dumb idea.  A team medal in addition to individual would also be cool though (even if just based on points from the individual results).

But it doesn’t seem fair that multiple athletes from the same country can qualify in those sports but not wrestling.  I imagine there are less transfers in track and swimming?  I know there is the pole vaulter dude competing for Sweden, but seems like there were multiple reasons for that, and I believe he actually trains there.

What about the stupid mixed male/female track relay races?

What point does mixed track relay racing serve or make?

[ionel]

Just now, The Kid said:

What about the stupid mixed male/female track relay races?

What point does mixed track relay racing serve or make?

IDK but we really need mixed tag team speed wall climbing.  While we are at it backstroke speed wall and 1500m wall climb.  

[Mr. PeanutButter]

26 minutes ago, The Kid said:

What about the stupid mixed male/female track relay races?

What point does mixed track relay racing serve or make?

The arguments I've heard are that they make for exciting races because of the potential for dramatic lead changes (although this seems less common in track) and that they serve as the best gage of which country has the best overall team across both genders. I'm lukewarm on them overall 

[Voice of the Quakers]

Mixed relays are supported by smaller countries that may have two fast men and/or two fast women but not four fast men and/or four fast women on the track or in the pool; see the Dutch woman (Femke Bol) running down the US when the Dutch can't field a men's or women's team that compete against the US.

I think the mixed events are a lot of fun and would love to see UWW figure out how to replicate the mixed judo event. 

[ionel]

3 hours ago, Wrestleknownothing said:

The answer is simple. Swimming is the highest form of sport.

That Swedish pole vaulter got pretty high!

[CHROMEBIRD]

10 minutes ago, ionel said:

That Swedish pole vaulter got pretty high!

And that French pole vaulter went a little uh, long 

[BAC]

21 hours ago, Mr. PeanutButter said:

Some interesting points here but a few corrections:

There are no "stroke" 50s contested at the Olympics, only the 50 freestyle (fun fact: you can swim any stroke in this event, even sidestroke, but front crawl is the fastest and hence the default). 

On the men's side there was a remarkable dearth of multiple event winners if you ignore the French superstar (who has the same coach as Michael Phelps!) and in general, there has been progressively fewer multiple event winners over the years, but perhaps less so on the women's side. 

As a swimmer, I enjoy the many, many different events but can understand the argument for medal overinflation. If wrestling wanted to compete in this regard maybe the sport should award "best double leg", "best flying squirrel" "best assassin", etc

Thanks, I learned something new today!  At some point the events blend in together... :]

[UsedToBe103]

To add insult to injury, some of the track events now have a repechage (no joke), where if you don't make it out of the prelim round you have a second chance to make it to the semis.  Compared to wrestling where there's still the potential to go 0-1, there are now some track events where a runner is guaranteed to race in at least two rounds.