[Indo-Chinese Food]

(Original post by SirMasterKey)
Normal sculls demand raw power and technique. The heavier crew has a significant advantage.

Lightweight sculls have to weigh a certain amount. The two athletes combinded have to weight a maximum 140kg with a maximum weight of a single athlete being 72.5kg.

The lightweight sculls therefore will have almost everyone at a very similar weight and so quite simply the best technique should and will win.

thanks for explaining the difference, but it surely should just be the case that a heavier crew also have to move more weight too, so it should all balance out. Like a heavily muscled 100m sprinter -more weight but more power.
you could in theory have 5 more events for various weight limits per boat.
As well as having boats that hold 5, 6, 10 ,12 rowers, with cox , without etc

[SirMasterKey]

(Original post by Indo-Chinese Food)
thanks for explaining the difference, but it surely should just be the case that a heavier crew also have to move more weight too, so it should all balance out. you could in theory have 5 more events for various weight limits per boat.
As well as having boats that hold 5, 6, 10 ,12 rowers, with cox , without.

Doesn't quite work like that though, the heavier crew will have that technique and the power which will make up for that heavier weight.

Well I'm not so sure other than a one man scull, you could have an odd number in a boat (excluding the coxswain) as it would be majorly unbalanced in the boats. As for 6, 10, 12, not sure why would have them or if there are any cases of that anyway. 10 and 12 and you would be getting some dangerous power there. You don't see eight man sculls because it would have the power to sink a ship if they collided. 10 and 12 man crews even with single oars might be approaching that dangerous power and speed as well.

6 man crew, not so sure why they isn't, I'm not too into rowing but take a bit of interest into it.

[yunghamz]

Sure, let's also remove the events other countries get a lot of medals in. This is a great way to judge a team's success.

Trolling GB in the olympics is pointless when they are doing good and the countries above them have a larger population.

[TurboCretin]

(Original post by Indo-Chinese Food)
what are we left with in terms of GB medal successes.

without getting into the gentle ribbing offered by other countries of being the kings of 'sitting down sports' - in all seriousness do we have an over reliance on cycling and rowing and the sheer amount of events in those two disciplines skew our olympic prowess.
Should GB have chanelled much more energies to boosting our success in other sporting disciplines?

What 'energy channelling' are you talking about? The GB swimmers want gold just as much as the cyclists.

I'd rather we be good at a few things, win a load of gold medals in those and be third in the ranking, to be honest.

[sucess]

(Original post by johnharris19944)
This is getting slightly annoying now seeing people complain about the Swimming and then seeing people counter it with cycling and rowing. As long as their counted as olympic sports theres going to be medals to be won in them, Im sure if the US won the amount GB in cycling and rowing they would be thrilled likewise if you were to swap GB and US in the swimming we would be thrilled. Theres still another week of events why don't we wait till its all said and done then talk about it? If their there to be won their there to be won simple as that. Lets just celebrate it.

Jaimaca are likely going to only win medals in the sprinting shall we take credit away from them? Same with Korea in archery and China in diving and table tennis as well as badminton. Certain countries are better then others at sports. Lets take Basketball away because US usually humiliate opponents when they bother to turn up.

On a sneakier note lets bash Australia for their woeful performances.

but their population is less than 2 million

[Presenttime]

We just won 3 golds in first night of athletics

[Malevolent]

(Original post by sucess)
but their population is less than 2 million

Its not about the Population size, if it was ask India,Indonesia, Vietnam, Nigeria and such how their doing.

[Indo-Chinese Food]

(Original post by TurboCretin)
What 'energy channelling' are you talking about? The GB swimmers want gold just as much as the cyclists.

I'd rather we be good at a few things, win a load of gold medals in those and be third in the ranking, to be honest.

not me, id rather we won couple of golds in each of shooting, track and field, wrestling, badminton, boxing, judo, gymnastics, basketball, archery, tennis, volleyball, etc etc

-than 9 in rowing and 10 in cycling

[TurboCretin]

(Original post by Indo-Chinese Food)
not me, id rather we won couple of golds in each of shooting, track and field, wrestling, badminton, boxing, judo, gymnastics, basketball, archery, tennis, volleyball, etc etc

-than 9 in rowing and 10 in cycling

Well that's dandy, but that is pretty unlikely with our resources and talent pool. Specialisation is both more efficient and more realistic in our circumstances, and you see the results. We wouldn't see as much gold attempting to be a Jack of all trades.

[sucess]

(Original post by johnharris19944)
Its not about the Population size, if it was ask India,Indonesia, Vietnam, Nigeria and such how their doing.

over-populated and poor

[Miryo]

Every country has its strength and we won 3 medals today alone in other events.

[Tabris]

This is your first Olympics, isn't it?

Success breeds more success. Sports that have proven successful in the past get a greater share of funding and sponsorship. That gives them access to better coaching and support staff. So they can continue to perform at a high level and it's good to be associated with a successful team. Success also generates increased interest in the sport, which gives you a larger talent pool to pick from. I can't begin to tell you how many people who I've heard say "I wish I was a rower" or "I wish I was a cyclist" on the back of all the medals they've brought in.

When you fund a team, what you want is medals. Why would you give limited funds to a wildcard and hope that they might get a medal, when you can fund a team that has shown time and time again that they're world beaters? I haven't heard anyone say "I wish I was a beach volleyball player" or anything like that.

It's unfortunate, but it creates a bit of a cycle where the best teams get better and the lower end sees less and less money. The only time this really changes is during a particularly good intake where an athlete will be successful without as much support, raising the profile of said sport and eventually funding. For example, gymnastics is likely to see an increase in funding after this year and we should expect to do slightly better in 2016, or at least, about the same.

If Team GB managed to get a hold of a GOAT swimmer who managed to best people like Phelps, you can be assured that with that person's success, there'd be an increased interest in the sport and increased funding for coaching and support. But there isn't because we don't have anyone with that natural talent in the pool, so it'll remain underfunded.

Besides that, every country has events it specialises in. Team USA is traditionally strong in gymnastics, swimming and track. It's where the majority of funding donated to Team USA goes. Team USA does the exact same thing as Team GB and put the majority of their funds into their upper end sports.

Very few (read: none) teams are strong all-around. Even China, at Beijing, who fielded a ridiculous amount of athletes got most of their gold medals from events they are strong at (Gymnastics, Weightlifting, Table Tennis, Badminton, Diving). While you get medals in random sports here and there, nobody makes a clean sweep of all sports and you stick to what you know best.

Your complaints about the lack of focus on minor sports like Judo, Gymnastics, Basketball, etc. are what Team USA would be saying about cycling, rowing, weightlifting, sailing, boxing, etc.

Welcome to the world of the Olympics.

(Original post by Indo-Chinese Food)
thanks for explaining the difference, but it surely should just be the case that a heavier crew also have to move more weight too, so it should all balance out. Like a heavily muscled 100m sprinter -more weight but more power.
you could in theory have 5 more events for various weight limits per boat.
As well as having boats that hold 5, 6, 10 ,12 rowers, with cox , without etc

At a crew average of 70KG, you can only get so much out of the human frame. You'll notice that a lot of lightweight rowers are of similar size.

Whereas openweight does not have such limitations. On average, you'll find rowers to be at least 6'3" tall or more. Being taller is more advantageous in rowing as you have better leverage. Someone who's 5'11" tall and 70KG simply does not compare to someone who is 6'5" and 95KG.

Not only that, with rowing being an outdoor sport, you are subject to weather conditions and if you put lightweights against openweights in the conditions they had yesterday, they'd lose every time, because a headwind inhibits their speed a lot more than in an openweight boat.

You have light and openweight rowing to keep things viable for those who are smaller. Hell, FISA cut down the number of lightweight events, if they wanted, there could be another 11 events in rowing, but they keep it at a nice round 14.

[f1mad]

OP, you really didn't think this one through. Did you?

[tazmaniac97]

USA FTW!

[Formerly Helpful_C]

(Original post by JaggySnake95)
Oh and if you take away our track cycling and rowing medals we would still be 6th in the table.

Well, that's clearly too high. How about we remove canoeing, shooting, equestrian and every other event that we have won medals in?

To the rest of the thread:

I don't understand why someone has to be self-deprecating. Why? Why not just enjoy the wonderful spectacle that is the Olympic Games? My mind boggles.

[f1mad]

(Original post by johnharris19944)
Its not about the Population size, if it was ask India,Indonesia, Vietnam, Nigeria and such how their doing.

Population size is important (greater depth to play with across the entire olympic games, as opposed to 'specialist' events). But, so too is the funding: to ensure the correct resources are put into place.

[Formerly Helpful_C]

(Original post by johnharris19944)
Its not about the Population size, if it was ask India,Indonesia, Vietnam, Nigeria and such how their doing.

Look at their poor funding.

Population size + funding will nearly always triumph.

[Jack93o]

(Original post by Indo-Chinese Food)
what are we left with in terms of GB medal successes.

without getting into the gentle ribbing offered by other countries of being the kings of 'sitting down sports' - in all seriousness do we have an over reliance on cycling and rowing and the sheer amount of events in those two disciplines skew our olympic prowess.
Should GB have chanelled much more energies to boosting our success in other sporting disciplines?

Undoubtedly we do have a tendancy to vulture our medals from rowing and cycling, but its the same with america and china. Just swimming alone has won america most of their golds, and its no wonder with the number of events they have on just to test the human ability to swim fast - backstroke, front crawl, breaststroke, etc.

America are the real vultures IMO, if nothing is done about the number of swimming events, we should start lobbying for extra cycling events, for example one-handed bike riding in the velodrome?

[Malevolent]

(Original post by f1mad)
Population size is important (greater depth to play with across the entire olympic games, as opposed to 'specialist' events). But, so too is the funding: to ensure the correct resources are put into place.

(Original post by Formerly Helpful_C)
Look at their poor funding.

Population size + funding will nearly always triumph.

I know i was highlighting though how its more then just a large population.

[lolazee]

I was actually thinking the same thing today


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