Pre-mortem on the Paris Olympics disaster

[Mugundan]

Qualifying standards for athletics are published.
Avinash Sable in 3000m steeplechase,Murali Sreeshankar in Long jump, Neeraj Chopra in Javelin have already achieved qualification marks with good enough buffer means they will be in contention for a good placing or a final if not for a medal.

Manpreet Kaur in shotput ,Priyanka Goswami in 20km Race Walk have barely made it.

It doesn't mean all the above are already qualified since they need to achieve these qualifying marks after this Dec31 until qualification period ends. Rest of the athletes will be vying to achieve the qualifying marks with the help of Spinach and liberal measurement of time and distance measurements by friendly guys in domestic competitions. They will go on to become the OLYMPIANs who compete in making fouls in the Olympics.

Except for a handful of athletes, spinach should be considered a major factor both in the qualification race and actual Olympic performance. Either their performance would slide or else they would be caught before Olympics or fail miserably in the Olympics. Manpreet Kaur came back from a doping suspension and posted 18.06 for national record in June 2022. But after that her best had been 16.78!

[rajitghosh]

Should we write off wrestling for the 2024 Olympics? Looking at the tamasha that is happening I see this becoming a disaster.

[sameerph]

Should we write off wrestling for the 2024 Olympics? Looking at the tamasha that is happening I see this becoming a disaster.

Cannot say that as of now. We still have wrestlers who have won medals at world level even last year or this year and also from those outside those who are among protesting player. So, if everything is sorted out or settles so to say, hopefully we can still win a medal or two at Paris.

After all the way it has been shown so far this Brijbhushan guy was running the federation as his fiefdom so far last so many year and not in any professional manner. Still we won medals at every olympics in last 4 olympics. So, why not now ?

[sameerph]

This is an article on current scenario in Mirabai Chanu weightlfitng category-

‘Ethically, this is wrong’: India weightlifting coach fumes as North Korea’s lifters return from exile

So, with apparently North Korean and Thai weightlifters returning we have to reduce probability of Mirabai repeating her medal from Tokyo. Things will again be clearer after Asiad.

[prasen9]

The dope testers should do all they can to test these athletes strictly and many times. Competition was bound to happen though. When there is an olympic medal at stake and there are fewer competitors someone will invest and try to get into these disciplines.

[srini]

It is that time of year when Gracenote comes up with its Virtual Medal Table using AI based medal projections.

Gracenote has failed miserably every time they tried to project India's medals and more so in the Tokyo olympics when they predicted 17 medals including 4 Gold. So last time they even had to publish a disclaimer on what went so horribly wrong in making sense out of India's underperformance. They said their prediction for India was mostly based on India's performance in "Shooting" a highly unpredictable sport.

I couldn't find their full table but this time, they don't have India in the top 30. They have Iran placed at 30th place having 3 Gold and 9 medals in total. So India must have been projected less than that. Either AI self corrected after failing in the last 4,5 iterations or some one at Gracenote intervened and must have kept India somewhere at bottom which is Good because this time around there is no artificial expectations created on India's performance.

[rajitghosh]

Outside of Neeraj and possibly SatChi how many medals can we be confident about? Maybe 1 in women's boxing?

[Saffron Lenin]

Outside of Neeraj and possibly SatChi how many medals can we be confident about? Maybe 1 in women's boxing?

Wrestling 56 kg men freestyle- Aman sherawat/ Ravi Dahiya

Murali sreeshankar - Long jump

Boxing- Neetu/ Nikhat

[sameerph]

Hopefully badminton mens singles - Lakshya and/or Prannoy rise up. Quite hopeful shooting will break it's 2 olympics medal drought and not given up on wrestling totally yet.

We can have a better idea post September before which we full slate of world championships and Asian games. We can do our probability related forecast after that.

[rajitghosh]

Sreeshankar is good but not a medal prospect.

[Saffron Lenin]

Hopefully badminton mens singles - Lakshya and/or Prannoy rise up. Quite hopeful shooting will break it's 2 olympics medal drought and not given up on wrestling totally yet.

We can have a better idea post September before which we full slate of world championships and Asian games. We can do our probability related forecast after that.

SHOOTING ALWAYS DISAPPOINT

[sameerph]

Hopefully badminton mens singles - Lakshya and/or Prannoy rise up. Quite hopeful shooting will break it's 2 olympics medal drought and not given up on wrestling totally yet.

We can have a better idea post September before which we full slate of world championships and Asian games. We can do our probability related forecast after that.

SHOOTING ALWAYS DISAPPOINT

Last 2 olympics they have disappointed. But, in 3 olympics before that shooters have won medals.

In 2016 olympics, we had only 1 real medal hope in shooting- Jitu Rai. But, most disappointing was 2016 when we had multiple shooters who were winning medals in world cups but could not deliver in olympics.

My overall assessment this time is we have lesser contenders in shooting this time than last olympics. But, will be clearer after world championships and Asiad.

Luck could all change in this olympics with law of averages catching up.

[srini]

Hopefully badminton mens singles - Lakshya and/or Prannoy rise up. Quite hopeful shooting will break it's 2 olympics medal drought and not given up on wrestling totally yet.

We can have a better idea post September before which we full slate of world championships and Asian games. We can do our probability related forecast after that.

SHOOTING ALWAYS DISAPPOINT

Last 2 olympics they have disappointed. But, in 3 olympics before that shooters have won medals.

In 2016 olympics, we had only 1 real medal hope in shooting- Jitu Rai. But, most disappointing was 2016 when we had multiple shooters who were winning medals in world cups but could not deliver in olympics.

My overall assessment this time is we have lesser contenders in shooting this time than last olympics. But, will be clearer after world championships and Asiad.

Luck could all change in this olympics with law of averages catching up.

You probably meant to say 2020 was most disappointing? Yes i too think so. Actually i expected multi medalists from Shooting in 2020, either Saurabh or Manu.

[sameerph]

Yes, 2020. My mistake. In our medal projections which we had also factored in 3 or so medals in shooting I think and it was major disappointment to end up with zero medals. The expectations are lower this time around. So, anything good will be a bonus.

[arjun2761]

Agree that it short sighted to say that shooting always disappoints. Our first individual gold (Bindra), our first individual silver (Rathore) were won in shooting at the Olympics and we have certainly done well at competitions at most other levels. Here's hoping the law of averages works in our favor in 2014!