Wall Street Journal : Team GB "top losers"

No strangers to finding unusual and creative ways to express the olympics "official" (US) medal table in order to manipulate the rankings, the Wall Street Journal has found a way to put Team GB at the "top" for the dubious ranking of "biggest losers" at London 2012.

Is this article published on closing weekend an attempt to deflect from the flagging of America's Olympic dominance as they are reel in by the Chinese? or is there some other motivation for the Americans to try to rain on Britains spectacular hosting and performance in 2012?

"Team GB has exceeded even the most optimistic medal expectations at the 2012 Olympics, having won 25 golds and 52 overall as of Thursday evening. That's good for third on the official medal count behind the United States and China.

But Great Britain does lead on another medal count, albeit a much more inglorious one. Athletes and teams from Team GB lead a tally of countries with the most last-three finishes. Overall, the Brits have eight last-place finishes, 11 second-to-last finishes and 12 third-to-last finishes. Their total of 31 is eight more than its next closest competitor, Ukraine.

Those numbers are courtesy The Wall Street Journal, which has kept a medal count of shame for the past two Olympics. It awards less-than-precious medals for bottom-three finishes in every event. Finish last, the WSJ counts it as a lead medal. Second-to-last and third-to-last bring tin and zinc, respectively.

Ukraine and Egypt won the most lead medals, with 11 each. Great Britain has the most tin and zinc and leads the overall count.

In fairness, it should be noted that because they are the host of the Olympics, Great Britain gets automatic bids into every event, regardless of whether the team is any good. The men's water polo team, for instance, hadn't qualified for a major international competition for 50 years. They were outscored 77-28 in its five losses. While the policy results in more exposure for British athletes and spectators getting to root for a hometown athlete/team at every event, it also leads to more last-place finishes.

We have no idea what Egypt's excuse is.

The United States has six of each medal. Just like in the official and "real" medal counts, that places Team USA ahead of China."

http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/londonspy/team-gb-tops-losers-medal-table-according-americans-044151526.html

GB made an effort to enter teams in every sport, being as you said we get autos.

Some of our athletes/teams are not close to the quality required/and/or have only really started being put together properly in the past 4-5 years so its not really surprising.

Biggest losers have to be Australia surely.

I'd have to say Japan and Spain have performed worse than us at this stage.
Maybe South Africa too and countries like Brazil, India and Indonesia always struggle at the Games.

yes even though they are about to win another gold the French are definatly the biggest losers. No reason other than that they are French.

Oakey youre spot on with the reason why GB have had so many poor performers in the games, they are entering events they normally wouldnt qualify for.

Australia have done ok. Its just bad for your massively high expectations!

I which i could take credit for that article PSW, I do however fully agree with it!

Considering the Aussies have to train upside down they havent done bad. Diving and jumping events must be really confusing for them.

Precisely mysti.

The idiots here bragging before the games have come down to earth with a thud. It's a good lesson for them and also for some of our athletes who have perhaps hung on to the team longer than they should have.

(just trying to think of a similar case where that's happened....)

GB is on an upward curve though. You'll do well in Rio too and in 2020 (as Australia did in Athens, Beijing) as the benefits of your sporting programmes really kick in and your younger sportsmen & women reach their peak. So you'll have some great years ahead I feel.

I do worry about the expectations for Rio. Past examples do point to a clear decline after hosting, so hopefully nobody knee jerk reacts to that.

Not really Cat. The decline usually happens about 3 or 4 Olympiads later. Well, that's our 'excuse' anyway.
Even with a reduction in funding you'll keep the cream of the crop and any competition for fewer places should be of better quality.

Well lets wait and see on that. Id be surprised if we meet the level we have at this games come Rio, but should still be pushing the 50 medals mark. One thing we have benfited from in this games in some athletes who may have chosen to go pro (eg Thomas in the cycling) or not bother at all wanting to do the home games ( and get the exposure that comes with that). Its also part of the reason why Hester and the others have hung on to their top horses..whether they will be able to do that for future games is doubtful. Some of the other events we have invested big in could be challenged by the Chinese (especially track cycling)...GB have targeted events that they have seen easy medals in, they havent got any magic that other countries couldnt put in too. Should the Chinese seriously go for rowing, sailing, cycling and boxing (where theyve already had some success) GBs medal count could start to drop dramatically.

Aye, the crowd support has given us an edge though. Need a vast improvement in swimming I hope while we'd be hard pressed to be as dominant in the velodrome as we were.

It's as though you have the confidence and know how to exceed expectations in a way.

So for Rio, you may even do as well even though it's not on home turf. Also, the actual benchmarks for performances will have risen - therefore the elite athletes of 2015-16 may potentially be better than the current crop.

I'm always blown away when I see very young athletes perform so well at such a huge event like the Olympics. It just proves they have no fear, the right motivation and plenty of talent, etc.

Team GB needs to keep positive and keep developing the excellent standards of your athletes. I'm pretty sure they can do that.

Yeah id expect us to do better in Rio than we have done any recent games expect this one, but i do beleive its unrealistic to expect GB to put out as many gold medalists as they have for this games. A realtic target is to do what South Korea have off the back of Seoul, become a regular top 6 in the medal table long term and avoid the peak and trough that Aus have shown since Sydney.

Its easy to forget just how far ahead of where we were even 8 years ago this is. and how much has been taken from heritage and the arts to fund it.

Its all about keeping this kind off level up- competeing for 3rd!

I can see australia doing alot get back in the mix, France,germany,russia and korea will allways be a threat if we just miss the mark. But I dont ever want us to get to that low of atlanta again.

As far as Australia's performance (which is hardly awful - just down a bit on the last three very good ones ) goes , I blame John Coates.

All that stuff about "going to London to spoil the British party" : if he'd said it once it would have been banter , but he banged on about the need to beat the Poms , rather than just urging everyone to just perform to their best , to the point where it got very boring.

Came back to bite him.

Yeah, what a complete toszer.
We need to take a leaf out of South Korea's book... if that's ever possible. Keep a low profile and act more discretely

Maybe as hosts, we should'e removed a sport of our choice. Perhaps swimming? Then see how the US are doing.

EnglishReign wrote:Maybe as hosts, we should'e removed a sport of our choice. Perhaps swimming? Then see how the US are doing.

Still well ahead of GB.

Wasnt the decision to change the make up of cycling made before beijing ( ire before GB became dominant) and uisnt it based on a desire to see more nations have access to representation ( due to the low number of competitors abope to comepete in each event) rather than this stupid conspiracy theory that it was to hurt GB.
I guess what this games has proved is that you can buy medals simply by investing more money in cycling than everyone else (although it helps if you can teach them to stick within the rules) but you cant in swimming, you need some genuinely freakish athletes too rather than a whinging spoon dolphin face.

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

EnglishReign wrote:Maybe as hosts, we should'e removed a sport of our choice. Perhaps swimming? Then see how the US are doing.

Still well ahead of GB.

Wasnt the decision to change the make up of cycling made before beijing ( ire before GB became dominant) and uisnt it based on a desire to see more nations have access to representation ( due to the low number of competitors abope to comepete in each event) rather than this stupid conspiracy theory that it was to hurt GB.
I guess what this games has proved is that you can buy medals simply by investing more money in cycling than everyone else (although it helps if you can teach them to stick within the rules) but you cant in swimming, you need some genuinely freakish athletes too rather than a whinging spoon dolphin face.

Actually if we took away Swimming, USA and GB would be tied on 29 Golds each since the USA won a whopping 16 Golds in the pool.

Duty281 wrote:

Peter Seabiscuit Wheeler wrote:

EnglishReign wrote:Maybe as hosts, we should'e removed a sport of our choice. Perhaps swimming? Then see how the US are doing.

Still well ahead of GB.

Wasnt the decision to change the make up of cycling made before beijing ( ire before GB became dominant) and uisnt it based on a desire to see more nations have access to representation ( due to the low number of competitors abope to comepete in each event) rather than this stupid conspiracy theory that it was to hurt GB.
I guess what this games has proved is that you can buy medals simply by investing more money in cycling than everyone else (although it helps if you can teach them to stick within the rules) but you cant in swimming, you need some genuinely freakish athletes too rather than a whinging spoon dolphin face.

Actually if we took away Swimming, USA and GB would be tied on 29 Golds each since the USA won a whopping 16 Golds in the pool.

Oh I see so as well as rewritting history we count equal golds as a moral victory ignoring silvers and bronzes ?

Take of cycling GB finished behind Russia, who won far more medals in total.

This kind of thing does GB fans no favours, climbing to third in the medal table was an increbidle feet, closing the gap on China truely has taken a massive investment and effort form a huge number of people.
Trying to be petty and invent ways we came "joint first" is pathetic, as are the conspiracy theories around cycling.
The fact is we didnt do well in swimming because we dont have a lot of great swimmers and many of our good one performed below their best. Noone moaned in beijing when spoonface got two golds for doing the same thing, nor are they moaning this time when we won two golds and a bronze for someone breeding the best dancing horses in the world.

Does calling Rebecca Adlington 'spoonface' make you feel good about yourself?

Is PSW Frankie Boyle?

Now now AWOP you as much as anyone should know its against forum rules to accuse people of being someone else