It’s been a few days because the Olympic flame in Tokyo was extinguished. potentially the most difficult Olympic games of the contemporary era, or as I put it in my viewpoint paper published right here few days before the opening ceremony, the very first “Pandemic Olympics”.
The journey to the games has been challenging for everyone, athletes, coaches, support teams, sports administrators, organisers, broadcasters. everybody struggled with modifications in schedules, rules, regulations, possibility of cancellations as well as huge difficulties offered by the uncertainties of the COVID pandemic worldwide. in spite of all of that, the Olympics happened, as well as as usual, it was an amazing show. With amazing stories, huge surprises, old as well as new heroes as well as villains, disappointments as well as drama. I have a special connection with the Olympics, I viewed all editions because I was a little chid, I have memories of Mennea winning gold in Moscow 1980, the Abbagnale siblings winning in 1988 transgression Seoul (if you can’t comprehend Italian sadly you can’t appreciate one of the very best online commentating of a sporting accomplishment on Italian TV with Giampiero Galeazzi). The Olympics for me have been the epitome of excellence in the sporting world as well as I was always fascinated about exactly how individuals in different parts of the world strived for excellence even when the conditions they were in were less than optimal. As an athlete, I was never even remotely great sufficient to even dream about playing at the Olympics, as well as so my only possibility was to get there as a professional. I feel privileged of having dealt with Italian athletes very first to get them to Sydney Olympics as well as later on with team GB in Beijing, Vancouver (for the winter season edition) as well as London in 2012 in addition to having worked much more just recently with young athletes that went on to represent Qatar in 2016 as well as in Tokyo.
Every edition of the Olympic games brings its challenges, as well as because I have been included in sport, every edition draws the rate of interest of the press in the develop up mainly searching for questionable angles. There is in truth no holding city that is immune from criticism for their building plans, air quality, environmental issues, organisational challenges, deliver issues, regional socioeconomic policies, etc. extremely seldom I checked out praise about exactly how cities see the Olympics as an chance to enhance the infrastructure, improve sporting facilities, establish sports tourism as well as company as well as increase a nations’ morale. however I am no politician, as well as for that reason I will not comment on those aspects. My only comment is that I believe Rome missed a possibility withdrawing from the Olympic quote for 2028. However, I comprehend the concerns, thinking about that my house country is marred with corruption (just look at the catastrophe of Italia 90 here) as well as with huge events there is always the danger of unnecessary costs enriching the typical suspects.
Next up is Paris in 3 years, complied with by LA in 2028 as well as Brisbane as just recently revealed (without a rival bid) holding the games in 2032. So, what has been happening in this edition characterised by everyday news about quarantine, vaccination as well as covid positives? I will analyse few aspects, as well as it may take me few blog posts. In part 1 I will cover the preparation phase as well as a general analysis as well as commentary of the medal table. In other parts I will delve into some results/trends as well as particular sports elements in addition to covering some aspects associated to sports Science.
“For the very first time, Olympic teams will not have their households as well as fans travelling to support them in Japan, adding much more complexities to the dynamics typically observed at the OGs. mental health and wellness will impact the capability to carry out of athletes as well as staff.”
(Cardinale, IJSMPF, 2021)
I will begin with the self quote. getting to the games was not simple for anyone. different countries experienced different periods of closures of sports facilities because January 2020, cancellations of events as well as difficulties with travel. just look at the data of some European nations (below from my viewpoint paper) to see the difficulty experienced by athletes as well as their coaching staff. On top of that, you had athletes that struggled to chase qualification chances with numerous being cancelled around the world as well as exposure to COVID quarantine, isolation, repeated testing regimes as well as difficult travel conditions. This was not simple for anybody. To add much more complexities, the impossibility for households as well as fans to travel as well as the strict quarantine demand represented a high danger situation, which I understood would produce extra difficultiesto mental health and wellness in the ‘pressure cooker’ of the Olympic bubble.
Unfortunately, as I anticipated, I was right, as well as problems about mental health and wellness ended up being popular as soon as the games started likewise since of some high level athletes reporting publicly their struggles. At least, this OG will be ideally a catalyst for modification in the method athletes, coaches as well as personnel are dealt with not only at the event itself however in preparation for as well as after the event. While the focus seems to be mainly on athletes, it is essential to recognise that they are not the only ones struggling, they have a great deal of people working for/with them which are under pressure as well as experience high levels of tension likewise since in numerous countries failure may imply task losses as well as monetary consequences. I conducted a research study during the Olympics in London 2012 with the support team, analysing perceived tension as well as general health and wellness as well as I can tell you that rather a few individuals do struggle in huge events as well as there are seldom support systems in location in numerous nations to look after overworked, exhausted as well as stressed individuals. I may compose much more on that in one more blog publish however this is definitively an area I want to do much more research study on as I feel that coaching personnel at times is neglected. On the athletes’ front, I am pleased to see some new efforts of value. For the very first time in fact, I have seen the performance decompression effort from the EIS for team GB, as well as I believe it is an outstanding concept which I hope numerous athletes, coaches as well as personnel will use. Post-games blues are not uncommon as already reported elsewhere, as well as I believe in as well numerous situations there is restricted responsibility of care for athletes complying with the games as well as definitively practically none for staff. Also, nowhere I have seen considerations for the ‘ones that don’t make it’ to the games, as well as recent happenings are a unfortunate pointer that we ought to not fail to remember the athletes that don’t qualify, get injured, don’t get chosen in addition to the personnel that is told that they ‘will not go to the games’. If we as a sporting neighborhood are lastly freely speaking about mental health and wellness for athletes, let’s have the exact same conversations for coaches as well as support staff. Elite sport is not for the faint hearted as well as it includes a great deal of stressful exposure all culminating in the Olympic bubble, which at times I have referred to as the village of losers because many of the athletes getting in the Olympic village go house without a medal. I believe that success in sport can be accomplished likewise by taking care of athletes as well as staff, as well as recent public evaluations of numerous sports programmes around the world are telling us that much more needs to be done to protect every private working in Sport.
COVID as well as the Games
As the games started, it was remove that numerous athletes had to drop-out because of the covid rules. quite much every nation had to offer with athletes as well as personnel being dropped from competition because of a positive covid test and/or quarantine/isolation requirements. Some high profile situations did expense medals to a few nations, as well as while some seem to be authentic ‘accidents’ sometimes you truly question exactly how naive the athletes were in going to big events before flying to Tokyo and/or exactly how terribly organized their travels were. everybody had to offer with the ‘Playbook‘ which recognized the guidelines as well as policies for COVID testing as well as quarantine. While I believe the guidelines are extremely remove as well as assisted everybody in managing the situation, I believe that sometimes decisions did not comply with present evidence as well as I agree with the views expressed by my associate as well as good friend Dr Schumacher who is much much more qualified than me in matters of infection control. ideally there will be lessons learnt as well as much better policies will be established for future events for as long as we will be handling COVID. The worldwide health and wellness effort was immense during the games as well as final data will come soon. For the moment, I believe this event can be utilized as a design for future big sporting events.
Here is the IOC press seminar on COVID at the Games.
The Medal Table
There were high expectations for Japan, because of the revealed aspiration of the hold nation of a target of 30 Gold medals made in 2019 (one year before the original dates). The hold nation increase has been well reported throughout the years as well as it is expected for a hold nation to win much more medals than in previous games. You can checked out an fascinating short article on The Washington publish here, as well as see all the data about medals of previous hold nations. few nations seem to be able to be consistently on the ‘up’ on the medal table at the moment, with Japan being one of them as well as NZ with a consistent growth. essential to note the truth that team GB seems to be holding well from holding the games in 2012 as well as potentially being the only nation to preserve similar leve of performance 2 editions after the house games (more on that later).
I have developed a dashboard on Microsoft Power BI (by the way, did I state exactly how fantastic this software application is?) to comply with as well as analyse results as they came as well as it is offered clicking on the link below.
The Power BI report is offered here
There are lots of visualisations for the medal table as well as analyses of truly high high quality offered for totally free on the web.
I suggest the work done by Gracenote (you can inspect their widgets here), the outstanding work of the amazing data journalist @amyborrett offered here, a good dashboard offered here, a tutorial on utilizing R to visualise Olympic data, some excellent concepts right here on Flourish as well as an amazing listing of Viz choices here. Last however not least a fantastic ShinyApp here.
But before going into some nuances, it is essential to state that thanks to much more new sports added as well as enhanced competitiveness, much more nations have won medals in this edition. 93 NOCs have in truth won at least one medal of any type of color in Tokyo. Some curiosities: San Marino won the very first medal (they won 3 in the end!), Philippines, Bermuda as well as Qatar won gold for the very first time entering the special club of a little pool of nations able to win at least one Gold medal at the Olympics.
The us topped the medal table again, complied with by China, with Japan in third location with 58 medals won (27 golds, so not far from the ambition). Australia made it back to the top 5, ROC is on the method down likewise because of the present Doping associated bans (but I am sure there is much more to talk about about this!). team GB lost two locations (due to the number of Gold Medals compared to Japan). Netherlands, France, Germany as well as Italy total the top 10 of this edition. data on medals per capita are offered right here as well as here.
Many nations have benefitted from several medal winning athletes in events where this is possible (e.g. Swimming, Gymnastics, Athletics). as well as the us swimmer Caeleb Dressel was the most successful athlete with 5 Gold Medals continuing the custom of multi-medalists in us Swimming.
world records were damaged 22 times in this edition, with many records beaten in Track Cycling.
So, great deals of interesting things to talk about when ‘dissecting’ the medal table, taking a look at particular events as well as commenting on different nations’ results.
Stay tuned for the next parts!
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