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UK Sport Name Their RIO 2016 Medal Targets
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Liz Phillips of UK Sport was interviewed n BBC Breakfast this morning and named the Medal Target for Rio Olympics for GB.
An apt day as we are now closer to Rio 2016 now than we are from London 2012.
The targets are
Olympics. 66 medals
Paralympics 121 medals
The observant will notice that these are 1 more than the London achievement for each. No host nation has ever gone on to the following games and increased their medal count. Very ambitious but achievable?
An apt day as we are now closer to Rio 2016 now than we are from London 2012.
The targets are
Olympics. 66 medals
Paralympics 121 medals
The observant will notice that these are 1 more than the London achievement for each. No host nation has ever gone on to the following games and increased their medal count. Very ambitious but achievable?
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The cycling is a good point but don't forget - this is a target of medals not gold medals. In London we actually won less cycling medals than 2008 in Beijing! 12 in London, 14 in Beijing.
So if we assume our cyclists pick up say 4 less medals again in Rio there are some sports we are really targeting - not least Gymnastics and Judo where we could pick up more medals. Pity squash isn't an Olympic Sport. Personally can't see us hitting that target but it's great to have the ambition of improvement.
Agree our gymnastics infrastructure is getting much better. Sadly I think the march of the Chinese will prevent many medals in the pool. I think Rowing and Sailing will continue to harvest medals - Judo I don't know how strong we are. The same in the other combat sports. I think we over-achieved at equestrian too.
Cycling I think there's another 2 years. We have some great new young talent waiting in the wings. Whether they will be ready I don't know.
Diving seems to be a sport on the up and Gymnastics.
But, tbf, we could only enter one person/team per track cycling event in London - there was no restriction in Beijing. (I guess either the IOC or UCI - the world governing body for cycling - didn't watch us pwning it again.)
Agreed but my point is that we are perhaps as a mark of performance GB
not so reliant on the medal haul in Cycling. It is important of course but there was decreasing reliance on it in 2012 from 2008.
I think having more than 1 rider per nation may help things with cycling though I suspect they may not match the 8 golds from Beijing & London. I think that's the same with many other sports - similar medal haul but down slightly on golds. Gymnastics is 1 sport that could increase it's medal haul a bit and I have belief that Rio will see the first British Olympic Champion.
I'm afraid with Swimming I will believe it when I see it when it comes to the Olympics - I feel like we have been here before in terms of good performances at Commonwealths and even at World Champs. But we just never seem to do it at the Olympics. Really given the number of medals on offer & the level of funding we should be looking at getting around 6 or so medals at each games with a couple of golds - the sort of total athletics achieves regularly. Equally I think you have to go back to before the war for the last time more than 1 British Swimmer struck gold at a games, quite a startling statistic really. We simply have never been a swimming power. If I was to put money on someone most likely to win gold in Rio it would be Siobhan Marie O'Connor but equally I could see some American or Chinese beating her as well.
bib: That's right. Maybe the powers that be were unhappy at GB suddenly winning too many cycling medals in Beijing.:D
Agree with Tiger Rose, regarding the swimmers.
It was only thanks to Tom Daley they reached their 2012 target.
Gymnastics will see the Americans/Asian nations as well although somebody like Max Whitlock looks world class in his own right.
We did pretty well at the World Champs last year getting 2 medals and 2 4th places.
Suspect in swimming the best you could hope for in 2016 is Sliver or Bronze for most.
I understand this policy has been reversed for 2016.
Has it? It would help if they reintroduced the individual pursuit races!
I'm pretty sure the focus on the cycling performance levels will step up from now on. Certainly the young talent coming through is apparent.
Since the Lottery funding came in 20 years ago Team GB has revolutionised it's Olympics performance so comparing it to anything before the last couple of Olympics is pointless.
They will continue to be funded at levels equal or greater than they were in the cycle up to London 2012 so there's every chance that they can continue the arc of improvement they've been on since Sydney.