veji11 wrote:Singer01 wrote:does anybody think the Netherlands are just as suspicious as the UK? 2G 2S 1B from a country with about 1/4 of the population of the UK?
Third the main issue here is that one country managed to crush everybody else. No single talent from any other country could compete. In swimming for example numbers (talent pool) and quality of training, infrastructure, etc do speak and mean that countries like the US get lots of medals. But individual great talents from other countries still have their chance : a great hungarian or aussie or french or welsh swimmer can win, and the usual ebb and flow of great generational talent applies : give a country 2 or 3 great athletes and they get many medals on one olympic games or 2 but once that specific generation falters, that peak fades.
If you look across many of the sports at the Olympics there is one dominant country. South Korea took all four archery golds. China have taken 5 of the 6 diving golds and have won all of the table tennis events so far. USA took 16 golds in swimming (the next highest took 3!). Why shouldn't a country be dominant at cycling?
I think there were really disappointing performances from Australia and France on the track. I also think that the Netherlands did pretty well. Will the British continue to dominate? With the current Olympic track program and the age of the British cyclists, I don't see why not.