Do China have an unfair advantage?

simon ess

Or Golf and Rugby 7s gives Fiji the chance of 2.

NorvernRob

Exactly what I thought, if the UK had a billion people to pick from and the same training/facilities as we currently have then we'd wipe the floor with all the other nations by a mile.

douki

Usain Bolt has an unfair advantage because he's a lot taller than his competitors and has longer legs.

delta_42

I think their are a lot of flippant comments here overlooking the real issue. That China is a totalitarian state using sport for political means, and that it is questionable how much freedom their athletes have. To say that taking children away from their families to be forced into rigorous training for year after year whether they or their families want it or not is something that we in the UK don't do simply through laziness is utterly ridiculous.

keydude

It is bad, if it really is the case. 'Concentration camps' springs to mind........

la gran siete

I wouldnt complain as we as a nation have done far better than we have ever done before and that counts far more IMO considering we are a small nation with 60mill people whereas China has over a billion.I am only disappointed we have not done better in the athletics an swimming pool

Philly112

Well, re athletics, we're doing OK. 3 golds in 60 mins last Saturday was not too bad...  But we don't have strength in depth. To be honest, we haven't been strong for many years. Swimming was poor. Their funding will likely be cut.

Phil

Ed Selley

The performance of the UK in athletics has been more in keeping with the "correct" performance of the UK in relation to size and resource and I don't think it is a disappointment. Unlike our "speciality" sports, athletics is really ultimately about what nationality the best person in that event happens to be at the time. We've had great people in the past, we have great and competitive people now but there are two hundred other countries with great and competitive people as well and our skill with technology and training cannot easily overcome that.

Swimming is a little different and might have more justification of being thought as a little disappointing. I don't think we've underperformed so much as other countries have kept the pressure up though. Adlington's bronze winning 400m time in 2012 was faster than her gold time in 2008. Only an idiot would say she underperformed and this is repeated across any number of other athletes.

And China? Totalitarianism is good at this sort of thing but it isn't the answer to unlimited performance. We've seen supposed "shoe-ins" fail to deliver at the games and it suggests that there is no "perfect" way of training an athlete even if you start from childhood.

nheather

I would hope so.  When I saw how the £335 million funding was distributed, swimming got more than any other sport, including athletics.

Cheers,

Nigel

BlueOrange25

I don't think China have an unfair advantage. When you look at the size of the population, state resources and talent identification, I think it's arguable that their performance isn't all that special overall.

Some 1.3 billion people and they're (currently) second in the medal table with 37 golds and 81 medals in total (the USA with 41 and 94 respectively).

Whilst you can't always make like for like comparisons, GB and USA's medal totals make China's efforts seem a little embarrassing.