- 8 May 08, 07:48 AM
In my discussions with leading academic Simon Shibli, who has predicted China will top the Olympic medals table for the first time this summer, one thing really stood out.
And it was this: China's decision to adopt a central government policy of "whole country support for the elite sport system".
How might that manifest itself in competition, I wondered? "Team orders", he replied.
His implication was that team strategies were likely to come into play in any event in which China had two or more finalists contesting medals.
We've seen it often enough in athletics, especially from the Ethiopians and Kenyans in the distance events.
But will we possibly have seen it on such a scale as in Beijing, where the host nation's Olympians will be going all out for success?
World marathon record-holder Paula Radcliffe, Britain's best hope of a track gold, will have to contend not only with the prospect of stifling heat, sour air and the spectre of her demise in Athens but also China doing a double-team job on her around the capital's streets.
China's success story at the Olympics speaks loudly in favour of the policies adopted by UK Sport as it aims for a higher medal return at the London Games in 2012.
Now there is a centralised strategic approach to performance, based on analysis, targeting, prioritisation and diversification.
That might look like a lot of management speak, so in more tangible terms it is how you go, as China has, from winning five gold medals in Seoul in 1988 to potentially 46 in Beijing in just 20 years.
There is one crucial difference, however.
UK Sport is obliged to deliver value for money and is held to account by the Government.
In 2004, the Association for Asian Research estimated that in the four years leading up to the Athens Games, China invested £1.2bn in top-level sport. The UK spent £98.6m.
You get what you pay for, it seems.
But there is also comfort to be drawn from Professor Shibli's work as Team GB works towards the "aspirational" goal of a fourth-placed finish in 2012.
Analysis of the "home-nation" effect shows that, on average, the hosts rake in an extra seven gold medals.
Based on a projection of 11 golds for Team GB in Beijing, that would almost certainly result in the fourth-placed finish they crave - and at Australia's expense to boot.
If only it were as easy to achieve as it is to write...
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You say "You get what you pay for, it seems." But if you compare the amounts invested per capita, the UK is paying almost twice as much as China. It does have a larger catchment area.
Woodland63
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I have to agree with you. I also see China topping the medals table precisely due to the Team Orders. We saw it last season in F1 with Ferrari and as you mentioned with the Kenyans et al.
It seems to me nowadays team orders carry the day.
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This is beggining to sound like a bad sports movie.
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Simon Shibli's contention that China will top the medal table is hardly ground-breaking stuff given the results from Athens, where China was only three titles short of the table-topping USA (35-32). Much more interesting is the possibility that as host nation China will NOT top the medal table. The grounds for this argument are that China (contrary to most predictions) has not progressed in the key Olympic sports - swimming, athletics, cycling, etc - and will have to rely on Diving (all 8 titles?), Table Tennis (all 4?) and Weightlifting (6-8?), with bit and pieces from elsewhere. As the USA is set to have its best-ever Olympic swim team and will, as ever, lead the track and field nations, I know where my money would go.
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I've just read the Simon Shibli quote on Gordon's news piece in which the 'leading academic' states that - "For a nation to be continually improving, in the case of China to double its gold medals from 16 in Barcelona to 32 in Athens, is really quite unprecedented".
Never heard of East Germany Simon; that country more than doubled its title tally from 1968 to 1972 (9-20), doubled it again from 1972 to 1976 (20-40); and increased it by another 7 in 1980. So, while China, across four Olympics, went from 16 titles to 32, East Germany, also across four Games, went from 9 to 47. Unprecendented!!!
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I totally disagree with the research of the Professor when he saids that China will win 46 Gold Medals. I think he needs to wait and see what happens at the Olympics.
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Its great going on about China's success but if we are going to talk about success per head of population and no doubt money invested, then Australia are just... well... plain awesome!
Coming consistently near the top of the medal table with only 20 million people is something even China will never be able to replicate.
For nations with similar population to the UK, France and Germany are perhaps more a goal that the UK should look to replicate than China. Both countries always seem to be near the top 5 in the overall medals tables.
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Team orders are fine if you've got the three best athletes and are trying to get them all on the podium - we've seen Ethiopia's men run very organised races on the track. But if someone else is much faster (Radcliffe at anywhere near her best), there's not a lot you can do, short of having a team-mate rugby-tackle her in the early miles.
Of course, if by "team orders" you mean adherence to a strict training system with certain, ahem, 'special supplements', that would make the difference. I'd be surprised if they were to take that PR risk.
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All i can say is that this coming olympics is going to be riddled by doping....but not neccisarily by positive tests. I feel the public is still extremely naive if it thinks that Britain is going to all of a sudden produce all these medals on hard work alone
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getinthebath....you might want to read over 'Positive' by Werner Reiterer if you think "Australia are just... well... plain awesome"
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Team orders are interesting enough, and in a tactical final they can make all the difference, but they are hardly likely to worry a powerful front-runner like Paula Radcliffe!
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Seem to remember hosting didn't help Canada much.
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'getinthebath....you might want to read over 'Positive' by Werner Reiterer if you think "Australia are just... well... plain awesome" '
I have and to be honest you could say the same for any of the big nations. The list of medals stripped from US athletes from previous games seems to grow by the week.
But I refuse to believe every Australian athlete that one a medal was on drugs. The culture in Australia is right for sport or are you saying that every cricketer, rugby player etc.. that has one a world cup was on something?
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Convenient using 1988 as the example, it is worth stating that in 1984 China won 15 Golds, albeit absence of USSR making some difference.
Was surprised looking back that USA did not top the 1988 table, I thought they always had.
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Didn't China win loads of medals and break loads of world records in swimming once...
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Don't assume that because Paula is much faster there is nothing they can do. One of the difficult decisions for the athletes in the marathon is going to be deciding at what pace they're going to run. It has to take into account the standard of the opposition, but more importantly it has to take into account the conditions that nobody is really sure about. As on out-and-out front runner, it would be very easy for the Chinese to send out a sacrifice runner or two to try and tempt Paula to race them through 20 miles faster than she intended, in the hope that their best athlete running a more consistant and conservative race will be much stronger towards the end as Paula pays for the fast pace. If you look at the last few hot championship marathons there have often been medalists coming through in the last few miles having run a more conservative race.
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We all know that the best way to win something is to get someone to sing your countries national anthem slightly wrong so that it describes a certain part of the male anatomy as being bigger than a mountain...
Its why England are not at Euro 2008. Steve McClaren had nothing to do with it.
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Yes China did break a lot of medals in swimming and also in womens middle distances running when Ingrid kristensen was around. But they all vanished off the face of the earth. I wonder why????
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If the rules don't change in Olympic every so often then China would probably have topped the table already. Considering that they can't enter all competition in weight lifting, table-tennis/badminton have weird rules to prevent a country having two athletes in the final and so on. Also, America is loosing out in swimming big time. Unless all of their swimmer go for the new swimsuit then you better expect Australia to get a clear sweep.
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I was in Beijing a few months ago and ran part of the marathon course. During my brief waddle I was engulfed by Team China training the course and I can definitely say they are going to race like a team. This will give them a big advantage. They know every detail of the route. These little nuances can help you in marathons, you know where to put in a little kick or where the wind funnels and you need to a front runner, where to run as a wall to make your opponent go round. This doesn't guarantee a marathon victory but it sure can help take a few seconds that add up.
I think the Chinese will use a pacemaker to wear out Radcliffe and others and try to win through endurance and attrition. It is a demanding course, not fast and the pollution isn't the worse but not great either! I would favour a Chinese woman to win, its not a fast course which seems to favour Radcliffe.
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getinthebath
"But I refuse to believe every Australian athlete that one a medal was on drugs. The culture in Australia is right for sport or are you saying that every cricketer, rugby player etc.. that has one a world cup was on something?"
________________________________
The word 'one' represents the number 1.
I think you're looking for the word 'won'.
Good one.
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