Wednesday April 14th, 2024
Now that the Olympics has wrapped up, I’ve had the opportunity to reflect and watch some other events in addition to the wrestling. On the Canadian feeds, I’ve watched some judo, gymnastic, swimming, basketball, table tennis as well as the daily wrap-ups. It’s during some of these programs, we hear talk about athletes being the most decorated in their sport because of the amount of medals they’ve won. Summer McIntosh was talk of the town for obvious reasons with her record setting performance for a Canadian. With this in mind, her inclusion into GOAT status as far as Canadian athletes are concerned has been already discussed.
(Photo Property of CBC.ca)
Keep in mind, her inclusion into this conversation is based on the total amount of medals she’s won in the Olympics. When hearing this, it is extremely impressive and why wouldn’t it be? After all, to qualify for the Olympics is difficult but to medal at one is even harder and this isn’t an attempt to make an attack on her accomplishments at all.
Summer McIntosh had an Olympics to remember (Photo Property of The Canadian Press)
And yet, I feel that this term “The Most Decorated” discriminates against athletes who are in sports in which you can only win one medal at a time. Case in point for sports like aquatics, gymnastics or track and field which are sports in which you can win multiple medals. You may be a specialist at a certain type of discipline but it’s most likely that you’ll participate in multiple events in those given games. Your likelihood of medalling thereby increases. Ranking Summer’s three Gold Medals in one Olympic Games, versus the historical victory of Mijaìn Lopez in Greco-Roman as far as total medal haul is concerned, shouldn’t even be in the same discussion.
History is made! (Photo Property of CBC.ca)
With Lopez, this is a good way to illustrate this disconnect between total overall medals won and medals at a single event. What Lopez did was historic in winning five consecutive Gold Medals in five consecutive Olympic Games at 130 kg Greco-Roman. This feat will never be equalled in our sport and yet in potentially just two games, Summer Mcintosh could surpass this. In addition to this, the capacity to win multiple medals in different events is virtually impossible as you will almost never have any athlete being able to qualify for the Olympics in both Greco-Roman and Freestyle. It’s gotten to the point where these sports are almost completely different (event the weight categories are different) so to specialize in one or the the other is key. Women are automatically disqualified from this as there is no women’s Greco-Roman events. Even with the repechage, there are only four medals per weight. Add that to the fact that there are only six weight categories in the Olympics versus ten at the World Championships and your odds of winning a medal decreases.
59 kgs WW is a weight that Laurence Beauregard excels at but isn’t even featured in the Olympics
Even the amount of guaranteed matches is not there at the international level. If we want to go with a team sport like soccer, you have your group games and based on your record, you will move out of the group to the latter half of the tournament. You are basically guaranteed three games minimum. Sports like handball and basketball have either the same or similar formats. Due to the repechage format of our sport, half the athletes will lose their first match and not feature for the rest of the tournament. For a four year cycle that is the minimum to prepare, I see that as extremely discouraging for both the athletes and the coaches.
The Olympic Soccer Tournament guarantees a minimum of three games (Photo: JULIEN DE ROSA / AFP)
When the traditional bracket format was in play, at least you were guaranteed two matches before your possible elimination. While this is only marginally better, I think that the case should be made for the return to the traditional bracket as only losses in two of your matches will be the cause for your elimination. If you want to go one step farther if the number of total matches are concerned, then a Nordic Bracket with proper seeding would also be a good option. The traditional bracket is the format we use in a lot of our local tournaments and one that I think needs to be considered going forward. That does mean we would lose the second bronze medal but I think it’s worth it.
The Repechage features two Bronze Medals, but at what cost?
In the end, I don’t think anything will change on this front. Already, the IOC seems hellbent on reducing the participation of wrestling in the Olympics. The proposal for eliminating Greco-Roman and wrestling as a whole, to the reduction of Olympic participants from twenty to sixteen participants is just further evidence of this. Wrestlers in the conversation of the “Greatest Olympian” of all time will never be in the same category as some other more “popular sports” and I guess that’s a reality that has to be accepted.
Some sports that feature the opportunity for multiple medals: Gymnastics, Athletics, Swimming, Diving
Some sports that only have one opportunity to medal: Wrestling, Judo, Boxing