Predicting the Summer Olympics (sort of)

[JPhillips]

This USA/Brazil match is already spicy AF.

[larrymcg421]

Amazing play by Naeher in this one.

[HerRealName]

I don't watch a ton of soccer but I've never seen this much stoppage time. It's bizarre, right?

[whomario]

Originally Posted by HerRealName

I don't watch a ton of soccer but I've never seen this much stoppage time. It's bizarre, right?

Havent seen the match before the last couple minutes so not judging the specifics but generally more stoppage time has been a newish direction taken in a variety of competitions to combat the fact less and less actual played time took place. Started at the Qatar WC.

[whomario]

Finally the first athletics medal for France in the womens 100m hurdles

[larrymcg421]

Rough break for Hoppel in the 800m. Destroyed the American record and ran a time that would have won almost every other Olympics, but finished 4th.

[miami_fan]

What better for you as a viewer? As a competitor?

Share the high jumping gold medal like they did in 2020 or do a jump off like they are doing right now?

[JPhillips]

I wish they high jumpers would have agreed to share the gold given that they both cleared a personal best.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I wish they high jumpers would have agreed to share the gold given that they both cleared a personal best.

As a viewer, I agree.

As a competitor? I get it. There is only one winner and if we have to be there all night, then that is what is has to be. Toxicity at the highest level.

[sovereignstar v2]

We got that one!

[sovereignstar v2]

Bye Sydney!

[miami_fan]

Dominance!

[Ksyrup]

The pan view on the final 100 or so of the women's 4x400 was hilarious.

[JPhillips]

Embiid is just awful.

[henry296]

Originally Posted by whomario

Havent seen the match before the last couple minutes so not judging the specifics but generally more stoppage time has been a newish direction taken in a variety of competitions to combat the fact less and less actual played time took place. Started at the Qatar WC.

There was also a hydration break in the middle of the half so that added more stoppage time.

[JPhillips]

For both teams, the refs have been very inconsistent.

[JPhillips]

dola

OMG Steph Curry!

[sovereignstar v2]

Curry lol

[Ghost Econ]

Oh my God, what the fuck. It's not fair

[albionmoonlight]

Holy shit

[sovereignstar v2]

That probably tips the scales of the Jonny Flynn vs Steph Curry debate. David Kahn should've picked Curry at #6. Now, Ricky Rubio instead of Curry at #5? That's a debate for another day

[Ghost Econ]

Switched over to beach volleyball, and it's Swedish and German fans singing Sweet Caroline in France.

The world is a strange place.

[HerRealName]

Originally Posted by sovereignstar v2

That probably tips the scales of the Jonny Flynn vs Steph Curry debate. David Kahn should've picked Curry at #6. Now, Ricky Rubio instead of Curry at #5? That's a debate for another day

I think you're just getting caught up in the emotion of the gold medal game.

[cuervo72]

Originally Posted by Ghost Econ

Switched over to beach volleyball, and it's Swedish and German fans singing Sweet Caroline in France.

The world is a strange place.

I caught "Livin' on a Prayer" during one of the games too. Can't even get away from that crap internationally...

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

For both teams, the refs have been very inconsistent.

If people think they hated the touch fouls in the NBA before, hoo boy this year is going to be brutal after some of the muggings we have seen in the Olympics.

[RainMaker]

It was really fun rooting for Steph Curry today. What a performance.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

Sifran Hassan is running in the 5000m, 10,000 AND the Marathon?!

Over the last six day period, Hassan won a bronze medal in the 5,000, a bronze in the 10,000 and a gold in the marathon. She did the latter while breaking the Olympic record in the marathon. I agree with the woman who came in fourth in the marathon.

"She is amazing, amazing, amazing, amazing. She's just awesome," Kenya's Sharon Lokedi said. "Who can do that? Who can come from track and win the marathon?

[albionmoonlight]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

If people think they hated the touch fouls in the NBA before, hoo boy this year is going to be brutal after some of the muggings we have seen in the Olympics.

I’m gonna miss watching basketball that doesn’t stop for a TV timeout every time the ball goes out of bounds. The NBA will feel jarring after this.

[Ksyrup]

These basketball games did fly by between the 10 minute quarters and lack of TV TOs.

Turned on the last few minutes of the US women's volleyball team getting destroyed by Italy.

[MIJB#19]

How about that, 1st place in the medals table will come down to the last of 329 events. The USA have their women's basketball team left to still get ahead of China.

[SecretAgentMan]

I'm going to post a couple of more final analyses today and tomorrow. A few people in this thread have asked questions about the algorithm/projections/the game I am working on, so I will say this.

If you would like to receive e-mail updates if/when I ever get to the point of doing beta testing on my game OR if you would like to know if/when a release occurs, please feel free to add your e-mail address to the document linked below, and I will gladly get in touch with you at that point.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...rm?usp=sf_link

[Ghost Econ]

US women have been playing like shit, but some of that is because the French men and women have been allowed to get away with murder this tournament.

[miami_fan]

Wow! That is so brutal for Gabby Williams.

US women did not win, they survived.

[bronconick]

Almost paid for letting old friends tag along for a Gold Medal instead of taking the best players.

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by bronconick

Almost paid for letting old friends tag along for a Gold Medal instead of taking the best players.

I am assuming you are talking about DT. I am okay with her being the last athlete or coach who gets the "Earned the right to go out on their own terms" treatment in U.S. sports from now on. We can now be cutthroat in all sports from now on.

[GrantDawg]

Jordan Chiles is getting royally screwed. Taking away a medal for anything short of athlete misconduct is wrong, but taking it away for a judges error against her because her coach was 4 seconds (!) to late in challenging is ridiculous.

[SecretAgentMan]

​Let's look at what happened in athletics. Here is a breakdown of the results:
​


​

I feel relatively comfortable with both projections in terms of how well they modeled the actual results. Except for a few "outlier" countries (we'll get there), I feel like the projections were pretty close to being inline with what actually happened. I am actually thinking that a combination of the two projections would have actually produced even better results.

Now, for the outliers. Ethiopia was the first obvious one. Clearly the didn't perform as well as either projection suggested they would. I suspect that's the nature of the distance events that they tend to specialize in. I feel like the sprints and field events followed the projections more closely than the distance events.

USA and Great Britain had good meets in response to either projection you might want to use.*

France also struggled. They seemed to have a home country advantage in a lot of situations, but perhaps not in Track & Field

Ireland and Cuba were the countries who were most likely to medal who didn't actually receive medals.*

I'm going to run an additional analysis of ONLY sprints, and I will be curious to see if that's got a higher degree of accuracy.​

[bronconick]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

These basketball games did fly by between the 10 minute quarters and lack of TV TOs.

Turned on the last few minutes of the US women's volleyball team getting destroyed by Italy.

Apparently the Italians lost one set in the entire tournament.

[SecretAgentMan]

​A closer look at ONLY the sprints (100, 200, 400, hurdles, and relays). 15 total sprint events, with an absolute max of 35 possible medals. I broke the countries into six tiers. Here are the tiers:

Tier 1 (The Top Guns): These countries should have finalists in basically every sprint race, and if not, it's a sign that something has gone wrong.
-USA, Jamaica

Tier 2 (Solid Programs): These countries will be consistently represented in sprint finals and will probably see some occasional medals, especially in relays. Could also have a star here or there make some waves
-Great Britain, Italy, Brazil, Canada, Germany, Netherlands

Tier 3 (Host Countries): They've had a lot of qualifiers lately, which makes them look like Tier 2 countries. But it's probably just hosting and they are more likely Tier 4 countries. So they get their own Tier all to themselves.
-France, Japan

Tier 4 (Background Players): You'll see their flag. You might even see a star athlete from their country win a medal. But they aren't going to be serious contenders across all of the sprint events, that's for sure.
-Nigeria, South Africa, Switzerland, Poland, Belgium, Australia, Bahamas, China, Trinidad and Tobago

Tier 5 (Spot the Star): This is probably a sign that the country has had a single star sprinter or two in the last 10 years. Who knows, they might even medal again here. Or you might not even hear from them in this meet. Who knows?
-Spain, Czech Republic, Botswana, Ukraine, Ivory Coast, Dominican Republic, Ireland, Colombia, Norway, Portugal, Cuba, Barbados

Tier 6 (Potential Breakthroughs):
-Everybody else. If you see a country medal in Sprints and they haven't yet been listed (it's already happened on Day 2 of the track meet), they are a breakthrough nation who has elevated themselves to Tier 5 for the next go-around.​

And here are the results:
​


What to think of this?

Well, Jamaica underperformed, while the US overperformed. I would argue that Britain performed quite well also, though perhaps they ought to be in a Tier above Tier 2 (Tier 1b, you could say) given how many medals they got.

Saint Lucia and Zambia had breakthroughs, and Puerto Rico continued a breakthrough that started with a gold medal four years ago.

Botswana will probably deserve to bump up a tier after winning medals not just in the 200m, but in the 4x400 as well.

I think the tiers were helpful, but perhaps Jamaica was over-rated to begin with (though there were definitely some signs in the data that they might not be up to their usual standard).​

[SecretAgentMan]

Originally Posted by bronconick

Apparently the Italians lost one set in the entire tournament.

Seriously? That's a crazy stat- they have played like 6 matches, right? I feel a little better about the US losing given that sort of dominance.

[larrymcg421]

Originally Posted by SecretAgentMan

​Let's look at what happened in athletics. Here is a breakdown of the results:
​


​

I feel relatively comfortable with both projections in terms of how well they modeled the actual results. Except for a few "outlier" countries (we'll get there), I feel like the projections were pretty close to being inline with what actually happened. I am actually thinking that a combination of the two projections would have actually produced even better results.

Now, for the outliers. Ethiopia was the first obvious one. Clearly the didn't perform as well as either projection suggested they would. I suspect that's the nature of the distance events that they tend to specialize in. I feel like the sprints and field events followed the projections more closely than the distance events.

USA and Great Britain had good meets in response to either projection you might want to use.*

France also struggled. They seemed to have a home country advantage in a lot of situations, but perhaps not in Track & Field

Ireland and Cuba were the countries who were most likely to medal who didn't actually receive medals.*

I'm going to run an additional analysis of ONLY sprints, and I will be curious to see if that's got a higher degree of accuracy.​

Love all the work you did here.

The sprints should be easier to predict since there isn't as much strategy to affect the races. It was easy to predict that Sydney would win Gold and almost impossible to predict Hocker would.

Hocker had the slowest PB in the 1500. My guess is no one with the slowest PB in a sprint final even won a m day, much less the race.

[SecretAgentMan]

​One more analysis to do: here's an overview of team sports. First off, here's what I was saying beforehand:



​And, here are the final medal results for each of the team sports:
​



Trying to sort out what I learned here is tricky. Some things that I will note are as follows:
-The USA basketball wins were expected. France's silvers were not, at least according to the projections. I imagine that the home-country advantage mattered quite a bit in that regard.

-3x3 basketball looks like it was impossible to predict. I think it might be too volatile to make a lot of assumptions, to be honest. None of the projections had more than 1 of the medalists as a top 3 team, which was true even given different projections.

-I said that the Dutch were a sure thing in the Women's Field Hockey Tournament. Check! And the world rankings projection also suggested the Dutch men were positioned to win, which they did.

-I learned very little from the football projections. France and Spain medaling was a point in favor of the world rankings / recent history projections. On the other hand, the US women's gold (which is not shocking looking LONG-RANGE historically, but the short-term projections didn't like them.) was a point in favor of the GFG projection that more strongly accounts for longer-term history.

-On the other hand, the handball projections both felt good. Fairly accurate, other than the French men getting upset in the quarterfinals (which is a general problem with "bracket-style" sports...one bad game at the wrong time can mean no medal.

-Rugby Sevens....look, I dunno. France's men's team rode the home crowd and a star player who transferred from Rugby Union to Rugby Sevens just this year to Gold, while the women's tournament, which all three projections agreed upon, got completely upended by a pair of North American squads (who, to be fair, are ranked 4th and 5th in the world based on the quick research I did). Just goes to show how volatile short-term tournaments are.

-Volleyball was sort of split. I felt like the projections for the men's tournament leaned more heavily on recent history, while the women's tournament relied more heavily on world rankings. (Italy apparently had never won a gold before and absolutely dominated the women's tournament)

-Water Polo again was sort of a split decision, with the GFG projection actually looking great for the men's tournament and the world rankings projection looking best from the women's tournament. So I'm not sure what there was to learn.

So, I don't think the team sports taught me too much about my program, other than that volatility is a part of the game with these kinds of tournaments. It does make you appreciate when the "favorites" do manage to come through.​

[SecretAgentMan]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

Love all the work you did here.

The sprints should be easier to predict since there isn't as much strategy to affect the races. It was easy to predict that Sydney would win Gold and almost impossible to predict Hocker would.

Hocker had the slowest PB in the 1500. My guess is no one with the slowest PB in a sprint final even won a m day, much less the race.

Thank you! I'm glad that there were people willing to read along. It's greatly appreciated!

[SecretAgentMan]

​Alright, last little bit of fun, and then I'm done with this exercise for now. (You will see one of these threads again for the 2026 Winter Games, I assure you)

Which country had the best result in "team sports"? I lumped all 8 of the major team sports into one medal table, and it looks like this:

​

Clearly, the "best" country at team sports for the Paris 2024 games is either USA or France. I would actually argue in favor of France, because I would argue that making the final in 7 team events (even though they only won 2 of them) outweighs the US's 3 golds and 8 team medals because 4 of those medals were bronze. But I would love to hear the interpretations of others!

Anyways, thanks for reading along!​

[Ghost Econ]

I'm here for the Dad rock portion of the Olympics.

[MIJB#19]

Goodness, can the anthem of the USA be performed any slower than that?

[21C]

I didn't watch a lot of the local coverage of the Games live but mainly watched the highlights on the news. I don't know if other countries do the same thing but the Australian network spent a fuck-ton amount of time talking to the parents of the athletes. I know that they had air time to fill and I appreciate the effort and sacrifice that the parents did to help their children but even the news reports spent WAY more time talking to the families, friends, local sporting team/club, neighbors than they did on the actual events. I couldn't imagine watching a football or baseball game where they cut away to the family every time a team scored. Yeah, I know this happens when a rookie starts their first game but still.

[gets down off my soapbox]

[JPhillips]

This Jordan Chiles stuff is high octane bullshit.

[MIJB#19]

Originally Posted by larrymcg421

It was easy to predict that Sydney would win Gold and almost impossible to predict Hocker would.

Except that it wasn't an easy prediction. The race between Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Femke Bol was one of the most anticipated moments of Paris 2024. Bol having a complete off day (and actually still earning bronze) and McLaughlin shattering the world record was neither a given.

[cuervo72]

Women's 400 metres hurdles world record progression - Wikipedia

27 June 2021 Sydney McLaughlin United States 51.90 Eugene, Oregon, United States
4 August 2021 Sydney McLaughlin[ United States 51.46 Tokyo, Japan
25 June 2022 Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone United States 51.41 Eugene, Oregon, United States
22 July 2022 Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone United States 50.68 Eugene, Oregon, United States
30 June 2024 Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone United States 50.65 Eugene, Oregon, United States
8 August 2024 Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone United States 50.37 Paris, France

Yeah who could have seen that WR coming.