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Olympic Events Where the USA Has NEVER Won a Gold Medal
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- Опубликовано: 15 авг 2024
- Have you ever wondered which Olympic events the USA has never won a gold medal in? Check out this video to find out! From field hockey to handball, table tennis to badminton, we'll explore the events where Team USA is still striving for that elusive gold. Subscribe for more fun videos and awesome content!
0:00 - Intro
0:26 - Field Hockey
1:37 - Modern Pentathlon
2:39 - Trampoline
4:02 - Break
4:18 - Rhythmic Gymnastics
5:36 - Table Tennis
6:53 - Handball
8:11 - Badminton
9:19 - Outro
A quick note from me folks: sorry about the audio, it sounds like I was recording in a closet because I actually was. My travel setup needs some work, thank you for your forgiveness
Why on earth did you record in a closet
@@BrunoNeureiter I was on the road, I didn't have any other choice unfortunately. Forgiveness please
I'm pretty sure sure Forest Gump win USA gold for ping pong.
So did shooting games
are u only couting summer sports or is this including winter olympic sports to? Because the US arent all great in the skii elemnts outside of a very few select women like Jeesie Diggins for example.
Terribly researched because everyone knows Forest Gump won a gold medal for the US in ping pong
NOT terribly researched, as Forrest Gump competed during his time during the Vietnam War and table tennis didn't make it to the Olympics until 1988. So the flaw is with the Forrest Gump people, not me
@@lamelists i was joking if that wasnt already clear, great video, also idk if the forest gump movie even depicts him playing in the olympics, just has him playing ping pong
@@colinbradley7361He was joking too
Achivement: Bamboozle Everyone!
@@colinbradley7361 He went to China and became champion there. So he was maybe a China Champion lol.
My buddy from field hockey has played on the US Team since after high School. To this day they haven’t qualified for the Olympics. If he hangs on until 2028 and the Olympics are held in LA we’ll get the auto invite to finally be in them!😅
Three cheers for the auto-invite! Maybe that will be their year to break through? Tell your buddy good luck!
@@lamelists Let’s hope so and I definitely will✅
Just too much competition from ice hockey. It's like Australian men will never be great at soccer, because of the competition from Australian Rules.
They are bad at hockey
Who’s your buddy? I’ve also played for USA field hockey since 2011
Modern pentathlon sounds like such a random collection of events 😂😂
The modern pentathlon was a collection of abilities an army officer (not a soldier as stated) was supposed to have in early 20th century. Pistol shooting (officers were armed with pistols), horse riding, fencing (not only officers had sabers for display. Honor duels were still a thing back then), cross country and swimming (you have to move on the battlefield).
As the other viewer pointed out, it has a military tradition at its base. But that said, I think there should be a modern MODERN pentathlon, make it 5 completely unrelated events chosen at random. Maybe even change it every year, why not, shake it up lol
@@lamelists "This year's competition will be one for the ages, as the first combination of skeet shooting and high diving...."
@@basher20 BAHAHAHA love it
The events have changed and from the next Olympics horse riding will be removed and replaced by Obstacle Course Racing. The running and shooting are combined as 1 event called the 'Laser Run' due to the pistol emit TMG laser light and not bullets. Fencing, swimming and OCR are run as individual events for points and the Laser Run is then started in a staggered start with the highest points starting first. Whoever wins that run wins the Pentathlon. It’s awesome.
They will win Table tennis when they stop calling it ping pong
So, never is what you're saying?
@@lamelists They can give it a try.
@@evanskyule I'm with you, but doesn't seem likely
Ping-pong was a name created by an English firm: J Jaques and Son. Trademarked in the USA by Parker Brothers. // The game was invented in England, so don't complain about the names, since the ENGLISH created the game!
Congrats, the US just won 😂
I'm kind of surprised team handball has never taken off in the US - it's like this wonderful no-personal equipment blend of soccer, basketball, lacrosse - limited dribbling - just a great mix... friends in Europe play on teams and I've seen them.
Couldn't agree more! Not sure what's holding back Handball in America other than a cultural preference, but surely that can change in time
Most sports Americans are good at, we would have played in gym class or as an after school sport. Handball is neither one. Honestly this video is the first time I seen it played.
@@Ace-mw9pmreally? That‘s interesting cause here in Germany handball is an absolute staple of gym classes despite the fact that it‘s not really very present in popular culture. Like people don‘t usually watch handball on TV or go to games but everyone knows about it
@@XYZ-zn6qz gym class in America we play American football, basketball, baseball, dodgeball, field hockey, and some other small games. And if you live California or Texas you probably play a lot of soccer.
@@Ace-mw9pmI've noticed the American teams that win medals at youth soccer tournaments in Europe are from California or Texas, I didn't know that there was a cultural preference in those two regions of the US for soccer, does that mean they play other sports less? And what about the east coast?
Just little humble brag. Denmark with a population of 5,9 mil have 5 medals in Handball, 9 in Badminton, 1 in field hockey and 1 in Table tennis :-) Nothing like the states, but still proud of our little country :-D
As you should be, Denmark is actually top 15 all-time in gold medals per capita! For a little country, those are some big results!
🇩🇰🇩🇰🇩🇰🌟
Yeah, you and Norway are both great nations in wide array of sports nowadays. Love from Finland! ❤
They won many more. Those are just examples. How about sailing and cycling?
Hell yeah
I think Handball is a Sport that would fit the American audience so well, due to it’s physicallity and athleticiscm
I totally agree, I'm shocked it's not more popular in North American in general, I don't get it
I thought it was gaining traction here already. Or maybe I’m getting that confused with the like indoor soccer?
Probably too much competition from basketball. Often only one or two similar sports can be mainstream in a country. Australia has basketball and netball so we don't care about handball. European countries tend not to play netball because of the climate. The US is hugely into basketball.
@@MrNoName7474 I think it's getting more popular as in it's not getting LESS popular, but nothing near where it would need to be to compete globally
@MsJubjubbird France, Germany and even Spain have competitive Handball and Basket-ball teams and they're not the most played sport being way behind football/soccer.
One sport you left out is Biathlon. The US has never won a medal of any color I believe in Biathlon, even though they have come close. Interestingly the US has won a gold in Curling.
Good point! Biathlon is the only winter Olympic event where the US hasn't won a medal. I was more zeroed in on the summer sports with Paris 2024 approaching, but you're absolutely right
@@lamelists You also left out climbing. It was introduced in 2020. I don't think USA won any medal there either. The american women have a good chance at a podium in 2024.
One other winter Olympic event, would be ski jumping with only one bronze medal.
@@lukeytronno, nathaniel coleman got silver
@@lonesome3958 that's the kid of Utah isn't it ? I recall seeing the news on it
If the US is not winning any medals or dominating in the sport, that sport will barely be seen on american TV and if it is broadcast, it will only be during the Olympics & very brief.
Which is kind of ironic, because it only makes it more likely that the US will not win medals and the cycle continues.
Bro it's basically same with every country. They will forecast shows in which their country is most likely to win a medal.
Sometimes they will broadcast sports that look spectacular, even if the US won't win. Diving looks much more exciting than a marathon.
@@MsJubjubbird Diving is poorly commercialized (global scale), very predictable, and isn't an Olympic pride event like marathon, so of course it's not often broadcasted.
@@cocoroni1031 they often show the finals because it's quick and it looks spectacular. The marathon is really only broadcast in the final stages because no one is going to tune into people running for a whole 2-3 hours. They'll usually just switch over to it for a couple of minutes for updates
Unbelievable that USA never win any gold medal for trampoline in the Olympic because trampoline was originated from USA ! 😂😂😂
For sure! And they're so good at gymnastics as a country, it really shocked me
@@lamelists But Canada won gold in both trampoline and rhythmic gymnastics, doesn't that kinda count. They are close right, LOL, just kidding!!!
@@ctalcantara1700 We're basically America's hat, close enough lol
@@lamelists LOL! Y'all also won a gold in Men's Soccer , which the US has not won.
@@ctalcantara1700and México too got a gold in 2012 olympics a great surprise 🎉🇲🇽
As a track fan, honorable mentions to Bob Schul and Billy Mills winning both the 5000m and 10000m in 1964. The only US gold medals. And RIP Bob Schul who just passed away last month. Got an honorable mention at the olympic trials.
RIP Bob Schul, I hadn't heard he'd pass
U r right about handball. We used to play it in gym class and I always loved it
It's a fantastic sport, I don't know why North America doesn't love it more
@lamelists partially because we have other sports shoved down our throats, basically football and basketball. Sports talk radio will talk football year round. ESPN has rights to the NHL and will crap on it all the time. So to introduce a new sport is all but impossible
@@corysleeger1574I see your point but all the US medals can't come from 3 sports that only have one medal per gender, the media *might* cover track, swimming, gymnastics, and figure skating strictly during the olympics but that's it, I think it more so has to do with schools not having handball teams specifically
Surprised to hear that there are US schools where this is known as a sport at all. When I was in the US for a year in the Mid 90s, I had to explain very often what I was talking about when I mentioned "Handball". Mind you, that was obviously before RUclips etc. so there was no way of just showing a videoclip. That being said, I didn't really enjoy it when we played it at school in Germany. The reason? Well, in every sport the ones who play it also at a club have got an obvious advantage; but in most sports, you can still act as a team. E.g. even if you can't do a slam dunk, you can still pass a basketball in a somewhat decent fashion. Not so for handball. You either play it at the club or you have really no idea what you're doing.
As an American seeing us dominate in so many areas, I actually like that other countries are taking gold in places we have not. I think it’s stingy to want to dominate the whole damn thing.
Variety is the spice of life for sure. And it gives American athletes something to aspire to, there's very little ground that hasn't already been walked
The US olympic squad is massive, way bigger than everybody elses but not dominant per capita. This is why there is no prize for "winning country"
@@greenconcrete-z8m Absolutely, on a per capita basis it's a different story. The US has that unique combination of population size, dump trucks of money, and cultural support that, when turned towards something like the Olympics, leads to dominance
@@lamelists They perform as anybody would expect them to given their size and sports culture, pretty average nothing out of the ordinary, just like every other rich country big or small. USA will win the same amount of gold medals relative to their squad/country size as Team GB, Russia or China
@@greenconcrete-z8m the per capita argument is invalid since rules artificially cap how many athletes nations can send, plus there's a finite number of events. It'd be as meaningless as tracking goals per capita in a game and concluding Brazilians suck at soccer because they only beat Honduras 4-1 instead of 40-1. It's still 11 v 11 on the field and there's a time limit. Per capita comparisons are for open ended stats like GDP, not constrained ones.
The difference is that medal tables are counting something tangible. "Fair" or not, those medals really exist and represent events that really happened. By contrast per capita comparisons are artificial constructs that ignore Olympic rules and nature, and have no connection to reality. They're fallacious and meaningless.
And yes the cap on athletes each nation can send will logically impact medals. We can see the likely empirical impact with split German teams going from a combined 142 medals in 1988 to 82 with a unified team in 1992. That may be as close to a controlled experiment as we can get.
Number restrictions make a huge difference and the limitation of only having a finite number of medals to win is an even bigger factor. Consider this. Bermuda, with a pop. of 70k, won its only gold medal ever at these games. China, with a pop. of roughly 1.4 billion, would have to win 20,000(!) gold medals at the Tokyo games to match them per capita. There are only 332 events. China having a hard time would be one thing, but that it's a mathematical IMPOSSIBILITY should be a warning sign that per capita comparisons are fundamentally flawed in this case. If Bermuda somehow had 1.4 billion people to draw from but retained the same sleepy island culture it wouldn't win 20,000 medals (mathematically impossible).
Nations are restricted in amount of athletes they can send, such that Americans on a bad day could not qualify for US Olympics team but on good day could win a medal. If every event didn’t have nationality restrictions and people on qualified on merit/time, the US would have 50x more athletes in and would win nearly that much more. You see this by virtue of the fact that tiny European nations that are less than 5% of the US population have about 30% of the athletes as the US. Or put another way, if all 50 US states were separate countries, instead of about 500-600 athletes from the US, you’d have 7000-8000 athletes if you added up how many each of the 50 states would get as separate countries. Furthermore, with a limited amount of events and law of diminishing return, it’s impossible for a huge nation to win per capita. If New Zealand won one gold medal, China could win every other event in the Olympics and still be behind in per capita. Not to mention that per capita is not how we rate best nations in sports. In ⚽, Uruguay is clearly the best nation per capita, but they aren’t considered the best; Argentina now or Brazil all time because they are current world champions or have won the most all time are considered the best at ⚽
Handball that you knew of growing up is the same that I learned. We had leagues at our local YMCA. I’d hang out and watch.
I loved playing that game! So much nostalgia for me, sounds like for you too
Interestingly enough that's one of the 6 sports that were invented and are a part of the Gaelic Athletic Association here in Ireland. It is one of the least played sports here but its funny that it's popular in America and Canada
The handball I played in school is like totally different game 😂
LOL same here, but I wish we had played this version, it's awesome
@@lamelists Looks like a lot of fun!
It is fun to play. I played indoor handball 35 years ago. The overall gameplay has not changed much. Some rules have changed to make it even faster.
Considering how big the USA are and the technology they have spread throughout the states, I'm not that surprised they have so many medals. If I were to sum up the populations of European countries to match the USA's one (333 million people), it would be UK, France, Germany, Italy and Spain combined. These five countries number of Olympic medals in total would be 3364 medals (UK 938, France 785, Germany 663, Italy 630 and Spain 348). Anyway, this comment was just to show how envious I am. lol
LOL don't be envious! The US has the perfect blend of population size, technology, money, infrastructure, and culture to become a sporting powerhouse. Hard to replicate that elsewhere!
@@lamelists The secret is to be the sports based country with the highest percentage of black guys. But that doesn't always work because some sports are more skill based like soccer
if you include every historical version of Germany, Germany has 1821, of those 922 as GER(1896-1952 & since 1992), 137 as EUA(1956-1964), 243 as FRG (1968-1988) and 519 as GDR(1968-1988).
the per capita argument is invalid since rules artificially cap how many athletes nations can send, plus there's a finite number of events. It'd be as meaningless as tracking goals per capita in a game and concluding Brazilians suck at soccer because they only beat Honduras 4-1 instead of 40-1. It's still 11 v 11 on the field and there's a time limit. Per capita comparisons are for open ended stats like GDP, not constrained ones.
The difference is that medal tables are counting something tangible. "Fair" or not, those medals really exist and represent events that really happened. By contrast per capita comparisons are artificial constructs that ignore Olympic rules and nature, and have no connection to reality. They're fallacious and meaningless.
And yes the cap on athletes each nation can send will logically impact medals. We can see the likely empirical impact with split German teams going from a combined 142 medals in 1988 to 82 with a unified team in 1992. That may be as close to a controlled experiment as we can get.
Number restrictions make a huge difference and the limitation of only having a finite number of medals to win is an even bigger factor. Consider this. Bermuda, with a pop. of 70k, won its only gold medal ever at these games. China, with a pop. of roughly 1.4 billion, would have to win 20,000(!) gold medals at the Tokyo games to match them per capita. There are only 332 events. China having a hard time would be one thing, but that it's a mathematical IMPOSSIBILITY should be a warning sign that per capita comparisons are fundamentally flawed in this case. If Bermuda somehow had 1.4 billion people to draw from but retained the same sleepy island culture it wouldn't win 20,000 medals (mathematically impossible).
Nations are restricted in amount of athletes they can send, such that Americans on a bad day could not qualify for US Olympics team but on good day could win a medal. If every event didn’t have nationality restrictions and people on qualified on merit/time, the US would have 50x more athletes in and would win nearly that much more. You see this by virtue of the fact that tiny European nations that are less than 5% of the US population have about 30% of the athletes as the US. Or put another way, if all 50 US states were separate countries, instead of about 500-600 athletes from the US, you’d have 7000-8000 athletes if you added up how many each of the 50 states would get as separate countries. Furthermore, with a limited amount of events and law of diminishing return, it’s impossible for a huge nation to win per capita. If New Zealand won one gold medal, China could win every other event in the Olympics and still be behind in per capita. Not to mention that per capita is not how we rate best nations in sports. In , Uruguay is clearly the best nation per capita, but they aren’t considered the best; Argentina now or Brazil all time because they are current world champions or have won the most all time are considered the best at
@@AW-zk5qb So are you saying that its just a giant coincidence that the big countries always win the most medals, the medium sized countries always finish in the middle of that table and the small countries always win the least amount of medals? That happens every 4 years since the olympics began. Football / soccer is different because that is a skill based sport that relies more on natural talent, and not a sport that relies on athletic ability. It is a lottery how many world class football players a country will produce.
Surprised to hear about field hockey! It's a super common sport for girls in high school here. Not sure why we lag behind compared to other women's team sports.
It's quite unfortunate for sure, super popular here in Canada too. North America is a VERY long way behind Europe, that's for sure
Trampoline looks like such a fun sport.
They go so high, it's wild to watch!
I remember back in Panamerican Games 2011 USA beat Argentina in the final of women's hockey which gave the USA a ticket to London 2012 and Argentina (a World powerhouse) had to walk another path to qualify. But in London Argentina went on to win silver and USA did not make it past the group stage; it defeated Argentina in the group stage match, though. In Rio 2016 USA had a stunning first round winning all matches but one (beating Argentina again) but it lost to Germany in the knockout stage
So maybe USA field hockey has more of a chance than we think?
Excellent video. Loved the part with the handball and badminton.
Thank you, glad you liked it!
When it comes to racket sports, ping pong and badminton are types of sports American players rarely won in those events outside the Olympics.
Another commenter pointed out that table tennis especially is something that is growing rapidly in the US due to increased immigration from Asian countries. So maybe the US sucks today, but it seems like there is a growing potential for future strength
@@lameliststhe talent pool in China is SOOOOOOOOO big. It's honestly hard to imagine any other country taking gold in the next 3 Olympics. There's a few active players who are good enough to win gold, from Brazil, Germany, and Japan, and France, specifically, but even then, 4 of the 5 top players are currently Chinese.
@@lamelistsThe US has won badminton gold in the world championship (not olympics) way back in 2005.
Mens double pair consisting of
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Bach
And en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Gunawan who is naturalised citizen and ex Olympics gold medallist.
As bach moved to the US aged 2, arguably at least the US system has produced half a pair with an outside but decent shot, although that was 20 years back.
Table tennis is far and away the most popular sport in the country that until this year was the world's most populous. Unless an elite Chinese player emigrates to the US mid-career and qualifies for citizenship, the US is never winning a gold in table tennis, and probably never even medalling.
As far as I know about which race of an American likes sports, Asian Americans like ping pong and badminton. Whites and blacks prefer baseball and football. Almost all races in the US like basketball.
Allow me to introduce you to the Olympic Event known as the Modern Pentathlon.
First introduced into Olympic competition in Stockholm in 1912, it was set up with 5 events in which military officers had to master in case they found themselves behind enemy lines and had to return to their own lines.
For the Olympics the event was dominated by European military Officers up till the 1936 games in Berlin won by a German Luftwaffe offices. With an American coming in 2nd to claim the Silver medal.
In the 1912 Olympics a Lt. George S. Patton competed for the USA, coming in 4th, just a narrow margin out of 3rd place.
The competition is as follows; an officer finds himself behind enemy lines and he must use 5 different specialities to escape/evade capture.
The 1st event is usually FENCING. All contestants use the same type us "sword" in a round-robin competition.
(so now the officer is free, and he must "steal" a horse to start back to his own lines)
All contestants choose a horse by "pot luck" one that they have NEVER ridden before. There is a time element for Riding the horse over the same course that is no less than 5 kilometers.
This event is NOT show jumping, but includes Riding over fences, hedges and at least one water obstacle.
The next event is SHOOTING. All must use the same type of handgun, in this competition. Shooting at a target no less than 50 meters distance.
Next is the SWIMMING competition. Again on a timed competition over a course of no less than 2,000 meters.
Finally there is the RUNNING competition on a course of no less than 3 kilometers. Again your running against the clock, and not against any other competitor.
In scoring the competition the lower the score the better your place, like golf and cross country.
I hope this has cleared up this Olympic event.
Appreciate the introduction!
I believe we just won gold in table tennis
Which event in table tennis?
The crazy thing is, in football the US women's team is one of the best in the world and they have won gold medals (and World Cups), but on the male side they are not even close, and I don't see the gap closing any time soon.
Great list!
US football/soccer is probably the wildest case of the women absolutely dominating the men in terms of international performance. I could do a video on just that topic alone, it's insane
I heard that title nine has a lot to do with it. since there were no female american football teams on colleges, they gave a lot of scolarships to womens soccer
Women football is still developing in most other countries. They will be more competitive and can beat USWNT in the future.
@lamelists it's actually pretty simple bro. Most countries are severely undeveloped when it comes to the female side of the sport so there's not much competition for the women but that's changing and other countries are catching up fast
Well, Spain are world cup reigning champions and they have the last 2 ballon d'or in the national team, so yeah, Europe its catching up really fast. The thing is there is nothing like college sports and their money in Europe, and that helped a lot to develop women football in the US way quicker. But with the Women Champions League gaining level year by year and European clubs getting more involved every year, they will dominate eventually like in men.
“The US can get 1 or 2 great athletes from a population of 340 millions”
Yeah but the sport is really popular in China, India, and Indonesia with a total population of more than 3 billions people.
For sure, and that's why they haven't medaled in those events yet. But the US can provide way more money, coaching, training, and infrastructure to make up the current gap. Olympic athletes aren't just born, they're made, and they're primarily made with those tools. And no country on earth can match the US in those regards, so if they ever wanted to catch up, they would
@@lamelists more money and better infrastructures than India and Indonesia, sure. But I highly doubt they can match China’s resources in badminton.
I'm America and I really enjoy handball. I fell in love with the Rio 2016 Men's German team and have followed them in Euros and World Championships since, and of course Olympics.
Handball is fantastic, I really wish it would become bigger in North America!
Best handball teams historically are France, Spain, Denmark, Croatia, Sweden
"How subjective and bootlicking do you want to be in a video?" Lame Lists: "Hold my beer"
Whoa, I had beer?
@@lamelists apparently 🤪
Humble bragging time. The first gold in rhythmic gymnastics was won by a Canadian, Lori Fung 🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦🇨🇦
As a fellow Canadian, I approve that humble brag
Norway has about 135k active hanball players men and women, with the national team for women bringing home gold multiple times.
With a pop of +350m US should have 5 times that registered players.
Totally agree. I don't want to say Norway is better and smarter than the US, but I'm not NOT saying that either
That’s like saying China should be able to find 11 good soccer players. Unless a sport has a culture in your country it’s hard to get anywhere especially in team sports.
Modern Pentathlon are events for not a soldier but a douchy rich kid who gets to jump strait to an officer. I can see LA keeping Breaking, and setting it up on the beach, that would be great visuals
Well they've already said they are going to have Flag Football as one of their more "local" choices, and the IOC usually puts a cap on the number of events, so something will have to give
I didn’t even know they had men’s field hockey. Kinda reminds me of when I found out there was men’s soccer
You learn something new everyday!
badminton is wicked fun
Couldn't agree more
I’ve been binging your videos, really enjoying them! Trampoline was the most surprising for me on this list. I’ll bet we see a US gold this year
Thanks for checking out the videos on the channel, much appreciated! Yeah trampoline was a surprising one for me too, the US is so good at gymnastics across the board that I figured they had won one by now. Paris 2024 could well be their year, we'll see!
It always bugged me that the only Olympic sports they would play on TV were those the US dominates in.
Right? Hard to create exposure for other global sports if they're never shown to people
I thought forrest won a medal in table tennis????
Sadly no, must have been a World Championships or something because Table Tennis didn't make it to the Olympics until 1988. That said, as it's a fictional movie, we can pretend it was the Olympics lol
I heard he was a good long distance runner too 😉😅
@@SueP-D Dude would have been a monster Olympian, that's for sure!
Here in Australia handball is the schoolyard game four square
Another amazing variant!
Or it's how the ball is passed by hand in Australian Rules Football (Aussie Rules, AFL etc)
@@Mhjeffrey027running TRUE!
I don't know that it's that impressive that the 3rd most populous, and easily the country that invests the most in Olympic sport, is the most successful. There's smaller countries that do really well that I think is much more impressive, like Jamaica, Australia and New Zealand.
For sure, on a per capita basis, the US isn't all that impressive. Combine a huge population with tons of money, a culture focused on winning, and world class infrastructure and Olympic success is basically inevitable
the per capita argument is invalid since rules artificially cap how many athletes nations can send, plus there's a finite number of events. It'd be as meaningless as tracking goals per capita in a game and concluding Brazilians suck at soccer because they only beat Honduras 4-1 instead of 40-1. It's still 11 v 11 on the field and there's a time limit. Per capita comparisons are for open ended stats like GDP, not constrained ones.
The difference is that medal tables are counting something tangible. "Fair" or not, those medals really exist and represent events that really happened. By contrast per capita comparisons are artificial constructs that ignore Olympic rules and nature, and have no connection to reality. They're fallacious and meaningless.
And yes the cap on athletes each nation can send will logically impact medals. We can see the likely empirical impact with split German teams going from a combined 142 medals in 1988 to 82 with a unified team in 1992. That may be as close to a controlled experiment as we can get.
Number restrictions make a huge difference and the limitation of only having a finite number of medals to win is an even bigger factor. Consider this. Bermuda, with a pop. of 70k, won its only gold medal ever at these games. China, with a pop. of roughly 1.4 billion, would have to win 20,000(!) gold medals at the Tokyo games to match them per capita. There are only 332 events. China having a hard time would be one thing, but that it's a mathematical IMPOSSIBILITY should be a warning sign that per capita comparisons are fundamentally flawed in this case. If Bermuda somehow had 1.4 billion people to draw from but retained the same sleepy island culture it wouldn't win 20,000 medals (mathematically impossible).
Nations are restricted in amount of athletes they can send, such that Americans on a bad day could not qualify for US Olympics team but on good day could win a medal. If every event didn’t have nationality restrictions and people on qualified on merit/time, the US would have 50x more athletes in and would win nearly that much more. You see this by virtue of the fact that tiny European nations that are less than 5% of the US population have about 30% of the athletes as the US. Or put another way, if all 50 US states were separate countries, instead of about 500-600 athletes from the US, you’d have 7000-8000 athletes if you added up how many each of the 50 states would get as separate countries. Furthermore, with a limited amount of events and law of diminishing return, it’s impossible for a huge nation to win per capita. If New Zealand won one gold medal, China could win every other event in the Olympics and still be behind in per capita. Not to mention that per capita is not how we rate best nations in sports. In , Uruguay is clearly the best nation per capita, but they aren’t considered the best; Argentina now or Brazil all time because they are current world champions or have won the most all time are considered the best at
and what are you talking about, the US is the only country that DOESN'T put government money into their Olympic team
@@AW-zk5qb ya US sport is awful badly funded, get a grip. Doesn't have to be government funding, the US does well, but there are other countries who's achievements are more impressive
@@AW-zk5qb a true American doesn't want to lose 😂 here's your gold medal in the comment section copy pasting event 🥇 Please don't bomb my country 🙏 USA! USA! USA!
The trampoline 😂
LOLZ
Canadian here, we played olympic style handball in gym class, never heard of the ball slapping one
Damn, how did we have such different Canadian upbringings lol
@@lamelists I'm a west coast kid, I assume you're more towards the Atlantic?
@@A_Baguette_ Yeah, Ontario
you forgot rugby sevens, new addition the past two olympics and the only gold medallists have been Australia, Fiji, and New Zealand.
I didn't forget it, I deliberately didn't include some the events that only just got added to the games. It didn't seem fair to include them since there's only been a single iteration of them. A few folks have brought this up, so in hindsight I should have just said this right in the video, but I'll know for next time
The US just won a bronze medal in women's rugby after they upset Australia. So a gold medal for them in the future may be even closer than we thought.
@@bstm6911 Congrats to the US women's team!
As for hockey, handball and rhythm gymnastics ....I would say the USA still has a looooong way to get any medal, since the USA can't even beat the best teams in its Panamerican region; Argentina dominates hockey with only Canada and Chile giving some competiton on the men's side and USA battling with Chile for a 2nd place with women. Brazil and Mexico teams domimate rhythm gymnastics with the USA teams always getting 3rd or 2nd at best. Argentina and Brazil dominates handball with the USA rarely making it to the semifinais in any Panamerican competition. Heck, The USA can't even with titles in the North-Carribean division.
The potential is there, but I'd say the lack of popularity of those sports among Americans avoid talents to be discovered and improved
Yup, some of these I could see the US breaking through sometime soon (trampoline for example), but others will require more of a culture shift that seems a long way off
The issue is money. If you have talent for trampoline or rhythmic gym, your going to have the same skills to succeed in artistic gym, where, if successful, you will never have to work again after retirement and all your training will be sponsored. If you have the talent for handball, why play that when you can make millions playing basketball? And why play field.hockey when you can learn to skate and play ice.hickey for way more money?
@@MsJubjubbirdNot really. Having a natural aptitude for rhytmic gymnastics doesn't mean you could be equally successful at artistic gymnastics/ trampoline or vice versa. Hard work can only get you so far if you don't have the proper body type, flexibility, etc. Same with handball vs. basketball. Russia has traditionally dominated every sport that required a ballet training to look better for judges. When you look at an American rhytmic gymnast and a Russian one, the difference between the skills are often very visible and the otherwise very pretty American gymnasts look bulky and clumsy. It's sad but the US knows how to get better if they want to - all it takes is a few trainers/ former olympians from Russia/ the Ukraine/ Romania etc. This normally leads to improved results but in the end the harsh and often abusive Eastern training methods get rejected by the athletes and by society (which leads to slow but steady decline again - until the new Holy Grail is found).
about rhythmic gymmastcis the worst part the best americna gymansts still have no chanche against the best eurpean gymnast
btw we fans still ask ourselves how Zeng was able to wi the elegance prize in 2019 ...
@@juditsomi4287 the requirements are similar- strength, low centre of graity flexibility. Now if you're strong, a good tumbler and flexible in the US, artistic is far more lucrative than trampolining or rhythmic. A lot of countries will redirect their artistic gymnasts into other gymnastic sports if they aren't going to make the artistic squad. The entire Chinese aerial ski team are redirected gymnasts and they dominate. Likewise with their divers and trampoliners and also Romanian aerobic athletes. Handball and basketball require similar skills- hand eye coordination, good at sprints, some sort of height. Sometimes you hear of athletes that could have been professionals in 2 or more ball sports. Now if was in the US, I could play basketball and never work again once my career is over and potentially have all my training paid for, or handball and be scrimping for funding and have to work as an assistant sports teacher until retirement
This is actually a comforting video, it brings hope, because AMERICA WINS ALL THE TIME and there should be some sports where other countries actually have a chance
Absolutely, as a Canadian I couldn't agree more lol
FYI Patton was close to Silver Medal but they claimed that he missed a target. He went from second to fifth. You can look it up it happened in 1912. If I remember correctly.
Someone else pointed that out, I had NO IDEA. I wish I had known that earlier, I probably would have made a whole video on it alone
He would have won the gold, but insisted on using his Army sidearm in the shooting competition instead of the precision pistol the Olympics provided, finished last in the shooting portion, and dropped to fifth overall.
@@scottblish766 thanks for the information. I know there was something that went on. Do you know why they didn't fight to over turn the out come????
Race Walking. USA has won 4 medals in history, zero gold. USA is now so bad, even the best Americans couldn't secure an invitation to participate in the Olympics.
Another great example, thanks!
So in field hockey specifically it’s notorious that the Americans are bad at it. It’s the same with football, that the culture just isn’t there to start from an early age. The Netherlands is really successful in the sport, because people there start to practice and train in the sport from 6 years old. No American sports have that kind of dedication
The Netherlands treats field hockey the way the USA treats American Football and Canadians treat hockey. It's more like religion than sports
@@lamelists I wouldn’t say the same, because I don’t see American kids start playing American Football at a club at 6
@@gameandflogchannel You need to spend more time in East Texas then lol
The US is dedication to sports they like look at Basketball there are other sports also I mention Basketball because so many other country's play it.
That last part is not true about American sports. In swimming many of the greatest swimmers in the US start swimming as early as around 4-6 years old some older but many of the best in the US start around the same time as many in Europe begin doing field hockey
So as a Dane - I think you might have forgotten us just a bit in some of these wonderful comments you came with. Denmark has a great history in both badminton AND handball and has won gold in both of these events. And one of the favorites to win in both of these in Paris even.
With that said: I think it´s just a matter of time before the US manges to really break into any of these. With a huge population of some 300 million I think the chances are there for some of these in the future - depending on if the US is willing to put in the time and energy it takes to make it to the top.
No shade to Denmark, I had another Dane bring that up too and I promise it was nothing personal or intentional! Huge respect to Denmark's Olympic tradition, which is way more accomplished than people realize.
And yes, you said it right: if the US puts in the time and energy (and money and infrastructure), they will win, full stop. At least eventually. Some could happen soon (trampoline for example), so would take time (table tennis for sure), but it would be inevitable if the US committed to it.
Let's go Axelsen ! Denmark is impressive as hell
I’m Canadian. I played competitive Handball when I was younger. It’s just not that popular in North America. Too bad. It’s an awesome game to both play and watch.
It's such a shame it's not more popular in North America, it's a fantastic sport
Badminton and Handball both have similar issues, one that perhaps applies slightly less to Rhythmic Gymnastics and field hockey: the athletes who would be best suited for those sports get pulled into other events. Instead of handball, Americans go into basketball; badminton gets replaced by tennis or volleyball. IN North America, field hockey is replaced by ice hockey or la crosse, a non-Olympic sport that if added would be dominated by the US and Canada.
With rhythmic gymnastics there's the prevalence of artistic gymnastics, and some history of active suppression of the sport due to its connection to the Turners movement, a German social and philosophical practice that was accused of being anti-religious and was deemed highly suspicious due to its somewhat nebulous but definitely extant connections with socialism and European Nationalism.
With respect to Modern Pentathlon, George Patton, yes, that George Patton, probably should have won a medal in 1912. In the shooting event, contestants fired five shots at a single paper target. When his was retrieved, the judges counted four holes, and scored a zero-point miss, rather than the more likely conclusion that he had put two shots through one hole, which some contemporaneous observers claimed to be over-sized. This miss dropped him to fifth in the scoring and out of the medals.
Thanks for the insightful and detailed reply. I didn't know that about Patton, cool story!
You do not need to be super tall to perform well in handball. Handball s biggest "market" is Europe where basketball is also important. Athletes from both sports have different attributes.
@@ahfei6847 A quick search brought me to an article stating that the Dutch handball team is becoming known for running a small lineup by international standards. Another search revealed that the average height on the roster is 1.9m, 6' 3" to those of us who use American units. You get a 15-year-old in the US who's over 6 ft and can handle a ball and coaches are going to think basketball guard or small forward, not "We've got to build a handball team around this kid."
@@basher20 1,90 is tall compared to the average man, but it also means about half of handball players are below the 1,90 mark which is still pretty short compared to the average basketball player. I mean short enough to be overlooked by bball scouts
Thanks for the informative video! The US only has one top level Badminton athlete at the moment and that’s Beiwen Zhang in the women’s singles who was born and trained in China before emigrating. She has only a puncher’s chance of medaling this year.
Worse yet, the sport is lacking in finance and frankly popular interest in the US, as it is almost played exclusively by Asian-Americans!
Glad you liked it! Yeah things are looking grim for the US in badminton, it will take a generation at minimum to get going there and that's only if some more budget and infrastructure are added to support it.
In 1984, my parents, my cousin and I saw the gold and bronze medal game for team handball at the Great Western Forum. I was 12 1/2 years old.
I bet that was awesome! Do you still live in LA? Can you go to the 2028 games when they come back?
Modern pentathlon is getting rid of the equestrian aspect after these games for some sort of obstacle course, so I think that might help open the event to more Americans and improve the US' chances in the future.
In general, it will be interesting to see the impact of this change. Will it be a big deal or not so much? Time will tell
When did USA win a gold medal in Rugby/Rugby Sevens? Hard to imagine them getting a medal in it, but big respect to them if it happened!
They have not won it! But I didn't include it deliberately as it's only been at a single Olympics, so it didn't seem fair to hit them with that as a gap in the gold medal table.
Also, the USA did win rugby gold in back to back years in 1920 and 1924, so they do have rugby gold still
Remarkably the US has won gold medals in rugby. Albeit back in 1920 and 1924. They got a bronze in Women’s 7s in Paris so they’re not a million miles away despite not being one of the traditional rugby nations.
Absolutely, there is definitely hope on the horizon for the US in rugby 7s. The women proved that they are in the hunt, and being on their home turf in 2028, who knows what could happen!
Finally watched handball coverage today, and yes, I truly think that sport has a hard time catching one at least partly due to name confusion... My whole family only knew of the one played against a wall ... Very different games...
Yep, I was a ball against the wall handball guy too. It seems trivial, and it's not up to handball to change the name, but it could be where some of the confusion comes from. It's not a good excuse at all, but it could be at least a contributing factor.
@@lamelistsIts funny. Because in Europe nobody knows that the ball-against-wall-handball exists. There isn't even a different name for it either. Wikipedia just lists it as "American Handball".
Will be interesting to see a winter list.
Definitely, there are some interesting ones on the list for sure!
I think is just ski jumping.
@@Mr1888888888 There's a bit more than that, eventually I'll do the full video!
Say no more. I’m about to become the “Patches O’Houlihan” of field hockey!! It won’t be long until we have some Avg Joes become champion!!
HAHA do it! What are the 5 D's of field hockey, coach?
@@lamelists “That’s what this sack of wrenches is for”. “if you can dodge a wrench, you can score in Field Hockey!!”
@@chiefgangmusic The hero that Field Hockey needs
American gymnastics only began to take off in the 90s, and our men's team has never reached the same level of success as the women's team. We structed our program to match the success of the USSR ans Romania. I'm not surprised we haven't medalled in a male element.
Well given the relative success of the women's program, and the expanding interest in men's gymnastics, it stands to reason the US eventually puts some hardware on the wall there
Nothing like a humble, well researched, unrealistic posting.
Sorry, not following?
The problem in the US is too much emphasis on football and basketball and not enough on other sports. 99% of our top athletes are in the stands watching the biggest 1%.
I noticed the irony of that during these Olympics as well. If you took the money from just one of the basketball or football players and allocated it to Handball, for example, you'd probably have a gold medal within a generation
If the USA put some NBA and NFL players in the mix, then handball is easily getting dominated. The skills will translate perfectly
For sure, the USA has every reason to be amazing at handball, but they aren't. So it's kind of like saying "if my uncle was a woman, he'd be my aunt".
US celebrates total medals but we fall way short from other countries that have more GOLD medals
I was just reading a US-written article about the "bad" total of gold medals and whether it was time to panic
Why do the handballers look so epic in their still pics.
Because it's an epic sport! I have no clue why it's not more popular in the US (and here in Canada too)
In table tennis, a US woman was the first to ever make the round of 16. Thats how dominant Asia is at table tennis. We cant even get out of the round of 32
Yep, and folks treated it like it was a gold medal on its own. And you know what, it's a great achievement and a big step forward, but as you say, it shows just how far out in front a few other countries are right now
We just won Fencing 🤺 and medaled in Rugby 🏉 We haven't medaled in skateboarding yet 🛹
And, somehow, just won table tennis!
Field Hockey: India has most medals including 6 consecutive golds
A wild 30 year stretch of dominance back in the day!
My sister was both a field hockey player and a badmiton player in high school and I, being younger, would wait for her practices to end and walk home w/ her (saftey in numbers -- Mother). Well, at one point, both her teams were in need of players to help bump the numbers up for practice and I would volunteer and step in as a fill-in player -- those girls were mean w/ those hockey sticks to the shins. Her badmiton team was also in need of fill-in players, so I would jump in there as well and got pretty good, so I asked if I could join the team, because it was non-contact sport, but the other players were really upset that a boy would be competing against them and the coach nixed it. Tough games, both.
I appreciate you dropping in that story to the comments, I love hearing about these personal experiences from viewers, it really hammers home how we all have a connection to Olympic events no matter how professional or amateur you are. And it's great you played both, gives a better appreciation for how tough they are!
I don't think the USA has ever even qualified for Handball in the Olympics
They have qualified but it's been a while. The last time was in 1996 where they finished 9th in the Olympics (that's on the men's side at least). But as the host country in 2028 they will have an opportunity to field men's and women's teams, so I guess we'll see how they stack up then!
@@lamelists 96 would have been an automatic qualification since the games were in Atlanta. Okay I looked it up and the men have qualified 4 times when the games were outside the U.S with the last time being in 1988 and the woman have qualified twice not counting 84 and 92 when the they got an automatic spot with the last time also in 1988
And now we can add to this list Breaking
A few of the newer sports can go on this list, for the next Olympics there's going to be quite a few more!
the usa handball player shown in the video is named Gary Hines. really cool dude, who plays in germany and has competed on american ninja warrior
Wow, all around legend
I follow Hockey and I can safely say that the US men will never compete in our life times and the Women are sitting at round 13th in the World, so there is an outside chance of a podium in the next few decades.
That seems to be the general feedback in this comment section, the men are DOA in the sport and the ladies have some work to do. Go ladies!
We got one in table tennis this year!
Did you? Which table tennis event?
Modern Penthatlon is quite surprising given the huge military and sports tradition in the US. Trampoline is easier to explain. It is quite new. Rhythmic gymnastics is a European thing, same with Handball.
Yeah it's curious as the US is pretty strong in the individual disciplines of the modern pentathlon, but just haven't been able to put the whole thing together
@@lamelists i think specialization is the main thing. Pentathletes tend to only compete in their events and not try to try their luck in separate events. It has been dominated by Europeans.
Technically USA also has not won a gold medal in climbing but it has only been introduced in the Tokyo Olympics
Absolutely true, I didn't bother with a few of the brand new events as every country in the world other than one, by definition, hasn't won one yet lol
Forrest Gump could beat the Chinese in table tennis 😎
He's the GOAT, no doubt about it
@@lamelists frrr
My grandpa played handball every week at a club in San Francisco most of his life. It was 2 guys slamming a ball against a wall openhanded. 🤔
Yep, that's what I played in the schoolyard too!
Rhythmic gymnastics is my favorite obscure sport.
What do you like about it?
@@lamelists I like to watch the fluttering of the ribbons. I also like to see the female holding onto the ball while doing a graceful backflip.
@@gwillis01 I don't know how they pull off some of the moves they do, it's incredible!
@@lamelists It's amazing what you can do if you practice consistently every week from the age of five to the age of sixteen.
Nice lists. I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the majority of these sports are not a part of our collegiate sports system which means we don't have a way to develop these types of athletes. Only Field Hockey (this might be women only) and some parts of the modern pentathlon are college sports. Field Hockey is the only one that surprises me.
Agree with you completely, the NCAA is the minor leagues of the Olympics for America. If it ain't there in quantity, it won't be at the Olympics for the USA
We have trampolines parks all round the US 😂😂😂
So where are all those gold medals?!
@@lamelists 🤷🤷🤷
The trampoline one is PARTICULARLY odd, because Canada is for some reason in second place all time on the trampoline medal tables. While China is FAR ahead, it’s weird to see Canada and not the US winning medals.
Strange indeed, do you have any idea what the explanation is of the relative performance of Canada and the US?
@@lamelists my only real hypothesis is that in 2000 when trampoline debut as an Olympic sport Canada won bronze in both the men’s and women’s competition. So from the start Canada has been relatively successful and thus Canadian children have been privy to Olympic medalists in trampoline at EVERY Olympics it has existed in.
@@niallgyulay6849 That makes some sense for sure, success inspires success. I wonder if it's a dam ready to burst and, once the first US gymnast breaks through, the floodgates will open for other American gymnasts
With field hockey the Netherlands are the favorites at the women's, followed by Argentina. With the gents it's more a toss-up between Belgium, UK, Germany, Netherlands and Australia. I don't USA coming close to a medal in the near future. It will take years to get competitive and US-players probably have to move to Europe to get used to the high level of play.
Agreed. Too many great countries ahead of the USA and culturally there just isn't enough momentum for the sport in America
On a good day, India can also compete with all of these countries in the mens. It’s still the 2nd biggest international played sport in the country and we dominated it for decades until astroturf came around.
The US has never won a gold medal in men’s football/soccer, our best finish was in 1904 when we got silver and that year only 3 teams competed, with 2 being American :(
In MEN'S football they've never won, but the WOMEN'S team has been absolutely dominant, so that offsets it for me
I'm guessing pickleball will be in the olympics soon.
I could totally see it happening, there aren't many more sports that are gaining traction faster than that one
I played a bit of feild hockey in school and was always told how it's a woman sport in the us and a men's sport everywhere else. I kept wanting, but forgetting, to look up how we do at the olympics. Not well.
And yeah, our rhythmic gymnastics is amazing, but nothing compared to other countries.
Field hockey is a great sport, I'm sorry that you got steered away from it. For what it's worth, it's the same here in Canada, very female-dominated and few options for me compared to overseas.
As an American I’ve tried to get hyped about handball but the lack of dribbling bothers me. Basketball requires much more skill.
Yeah it's an interesting difference for sure, but I'm sure the Handball fans would argue that while dribbling takes skill, it's also perhaps an unnecessary or superfluous part of the game
@@lamelists I’m just saying running around carrying a ball is much easier than running around dribbling a ball
@@donlitt Oh totally, from a technical perspective it's super different
Rhythmic gymnastics is not a growing sport. It is definitely a question of if we ever win
Well there is strong momentum to start having a men's competition in the sport, so I'd call that growing the sport
bro we need that badminton medal im dying out here playing it all my life
USA got that table tennis gold, maybe badminton is coming soon?!
Currently the highest ranked american badminton player is Beiwen Zhang but she needs to work very hard to win an olympic medal. Tai Tzu Ying, Chen Yufei, An Se Young, Carolina Marin separates her from the olympic podium.
Yup, tough sledding ahead in badminton for the USA
Make next video on the olympic events where Nepal has never won a gold medal
Unfortunately, that would be a very, very, very, VERY long video
Don't worry about badminton. Good athlete keep popping up from outside Asia. ViKtor Axelsen of Denmark has won Gold Medals twice, And Carolina Marin of Spain has won 1 gold meal back in Rio 2016. But, even the dominating Malaysia never won any Gold since 1992, so I believe if US wanted they can surely found a good player and good coach to win the Gold.
I totally agree that, if the US wanted to make the investment, they could figure out a way to a Gold. That's probably the case with all of these events, it's a question of priorities
7:18, are you talking about wall ball?
Yep, it seems to go by a bunch of names, but that's one of them
Field hockey, also known as hockey.
I need, as a Canadian, to differentiate it from ice hockey
I have for a long time said that handball is the PERFECT sport for Americans. I dont understand how it has not caught on over there. Maybe its too similar to basketball? Like, someone like LeBron would be insane on the handball court.
I could not agree with you more, it seems to combine all of the elements that thrive in American sports today. Handball is basically what happens if you combine ice hockey, American football, and basketball, so how is it not HUGE?!?!
I have checked and USA has won gold in all of these competitions in the Pan-American Games* (yes, even field hockey and trampoline). Of course, it's a much lower level of competition and only the Americas compete. But still.
*except rhythmic gymnastics which is not part of the event
The USA has the money, people, and infrastructure to win in any of these events of they really wanted to. It all comes down to priorities and focus and spending
Create a video on how the arenas look for Paris Olympic and their theme
Good one! I'm already pretty loaded with content through the Paris 2024 games for Olympic stuff, but I just put it on my ideas list and if I can squeeze it in, I'll give it a go
I remember the table tennis event tickets sold out very quickly in Atlanta and I wanted to go so bad since I played when I was younger. I am so disappointed the US has never one a medal
That would have been awesome to see live. I actually had the good fortune to see a Baseball game live in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics, I'll never forget it!
If USA didn't have their own sports, they would have been top 3 in most if not all of the team sports
Perhaps, unfortunately we'll never know for sure
What we played as a kids slapping a ball at a wall was called “Wallball”.
Another good name for it, probably better as it differentiates more clearly from the "real" handball
Mostly are not commercialized or not popular to audience so it's not surprising that the US doesn't win on these events. Centralized programs have huge advantage on these events.
Absolutely. As I've commented before, Olympic success is created, not born. It requires money, infrastructure, training, coaching, and cultural support to happen. Centralized programs, as you say, bring all of that to the table
I don't think we have much of a shot for field hockey within the next decade if not longer it's not a big enough sport in the US for how popular it is in the Scandinavian and other European countries who are absolutely nuts at FH
Yeah it seems that way. I'm no expert, but lots of pretty knowledgeable Field Hockey people in these comments have said there's no chance without serious cultural buy-in, especially on the men's side
@@lamelists completely agreed here because even the top end of D1 NCAA field hockey the women there I don't think could realistically compete against the likes of Belgium Germany or the Netherlands