Since most of their common sports don't coincide with the ones at the olympics so instead of having thousands of tennis players (for example) to choose from they only have a handful of total players, who have mostly played in a low competition environment and can't adapt well to the olympics requirements?

I always thought that poverty encouraged sports =/. Since, you know, when you know you don't have a big chance of making it through traditional means you're more inclined to drop out of school at an early age and focus on doing various sports activities hoping that you'll be the one guy that ends up making a decent living off it. Everyone I know that got into sports proffesionally was either poor as hell, had parents professionally play the same sports or had deluded parents who think that the chance that your kid maybe - maybe- will be pretty and on TV for a maximum of 5 years is worth sending your kid to a small centre in the middle of nowhere where they are made to practice 18 hours a day, suffer through eating disorders and lots of body dysfunctions and basically do nothing but hurt themselves falling off a stick for 10 years, whilst being basically illiterate and having no other skills aside from prettily dancing on a stick is a totally normal thing to do.

That being said, we had lots of people enroll their kids in gymnastics and sports back in the commie days because there was a chance it might allow their kids to leave the country. What they'd do given the fact that they had basically no education or survival skills somehow never occurred to them; but we did get amazing results!

anyway. So yeah. The high GDP might be exactly why Japan isn't doing well at the olympics .

They have like 3rd most. It's just that they're 3rd place in most of em. They beat every other country that competed, just not the two better than them.

They're good, just not first place good.

If only the Olympics were more like Sasuke XD

Last edited by Bokusenou (2012 August 01, 11:48 pm)

Japan just lacks the full time dedicated training programs most of the high medal count countries have.

The athletes bringing in the gold for China and N Korea are all state sponsored professional athletes who train 100+ hours a week from the age of 5. No joke. They are literally athletic slaves.

USA doesnt have a system like that but many US athletes receive company sponsorship (or university athletic scholarships) and can thus focus full time on training. But even Americans are finding it hard to compete against people groomed from birth...

Basically if Japan wants more medals then they need a system that would allow for full time dedication to training.

financialwar wrote:

as of today,

China      17 Gold,
S. Korea  6 Gold
N. Korea  4 Gold
Japan      2 Gold

GDP Per capita, Japan is highest in Asia, why does Japan suck at sport so much?

Maybe it's because Japan is not doping (and everyone else is, including USA).

I had exactly the opposite impression, Japan is doing fantastically at these games. Every final in swimming seemed to have at least one representative and often they were contenders. Same goes for a lot of disciplines finals, there are always representatives from US, China, Brazil, Australia, Canada, 1-2 European country and Japan (and sometimes Korea). Considering they are shorter on average (smaller pool of potential candidates) and height/build is often key to success, don't care about most of these disciplines and don't have a huge sport scholarship system like US does (incentives for kids to try not only football/baseball/basketball but also track/swimming/gymnastics etc.), they are doing very well.

China is doing great because of their enormous pool of athletes who have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so they train like crazy just so they can escape the life of a farmer or help their whole family. Within such huge group of people there's bound to be someone gifted who beats everyone else and he usually takes the gold.

US hangs on thanks to their decent pool of athletes (for some this is also the only of attending Uni/College), superior training methods, fantastic medical care and state of the art doping (don't get me wrong its not just them, everybody does, they just do it better).

But as China grows economically, gains technologies and know-how (returnees) they can apply that to their current selection and training regimes to gain/extend lead in many disciplines. Its slowly happening already, US is close on a total number but China has like 50% more gold medals and in sports there is a winner and everybody else...

Last edited by thurd (2012 August 02, 1:48 am)

All of these girls are over the age of 16...

http://www.google.co.jp/search?q=2008+c … mp;bih=928

Basically the reason that Japan suck so much at the Olympics is because everyone else is cheating with no evidence.

Insult forum members again and you're getting a ban

Last edited by Zgarbas (2012 August 02, 7:02 am)

Maybe bec they don't have a Supreme Leader who will give them a public whipping should they happen to lose. Ahem. NK.

And what did just happen at the badminton event?


P.s. Appaled that world is being ripped apart and this event still pushed thru.

Why is everyone so convinced about doping and cheating? Just enjoy the games. It's a bit rude to say they suck so much but do they not focus on national sports more over their?

Edit:
Nevermind, they have more medals than I thought in fact, but isn't it strange to assume they'd be near the top with much bigger countries with more potential talent.

Last edited by Necrojesta (2012 August 02, 4:56 am)

financialwar wrote:

No, I don't know the answer, hence why I asked the question. Is the Japanese sport system, is it social aspect, not enough funding, genetics, training? I was hoping to get a proper answer.

So what we've gave so far isn't a 'proper' answer? What. Some people gave good answers.

In England just about any sport you can do is an olympic sport. Not so much in Japan I suppose. Or with the popularity of martial arts and 'the ways' like kendo it's less likely people are going to pick up Olympic sports. Although maybe this isn't a valid argument since they are ninth and clearly do not suck at all considering they are up against other talented countries.

People are quick to ignore the hard work of the athletes and just say oh, Japan isn't first because everyone else is doping but who's to say Japan isn't doping? We have no proof either way. Japan is doing well, better than I thought.