Kuul Play’s Post

“Who really won the Olympics?” The Times listed the best and worst-performing nations at the Games, with New Zealand coming out on top in the former category. New Zealand has been labelled the “overachievers” of the Paris 2024 Olympics after a record gold-medal haul. “Athletes from New Zealand logged an impressive haul of 20 medals at Paris 2024, despite having a population of just over 5 million. Their rate of one medal per 258,000 people is the best among nations to win at least four this summer,” the article says. New Zealand finished 11th on the medal table with 10 gold, seven silver and three bronze, ahead of the likes of Canada, Spain, Sweden and Brazil. The US edged out China to top the table, with the 40th gold coming in the women’s basketball final in which they edged hosts France 67-66. China also finished with 40 gold medals, but had fewer silver and bronze than the US. Australia, France and Grenada were also picked as overachievers. “New Zealand’s neighbours, Australia, boast the best medal rate by gross domestic product (one per $35 billion) among countries to have a GDP in excess of $1 trillion. This has been their best Olympics in terms of gold medals won (18), going beyond the tally they amassed at their home Games in Sydney in 2000 (16),” the article says. Of the 20 total medals, 14 were won by females or female teams. #Olympics #NewZealand

How did Team GB quadruple their Olympic medal tally in 16 years? When we talk about growth in business it's almost always about revenue which is achieved by selling more products and services. But how do governments take a scientific approach to growing their share of medals at the Olympics? There are a number of factors to take into consideration: 🎖️Strategic objectives like promoting participation and inclusiveness 🎖️Number of medals available in each sport (Athletics - 48, Swimming - 37 are the largest by far). 🎖️Talent pipeline and forecasted performance 🎖️Competitive advantages (good luck beating China in the table tennis) 🎖️Economic environment and investment In response to Great Britain’s disastrous performance at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics where they won just 15 medals and only 1 gold, Britain pulled on their growth levers to boost performances at future Games. The British government launched a series of investments in sport, driven by National Lottery funding. They took a data-driven approach to allocating funding, strategically targeting investment in events with the highest medal potential and those where Great Britain had the best chances of winning (e.g. rowing, cycling and swimming). These investments enabled the development of state-of-the-art training facilities, hiring of world-class coaches, and the implementation of comprehensive support programmes for athletes. This led to a remarkable improvement as Great Britain won 28 medals at the Sydney 2000 Olympics. The success built momentum, with medal counts increasing at each subsequent Games, culminating in an outstanding achievement at their home Olympics in London 2012, where they won 65 medals, including 29 golds. How is this relevant in business you may ask... Whether you are managing a portfolio of assets or a portfolio of sports, the same basic rules apply in terms of determining where you should place your chips and how you utilise data to inform your decisions. Click here to find out how we use analytics to help our clients make decisions for their organisation based on data: https://bit.ly/3X0iqEy #DataDrivenDecisions #Analytics #BusinessIntelligence #BusinessGrowth #OrganisationalPerformance #2024Olympics

My take on the South African Olympics team at the moment Watching Team South Africa at the Olympics has been a rollercoaster of emotions for me. The highs have been overshadowed by a series of letdowns, and it's hard not to question the decisions made by our sports administrators. Take Dallas Oberholzer, for example. At 49, his journey to the Olympics was nothing short of inspiring. But finishing 23rd in the prelims has me wondering if we missed a chance to showcase younger talent who might have performed better. Was Dallas the best choice for skateboarding, or could we have given someone else a shot? Our throwers in the discus and shot put have also been disappointing. It’s not just about a few bad performances; these results suggest deeper problems within our athletics programs. Athletes who once had potential are now struggling on the world stage, often falling behind their international competitors. And then there’s Wayde van Niekerk. It’s baffling that he competed in the 200m and ended up last in his semifinal. Why wasn't he running the 400m, where he’s historically excelled? The decision to place him in the 200m instead of the 100m raises serious questions about our athletics administrators’ decision-making. But it’s not all bad news. Edmund du Plessis’ strong performance in the 800m heat and Julia Vincent’s advancement to the diving finals bring some hope. Plus, Jo-Ane van Dyk in the javelin throw and Brian Raats in the high jump are still in contention for medals. These glimpses of promise only highlight the urgent need for change. SASCOC and Athletics South Africa need to seriously rethink their approach. Our athletes have the talent, but without top-notch facilities, coaching, and smart decision-making, they’re set up to fail. If South Africa wants to reclaim its place as a sporting powerhouse, we need to invest in our athletes from a young age and support them properly. Without these changes, we’ll keep facing heartbreaks and falling short on the world stage. As the Olympics continue, let's keep supporting our athletes who are still in the running and push for better from those in charge. Only then can we hope for a brighter future for South African sports. #Olympics2024 #ASA #SASCOC #teamsouthafrica

A great parallel from Neil on complexity in decision-making 👇 We use evaluation frameworks all the time to inform decisions: BRT, light rail or metro; via route A, B or C? Complex rankings and weightings rarely give a 'perfect answer' - instead, critical to understand at an early stage the key factors and policy drivers that decisions can be based upon, and structure our analyses, evaluation and thinking around them.

“The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part, just as the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle. The essential thing is not to have conquered but to have fought well.” Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games Introducing, Be Challenged's MINI OLYMPICS! Just in time for the Paris Olympic Games this July/August! Your teams could compete and take part in your very own, inter-office, trail-blazing, courageous and competitive but also highly inclusive, Olympic dream. Just ask us how! In the Be Challenged MINI OLYMPICS, participants will be split into ‘countries’ that will compete over a series of events. The MINI OLYMPICS is all-inclusive as we modify our events and team sizes to promote inclusion and enjoyment for all participants. At the conclusion of the event, the all-important results are tallied and our medal ceremony is held. As the winners are revealed, everyone will realise that you don’t need years of training to win the gold but rather you just need to compete as a team and believe in each other along the way. https://lnkd.in/gkFp_7-f #teambuilding #olympics #paris2024 #miniolympics #oneteamonedream #leadership #communication #teamwork #strategy #fun #inclusive #australia #corporate #officegames #relationships

Various LinkedIn posts on the Olympics medal table raise interesting questions on the nature of multi-criteria analysis (you’ll need to bear with me on this). The way the table works is that countries are ranked on the number of gold medals their athletes win. Only when golds are tied do silvers come into play and only when silvers are tied are bronzes considered. This is good for big countries that are well represented in Olympic sports (USA, China) but not so good for little countries which excel at a few sports (St Lucia) or big countries where the national game is not (yet) an Olympic sport (India). To get a “better” representation, people have reranked the table, for example on a per capita basis or a GDP basis, which demotes the USA and China, shoots St Lucia up the rankings, but leaves India languishing. In effect, each Olympic sport is a criteria. Who am I to say whether or not the sporting prowess to win a gold in the decathlon is equivalent to that in artistic swimming, or breaking matches up to the marathon. However, in the Olympics medal table every gold medal is treated as equivalent, that is they all have the same weight. So, what we have is a multi-criteria assessment of a nation’s sporting achievements with each criteria (medal) treated with equal weight and summed to reach a score. Various commentators see this as an unfair representation, so re-jig the criteria. They bring silvers and bronzes into play. They consider the measures of each nations scale. They reach different conclusions on which nations have done ‘best’. In transport planning we all like a multi-criteria assessment framework (MCAF). What does the Olympics medal table tell us? ·      The more criteria you have the harder it is to argue that the different criteria are equivalent – when it comes to criteria, less is more ·      Even if we are confident that criteria are comparable, simple rankings can produce perverse outcomes – don’t add up the scores ·      Complex rankings can be manipulated to show options in a better or worse light – don’t do complex rankings. And which nation did best at the Olympics. I was in Dublin yesterday (Monday 12th) and coincided with the homecoming of Team Ireland. Everyone who was on O’Connell Street yesterday lunchtime had only one answer to that question … it was Ireland!

Think you know which countries dominate the Olympics? 😂 Think again! 😂LatAm's island nations are taking home medals and turning heads! This week marked Olympics history. And don't worry, this isn't the millionth story about Snoop Dogg, LeBron James, US gymnastics drama, or the mayor of Paris swimming in the Seine. No, we had our eyes on 29-year old Adriana Ruano Oliva, a Guatemalan sports shooter who just earned her country its first ever gold medal at the Summer Olympics held in France. What's crazy is that this wasn't even her initial sports dream: thirteen years ago, she was training as an Olympic gymnast when a back injury ended her career preemptively and she took up shooting as a sports backup. Today, this young woman from Guatemala City makes her whole country, her whole region, proud. Latin American countries may not get the attention that peers like Japan, China, or the United States do at the Olympics. But don't count out the region for a second. Big Latin American countries like Brazil and Argentina may send quite a few athletes to the Olympics, but proportionally speaking it's much smaller players like Puerto Rico, Uruguay, and the Dominican Republic which impress the most. In the case of Puerto Rico, the small US territory has a staggering 15 people headed to Paris for each million of its citizens- far ahead of the competition. But the Caribbean is not just on fire when it comes to athletic prowess. In taking home medals, too, Latin America's island nations may surprise you. Just take a look at Cuba, which has more medals per capita than basically any other country worldwide. Not too shabby. All in all, the Olympics are a time for bringing nations together through competition, sport, and fair play-as well as the occasional opening ceremony scandal or two. Whether it be this year in Paris or in four years in Los Angeles, we're confident Latin America will continue to show up and demonstrate why some of the best surfers, soccer players, and even trap shooters come from the region.😊 www yativo.com

A fairer way to rank Olympics success – and it’s not per capita When it comes to the Olympic Games, New Zealand punches far above its weight. A recent paper in a scholarly journal by Robert Duncan and Andrew Parece makes this point by developing a new ranking method. Duncan and Parece conclude by drawing attention to three countries that rank among the top ten in the 2020, 2016 and 2012 Games, using either a per-capita approach or a probability ranking approach. These are New Zealand, Hungary and Jamaica. This is true for NZ in 2024 also. NZ ranks among the top 10 both using the per capita approach and Duncan-Parece approach. (Incidentally, I corresponded with Andrew Parece and he said, as noted in the paper, that it was Pete Pfitzinger of Athletics NZ who encouraged them to develop this ranking.) Check out my column in Newsroom if interested. https://lnkd.in/ggzGmVTv Andy Parece

I’m going to take one last look backwards at the 2024 Olympics to set the record straight about Australian B-Girl Rachael “RayGun” Gunn. Not to defend her performance at the Olympic’s first breaking event, but to correct the misinformation that sprung up afterwards, and look at the internet pile-on her unusual performance wrought. Because the online shame-mob is very wrong about RayGun, and it’s all shittier than you think. RayGun did not “rig” the qualifying event to get her spot in the Olympics Tweets like this one issue some serious accusations—”RayGun ran Australia’s Olympic qualifier, created the rules, installed her husband as coach—none of the nation’s best breakdancers were able to compete in the qualifier as a result of Dr. Rachel Gunn’s decision not to cover travel expenses.” These accusation were spread and repeated so often they’ve been accepted as common knowledge online by now. But every word of this carefully crafted tweet is a lie. According to the Australian Olympic Committee, the Olympic breaking qualifying event was “conducted under the Olympic qualification system determined by the international governing body, World DanceSport Federation (WDSF) as approved by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).” Gunn is not part of any of those organizations. She competed in the qualifying event and won. RayGun’s husband Samuel Free is her coach, not the coach of the Australian Olympic team. Neither Free nor Gunn are on the governing body that scores breaking contests. They have no input on the Australian Olympic team’s travel expenses or say in who can compete in qualifying events, either. RayGun is not the reason breaking will not be included in the 2028 games Breaking was never going to be included in the 2028 Games. With the exception of the “core” sports that are played at every Olympics, the contests are determined by the host city. Los Angeles opted not to include breaking before the Paris 2024 games even began. The internet should be mad at saber fencing instead Internet hate-mobs shouldn’t exist, particularly for athletes, but if you need to be mad, be mad at saber fencing. Unlike in breaking, in saber fencing, coaches are often judges, including the guy who coaches both Tatiana Nazlymov and Mitchell Saron. They both made the USA fencing team, but competed under a cloud of suspicion and investigations as to whether they had help from referees in their qualifying matches. There’s too much to get into here, but fencing seems like a dirty sport. It may in fact be the most corrupt sport in the world. An internet hate-mob might actually do some good by digging into the byzantine world of professional fencing. But they found a woman to hate instead. Why all the hatred for Rachel Gunn? Rachel Gunn is not the first person to make the Olympic team and have a terrible showing at the games. In the past though, athletes who were in over their heads at the Olympics were usually viewed as