Who would have thought two-three years ago that a spanish girl would be olympic champion in badminton? Amazing. And no Chinese on the podium...
China is not nearly as dominant in table tennis as they are in diving, and especially table tennis.
Given the depth of collegiate wrestling, we should be much more competitive in men's freestyle. Greco-Roman, I could understand sucking, and kudos to Maroulis, but Dennis bombing out 0-11 and Burroughs being so passive is not what I was expecting.
HS and Collegiate wrestling is folkstyle wrestling, which is completely different than freestyle and greco. High level wrestlers have called it three different disciplines, like playing 3 different sports. Add that to the fact that there is no professional wrestling circuits, like they have in some places in Europe and once an athlete reaches 22, then they either have to go into coaching, get a small stipend from the USOC to become a national athlete, or go into MMA. Matt Lindland, Bruce Burnett, Jordan Burroughs have often mentioned that we need to start kids in free and greco earlier. J'Den Cox, who wrestles at 86Kgs, is extremely talented, but still loses matches he should win because he had never wrestled freestyle before. There should be a freestyle and greco program at the high school and college level. To top it off, a professional team based wrestling circuit would allow them to compete at a high level later in their career and supplement the stipend they get from USA Wrestling.
Women's HS and Collegiate is pretty much non existent and still trying to claw its way into the varsity program in most high schools and colleges. It's getting better, but the 4 girls on the US team had to wrestle guys in high school and only 2/4 had a wrestling program in their college (still not NCAA affiliated because the NCAA thinks girls can't wrestle). At least it's all freestyle though, with a new greco program starting.
Burroughs was extremely passive until he was trailing 3-0. It was weird, but the Russian is very strong though, probably the strongest in the weight class. One look at him and you can tell he's most likely on something. Also, not sure why JB got put on the shot clock, but Geduev didn't, especially with the stalling and face hitting he did. but it is what it is. Burroughs will have to try to fight for bronze now.
