The U.S. men's basketball team lost the first game of this Olympic Games / Network
This Olympic Games is a surprise for the American team, which has occupied the top of the medal and gold medal tables for decades.
Until now, the United States team is still 31 gold, 36 silver and 32 bronze results, ranking second in the medal table, you know, now the Tokyo Olympic Games competition day has entered the countdown, the traditional advantages of the American team have mostly ended the game, although there are still basketball and 4 * 400 relay races and other Games that the United States has great hopes of winning gold medals in the last few days of the event, but this year's American team has handed over an answer sheet that makes the American domestic and global audiences very surprised: As of now, The U.S. delegation won the lowest number of gold medals since 1980, many pre-match star events that were considered to be ten-odds were "stranded" due to various accidents, and even for projects that still retained their advantages and hopes of winning the championship, the gap between the advantages between the United States and other countries was obviously narrowing.
Waterloo in athletics is particularly evident: historically, the United States has four times as many medals in athletics as any other country, and when it entered the Tokyo Olympics, the U.S. athletics team won more than 330 all-time gold medals, five times as many as the second-ranked Soviet Union.
At what moment did the Former Olympic hegemon, the United States, begin to go downhill?
The one with the fewest gold medals
For the United States, this Tokyo Olympics can be called a "bad start".
On July 24, on the first matchday of the Olympic Games, the U.S. team surprisingly did not win any medals and returned empty-handed. For the first time since 1972. The women's 10-meter air rifle competition in the Olympic first gold event, which was won by Yang Qian on the same day, originally had a high-profile winning favorite, Mary Tucker from the United States, but due to mistakes, the 20-year-old young player finally finished sixth.
American male sabre player Eli Dershwitz / network
Other events didn't go well either: Women's weightlifter Jourdan Delacruz failed to challenge 108 kg and finished seventh, the world number one Brady Ellison and teammate Mackenzie Brown were eliminated in the first round of men's fencing, and the second-placed Eli Dershwitz was also eliminated in the first round of the men's sabre competition. Brandon McNulty, another cyclist who had high hopes before the race, also did not play well, eventually finishing sixth.
Competitive sports have never been able to avoid the element of luck, and the disadvantages of the U.S. team on the first day may not explain anything, but more backlash is yet to come: the U.S. men's basketball team lost two of the four exhibition games before the Opening of the Olympic Games, and lost to France 76:83 in the first game of the Olympic Games, in which they shot just 36% from the field and 31% from three-point range.
The first defeat did not affect the U.S. men's basketball team stumbling into the final, but it showed that the once-invincible U.S. men's basketball team is no longer an untouchable "dynasty": in fact, in addition to the U.S. women's basketball team still showing absolute dominance on the field, the United States has encountered strong pressure from other countries in almost all traditional advantage sports, and the women's water polo suffered its first Olympic defeat since 2008 on July 28, and the women's soccer team eventually won only one bronze medal.
The men's sprint event also returned empty-handed, with 110m champion Grant Holloway winning the silver medal and the previously highly anticipated men's 4*100m relay – an absolute star team, with three of the world's top four athletes meeting in this U.S. team and four of the highest-ranked sprinters in the U.S. – only finishing sixth in qualifying and not even reaching the final, for the first time since 2008.
Men's 110m hurdles by Grant Holloway / Net
In gymnastics and swimming, the unexpected withdrawal of star athlete Simone Biles has become the most important news of the Olympic Games, and another champion swimmer in the United States, Katie Ledecky, finally won two golds and two silvers, which also failed to achieve the results previously expected by the outside world.
Either an accident occurred off the court or the inside played abnormally, what happened to the American team?
Epidemic, format, jet lag... There are also psychological problems
It is undeniable that the postponement of the Tokyo Olympic Games has an immeasurable impact on elite athletes, especially in the champion-level athletes, which may also be the primary reason why a large number of star athletes in the United States athletics and other sports have not played well collectively in this Olympic Games.
At the same time, the extraordinarily serious new crown epidemic in the United States in 2020 has inevitably affected the preparation of athletes. Due to the setting of the training mechanism, many elite athletes in the United States come from the corresponding sports programs set up by various universities, but the lockdown policy after the arrival of the epidemic has led to the closure of campuses and gymnasiums in many universities, the training of many athletes has been interrupted for weeks or even months, and the foreign training plans originally arranged cannot be carried out, not to mention the negative impact that infection with the new crown may cause on physical function. On the other hand, the Olympic selection mechanism that has been repeatedly changed under the epidemic has also caused some interference to athletes, and due to injuries and epidemics, the 800m world defending champion Donawan Brazier has not even qualified for the Olympic Games through the selection competition.
The U.S. team failed to make it to the final round/net in the men's 4x100m relay
In terms of specific projects, more detailed problems have also emerged: for the men's basketball team, the FIBA's setting in terms of schedule and game system is quite unfriendly to NBA players, it is no longer news, and this Olympic schedule almost overlaps with the last game of the NBA, resulting in many NBA elite players more inclined not to participate in the Olympics, and those who persist face a severe test of physical strength and energy: American team guard Jrue Holiday also plays for the NBA club Milwaukee Bucks. It was the NBA's champion team this year, but Jrue Holiday didn't arrive at the team's hotel in Tokyo until 1 a.m. on the day of the first match between the United States and France because of the final time.
Another problem is the basketball itself: NBA players told the media that although the size and size of the ball are the same as those used in the NBA, the dribbling feel is different, so it also makes it more necessary for them to adapt.
The athletics team explicitly attributed the poor performance of the competition to the cancellation of the pre-competition training camp that has become a tradition: due to the fear of the outbreak of the epidemic, the U.S. Olympic delegation did not have the same unified training in the host country or nearby regions as in the previous Olympic preparation process, which directly led to a sharp increase in the difficulty of adapting to the local climate and the venue, and the relay players had little opportunity to cultivate mutual understanding. The low-level mistake in the men's 4*100m relay race that caused an uproar in the United States a few days ago and caused the legendary Lewis to turn his face on twitter was partly due to the fact that the four people practiced for only two days before the game.
Another view boils the problem down to jet lag and shorter adaptation times: Olympic historians told the media that the U.S. team has won relatively few medals at the Olympic Games held in Asia historically, because the huge time zone span and the often difficult to adapt climate constrain the performance of athletes.
In addition to this, the psychological problems of top athletes are beginning to become more and more "visible" like the psychological problems of ordinary urban residents.
Byers announced his withdrawal before the team match due to psychological problems/ networking
The United States is not the only delegation with athletes having psychological problems, but it is undoubtedly the one that has been most visibly affected so far. Before the Start of the Olympics, when Japanese women's tennis player Naomi Osaka took the initiative to expose her poor psychological state, no one could have imagined that Simone Byers, a talented athlete who shocked the world five years ago by the U.S. women's gymnastics team, would be the second top athlete after Naomi Osaka to choose to withdraw from the game due to a psychological breakdown. But Byers is by no means alone, with U.S. swimmer star Katie Leyteki speaking out after Byers announced her retirement, saying she fully understood Byers' struggles and the heavy pressure she was facing, while the men's sprinter and 200m world champion Noah Lyles has struggled with depression over the past few years and won a bronze medal in this year's competition.
Competition is intensifying
At the end of the day, there is one of the most important reasons: other countries' investment in sports is significantly widening the power gap between the United States and other countries, and the more high-profile the project, the more so.
The most typical is the men's basketball team sitting in the NBA: in the past, the NBA was often regarded as the domestic league in the United States, and the game was mainly played by the American "own people", but now, the NBA has increasingly become a showcase for foreign stars, and in some sense the Americans have lost their dominance. Serbia's Nikola Jokic won the Most Valuable Player Award while playing for the Denver Nuggets, which Greece's Giannis Antetokounmpo won two seasons ago before leading the Milwaukee Bucks to championship at the end of July. NBA players now come from 41 countries, the competitive landscape is constantly changing, the power in the game is spreading, and the situation in which the U.S. team thrives is gone.
U.S. women's soccer is also facing huge challenges with more sustained investment from other countries, similar to women's billiards, and global investment in the sport is narrowing the gap between the United States and other countries. Dawn Staley, head coach of the U.S. women's taiwan team, said in an interview with the media: "The countries participating in the Olympics have invested energy in their own teams, and now you see the impact of it."
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