Dutch Top 10 Olympic focus list!
Recently the Dutch National Olympic
Committee presented a focus list of 10 sports that could help the
Netherlands in realizing its ambition to structurally end in the top 10 of the
Olympics medal table. This is one of the requirements for hosting the Olympic. My analysis shows the 10 sports which will make the focus list
and which hence may receive extra funding are likely to be the following ones:
skating, aquatics, athletics, rowing, judo, field hockey, cycling, sailing,
equestrian and gymnastics.
The Netherlands has only once been
in the Olympics medal top 10 table. Let’s first briefly examine how The
Netherlands has performed during the Olympics in the last 7 editions and
simultaneously how many gold medals were required to end up in the medal top
10.
Olympics Dutch gold medals Medal
Ranking Medals
required to be in top 10
2008 7 12 7
2004 9 17 9
2000 11 8 11
1996 7 15 7
1992 7 20 7
1988 6 22 6
1984 6 13 6
From this table the following conclusions can be
drawn:
1. The Netherlands has only once been
able to end in the top 10; this was during the tremendously successful
Sydney 2000 Games.
2. The Netherlands usually is ending in
the top 20 in the Olympics medal table
3. In order to realize a top 10
position around 7 gold medals are required. Only during the 2000 and 2004
editions this number was exceeded
4. In order to structurally end up in
the medals top 10 The Netherlands needs more gold medals.
Choices have to be made. Not surprisingly more money is
required to stand a chance to realize this ambition. Besides a better sports
infrastructure, better facilitation and better support of top athletes, it is
clear that choices have to be made as far as sports are concerned. One would
invest in those sports where chances of gold medals are the best. The
80/20 rule also applies to sports and it is no different from your average
company, where just a few clients (20%) make up 80% of the turnover. As we will
see, it ain’t that different in sports; a few sports are accounting for the
vast majority of medals. It doesn’t require rocket science to determine which
sports these are. I have used 3 criteria to pinpoint where The Netherlands
would have a decent chance to gain gold medals.
1. How many
gold medals per sports discipline are at stake during the Olympics? Clearly this makes a difference; are
we going to invest in athletics, where 47 medals are to be gained or say in
triathlon with only 2 gold medals to be divided.
2. Do we have
sufficient talent available in those sports to support our ambitions? In order to measure this, we have
looked at the size (in terms of members) of each sports federation that
could be active on the games
3. In which
sports do we have a historic tradition as far as medals are concerned? In several Olympic sports, we have
barely won any medals at all. For example The Netherlands does not have a
tradition in wrestling, where it has never gained any medals (also reflected in
the number of members at the wrestling union). It should therefore be
questionable whether such tradition can be reversed quickly, particularly given
the available resources of such sports.
|
Sports |
Gold medals |
Sports |
Members |
Sports |
Medals NL |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 1. |
Athletics |
47 |
Football |
1152674 |
Aquatics |
55 |
| 2. |
Aquatics |
46 |
Tennis |
693024 |
Cycling |
40 |
| 3. |
Cycling |
18 |
Gymnastics |
273811 |
Rowing |
26 |
| 4. |
Gymnastics |
18 |
Field hockey |
210498 |
Equestrian |
22 |
| 5. |
Wrestling |
18 |
Equestrian |
203007 |
Judo |
20 |
| 6. |
Canoeing |
16 |
Aquatics |
144259 |
Sailing |
18 |
| 7. |
Shooting |
15 |
Athletics |
127639 |
Athletics |
15 |
| 8. |
Weightlifting |
15 |
Volleyball |
127047 |
Field Hockey |
14 |
| 9. |
Judo |
14 |
Sailing |
101040 |
Canoeing |
8 |
| 10. |
Rowing |
14 |
Badminton |
61321 |
Boxing |
6 |
| 11. |
Boxing |
13 |
Judo |
57686 |
Fencing |
5 |
| 12. |
Fencing |
10 |
Handball |
57192 |
Weightlifting |
3 |
| 13. |
Sailing |
10 |
Basketball |
42134 |
Football |
3 |
| 14. |
Taekwondo |
8 |
Shooting |
41882 |
Shooting |
2 |
| 15. |
Equestrian |
6 |
Table tennis |
34288 |
Tennis |
2 |
| 16. |
Badminton |
5 |
Cycling |
28456 |
Volleyball |
2 |
| 17. |
Tennis |
5 |
Rowing |
28092 |
Archery |
2 |
| 18. |
Volleyball |
4 |
Triathlon |
14019 |
Gymnastics |
1 |
| 19. |
Archery |
4 |
Archery |
10071 |
Badminton |
1 |
| 20. |
Table Tennis |
4 |
Taekwondo |
8574 |
Wrestling |
0 |
5 out of 26 different sports account
for 50% of the medals.
There are 302 gold medals to be handed out at the next
Olympics in London split over 26 different sports and even more disciplines.
Important to realize is that 5 of these sports account for approximately 50% of
all the medals, coincidentally wrestling being one of these sports. The 10
sports with the least gold medals to be gained account for only 10% of all the
medals. Hence, this explains why focusing is important. Looking at the total
members per union, it is clear where the Netherlands has the biggest resources
as far as talent, trainers and tradition is concerned and not surprisingly this
is also reflected in the column detailing the total number of medals that
historically have been gained in a certain sport.
The top 10 focus list.
Taking these criteria as a yardstick it is not
difficult to arrive at a focus list (or a study top 10 as NOC NSF is defining
it). Apart from skating (I have not analyzed the Winter
Olympics for obvious reasons – the vast majority of Dutch gold medals are
gained in skating -), we would arrive at the following sports: athletics,
aquatics, cycling, judo, rowing, sailing, equestrian and field hockey. It means there is one sports
left. As football and tennis are played on a full-time professional level and
not primarily dependent on NOC NSF, we would not expect these sports to be on
the list. Given both the number of medals at stake and the number of people
participating in the sports, I believe gymnastics would be a prime candidate to end
the list.
Tot ziens, A. (The Dutch Sportaholic)
