Sports lists for Rio – today we’ll present you 6 record lists for sports on the 2016 Olympic Program – archery, badminton, handball, modern pentathlon, rhythmic gymnastics, and synchronized swimming. Please refer to a previous post https://olympstats.com/2016/07/29/sports-files-for-rio/ for information about these lists.

• Archery – Archery Lists
• Badminton – Badminton Lists
• Handball – Handball Lists
• Modern Pentathlon – Modern Pentathlon Lists
• Rhythmic Gymnastics – Rhythmic Gymnastics Lists
• Synchronized Swimming – Synchro Swimming Lists

So how does Rio stack up against other Summer Olympic host cities in terms of population, climate, location, and other geographic factors. It is known that is the first South American city to host an Olympics. It is only the third city from the Southern Hemisphere to host an Olympics, following Melbourne in 1956 and Sydney in  2000. Attached is a small file that compares all the Olympic Summer hosts to see how Rio ranks among them.

Costs are also usually analyzed for Olympic host cities and we will do that as well, but usually full data on that is not announced until after the Olympics end.

Summer City Stats

Sports lists for Rio – today we’ll present you 10 record lists for sports on the 2016 Olympic Program – canoeing, equestrian, fencing, hockey, judo, sailing, shooting, water polo, weightlifting, and wrestling. Please refer to a previous post https://olympstats.com/2016/07/29/sports-files-for-rio/ for information about these lists.

• Canoeing – Canoeing Lists
• Equestrian – Equestrian Lists
• Fencing – Fencing Lists
• Hockey – Hockey Lists
• Judo – Judo Lists
• Sailing – Sailing Lists
• Shooting – Shooting Lists
• Water Polo – Water Polo Lists
• Weightlifting – Weightlifting Lists
• Wrestling – Wrestling Lists

Sports lists for Rio – today we’ll present you five record lists for sports on the 2016 Olympic Program – boxing, diving, football, rowing, and triathlon. Please refer to a previous post https://olympstats.com/2016/07/29/sports-files-for-rio/ for information about these lists.

• Boxing – Boxing Lists
• Diving – Diving Lists
• Football (Soccer) – Football Lists
• Rowing – Rowing Lists
• Triathlon – Triathlon Lists

Sports lists for Rio – today we’ll present you five record lists for sports on the 2016 Olympic Program – gymnastics, basketball, cycling, tennis, and volleyball. Please refer to a previous post https://olympstats.com/2016/07/29/sports-files-for-rio/ for information about these lists.

• Basketball – Basketball Lists
• Cycling – Cycling Lists
• Gymnastics – Gymnastics Lists
• Tennis – Tennis Lists
• Volleyball – Volleyball Lists

After yesterday’s blitz of articles prepping for Rio, we will now start releasing files containing Olympic records and bests for each of the sports / disciplines on the Olympic Program. These will be released gradually over the next week but today we’ll start with the two best known sports – athletics (track & field) and swimming. For details about what is in, and is not in, the sports lists, please see the previous post at https://olympstats.com/2016/07/29/sports-files-for-rio/

• Athletics – Athletics Lists
• Swimming – Swimming Lists

Over the next week, we will be providing lists of Olympic records and Olympic bests pertaining to the various Olympic sports, as well as overall Olympic lists. These will be PDF files attached as links to this blog (https://olympstats.com). These are intended as reference lists for the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games, and for use by the media, sports fans, and others interested in the Olympics. The information herein comes from a database maintained by myself and a group of 14 Olympic statistorians who call ourselves the “OlyMADMen” or OMM for short. The OMM have been creating, upgrading, and maintaining this database for about 20 years now on a private site entitled www.olympedia.org..

The lists you will see differ slightly by sport. One finds, for every sport, records for most medals, gold medals, etc., as well as age records for youngest and oldest competitors, medalists, and gold medalists. Tables of medals won by nations are included in all cases. For age records, the depth of the lists differs by sports, with slightly more depth provided in the sports that have been on the Olympic Program the longest.

For team sports (basketball, football, handball, hockey, rugby, volleyball, water polo), there are no specific events, but special lists provide information such as most points scored, most goals, by teams and individuals, and other interesting lists. Team sports also have a table listing each nation’s complete Olympic record through 2012 and at the end, a list of all previous head-to-head matches among the qualified nations if provided for each team sport.

In the non-team sports, lists and records are given for the sport at the beginning, followed by lists and records for each of the events on the 2016 Olympic Program. The event lists are shorter and slightly less detail than the overall lists.

For the two main measurable sports, athletics and swimming, we provide information on performance/performer lists, margins of victory, and the complete list of Olympic record progressions. This is not provided for cycling, where the events have changed greatly on the track recently; nor for shooting, where the targets and events change frequently; nor for weightlifting, where the weight classes change, seemingly at each Olympic Games. Of note, in athletics (track & field), for the field events, the performance lists only include the final mark by each competitor, and do not include intermediate marks. For canoeing and rowing, Olympic best progressions are given, although these cannot be considered Olympic records, because of differences in the various courses.

Each list starts with an overall, all-nation list. At the bottom of this list, there is an underline, and below that is found the list for @TeamUSA athletes only. This is provided as I will be working with and for the US Olympic Committee in Rio, and it is pertinent to USA media. All USA athletes in the record lists are also noted in bold font. Some athletes have records included which include marks or medals from the 1906 Olympics. While not recognized by the IOC, the International Society of Olympic Historians (ISOH) does consider these Olympic Games, and feels they should be recognized as such. All these marks are highlighted in red font. For overall records, some athletes are on the lists who competed in the Winter Olympics, and these are highlighted in blue font.

For weight class sports (combative sports), these are difficult because the weight classes have changed frequently over the years. We have attempted to bring some semblance of cohesion to these with a new designation. Basically the heaviest weight class is always called Heavyweight, the lightest weight class is always called Lightweight, and the middle weight class, or the one above the median if an even number of classes, is always called Middleweight. The other weight classes are then designated as Sub- or Supra-, as in Sub-Middleweight, or Supra-Lightweight, with the Sub- classification always given out first. This brings some sense of similarity to the classes, but for 2016, we have not listed event records for weightlifting and wrestling, because the classes have changed so much that it is difficult for anything to make sense.

Any errors are my own and I would like to be notified of these, which you can do via e-mail at [email protected]. Hope you enjoy and these prove useful to you. We will be starting today with the athletics (track & field) and swimming lists.

Bill Mallon MD

29 July 2016

The Olympic Games are about to start. For 6 months to a year now we have heard nothing but how bad the Rio Olympics will be, and how corrupt the IOC is, and how bad everything Olympic is. I am quite tired of hearing this.

For many media people in the US, who are assigned to work the Olympics, a beat they inherit only every few years, likely against their wishes, they immediately start to work to find negative stories to write about the Olympics, because they know nothing else. This does not refer to the Olympic and international sports beat writers such as Phil Hersh, Chris Brennan, Alan Abrahamson, Bonnie Ford, Tim Layden, Nick Zaccardi, Chris Chavez, Chris Clarey, Steve Wilson, who know about, and of, the Olympics better than do I.

I am tired of hearing rants each morning from Mike Greenberg on Mike & Mike about how bad the Olympics are, how corrupt they are, and how bad these Olympics are going to be. A few disclaimers here – I love the Mike & Mike show, and listen to it religiously each morning. And I am very connected to the Olympics and have working relationships with both the US Olympic Committee and the International Olympic Committee (IOC). Yes, I am biased, just as Mike Greenberg (Greeny) is biased in the other direction.

If I were to meet him, which is unlikely, I would ask Greeny one question “What exactly were the problems you noted at the Olympic Games you have attended?” And I know what that answer would be – he’s never been to an Olympics.

In March 2015 I had meetings with the 2024 Boston Olympic Bid Committee about working with them, although that never came to pass. Boston held various “town meetings” in which they discussed the possibility of hosting the 2024 Olympics. At these meetings the NoBostonOlympics group was there, usually led by Chris Dempsey and Andrew Zimbalist, a sports economist the group enlisted to support their case. Had I been able to work for Boston 2024 and present their case, I would asked them the same question, “What exactly were the problems you noted at the Olympic Games you have attended?” And I know what that answer would have been – neither one had ever been to an Olympics.

I’ve been to 11 Olympic Games, starting with Montréal 1976. Going to an Olympic Games is a transformative experience. If you haven’t been you should go to an Olympics. Even if you are not a sports fan, you would love them, and you would wonder what all the negative press is about.

Earlier this week on Mike & Mike, they had a college football coach on, Dabo Sweeney, who rhapsodized about how wonderful football is, and how it brings together people of all races, all creeds, all backgrounds, and gets them to work together.

That may be true. That is also dwarfed by an Olympic Games. Jim McKay, the long-time host of the Olympics in the United States for ABC Television, once noted, “The Olympics are the largest peacetime gathering of humanity in the history of the world.” Think about that phrase – the history of the world. That’s approximately 13.8 billion years, by current estimates. And its accurate.

When you go to an Olympics, you meet people from everywhere, and I don’t mean Tuscaloosa, Sheboygan, Madison, and Chagrin Falls. I mean Bangladesh, Nigeria, Korea, Azerbaijan, Tasmania, and places you’ve never heard of. And these people are all getting along, and enjoying themselves for two weeks. And you start to realize something – these people, who you never thought you would know, are more like you than they are different from you. Just as football players of different races, creeds, and backgrounds, can work together and get along together, so can people of different nations, from different backgrounds, religions, races, creeds.

I have been to Olympics and Olympic meetings, and had breakfast with a woman from Bangladesh, who told me how wonderful her nation was. Its one of the world’s poorest nations, but she was so proud of it, and she was a wonderful lady. We were much more alike than we were different.

I remember sitting in the aquatics venue at Montréal rooting madly with a group of Mexicans next to me for Félipe Muñoz to come up from fourth place and win a medal, and cheering wildly with them when Muñoz came through. Two Americans won gold and silver, by a figurative mile, but it was more exciting cheering with the Mexicans, who were more like me than they were different from me.

I remember having lunch with former Ugandan Olympic boxer, and then IOC Member, Frank Nyangweso, and hearing him rhapsodize about Muhammad Ali and how much he admired him, and then asking me why Americans always drank such large glasses of all drinks, a question for which I had no answer, but after dining with him I knew we both loved Muhammad Ali, and were much more alike than we were different.

And there are many more such examples I’ve experienced. I’ve met and gotten to know, and become friends with, people from countries I couldn’t even locate before I started this Olympic Odyssey. And always, we got along, peacefully, rather than fighting wars, and always, I would find that we were more alike than we were different.

The Olympics do this. They bring people together for two weeks of wonderful athletic competition. As Debbie Krzyzewski (Mike’s oldest daughter) once told me after Barcelona, “The Olympics are a two-week long party.” They are, but they are a party that the whole world celebrates, not just Crimson Tide fans, or not just Duke basketball fans (of which I am one).

The Olympics bring together the best athletes of the world peacefully, and they bring together 100s of 1000s of spectators, fans, officials, and other ancillary personnel together in peaceful cooperation and a two-week long party, celebrating the largest peacetime gathering of humanity in the history of the world. We can never get along with our so-called enemies until we meet them, talk to them, get to know them, and realize, they are more like us than they are different from us.

Are the Olympics then perfect and do they not have problems? Of course not, and I assure you I know way more about those problems than does Greeny and the know-nothings who write about all the negative things because they can’t find anything else to write about.

However, I also know the good things, and I think the Olympics are an important contribution to bringing the peoples of the world together, peacefully, in only a small way, but they do it and they let us realize we are all more alike than we are different, and could get along if we would just come together more often.

Let the Games begin.

Attached is a quite lengthy PDF (Overall Olympic Records) detailing all the past Olympic records, bests, lists, and pretty much anything else you may want to know about what has happened at previous Olympics. All media, and all Olympic fans can use this to understand what has happened before and what may occur in Rio.

The lists are work provided to the US Olympic Committee and will be available in their online media guide (team book). The contain not only overall Olympic records, but also the bests posted by US athletes at previous Olympics.

More to come.