Olympic Events Where the USA Has NEVER Won a Gold Medal 

Why on earth did you record in a closet

@@BrunoNeureiter I was on the road, I didn't have any other choice unfortunately. Forgiveness please

I'm pretty sure sure Forest Gump win USA gold for ping pong.

So did shooting games

are u only couting summer sports or is this including winter olympic sports to? Because the US arent all great in the skii elemnts outside of a very few select women like Jeesie Diggins for example.

NOT terribly researched, as Forrest Gump competed during his time during the Vietnam War and table tennis didn't make it to the Olympics until 1988. So the flaw is with the Forrest Gump people, not me

@@lamelists i was joking if that wasnt already clear, great video, also idk if the forest gump movie even depicts him playing in the olympics, just has him playing ping pong

@@colinbradley7361He was joking too

Achivement: Bamboozle Everyone!

​@@colinbradley7361 He went to China and became champion there. So he was maybe a China Champion lol.

Three cheers for the auto-invite! Maybe that will be their year to break through? Tell your buddy good luck!

@@lamelists Let’s hope so and I definitely will✅

Just too much competition from ice hockey. It's like Australian men will never be great at soccer, because of the competition from Australian Rules.

They are bad at hockey

Who’s your buddy? I’ve also played for USA field hockey since 2011

The modern pentathlon was a collection of abilities an army officer (not a soldier as stated) was supposed to have in early 20th century. Pistol shooting (officers were armed with pistols), horse riding, fencing (not only officers had sabers for display. Honor duels were still a thing back then), cross country and swimming (you have to move on the battlefield).

As the other viewer pointed out, it has a military tradition at its base. But that said, I think there should be a modern MODERN pentathlon, make it 5 completely unrelated events chosen at random. Maybe even change it every year, why not, shake it up lol

@@lamelists "This year's competition will be one for the ages, as the first combination of skeet shooting and high diving...."

@@basher20 BAHAHAHA love it

The events have changed and from the next Olympics horse riding will be removed and replaced by Obstacle Course Racing. The running and shooting are combined as 1 event called the 'Laser Run' due to the pistol emit TMG laser light and not bullets. Fencing, swimming and OCR are run as individual events for points and the Laser Run is then started in a staggered start with the highest points starting first. Whoever wins that run wins the Pentathlon. It’s awesome.

Couldn't agree more! Not sure what's holding back Handball in America other than a cultural preference, but surely that can change in time

Most sports Americans are good at, we would have played in gym class or as an after school sport. Handball is neither one. Honestly this video is the first time I seen it played.

@@Ace-mw9pmreally? That‘s interesting cause here in Germany handball is an absolute staple of gym classes despite the fact that it‘s not really very present in popular culture. Like people don‘t usually watch handball on TV or go to games but everyone knows about it

@@XYZ-zn6qz gym class in America we play American football, basketball, baseball, dodgeball, field hockey, and some other small games. And if you live California or Texas you probably play a lot of soccer.

​​@@Ace-mw9pmI've noticed the American teams that win medals at youth soccer tournaments in Europe are from California or Texas, I didn't know that there was a cultural preference in those two regions of the US for soccer, does that mean they play other sports less? And what about the east coast?

So, never is what you're saying?

@@lamelists They can give it a try.

@@evanskyule I'm with you, but doesn't seem likely

Ping-pong was a name created by an English firm: J Jaques and Son. Trademarked in the USA by Parker Brothers. // The game was invented in England, so don't complain about the names, since the ENGLISH created the game!

Congrats, the US just won 😂

As you should be, Denmark is actually top 15 all-time in gold medals per capita! For a little country, those are some big results!

🇩🇰🇩🇰🇩🇰🌟

Yeah, you and Norway are both great nations in wide array of sports nowadays. Love from Finland! ❤

They won many more. Those are just examples. How about sailing and cycling?

Hell yeah

Good point! Biathlon is the only winter Olympic event where the US hasn't won a medal. I was more zeroed in on the summer sports with Paris 2024 approaching, but you're absolutely right

@@lamelists You also left out climbing. It was introduced in 2020. I don't think USA won any medal there either. The american women have a good chance at a podium in 2024.

One other winter Olympic event, would be ski jumping with only one bronze medal.

​@@lukeytronno, nathaniel coleman got silver

@@lonesome3958 that's the kid of Utah isn't it ? I recall seeing the news on it

For sure! And they're so good at gymnastics as a country, it really shocked me

@@lamelists But Canada won gold in both trampoline and rhythmic gymnastics, doesn't that kinda count. They are close right, LOL, just kidding!!!

@@ctalcantara1700 We're basically America's hat, close enough lol

@@lamelists LOL! Y'all also won a gold in Men's Soccer , which the US has not won.

​@@ctalcantara1700and México too got a gold in 2012 olympics a great surprise 🎉🇲🇽

I totally agree, I'm shocked it's not more popular in North American in general, I don't get it

I thought it was gaining traction here already. Or maybe I’m getting that confused with the like indoor soccer?

Probably too much competition from basketball. Often only one or two similar sports can be mainstream in a country. Australia has basketball and netball so we don't care about handball. European countries tend not to play netball because of the climate. The US is hugely into basketball.

@@MrNoName7474 I think it's getting more popular as in it's not getting LESS popular, but nothing near where it would need to be to compete globally

​@MsJubjubbird France, Germany and even Spain have competitive Handball and Basket-ball teams and they're not the most played sport being way behind football/soccer.

Which is kind of ironic, because it only makes it more likely that the US will not win medals and the cycle continues.

Bro it's basically same with every country. They will forecast shows in which their country is most likely to win a medal.

Sometimes they will broadcast sports that look spectacular, even if the US won't win. Diving looks much more exciting than a marathon.

@@MsJubjubbird Diving is poorly commercialized (global scale), very predictable, and isn't an Olympic pride event like marathon, so of course it's not often broadcasted.

@@cocoroni1031 they often show the finals because it's quick and it looks spectacular. The marathon is really only broadcast in the final stages because no one is going to tune into people running for a whole 2-3 hours. They'll usually just switch over to it for a couple of minutes for updates

RIP Bob Schul, I hadn't heard he'd pass

It's a fantastic sport, I don't know why North America doesn't love it more

@lamelists partially because we have other sports shoved down our throats, basically football and basketball. Sports talk radio will talk football year round. ESPN has rights to the NHL and will crap on it all the time. So to introduce a new sport is all but impossible

​@@corysleeger1574I see your point but all the US medals can't come from 3 sports that only have one medal per gender, the media *might* cover track, swimming, gymnastics, and figure skating strictly during the olympics but that's it, I think it more so has to do with schools not having handball teams specifically

Surprised to hear that there are US schools where this is known as a sport at all. When I was in the US for a year in the Mid 90s, I had to explain very often what I was talking about when I mentioned "Handball". Mind you, that was obviously before RU-vid etc. so there was no way of just showing a videoclip. That being said, I didn't really enjoy it when we played it at school in Germany. The reason? Well, in every sport the ones who play it also at a club have got an obvious advantage; but in most sports, you can still act as a team. E.g. even if you can't do a slam dunk, you can still pass a basketball in a somewhat decent fashion. Not so for handball. You either play it at the club or you have really no idea what you're doing.

Variety is the spice of life for sure. And it gives American athletes something to aspire to, there's very little ground that hasn't already been walked

The US olympic squad is massive, way bigger than everybody elses but not dominant per capita. This is why there is no prize for "winning country"

@@greenconcrete-z8m Absolutely, on a per capita basis it's a different story. The US has that unique combination of population size, dump trucks of money, and cultural support that, when turned towards something like the Olympics, leads to dominance

@@lamelists They perform as anybody would expect them to given their size and sports culture, pretty average nothing out of the ordinary, just like every other rich country big or small. USA will win the same amount of gold medals relative to their squad/country size as Team GB, Russia or China

@@greenconcrete-z8m the per capita argument is invalid since rules artificially cap how many athletes nations can send, plus there's a finite number of events. It'd be as meaningless as tracking goals per capita in a game and concluding Brazilians suck at soccer because they only beat Honduras 4-1 instead of 40-1. It's still 11 v 11 on the field and there's a time limit. Per capita comparisons are for open ended stats like GDP, not constrained ones. The difference is that medal tables are counting something tangible. "Fair" or not, those medals really exist and represent events that really happened. By contrast per capita comparisons are artificial constructs that ignore Olympic rules and nature, and have no connection to reality. They're fallacious and meaningless. And yes the cap on athletes each nation can send will logically impact medals. We can see the likely empirical impact with split German teams going from a combined 142 medals in 1988 to 82 with a unified team in 1992. That may be as close to a controlled experiment as we can get. Number restrictions make a huge difference and the limitation of only having a finite number of medals to win is an even bigger factor. Consider this. Bermuda, with a pop. of 70k, won its only gold medal ever at these games. China, with a pop. of roughly 1.4 billion, would have to win 20,000(!) gold medals at the Tokyo games to match them per capita. There are only 332 events. China having a hard time would be one thing, but that it's a mathematical IMPOSSIBILITY should be a warning sign that per capita comparisons are fundamentally flawed in this case. If Bermuda somehow had 1.4 billion people to draw from but retained the same sleepy island culture it wouldn't win 20,000 medals (mathematically impossible). Nations are restricted in amount of athletes they can send, such that Americans on a bad day could not qualify for US Olympics team but on good day could win a medal. If every event didn’t have nationality restrictions and people on qualified on merit/time, the US would have 50x more athletes in and would win nearly that much more. You see this by virtue of the fact that tiny European nations that are less than 5% of the US population have about 30% of the athletes as the US. Or put another way, if all 50 US states were separate countries, instead of about 500-600 athletes from the US, you’d have 7000-8000 athletes if you added up how many each of the 50 states would get as separate countries. Furthermore, with a limited amount of events and law of diminishing return, it’s impossible for a huge nation to win per capita. If New Zealand won one gold medal, China could win every other event in the Olympics and still be behind in per capita. Not to mention that per capita is not how we rate best nations in sports. In ⚽, Uruguay is clearly the best nation per capita, but they aren’t considered the best; Argentina now or Brazil all time because they are current world champions or have won the most all time are considered the best at ⚽

I loved playing that game! So much nostalgia for me, sounds like for you too

Interestingly enough that's one of the 6 sports that were invented and are a part of the Gaelic Athletic Association here in Ireland. It is one of the least played sports here but its funny that it's popular in America and Canada

LOL same here, but I wish we had played this version, it's awesome

@@lamelists Looks like a lot of fun!

It is fun to play. I played indoor handball 35 years ago. The overall gameplay has not changed much. Some rules have changed to make it even faster.

LOL don't be envious! The US has the perfect blend of population size, technology, money, infrastructure, and culture to become a sporting powerhouse. Hard to replicate that elsewhere!

@@lamelists The secret is to be the sports based country with the highest percentage of black guys. But that doesn't always work because some sports are more skill based like soccer

if you include every historical version of Germany, Germany has 1821, of those 922 as GER(1896-1952 & since 1992), 137 as EUA(1956-1964), 243 as FRG (1968-1988) and 519 as GDR(1968-1988).

the per capita argument is invalid since rules artificially cap how many athletes nations can send, plus there's a finite number of events. It'd be as meaningless as tracking goals per capita in a game and concluding Brazilians suck at soccer because they only beat Honduras 4-1 instead of 40-1. It's still 11 v 11 on the field and there's a time limit. Per capita comparisons are for open ended stats like GDP, not constrained ones. The difference is that medal tables are counting something tangible. "Fair" or not, those medals really exist and represent events that really happened. By contrast per capita comparisons are artificial constructs that ignore Olympic rules and nature, and have no connection to reality. They're fallacious and meaningless. And yes the cap on athletes each nation can send will logically impact medals. We can see the likely empirical impact with split German teams going from a combined 142 medals in 1988 to 82 with a unified team in 1992. That may be as close to a controlled experiment as we can get. Number restrictions make a huge difference and the limitation of only having a finite number of medals to win is an even bigger factor. Consider this. Bermuda, with a pop. of 70k, won its only gold medal ever at these games. China, with a pop. of roughly 1.4 billion, would have to win 20,000(!) gold medals at the Tokyo games to match them per capita. There are only 332 events. China having a hard time would be one thing, but that it's a mathematical IMPOSSIBILITY should be a warning sign that per capita comparisons are fundamentally flawed in this case. If Bermuda somehow had 1.4 billion people to draw from but retained the same sleepy island culture it wouldn't win 20,000 medals (mathematically impossible). Nations are restricted in amount of athletes they can send, such that Americans on a bad day could not qualify for US Olympics team but on good day could win a medal. If every event didn’t have nationality restrictions and people on qualified on merit/time, the US would have 50x more athletes in and would win nearly that much more. You see this by virtue of the fact that tiny European nations that are less than 5% of the US population have about 30% of the athletes as the US. Or put another way, if all 50 US states were separate countries, instead of about 500-600 athletes from the US, you’d have 7000-8000 athletes if you added up how many each of the 50 states would get as separate countries. Furthermore, with a limited amount of events and law of diminishing return, it’s impossible for a huge nation to win per capita. If New Zealand won one gold medal, China could win every other event in the Olympics and still be behind in per capita. Not to mention that per capita is not how we rate best nations in sports. In , Uruguay is clearly the best nation per capita, but they aren’t considered the best; Argentina now or Brazil all time because they are current world champions or have won the most all time are considered the best at

@@AW-zk5qb So are you saying that its just a giant coincidence that the big countries always win the most medals, the medium sized countries always finish in the middle of that table and the small countries always win the least amount of medals? That happens every 4 years since the olympics began. Football / soccer is different because that is a skill based sport that relies more on natural talent, and not a sport that relies on athletic ability. It is a lottery how many world class football players a country will produce.

It's quite unfortunate for sure, super popular here in Canada too. North America is a VERY long way behind Europe, that's for sure

Thank you, glad you liked it!

They go so high, it's wild to watch!

Thanks for checking out the videos on the channel, much appreciated! Yeah trampoline was a surprising one for me too, the US is so good at gymnastics across the board that I figured they had won one by now. Paris 2024 could well be their year, we'll see!

US football/soccer is probably the wildest case of the women absolutely dominating the men in terms of international performance. I could do a video on just that topic alone, it's insane

I heard that title nine has a lot to do with it. since there were no female american football teams on colleges, they gave a lot of scolarships to womens soccer

Women football is still developing in most other countries. They will be more competitive and can beat USWNT in the future.

​@lamelists it's actually pretty simple bro. Most countries are severely undeveloped when it comes to the female side of the sport so there's not much competition for the women but that's changing and other countries are catching up fast

Well, Spain are world cup reigning champions and they have the last 2 ballon d'or in the national team, so yeah, Europe its catching up really fast. The thing is there is nothing like college sports and their money in Europe, and that helped a lot to develop women football in the US way quicker. But with the Women Champions League gaining level year by year and European clubs getting more involved every year, they will dominate eventually like in men.

Appreciate the introduction!

Handball is fantastic, I really wish it would become bigger in North America!

Best handball teams historically are France, Spain, Denmark, Croatia, Sweden

Couldn't agree more

So maybe USA field hockey has more of a chance than we think?

Another commenter pointed out that table tennis especially is something that is growing rapidly in the US due to increased immigration from Asian countries. So maybe the US sucks today, but it seems like there is a growing potential for future strength

​@@lameliststhe talent pool in China is SOOOOOOOOO big. It's honestly hard to imagine any other country taking gold in the next 3 Olympics. There's a few active players who are good enough to win gold, from Brazil, Germany, and Japan, and France, specifically, but even then, 4 of the 5 top players are currently Chinese.

​@@lamelistsThe US has won badminton gold in the world championship (not olympics) way back in 2005. Mens double pair consisting of en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Bach And en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Gunawan who is naturalised citizen and ex Olympics gold medallist. As bach moved to the US aged 2, arguably at least the US system has produced half a pair with an outside but decent shot, although that was 20 years back.

Table tennis is far and away the most popular sport in the country that until this year was the world's most populous. Unless an elite Chinese player emigrates to the US mid-career and qualifies for citizenship, the US is never winning a gold in table tennis, and probably never even medalling.

As far as I know about which race of an American likes sports, Asian Americans like ping pong and badminton. Whites and blacks prefer baseball and football. Almost all races in the US like basketball.

Sorry, not following?

@@lamelists Australia is amazing in hockey but you don’t mention them when talking about hockey powerhouses

As a fellow Canadian, I approve that humble brag

Totally agree. I don't want to say Norway is better and smarter than the US, but I'm not NOT saying that either

That’s like saying China should be able to find 11 good soccer players. Unless a sport has a culture in your country it’s hard to get anywhere especially in team sports.

Well they've already said they are going to have Flag Football as one of their more "local" choices, and the IOC usually puts a cap on the number of events, so something will have to give

Damn, how did we have such different Canadian upbringings lol

@@lamelists I'm a west coast kid, I assume you're more towards the Atlantic?

@@A_Baguette_ Yeah, Ontario

Sadly no, must have been a World Championships or something because Table Tennis didn't make it to the Olympics until 1988. That said, as it's a fictional movie, we can pretend it was the Olympics lol

I heard he was a good long distance runner too 😉😅

@@SueP-D Dude would have been a monster Olympian, that's for sure!

Another amazing variant!

Or it's how the ball is passed by hand in Australian Rules Football (Aussie Rules, AFL etc)

@@Mhjeffrey027running TRUE!

I bet that was awesome! Do you still live in LA? Can you go to the 2028 games when they come back?

Someone else pointed that out, I had NO IDEA. I wish I had known that earlier, I probably would have made a whole video on it alone

He would have won the gold, but insisted on using his Army sidearm in the shooting competition instead of the precision pistol the Olympics provided, finished last in the shooting portion, and dropped to fifth overall.

@@scottblish766 thanks for the information. I know there was something that went on. Do you know why they didn't fight to over turn the out come????

For sure, and that's why they haven't medaled in those events yet. But the US can provide way more money, coaching, training, and infrastructure to make up the current gap. Olympic athletes aren't just born, they're made, and they're primarily made with those tools. And no country on earth can match the US in those regards, so if they ever wanted to catch up, they would

@@lamelists more money and better infrastructures than India and Indonesia, sure. But I highly doubt they can match China’s resources in badminton.

@@lamelists The truly American way would be to offer the best Chinese, Indian, and Indonesian players a ton of money to switch federations and play for USA

I didn't forget it, I deliberately didn't include some the events that only just got added to the games. It didn't seem fair to include them since there's only been a single iteration of them. A few folks have brought this up, so in hindsight I should have just said this right in the video, but I'll know for next time

The US just won a bronze medal in women's rugby after they upset Australia. So a gold medal for them in the future may be even closer than we thought.

@@bstm6911 Congrats to the US women's team!

No shade to Denmark, I had another Dane bring that up too and I promise it was nothing personal or intentional! Huge respect to Denmark's Olympic tradition, which is way more accomplished than people realize. And yes, you said it right: if the US puts in the time and energy (and money and infrastructure), they will win, full stop. At least eventually. Some could happen soon (trampoline for example), so would take time (table tennis for sure), but it would be inevitable if the US committed to it.

Let's go Axelsen ! Denmark is impressive as hell

LOLZ

For sure, on a per capita basis, the US isn't all that impressive. Combine a huge population with tons of money, a culture focused on winning, and world class infrastructure and Olympic success is basically inevitable

the per capita argument is invalid since rules artificially cap how many athletes nations can send, plus there's a finite number of events. It'd be as meaningless as tracking goals per capita in a game and concluding Brazilians suck at soccer because they only beat Honduras 4-1 instead of 40-1. It's still 11 v 11 on the field and there's a time limit. Per capita comparisons are for open ended stats like GDP, not constrained ones. The difference is that medal tables are counting something tangible. "Fair" or not, those medals really exist and represent events that really happened. By contrast per capita comparisons are artificial constructs that ignore Olympic rules and nature, and have no connection to reality. They're fallacious and meaningless. And yes the cap on athletes each nation can send will logically impact medals. We can see the likely empirical impact with split German teams going from a combined 142 medals in 1988 to 82 with a unified team in 1992. That may be as close to a controlled experiment as we can get. Number restrictions make a huge difference and the limitation of only having a finite number of medals to win is an even bigger factor. Consider this. Bermuda, with a pop. of 70k, won its only gold medal ever at these games. China, with a pop. of roughly 1.4 billion, would have to win 20,000(!) gold medals at the Tokyo games to match them per capita. There are only 332 events. China having a hard time would be one thing, but that it's a mathematical IMPOSSIBILITY should be a warning sign that per capita comparisons are fundamentally flawed in this case. If Bermuda somehow had 1.4 billion people to draw from but retained the same sleepy island culture it wouldn't win 20,000 medals (mathematically impossible). Nations are restricted in amount of athletes they can send, such that Americans on a bad day could not qualify for US Olympics team but on good day could win a medal. If every event didn’t have nationality restrictions and people on qualified on merit/time, the US would have 50x more athletes in and would win nearly that much more. You see this by virtue of the fact that tiny European nations that are less than 5% of the US population have about 30% of the athletes as the US. Or put another way, if all 50 US states were separate countries, instead of about 500-600 athletes from the US, you’d have 7000-8000 athletes if you added up how many each of the 50 states would get as separate countries. Furthermore, with a limited amount of events and law of diminishing return, it’s impossible for a huge nation to win per capita. If New Zealand won one gold medal, China could win every other event in the Olympics and still be behind in per capita. Not to mention that per capita is not how we rate best nations in sports. In , Uruguay is clearly the best nation per capita, but they aren’t considered the best; Argentina now or Brazil all time because they are current world champions or have won the most all time are considered the best at

and what are you talking about, the US is the only country that DOESN'T put government money into their Olympic team

@@AW-zk5qb ya US sport is awful badly funded, get a grip. Doesn't have to be government funding, the US does well, but there are other countries who's achievements are more impressive

​@@AW-zk5qb a true American doesn't want to lose 😂 here's your gold medal in the comment section copy pasting event 🥇 Please don't bomb my country 🙏 USA! USA! USA!

Glad you liked it! Yeah things are looking grim for the US in badminton, it will take a generation at minimum to get going there and that's only if some more budget and infrastructure are added to support it.

Because it's an epic sport! I have no clue why it's not more popular in the US (and here in Canada too)

Sorry, not following?

Thanks for the insightful and detailed reply. I didn't know that about Patton, cool story!

You do not need to be super tall to perform well in handball. Handball s biggest "market" is Europe where basketball is also important. Athletes from both sports have different attributes.

@@ahfei6847 A quick search brought me to an article stating that the Dutch handball team is becoming known for running a small lineup by international standards. Another search revealed that the average height on the roster is 1.9m, 6' 3" to those of us who use American units. You get a 15-year-old in the US who's over 6 ft and can handle a ball and coaches are going to think basketball guard or small forward, not "We've got to build a handball team around this kid."

@@basher20 1,90 is tall compared to the average man, but it also means about half of handball players are below the 1,90 mark which is still pretty short compared to the average basketball player. I mean short enough to be overlooked by bball scouts

Yup, some of these I could see the US breaking through sometime soon (trampoline for example), but others will require more of a culture shift that seems a long way off

The issue is money. If you have talent for trampoline or rhythmic gym, your going to have the same skills to succeed in artistic gym, where, if successful, you will never have to work again after retirement and all your training will be sponsored. If you have the talent for handball, why play that when you can make millions playing basketball? And why play field.hockey when you can learn to skate and play ice.hickey for way more money?

​@@MsJubjubbirdNot really. Having a natural aptitude for rhytmic gymnastics doesn't mean you could be equally successful at artistic gymnastics/ trampoline or vice versa. Hard work can only get you so far if you don't have the proper body type, flexibility, etc. Same with handball vs. basketball. Russia has traditionally dominated every sport that required a ballet training to look better for judges. When you look at an American rhytmic gymnast and a Russian one, the difference between the skills are often very visible and the otherwise very pretty American gymnasts look bulky and clumsy. It's sad but the US knows how to get better if they want to - all it takes is a few trainers/ former olympians from Russia/ the Ukraine/ Romania etc. This normally leads to improved results but in the end the harsh and often abusive Eastern training methods get rejected by the athletes and by society (which leads to slow but steady decline again - until the new Holy Grail is found).

about rhythmic gymmastcis the worst part the best americna gymansts still have no chanche against the best eurpean gymnast btw we fans still ask ourselves how Zeng was able to wi the elegance prize in 2019 ...

@@juditsomi4287 the requirements are similar- strength, low centre of graity flexibility. Now if you're strong, a good tumbler and flexible in the US, artistic is far more lucrative than trampolining or rhythmic. A lot of countries will redirect their artistic gymnasts into other gymnastic sports if they aren't going to make the artistic squad. The entire Chinese aerial ski team are redirected gymnasts and they dominate. Likewise with their divers and trampoliners and also Romanian aerobic athletes. Handball and basketball require similar skills- hand eye coordination, good at sprints, some sort of height. Sometimes you hear of athletes that could have been professionals in 2 or more ball sports. Now if was in the US, I could play basketball and never work again once my career is over and potentially have all my training paid for, or handball and be scrimping for funding and have to work as an assistant sports teacher until retirement

You learn something new everyday!

Definitely, there are some interesting ones on the list for sure!

I think is just ski jumping.

@@Mr1888888888 There's a bit more than that, eventually I'll do the full video!

The Netherlands treats field hockey the way the USA treats American Football and Canadians treat hockey. It's more like religion than sports

@@lamelists I wouldn’t say the same, because I don’t see American kids start playing American Football at a club at 6

@@gameandflogchannel You need to spend more time in East Texas then lol

The US is dedication to sports they like look at Basketball there are other sports also I mention Basketball because so many other country's play it.

That last part is not true about American sports. In swimming many of the greatest swimmers in the US start swimming as early as around 4-6 years old some older but many of the best in the US start around the same time as many in Europe begin doing field hockey

Another great example, thanks!

Yep, I was a ball against the wall handball guy too. It seems trivial, and it's not up to handball to change the name, but it could be where some of the confusion comes from. It's not a good excuse at all, but it could be at least a contributing factor.

​@@lamelistsIts funny. Because in Europe nobody knows that the ball-against-wall-handball exists. There isn't even a different name for it either. Wikipedia just lists it as "American Handball".

What do you like about it?

@@lamelists I like to watch the fluttering of the ribbons. I also like to see the female holding onto the ball while doing a graceful backflip.

@@gwillis01 I don't know how they pull off some of the moves they do, it's incredible!

@@lamelists It's amazing what you can do if you practice consistently every week from the age of five to the age of sixteen.

In general, it will be interesting to see the impact of this change. Will it be a big deal or not so much? Time will tell

Wow, all around legend

And, somehow, just won table tennis!

Did you? Which table tennis event?

As a Canadian, I love seeing it lol

They have not won it! But I didn't include it deliberately as it's only been at a single Olympics, so it didn't seem fair to hit them with that as a gap in the gold medal table. Also, the USA did win rugby gold in back to back years in 1920 and 1924, so they do have rugby gold still

Which event in table tennis?

I appreciate you dropping in that story to the comments, I love hearing about these personal experiences from viewers, it really hammers home how we all have a connection to Olympic events no matter how professional or amateur you are. And it's great you played both, gives a better appreciation for how tough they are!

It's such a shame it's not more popular in North America, it's a fantastic sport

Absolutely, as a Canadian I couldn't agree more lol

A few of the newer sports can go on this list, for the next Olympics there's going to be quite a few more!

I'm in Canada, so it stretches even further it seems!

Right? Hard to create exposure for other global sports if they're never shown to people

Hopefully it's hilarious as in funny and entertaining, not hilarious as in "I can't believe it could be this bad" lol 👍

That would have been awesome to see live. I actually had the good fortune to see a Baseball game live in Atlanta during the 1996 Olympics, I'll never forget it!

LOL

USA got that table tennis gold, maybe badminton is coming soon?!

Agree with you completely, the NCAA is the minor leagues of the Olympics for America. If it ain't there in quantity, it won't be at the Olympics for the USA

Good one! I'm already pretty loaded with content through the Paris 2024 games for Olympic stuff, but I just put it on my ideas list and if I can squeeze it in, I'll give it a go

Absolutely true, I didn't bother with a few of the brand new events as every country in the world other than one, by definition, hasn't won one yet lol

A few others brought that up, no offense was intended to the good people of Denmark!

Awesome, good to have you a part of the community, thanks!

Yep, it seems to go by a bunch of names, but that's one of them

Yep, that's what I played in the schoolyard too!

I'll see what I can do, appreciate the suggestion!

Serendipity! On a related note, I actually have a Breaking video coming out tomorrow (Wednesday) night, let's see what folks think of that one lol

Yeah it's curious as the US is pretty strong in the individual disciplines of the modern pentathlon, but just haven't been able to put the whole thing together

@@lamelists i think specialization is the main thing. Pentathletes tend to only compete in their events and not try to try their luck in separate events. It has been dominated by Europeans.

Another good name for it, probably better as it differentiates more clearly from the "real" handball

I fully intend on doing one, but probably not until we get closer to the next winter Olympics. Hopefully you can stick with me and be patient until then!

Absolutely, there is definitely hope on the horizon for the US in rugby 7s. The women proved that they are in the hunt, and being on their home turf in 2028, who knows what could happen!

Which one is your favorite?

I could totally see it happening, there aren't many more sports that are gaining traction faster than that one

Well there is strong momentum to start having a men's competition in the sport, so I'd call that growing the sport

Yup, tough sledding ahead in badminton for the USA

Yep, and folks treated it like it was a gold medal on its own. And you know what, it's a great achievement and a big step forward, but as you say, it shows just how far out in front a few other countries are right now

So where are all those gold medals?!

@@lamelists 🤷🤷🤷

Yup I think that's the theme of the American experience in some of these sports. There ARE world class athletes in the US for these events, but they are just funneled elsewhere

@@lamelistsI think that’s the case for Rhythmic gymnastics. There’s not enough money roi for such an expensive sport. Artistic gymnastics gives you more money.

Absolutely. As I've commented before, Olympic success is created, not born. It requires money, infrastructure, training, coaching, and cultural support to happen. Centralized programs, as you say, bring all of that to the table

I was just reading a US-written article about the "bad" total of gold medals and whether it was time to panic

I noticed the irony of that during these Olympics as well. If you took the money from just one of the basketball or football players and allocated it to Handball, for example, you'd probably have a gold medal within a generation

Believe it or not, there's actually a strong, growing push for men's rhythmic gymnastics. So you may get your wish!

Strange indeed, do you have any idea what the explanation is of the relative performance of Canada and the US?

@@lamelists my only real hypothesis is that in 2000 when trampoline debut as an Olympic sport Canada won bronze in both the men’s and women’s competition. So from the start Canada has been relatively successful and thus Canadian children have been privy to Olympic medalists in trampoline at EVERY Olympics it has existed in.

@@niallgyulay6849 That makes some sense for sure, success inspires success. I wonder if it's a dam ready to burst and, once the first US gymnast breaks through, the floodgates will open for other American gymnasts

Thank you, glad you enjoyed it!

LOL glad you enjoyed the video. And regarding becoming a US citizen, I keep reading the news that there is a huge immigration problem at your borders, I wouldn't want to add to that

Forrest Gump played during Vietnam, table tennis didn't enter the Olympics until 1988. But I'll give you that one because it's an amazing movie lol

Germany has an amazing tradition in table tennis, the Chinese get all the attention but Germany is super strong too. Lots to be proud of there!

Absolutely, it's more of a past time in the US and not considered a serious sport, so not surprising the US sucks at it come the Olympics

Table tennis is a recreational game in most countries… but there’s still competitive teams and stuff like that.

​@@agme8045Yes, except for china !

Yess it's a BBQ sport, fun to play and fun to watch especially badminton being the fastest racquet sport in the world

I think you are 100% correct. I don't think it would happen overnight, let's give some credit to the nations of the world who excel at Handball today, but I think it could happen. Handball has so many overlapping skills with baseball, football, and ice hockey that I'm sure, with time and training, it could be a strong sport for the USA