Olympics - EU know you want to !

In the spirit of the Olympics and fraternal harmony of nations, and as an excuse to put this link in :)

http://www.medaltracker.eu/

What would it take for the EU to become unified enough to actual put in one Olympic team ? Bonus points for a projected timeline, double bonus if it takes less than a thousand years :eek: !

In order to speed things up you are allowed incursions, eg Russia into Georgia, but not all out war - too easy :rolleyes: You must have all of the current EU at least, no UK opt out Atlantic alliance takes priority nonsense - again too easy :D


 
Have you read L'Mortes d'Arthur (I think thats what it was called anyways). Its a short story by Harry tutrledove that deals with a Winter Olympics about 250 years from now.

The United Europe nation is one team, however there is still a independent Greek team because they were the birth-nation of the Olympic movement.
 
Oh Yes You Do ;)

Have you read L'Mortes d'Arthur (I think thats what it was called anyways). Its a short story by Harry tutrledove that deals with a Winter Olympics about 250 years from now.

The United Europe nation is one team, however there is still a independent Greek team because they were the birth-nation of the Olympic movement.

No I haven't, sounds interesting I'll look it up.

Thanks :)
 
In the spirit of the Olympics and fraternal harmony of nations, and as an excuse to put this link in :)

http://www.medaltracker.eu/

What would it take for the EU to become unified enough to actual put in one Olympic team ? Bonus points for a projected timeline, double bonus if it takes less than a thousand years :eek: !

In order to speed things up you are allowed incursions, eg Russia into Georgia, but not all out war - too easy :rolleyes: You must have all of the current EU at least, no UK opt out Atlantic alliance takes priority nonsense - again too easy :D



YAY. Sweden now have more medals than Norway:D
 
One of the EU greatest strengths is that it is a multi-national organisation which can also choose to act as a single bloc. Thus the EU has 27 voices in the UN, and 2 out of 5 permenant seats on the Security Council. The same principle applies to the Olympic Games, because the EU's collective medal haul will almost always be the largest at every Games than if it competed as one entrant.
 
If the membership of the EU agreed to fielding a joint team, why couldn't they? North and South Korea are certainly much farther from unification and they have completed as a single team in prior Olympics. I seem to remember that West and East Germany also fielded a common team in some of the early cold-war olympics.
 

Moglwi

Monthly Donor
I doubt this would happen for the same reson the SCottish Welsh and NI football assosations are against a Team GB football squad it would be domaated by the bigger countrys athelets right know the EU cycle tean woiuld be prbably all British along with the rowing if we want EU medals but would everyone else allow that or would we have to send balance team of not quite the best but represtentative?
 
I doubt this would happen for the same reson the SCottish Welsh and NI football assosations are against a Team GB football squad it would be domaated by the bigger countrys athelets right know the EU cycle tean woiuld be prbably all British along with the rowing if we want EU medals but would everyone else allow that or would we have to send balance team of not quite the best but represtentative?

I've heard that as arguments against a Team GB and even against other possible unified team, but it doesn't seem to stand up. As far as I can tell, there doesn't seem to be a limit to how many athletes get sent in an Olympic delegation. A number of countries already send over 200, some over 300 and China sends 600. There's no reason a Team GB couldn't include everybody's favourite Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish athletes (or even all of them) for football and still not be overly extravagant in terms of numbers.
 
The IOC places limits on the number of teams and athletes that a nation can send to each event. Yes, in team events they'd send a better top team than any one EU nation. But they would miss out on the 2nd or 3rd medals they have been getting in things like rowing and shooting. In individual events, instead of sending an army of 100 competitors/sport, they would send a smaller group and therefore reducing their chances of upset champions. So at alt-Beijing, the actual medal counts would be very different from medaltracker.eu and possibly much lower.

EDIT: Someone's going to mention that US, UK, etc have huge squads. But those nubmers are inflated by alternates who cannot compete unless a conational gets injured. Think about it: wouldn't the USA send 6 beach volleyball teams if they could? But they aren't allowed to.
 
Small countries come in to the Olympics with only a small chance of fielding a medal. Currently, a handful of mega-countries take the edge: China, U.S., and Russia. If we combined Europe into one big team, it would be harder for the smaller countries to compete. It would be more difficult for players on the EU, because most would be weeded out before reaching the events.
 
Top