Spain is doing crap, as expected by the ones who know a bit of worldwide sports, rather than the media. We expect no medal at athletics and we should feel lucky that Belmonte won two silver medals at swimming. Nothing at gymnastics, judo, ... Maybe some team sports will get a medal (handball, basketball, waterpolo), sailing and if we're lucky, sincronized swimming and taekwondo.
On many sports there isn't even an european top contender. And i'm not talking about badminton or table tennis, but in terms of many sports there is no tradition in Spain and should've been (weightlifting, wrestling, fencing...).
Also, many supposed top world Spaniard athletes did crap on their finals and went like 3 to 5 positions lower than expected and were nowhere near their personal bests.
Really! Most other countries can't afford a push bike or a rowing boat?
PS: I am genuinly not feeling smug, I am just feeling very proud.
Well, in Spain we got some of the best cyclists in history, both road and track. In the road section they are still good enough to compete every each other year, but on the track it has been a disaster. There are no good velodromes in Spain. Because of Joan Llaneras being a top contender on the points race and madison race in track for over 10 years, a local administration decided to build a velodrome and make a High Performance Center around it. Due to political corruption on its build, the velodrome is now closed and the regional president has been sentenced to prision -and the princess husband seems that he will also be-.
Also, some other velodromes have been built, with a high public cost. The most important ones don't even have the official measures and are shorter or longer, so they're not able to host an international competition.
On rowing, it's more or less the same. There is no tradition on rowing, except on the Basque Country, but they do it at the sea and they're not comfortable on rowing for Spain...
epper: