Sport, us and the Olympics: Samba players in Rio – ANALYSIS

There are 56 days left until the start of the Paris-2024 Summer Olympic Games, which will be held on July 26.

Idman.biz continues the series of articles dedicated to the most prestigious multi-sport competition of the quadrennial, which will start on Friday after 8 weeks.

In the period until Paris-2024, we remember the summer Olympics in which Azerbaijani athletes participated in the years of independence. The Azerbaijan national team, whose debut was made in Atlanta in 1996, made his 6th attempt in Rio de Janeiro after Sydney, Athens, Beijing and London.

For the first time in South America

4 cities claimed to host the 31st Games. Rio de Janeiro has nominated for the multi-sport event that Chicago, Madrid and Tokyo are eyeing. Although Madrid won the first round of the selection, the Brazilian city beat everyone else in the next two rounds. As a result, for the first time in the history of the modern Olympics, the competition was given to South America. The Azerbaijani national team, which began their Olympic journey in North America and traveled to Europe, Australia and Asia, competed in South America for the first time. In total, more than 11,000 athletes from 205 countries and 2 teams went to Brazil. They fought for 306 sets of medals in 28 types.

Absolute Record

The Azerbaijani national team, which has a tradition of being represented by more athletes at every Olympics, has remained faithful to this trend in Rio. Four years ago, the 53-member team went to Brazil with 56 athletes. This record was shattered at that time has remained intact until now. 42 of them were men and 14 women. The record set in London and which remains to this day was repeated in the number of sports represented by us. Our national team tried to play 14 types of samba in Rio.

Debuts on the other side of the ocean

The Rio Olympics entered the history of Azerbaijani sports with several debuts. Azerbaijan made its official debut in archery and triathlon. There were other firsts across the ocean. Our team participated in the Olympic Games for the first time in canoe-slalom and bicycle track.

Those remained under the weight

Our representation in two categories in Brazil has ended. The exclusion from weightlifting, where we have been represented at every Olympics throughout history, has not only been about results. Countless doping scandals resulted in the disqualification of the Azerbaijan national team. Compared to the last two Olympics, our athlete did not participate in equestrian competitions either.

Dayang where the firsts were realized
Rio-2016 was full of historical results for our taekwondo team, like most of our national teams. For the first time, our team participated in the competition with a maximum number of 4 taekwondo players. The first medal and the first championship took place in Brazil. Moreover, the number of these awards was equal to 3. Only Farida Azizova returned home without a medal. Radik Isayev was our first Olympic champion in this sport. Unfortunately, the success of our taekwondo player remained the only championship in South America. None of the other athletes climbed to the top of the podium. As for our taekwondo players, Patimat Abakarova, who lost in the 1/8 finals, passed the qualifying stages, and Milad Beigi Harchegani, after losing in the semi-finals, won the bronze medal match. Farida Azizova, who lost in the semi-finals, missed the chance to win the bronze medal.

Half of our team

Berti Vogts, who coached our national football team in the last decade, reminded that Azerbaijan is a wrestling country in almost every interview in Germany. The experienced specialist was absolutely right. Both the Olympics and other competitions prove this. Rio-2016 was no exception. Until then, Azerbaijan's medal record in one multi-sport event was 9, while in Brazil only wrestlers won so many awards. Exactly half of our nation's 18 medals in South America are owned by wrestlers. Azerbaijan was represented by 14 wrestlers in this competition. Although this was more than four years ago, it was not comparable to the eight previous records. But in Rio, only five wrestler remained without a medal. Two of them - Yuliya Ratkevich and Rovshan Bayramov lost in the bronze match. Elvin Mursaliyev stopped in the 1/4 finals.
Our wrestling team, represented in three finals for the first time in the history of the Olympics, missed all three of these chances. 6 more of our wrestlers won bronze. Only one of our freestyle wrestling national team, consisting of six people, remained without a medal. Toghrul Asgarov and Khetag Gazyumov won silver, Haji Aliyev, Jabrayil Hasanov and Sharif Sharifov took third place. The "quintet" in Greco-Roman wrestling and the "trio" in women's wrestling won 2 prizes each. Only Maria Stadnik advanced to the finals. She took the second place again. Rasul Junayev, Sabah Shariati and Nataliya Synyshyn settled for bronze.

Number decreased, medals not.
Four years ago, a decrease was observed in our national judo team, which went to the Olympics with 8 members. But the "six" managed to win 2 medals as in London. If there was one final, one championship and one bronze medal in England, this time two of our judokas had a decisive match. But both Rustam Orujov and Elmar Gasimov lost from the final. Orkhan Safarov stumbled in the match for bronze. Mammadali Mehdiyev could not pass the consolation stage.

Record and tradition
Our boxing team went to Rio with a large team. Our team broke its previous record of 12 and competed against 11 glovers. One of them was a female athlete. Our boxers, who managed to rise to the podium in Brazil, returned from the 5th Olympics in a row with a medal. If in previous years only bronzes were obtained, this time the excitement of the first final was experienced. But Lorenzo Sotomayor, who lost in the decisive match, missed the gold and was content to become the first silver medalist in boxing history. Kamran Shahsuvarli, who stopped in the semi-finals, returned home with bronze. In fact, the number of these awards could be higher. Teymur Mammadov, the flag bearer of our Olympic national team, as well as Albert Salimov, Elvin Mamishzade, Abdulkadir Abdullayev lost in the last step to the medal - in the 1/4 finals. Yana Alekseyevna, who started the fight at this stage, could not fulfill the task of "lose in the first match, win a medal".

Canoeists' goldless double

Rio-2016 went down in the history of Azerbaijani canoeing. The team won their first medals in Brazil. Like four years ago, our national team, which again sent three athletes, experienced more joy this time. It is true that our representative missed the final in the slalom category. Both our athletes won medals in the sprint. Valentin Demyanenko won silver, Inna Osipenko-Radomska won bronze. But against the background of these successes, both our athletes had a reason to be dissatisfied. Both Valentine and Inna were considered the main candidates for the championship. The 1st places in the stages leading to the finals are proof of this. It was sad that Inna was without a medal in the other final. He is a few steps away from the historic success as our first athlete to win two medals in one competition.

Near the medal

There were certain hopes for our athletes in three more sports. Although sports gymnastics, which later started to develop in our country, was represented by 2 people for the first time, hopes were mostly related to rhythmic gymnastics. Marina Durunda, who advanced to the final stage, finished the Olympics in the top ten. Sabina Mikina, who participated in the Games for the second time, had high hopes for her success in fencing. However, our experienced saber player stopped in the 1/16 finals. This time, our national team, which was not represented in any type of team in Rio, did not come close to qualifying tournaments. Instead, this time we had representatives who participated as a couple. Medal expectations from our academic rowers were not low. But in the end, our duet, who made it to the finals, settled for 12th place.

The main participation
is the principle of "main participation" in the performances of our athletes in more than half of the sports represented in Rio. This time, compared to the last two Olympics, 4 more athletes participated in the competition, and a record number of 3 cyclists participated in the competition. Like them, traditionally, our two swimmers are not only far away from the medals, but even from the top ten. Our debut in archery and two chances in shot put turned out the same. By the way, this time not only our shooter Ruslan Lunev, but also cyclist Olga Ismayilova performed in two sports.

In Top-40 with records

Azerbaijan finished the trip to South America with a total of 18 medals. This was an absolute record in history. Also, the result was twice as much as the previous indicator. With 7 silver and 9 bronze medals, our team set the record of its history in the number of these medals. For the first time, our athletes won medals in 5 different categories. All these records made our team 39th in the medal standings. This is the 3rd indicator in history, and the reason is related to the small number of gold medals.

Vugar Kheyrullayev
Idman.biz