Counter point: Neither the 1980 nor 1984 Olympics featured all the best athletes. From what I recall medals at both Olympics were highly celebrated in the countries of the winners with some medal winners becoming celebrities and household names in their respective countries.
Maybe at the time, but not anymore.
Everyone knows that Canada’s best result in Los Angeles was the result of the boycott.
It’s an asterisk that people still talk about today when comparing medal totals in the media here in Canada during the Summer Games.
TheMoreYouKnow said:
Another example, a number of the best European nations chose not to participate at the 1930 FIFA World Cup because it was then a new tournament and travel to Uruguay seemed too arduous for it to be worth it. Uruguay won that tournament and to this day the absence of a significant % of the best players does not seem to be much more than a footnote nor is it seen as negating Uruguay's triumph.
And yet the reason I know this as well is because it was explained to me at length when I was living in West Germany growing up.
I think most rational Canadians would say that this tournament is worth something - but like you said, it’s not equivalent to the Word Cup or Euro in football - not without the worlds best.
It’s not really that controversial a position.
But then again, as I said earlier, we don’t have a tournament culture here. We don’t have league cups and FA cups and Spengler Cups and EHTs etc. I personally like the culture of throwing tournaments together but it doesn’t have a lot of traction here.
Even our soccer here follows a North American playoff format.