Despite having given up on extra-hard Olympic qualification standards, the international competition especially in Europe has increased so dramatically, that it never has been harder for a Danish athlete to qualify for the Olympic Games. According to Danish Olympic Chef De Mission Jesper Frigast Larsen, those selected are doing so good, injury-free and training well, that they now might increase the London 2012 medal expectations from the original 7 medals across all sports.
“I will not deny that it promises to be the best Danish Olympics ever. Over the next 14 days we'll go through all disciplines and revise our medal target.”
Danish sports media sporten.dk yesterday made an interesting rating of those athletes already selected for the Danish Olympic team, grouping them into 4 categories from medal contenders to ‘far-from-medals'. Here below I list only the swimmers, see the full list on sporten.dk
- It smells of metal: Lotte Friis, Jeanette Ottesen
- Perhaps – on a good day: Pál Joensen
- Trainees: Mie Ø. Nielsen, Pernille Blume, menn 4×200 frí
- Far from medals: Mads Glæsner, Rikke Møller Pedersen
(Danes announcing their medal expectations back in January)