With the Olympic Games in Paris past their halfway point, Belgium already won five medals, and there is a good chance that several more will be added to the list this week.
In the first weekend of the Games, cyclists Remco Evenepoel and Wout van Aert immediately got Team Belgium off to a flying start, winning a gold and bronze medal in the time trial, respectively.
Yet the medals sparked controversy after Flemish Minister-President Jan Jambon of the Flemish nationalist party (N-VA) called them "Flemish medals" – choosing to focus on the athletes' Flemish backgrounds rather than join in the celebration of Belgian pride.
Manneken Pis wearing a Team Belgium Olympic outfit. Credit: Belga/Nicolas Maeterlinck
Interestingly, a recent analysis of Team Belgium's results in the Olympics since the 1992 Games in Barcelona by French-speaking newspaper L'Echo revealed that significantly more medals have been won by Flemish athletes than Walloon ones.
Before the start of the Games in Paris, Belgium had won a total of 39 Olympic medals in the summer and winter editions of the Olympics since 1992. Of those, 26 were won by Flemish athletes, compared to eight by their Francophone counterparts. The remaining five were won in team sports.
The difference is not just due to the population size (6.8 million inhabitants in Flanders compared to just under four million in Wallonia and Brussels), but also by the politics surrounding sport.
While the policies that govern sporting activities and the funding decisions are attributed to a single minister of sport in Flanders, there are two separate governing bodies in the French-speaking part of Belgium: one by the Walloon Region, the other by the French-speaking Community Government (Wallonia-Brussels Federation).
Double gold, double bronze
Back in Paris, Belgian judoka from Liège Gabriella Willems clinched the bronze medal in the Women's 70 kg category on Thursday.
During the second weekend, Team Belgium received its fourth medal: a second gold for cyclist Remco Evenepoel, this time for the road race – creating a "moment he could only dream of," he told reporters.
On Sunday, another Belgian cyclist won the country's fifth medal: Lotte Kopecky won bronze in the women's road race. While it was not the gold she was hoping for, Kopecky was still satisfied with her place on the stage.
Together, this puts Belgium at five medals so far – good for 19th place in the current medal table.
Belgian Lotte Kopecky. Credit: Belga/John Thys
Other Belgians were less lucky over the past nine days and fell short of the podium. While judoka Matthias Casse was one of the favourites to become Olympic champion, he lost in the match for bronze and went home empty-handed.
Additionally, Belgian gymnast Nina Derwael was expected to win a bronze medal but narrowly missed out on third place on Sunday. Still, she highlighted how she considered it a win to have made it to the finals after a difficult year (including a severe shoulder injury, surgery, and a new coach).
Other medal hopefuls
Sports data company Gracenote expects five more Belgian medals to follow in the last week of the Games.
The company expects a gold medal for Nafi Thiam (heptathlon), a silver one for Sarah Chaari (taekwondo), another bronze for Lotte Kopecky (omnium cycling), a bronze for the duo Hélène Hesters-Katrijn De Clercq (cycling team race) and a bronze one the Belgian Tornados (4x400m).
But other Belgian teams and athletes are also doing very well: the Red Panthers (women's hockey), the Belgian Cats (women's basketball), Emma Plasschaert (sailing), Noor Vidts (heptathlon) and Alexander Doom (400m sprint) could all be on their way to making history in Paris this summer.
