Kaspar Taimsoo won bronze at the Rio Olympics in 2016, and retired from professional sports last year.

Talking to "R2 Päev" Monday, he said: "Whenever the Estonian Olympic team competes, there is always this expectation of bringing home a medal.

"I think a score of four [medal-winning olympics] out of five is quite fair. We didn't win any medals, but considering we took a small team, the average performance was very good," Taimsoo continued.

There is also the so-called "Olympic hangover" – the culmination of a four-year preparation cycle followed by the next period after the games themselves.

Additionally, these games came just three years after the last ones and not four – the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were put back a year due to the pandemic.

While this might seem like a unique phenomenon, many athletes may experience it to a certain extent on a yearly basis.

Taimsoo himself said he had to regroup and recoup after major competitions, in order to regain his mental focus.

"The mental fatigue can be very deep seated. It also depends on how the season has gone," he said.

"Some are better at this, some worse – I usually took longer than average to pull myself together," Taimsoo added.

The last time Estonia failed to make the medals table at a summer games was back in 1996 in Atlanta, only the second olympics which the country had competed in following the restoration of independence.

Highlights included the three decathletes Janek Õiglane, Johannes Erm and Karel Tilga, who finished in the top 12 – no other country managed that feat including those with far bigger populations – while Õiglane finished in fifth place.

Nelli Differt was just outside the medals in the women's epee – the discipline which Estonia won its two medals, one gold and one bronze, at the last games in Tokyo.

The men's quadruple sculls team, hurdler Rasmus Mägi, and swimmers Eneli Jefimova and Kregor Zirk also deserve honorably mention in finishing in the top eight.

Taimsoo had hoped to make it to the Paris Olympics after taking a break following Tokyo, but decided at the end of the year to retire.

"A fifth Olympics was a personal goal of mine for some time, but since the stars no longer lined up for me, I had to give up on that dream," he said.

"I used to joke that if I made it to five Olympics, I would have earned a ring for each one – but now I'll be skipping that Olympic tattoo," he quipped.

He has since moved into working in IT.

Finland also failed to win any medals in Paris, for the first time at the summer games since the country became independent, in 1917. Lithuania won four medals this time – two silver and two bronze.

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