Does the response make sense?

[joham]

--Our women athletes achieved great success in the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.
--Yes. No one could perform better, I think.

Does the response sound good to native English speakers?

 

[BobK]

--Our women athletes achieved great success in the Vancouver Olympic Winter Games.
--Yes. No one could have performed better, I think.

Does the response sound good to native English speakers?

Almost ;-) Your response means 'However much the other competitors tried, they could not perform better than our women athletes'. The response should use a perfect. Strangely, this little change in the tense changes the meaning of 'No one' from 'no other competitor from among the other competitors' to 'no possible replacements for our own competitors [in an ideal world]'.

And the 'I think' is probably superfluous; or if you want to emphasize that it's only a personal opinion, you could say '...cd have performed better, in my view'. Another way of achieving the same effect (and maybe more natural sounding...:-?) would be 'Yes. I don't think anyone could have performed/done better.'

b

 

[BobK]

You're welcome. Sorry about the slip (fixed now, johan! I think my use of 'past perfect' was wrong - 'has performed' is present perfect, 'had performed' is past perfect, but I don't know what to call it when you append a modal). Perhaps another teacher will chip in.

b