Proposals for Continental Olympic Qualifications

[Olympian1010 8,074]

  On 1/20/2020 at 8:58 PM, Monzanator said:

 

Iceland is actually having a worse period in handball. Baseball Olympic final would be USA vs Japan or maybe Venezuela? It's a non-diversity no contest

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Handball final: Europe v. Europe or Europe v. Europe

Baseball Final: North America v. Asia or North America v. South America or Asia v. South America (and with Australia and Netherlands, both Oceania and Europe have realistic chances as well)

[Cobi 987]

  On 1/20/2020 at 9:05 PM, Olympian1010 said:

Handball final: Europe v. Europe or Europe v. Europe

Baseball Final: North America v. Asia or North America v. South America or Asia v. South America (and with Australia and Netherlands, both Oceania and Europe have realistic chances as well)

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In women handball, Brazil was the World Champion in 2013 and South Korea has had a very good team for many years (I'm not sure now, but I guess they even won a World medal a few years ago).

 

In baseball, Netherlands wasn't even able to qualify for the Olympics, so I don't think they have real options right now to be medal contenders.

[Monzanator 4,611]

  On 1/20/2020 at 9:05 PM, Olympian1010 said:

Handball final: Europe v. Europe or Europe v. Europe

Baseball Final: North America v. Asia or North America v. South America or Asia v. South America (and with Australia and Netherlands, both Oceania and Europe have realistic chances as well)

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Other than Italy and Netherlands nobody in Europe plays baseball at the level that would give USA or Japan any trouble. Who are you kidding here?

 

Plus, like mentioned above, Olympics is the pinnacle for handball, for baseball it's World Series and it's not even close. Six teams at the baseball OG tournament is as small as they come. NHL bailed on the Korean WOG already, most golfers took the zika virus excuse to skip Rio etc. Baseball in Tokyo will be just a bunch of backups and no-names from US NCAA schools. And I bet the entire Israeli squad will be US-based in first place.

[Olympian1010 8,074]

  On 1/20/2020 at 9:11 PM, Monzanator said:

 

Other than Italy and Netherlands nobody in Europe plays baseball at the level that would give USA or Japan any trouble. Who are you kidding here?

 

Plus, like mentioned above, Olympics is the pinnacle for handball, for baseball it's World Series and it's not even close. Six teams at the baseball OG tournament is as small as they come. NHL bailed on the Korean WOG already, most golfers took the zika virus excuse to skip Rio etc. Baseball in Tokyo will be just a bunch of backups and no-names from US NCAA schools. And I bet the entire Israeli squad will be US-based in first place.

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Spain used to have a decent team a while back. Great Britain has shown they can be competitive in Softball. World Baseball Classic means more internationally than the World Series by the way. 

[dcro 10,210]

  On 1/20/2020 at 8:46 PM, Olympian1010 said:

Artistic Swimming has more participating countries than many sports on the program.

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What? It has the same 30-40 nations at every World championships.

[JoshMartini007 2,570]

Ignoring the whole "convincing the top leagues to release their players" I feel cricket has a better chance at being a permanent member on the Olympic program than Baseball/Softball. The sport actually has a base in Africa (South Africa/Zimbabwe) and it does a better job at adding more diversity. Baseball may add Venezuela/Panama/Nicaragua as nations which rarely compete in team sports, but cricket also has those options (Jamaica/Barbados/T&T/Guyana competing separately) and a more diverse selection in Asia (Afghanistan/Bangladesh/Sri Lanka) rather than the usual Japan/South Korea

Edited January 20, 2020 by JoshMartini007

[Monzanator 4,611]

  On 1/20/2020 at 9:16 PM, Olympian1010 said:

Spain used to have a decent team a while back. Great Britain has shown they can be competitive in Softball. World Baseball Classic means more internationally than the World Series by the way. 

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Tell that to MLB superstars on those 200m contracts Olympics should be about global stars not some NCAA futures

[Cobi 987]

  On 1/20/2020 at 9:16 PM, Olympian1010 said:

Spain used to have a decent team a while back. Great Britain has shown they can be competitive in Softball. World Baseball Classic means more internationally than the World Series by the way. 

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Yes, we won the silver medal in 2016. The problem is that the team was formed by Latin-Americans (mainly players from Venezuela and Cuba) who were playing in minor leagues in the US and their grand-parents were from Spain. In fact, a national newspaper wrote a very interesting article about them, and only one player was born here. The reality of baseball in Spain is that we have a league of only 8 amateur teams and the sprot is even less popular than ice hockey.

[Monzanator 4,611]

  On 1/20/2020 at 9:18 PM, Cobi said:

 

Yes, we won the silver medal in 2016. The problem is that the team was formed by Latin-Americans (mainly players from Venezuela and Cuba) who were playing in minor leagues in the US and their grand-parents were from Spain. In fact, a national newspaper wrote a very interesting article about them, and only one player was born here. The reality of baseball in Spain is that we have a league of only 8 amateur teams and the sprot is even less popular than ice hockey.

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Yep, that obviously make sense. I'm pretty sure the entire Israeli team in Tokyo will consist of Jewish players born in USA who have lived their entire lives there and played baseball in NCAA or minor leagues. So much for the baseball diversity

[Olympian1010 8,074]

  On 1/20/2020 at 9:17 PM, dcro said:

 

What? It has the same 30-40 nations at every World championships.

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There are many countries that compete in regional games that don’t attend the world championships.