Tokyo 2020 Day after Day as it could have happened

[Jinzha 703]

40 minutes ago, CCB said:

It's our best handball player: Estavana Polman, voted as the MVP of the last WCh and wife of the more or less known Dutch football star Rafael van der Vaart. 

 

Coincidentally you ask that. This morning I read she yesterday has been seriously injured, she has torn her cruciate ligament. Very sad to hear, first of all for herself, but also for the Dutch team, which is nowhere without her. Predicted recovery time is longer than a year. Olympic Games at risk. So you probably can't support her next year 

Aww that's really sad to hear.

 

Estavana Polman did an hour long interview with NOS for the Olympic Podcast that was released just this week. Definitely recommend listening! (In Dutch ofc)

 

As for the Olympics 'today', swimming and athletics are once again the main events. I hope Nadine Visser and Femke Bol reach the finals for 100m and 400m hurdles. And also the RS:X medal races, archery and potentially some preliminaries in team sports.

[rafalgorka 1,821]

https://swimswam.com/the-olympics-that-would-have-been-campbell-u-s-relays-finish-strong-on-day-8/

 

Mykhailo Romanchuk winning 1500 free? Hmm... I don't know. 

[OlympicsFan 860]

7 hours ago, phelps said:

super-Saturday, they call it...but to me, it's not so super...

 

however, from my personal perspective, not to be missed: Swimming (women's 200m Backstroke and 800m Free especially, because of Italian medal chances), Athletics (men's Discus and above all, women's 100m), Fencing (women's Team Sabre, maybe a new medal chance for Italy), Shooting (the "new" Trap Mixed Team event and the women's 3-position Rifle...the first one also with potential medal chances for us), Archery (men's Individual...definitely with Italian medal chances) and RS:X finals in Sailing (once again, an event where we expect our guys to do well)...

 

a bit behind those events named above, it's "moving day" in the men's Golf tournament, the Mixed Relay in Triathlon, the Badminton final of the day...and everything else happening "today"...

What do you mean with medals CHANCES in swimming? 

[phelps 8,717]

4 minutes ago, OlympicsFan said:

What do you mean with medals CHANCES in swimming? 

 

Margherita Panziera in the Women's 200m back and above all, Simona Quadarella in the women's 800m Free...

 

obviously I'm not talking about Gold, but  Silver and/or Bronze are well possible for them (actually, anything else below Silver for Quadarella would go under the classification "disappointing")...

[OlympicsFan 860]

2 hours ago, phelps said:

 

Margherita Panziera in the Women's 200m back and above all, Simona Quadarella in the women's 800m Free...

 

obviously I'm not talking about Gold, but  Silver and/or Bronze are well possible for them (actually, anything else below Silver for Quadarella would go under the classification "disappointing")...

Panziera: For me her winning a medal would be a huge surprise

Quadarella: Whether something is disappointing or not depends on your expectations, so I would say maybe your expectations are too high. Wang and Titmus are barely slower than her and much younger, so those two overtaking her wouldn’t be a shock by any means.

[bmo 267]

For day 9 I would be watching gymnastics finals, athletics, badminton, BMX freestyle, equestrian cross country, sailing medal races, swimming finals, tennis finals & maybe diving, beach volleyball, golf

[Col_Frost 179]

Couldn't write yesterday so I'll catch up if you don't mind.

 

So 8th day:

- archery men's finals

- athletics - especially 4x400m mixed; I don't like idea of mixed events very much but I love 4x400m relays on the other hand so... 

- badminton doubles finals

- rugby 7 women's finals

- sailing RS:X medal races

- shooting mixed team trap (same problem as in athletics)

- triathlon mixed relay (and again)

 

And now 9th day:

- artistic gymnastics finals

- athletics - probably men's 800m semis would be more exciting for me than men's 100m final

- badminton women's single finals

- sailing laser and laser radial medal races

- swimming - all my favourite distances would be that day: 50m freestyle, 4x100m medley and 1500m

- first day of wrestling 

[phelps 8,717]

13 hours ago, OlympicsFan said:

Panziera: For me her winning a medal would be a huge surprise

Quadarella: Whether something is disappointing or not depends on your expectations, so I would say maybe your expectations are too high. Wang and Titmus are barely slower than her and much younger, so those two overtaking her wouldn’t be a shock by any means.

 

maybe you just missed out on how Quadarella destroyed the Chinese (and all the other) girls at the last world champs...

her expectations are higher than mine, however...she recently said she really thinks she can beat Ledecky over the 1500m and be closer to her than last year in the 800m by next season...

I think she's gone a bit too far, but surely she's better than the Chinese girls (especially if WADA makes a normal, not even beyond average, job) and even than Titmus, who's going to focus on 200m and 400m mainly, using the 800m just for training (she isn't even sure she'll take part in the Olympic 800m, like she said in an interview after the race of last year's worlds)...

 

Panziera last year was 2nd or 3rd (I don't remember exactly) in the world in terms of clockings and 4th at the world champs, when she underperformed because she was sick (even if we discovered that only months after the event, at the time she only said she had a bad week like it happens sometimes)...

with her PB in Kwangju she would have been 2nd with margin...

behind the untouchable Regan Smith I don't see any other girl out of reach for her...then, anything can happen, as always...but there are not so many girls capable of going down to 2.05...and she's one of them, which to me is enough to say she's a legitimate medal contender...

[rafalgorka 1,821]

Day 9, Sunday,

That would be one of the most entertaining days for me.

 

1. Last swimming finals (I hope Paweł Juraszek will make it to the 50m free final),

 

2. Athletics - my beloved high jump (no serious Polish contenders, but at least Mutaz has a Polish coach - and I am so happy to see Gianmarco Tamberi back after this terrible injury - I wonder what he could have achieved and how high he could have jumped if it hadn't happen to him - but he's back and still capable of doing big things)

100m semis and final (hopefully without Justin Gatlin and Christian Coleman)

and yes, 800 semis - and 400m hurdles semis may be interesting, too - a very strong field here these days

 

3. First individual gymnastics apparatus finals (Nina Derwael winning gold on bars I hope)

 

4. Tennis - men's singles final (Novak Djokovic (I like the way he plays, I don't like some other things about him and his team members) vs Stefanos Tsitsipas I hope, that would be very entertaining)

and mixed doubles final maybe (there are not many mixed doubles pairs playing in Grand Slams with both players from one country - so this tournament is very open competition and a really hard-to-predict one). I would advice Łukasz Kubot and Iga Świątek to focus on it and maybe something spectaculiar will happen. But it;s a bit of wishful thinking again I'm afraid - Polish players haven't shown much in the olympics yet, even Agnieszka Radwańska imploded heavily both in 12 and in 16).

 

5. Equestrian cross country in eventing (i like to watch this in the olympics very much - but I don't understand why they don't let the riders start with dressage results in a reversed order - it is very interesting already, but maybe maybe it would be even more interesting with this change)

 

6. Golf - final round, especially if there would be 2-3 players with similar score after first 3 days (I wonder how many top players would show up in Tokyo - I think more than in Rio, but sadly still there would be some significant absentions). Adrian Meronk in top 30 would be a very good result for us. Maybe they would show him on tv here a few times, which would make golf more popular in Poland. That would be nice.

 

7. Volleyball - men's - POL vs CAN - the last match in the group stage. I hope we would secure a QF spot before and it will not be an all-or-nothing game. Because otherwise... well, it will be 9 a.m. Japanese Time - and sadly Polish athletes have some history of bad olympics performances before noon  - still can't figure out why ;-)

 

8. Beach volleyball - 1/8 finals with one or two Polish pairs probably

 

So it's a long day. But very entertaining.

 

[OlympicsFan 860]

26 minutes ago, phelps said:

 

maybe you just missed out on how Quadarella destroyed the Chinese (and all the other) girls at the last world champs...

her expectations are higher than mine, however...she recently said she really thinks she can beat Ledecky over the 1500m and be closer to her than last year in the 800m by next season...

I think she's gone a bit too far, but surely she's better than the Chinese girls (especially if WADA makes a normal, not even beyond average, job) and even than Titmus, who's going to focus on 200m and 400m mainly, using the 800m just for training (she isn't even sure she'll take part in the Olympic 800m, like she said in an interview after the race of last year's worlds)...

 

Panziera last year was 2nd or 3rd (I don't remember exactly) in the world in terms of clockings and 4th at the world champs, when she underperformed because she was sick (even if we discovered that only months after the event, at the time she only said she had a bad week like it happens sometimes)...

with her PB in Kwangju she would have been 2nd with margin...

behind the untouchable Regan Smith I don't see any other girl out of reach for her...then, anything can happen, as always...but there are not so many girls capable of going down to 2.05...and she's one of them, which to me is enough to say she's a legitimate medal contender...

If you mean:

a) all = everyone except Ledecky

b) destroyed = being less than 1.5 seconds ahead of Titmus (who is 2 years younger than her) and Köhler and only a bit over 2 seconds ahead of Wang (who is 4 years younger than her).
0.7 seconds over 800 m (the time Quadarella beat Titmus by) equals less than 0.1 seconds over 100 m, would you also say that person A destroyed person B if person A was 0.1 seconds ahead of person B in the 100 free? 
It‘s great that Quadarella thinks that she can beat Ledecky, it is probably what she has to tell herself to be motivated, but based on the facts I would say that this opinion has no basis in reality. 
So you are sure that the Chinese girls are doped while Quadarella is clean? Another interesting take ...

 

We‘ll see about Panziera, time certainly isn’t on her side. Smith and McKeown seem out of reach for her. Ruck and Atherton are both clearly younger than her, so I expect at least one of them will get to 2:05 by 2021. You also have Masse and especially Baker who seem capable of 2:05. Panziera might be a medal contender on paper, but I don’t see her actually winning a medal. The good thing is that we will (if the olympics take place) find out in about 12 months.