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How about moving Germany, France, Spain, UK, Italy, Poland, Scandinavia, Belgium, Netherlands etc. to America. Russia and Turkey can compete in the Asian qualification and we leave the European qualifier to Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, San Marino and Vatican City. Would be roughly the same.

Nope, the European Championships in January 2017 was the grand opening of the upgraded Duszniki Arena under the "B" license. It's a miracle the funding came through since we did NOTHING to upgrade the cross country courses during the Justyna Kowalczyk golden era. Thankfully biathlon was more lucky and Duszniki can host IBU Cup & Euro Champs now.

According to Wikipedia, IHF has 201 full members, while WBSC only has 141 countries... I think handball is diverse enough to be at the Olympics, and the main reason why baseball isn't is that they don't take the Olympics seriously.

The upgrade cost for Duszniki was 20 million PLN (ca. 6 million USD). The town itself had to provide 5 millions PLN. It's a mountain village aimed at tourism 12 months per year so they have enough hotels over here There's more than biathlon here, the Zieleniec skiing slope is kinda well known and also popular among the Czechs since Duszniki Zdroj is a border town with Czech Republic. The IBU Cup scheduled for last week was cancelled due to lack of snow but this is a picture taken earlier today (from their FB page):

I'm just seeing a criminal that forgot to shave ...

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.

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

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.

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)

Yep, nobody is skipping the final month of the regular season or the World Series to play at the Olympics

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

I know who Scottie Pippen is, thanks Well, you don't have to be a junior to compete in the University Games but the "B" license is sufficient to hold every youth/junior IBU event so Lake Placid doesn't really have to hold an "A" licence here. Those licenses come & go and it's not set in stone, I read somewhere about the 8 year period that is the maximum for any "A" license. Sjusjoen received the "B" license in November 2015 and it expires at the end of 2021. Like someone mentioned earlier Osrblie in Slovakia lost the "A" license after 2009 and it's been downgraded to "B" ever since. I seriously doubt Fort Kent is anywhere near the "A" license these days. It hosted the World Cup in 2011 but Presque Isle probably took over all the funding neccessary for "A" license IMO.

Western Asia? I have never heard someone use that term. The Western-most point of Asia is basically Middle East and Kaukaz (since Turkey belongs to European region despite the fact the actual Asian western-most point is in Anatolia) Artistic Swimming is such a niche sport nobody really cares about that. Baseball is very popular in Japan and in Korea but other than that it's nowhere compared to cricket (due to the British Empire influence over the decades).

Me too! Damn you, Nanjing Lele!

It depends on many things the most important thing is how refereeing will be in the final against home side, but I always can't guarantee any outcome from our sportsmen

Will not disappoint me , right @thepharoah?

What is rule 42.

yeah but it looks like 1/4 because the 1/2 will be vs and vs the final and will qualify to tokyo while EGY ALG will play this international repechage and will fail i bet my shoes

I did not know all of this, thanks. Fort Kent hosted a WC stop a few years ago, there is some interesting footage of NBA star Scottie Pippen (think 2nd fiddle to Michael Jordan) walking around looking really cold available on Youtube of the event. Lake Placid is hosting the World University Games in a few years, so I wonder if an A is required for that, I doubt it. I have contacted the IBU to see if they will release a list and requirements. It does not hurt to ask. I will let everyone know what the results are. I did find this feasibility study of Mammoth, CA looking into building a Biathlon and Nordic Skiing arena. The biathlon information starts on page 20.

Meanwhile in Indonesia: Aquatic Gymnastics (although more media starts to adhere to the newest name change) Let's wait for FIG trying to claim that discipline

Just for clarity, I will not be participating this edition.

It's called Artistic Swimming. Over and out.

No matter how many athletes are in, two runs is definitely the only fair way to go. And if you're so desperate not to have two runs all the time, like FIS seems to be, do the exact opposite of what they've got now: one run in the first round and then switch to two runs.

When you woke up at 1am for see Australian Open and it's raining...

It's time to start with the excellent elimination: Fucsovics defeated Shapovalov for 3-1

In team sports the continental representation is merely a problem for Europe, the other continents are happy that they are pretty much granted free quotas despite their decent/poor level compared to second/third European tier. I would also allow continental spots for crowded events were they are less of an incongruity ...

a) team sports: always Oceania and Asia all together... b) individual sports with 20 or less spots per discipline available overall: same as team sports... c) individual sports with more than 20 spots available overall per discipline: AUS and NZL still competing among the Asian Nations and 1 spot for the remaining smaller Oceanian Nations if there are 21 to 32 spots available overall, 2 or 3 spots (depending on the interest and the general competitivness among the other Oceanian Nations...no free spots gifted to the Pitas of this world) if the spots available are 33+ however, the best solution would be no Continental representation at all...the X best teams/athletes in the world in any given discipline should go to the Olympic competition... but I fear that's not an option for anybody...

Honestly, multi-juries would work best with preferential voting, but of course that would require jurors to rank all of the songs and not just top 12...

Update - Week 3 - January 13 to January 19 - 2020 Men's High Jump +1 https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/united-states/darryl-sullivan-309585 Men's Marathon +1 (Achieved via a Top 5 result in a Gold Label race) https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/ireland/stephen-scullion-223786 Women's Marathon +1 (Achieved via a Top 5 result in a Gold Label race) https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/azerbaijan/marege-hayelom-274423 Qualified Quotas Overview Men (Total Quota: 465) Women (Total Quota: 452) After some quiet weeks, we can finally add some more athletes to the list of qualifed athletes for Tokyo 2020. In the women's marathon in Houston, Ursula Sanchez was really close to achieve the Olympic Standard with a 6th place and a time of 2:29:32. Only 2 seconds shy of the Olympic Standard! https://track.rtrt.me/e/HOU-2020#/leaderboard/top-women-marathon-_ALL/FINISH

Ukrainians will be getting a shitload of funding following these memorable achievements at the European Championships.

Wow, I can write Spanish

Event 67/81 SKELETON Men´s Singles: 1. Luka David Nydegger 2:17.00 2. Elvis Veinbergs 2:18.42 3. Livio Summermatter 2:19.53 Full Final Result HERE

Event 63/81 BOBSLEIGH Men´s Monobob: 1. Alexander Czudaj 2:24.80 1. Andrei Robert Nica 2:24.80 3. Quentin Sanzo 2:25.18 Full Final Result HERE

First results Group A 0 - 3 1 - 2 Group B 1 - 0 1 - 0