Leaderboard

I hope to see with 100+ athletes again and I think it is very possible but we'll see. Water polo we will certainly qualify our men's team. Between men's basketball, women's water polo and women's basketball (we have many good young players so I'm not sure if 2024 will be too early or 2028 more realistic but you never know), I think we can get another 1-3 teams although men's basketball and women's water polo are always one game away and then choke. Same thing happened this year. I don't think we'll qualify a full team in artistic swimming again (which is so sad because our girls didn't get to compete in Tokyo because half of the team got covid) but we will definitely qualify a duet. Many sports like cycling, judo, taekwondo, table tennis, fencing, wrestling we will probably qualify 1-3 athletes in each sport like usual. Weightlifting and archery we are hoping for 1 in each just as in Tokyo. Tennis we had 2 in Tokyo, hoping for another 1-2 in Paris but we will see. Petros Tsitsipas is close to top 200 in doubles and Valentini Grammatikopoulou is getting close to top 100 in doubles so maybe they can join our other two players. Grammatikopoulou/Sakkari would've made it this year if they stayed on the alternates list until the last minute. They had a higher combined ranking than Brazil and Chinese Taipei 2 but then again so did dozens of other potential teams from other countries that also weren't on the list. Some sports we haven't been in the Olympics since 2012 (beach volleyball, canoeing, diving) or 2008 (boxing). Of those I think we have the best chances in boxing and diving, hopefully to get about 1-2 in each of those sports. Sailing we had 8 in Tokyo and that's usually about what we have so I think it will be the same in Paris, somewhere between 6 and 11 sailors or so for us. Swimming we had 17 in Beijing, 14 in each of London and Rio, and 12 in Tokyo so we keep going down but I think we can go up again to about 15-18 in Paris. The problem is women's swimming has gone downhill. That is where we see decreases. We had 7 in Beijing, 6 in London, 4 in Rio and 2 in Tokyo. I don't think it is possible to keep going down, the only way is up so I am hopeful some of our young girl swimmers will do better. Shooting we usually have 2-3 shooters (at least the last few Games that's how it was) but the sport has grown a little and we have some young athletes that came close to qualifying for Tokyo, so I think in shooting we should aim for 4-5 quotas for Paris and based on results it seems realistic. Gymnastics we only had 1 athlete in Tokyo after having 9 in each of Beijing, London, Rio. A lot of this is because we didn't qualify in the rhythmic group as we usually do, and no other individuals qualified in artistic or rhythmic even though some were expected to. I think 3-4 is realistic for Paris. Rowing we also went down with only 4 athletes, we had 10 in each London and Beijing. But the ages of our rowers in Tokyo were 20, 20, 22, and 24 so we have a very young team and I expect more in Paris. We had 20 in athletics which was the lowest we had in a while, but most expressed desire to continue to 2024 except for two who will retire in 2022, but both of those athletes only qualified after withdrawals anyways (Tsiamis and Vasiliou). We have some up and coming athletes, also a lot of female race walkers and with the new 35km team event I guess that will give us more quotas. So maybe we can aim for 30 in Paris? I will say this for Greece should be our targets: 36-Team Sports (men's water polo + two other teams in basketball/water polo) 1-Archery 2-Artistic Swimming 30-Athletics 2-Boxing 3-Cycling 1-Diving 2-Fencing 4-Gymnastics 3-Judo 15-Rowing 10-Sailing 5-Shooting 18-Swimming 2-Table Tennis 2-Taekwondo 3-Tennis 1-Weightlifting 3-Wrestling So in total that equals 143. Probably seems very optimistic but time will tell. @Ted @maestro @George_D

has qualified a full team of 18! Men’s singles qualifiers: Alternates: Qualification summary for men’s singles: 3 entries: 2 entries: 1 entry:

First two QF in Ostrava are over so we have a vs semi-final. Swiatek vs Sakkari @Makedonas

Looks like Edgaras Zekas and Jomantas Venckus might have overslept....both DNS, but here they are.

Pairs Olympic qualifiers: Alternates: Really disappointing result for China, who almost certainly would have had three pairs after worlds if not for COVID and because 2 of the 3 teams ahead of them are transfers. Unfortunately they had two falls. This is the Olympic debut in pairs for both Spain and “Georgia”. Qualification summary for pairs: Three entries: Two entries: One entry:

I can't help but be impressed. A GREAT, accurate, comprehensive analysis as usual. Μπράβο!

Emma practicing with Kate Middleton today

is officially a member of the UCI

And now Kvitova in the semifinals too. This is looking stronger than many slam semifinal lineups Sakkari could've made the top 10 if Kvitova and Bencic both lost today. Still a chance this week. But I like Kvitova and Bencic too. I think Maria will make the top 10 regardless, she is very close and has few points to defend while others have many points to defend over the next few weeks.

Mixed feelings about Baroncini winning: Cool to see an Italian win by actually winning this time, after the 2019 debacle Sad to see he stayed ahead of the group, because Eritrea's Biniam Girmay pulled yet another fantastic sprint out of his legs and took silver I mean, that is definitely awesome and no doubt historic, but it'd have been even more awesome and historic if Baronicini wasn't ahead of them Obviously it's not at all like Girmay is a huge surprise or anything, he has shown for quite a while already that he is a seriously talented rider worthy of riding in the World Tour, but it's still really cool to see Eritrea get a medal. And just to clarify: Baroncini absolutely deserved the win, that was perfect timing!

Wow, most likely no Olympics for Germany in the men's singles.

Olympic qualification situation in ice dance after the rhythm dance: /

Here a very good article about the new Artistic gymnastics qualification system, including an as if qualification for 2020. https://thegymter.net/2021/08/22/fig-proposes-updated-olympic-qualification-process-for-2024-quad-what-does-it-look-like/ major changes will be again 5 spots per team, and no additional spots for NOC which qualify a team Less places for all around at the WCH 2023 and NOC placed 13-15 can qualify two athletes One spot only for specialist at the 2023 WCH, but two spots qualify via World Cup series in 2024 One spot for all around via Continentals e.g. Croatia would have qualified one male athlete, but no female in 2020 with the new rules In general I think the changes are ok, the only part I don't like is that NOC which took two or one quota at the WCH in all around, can do that again at the continental championship. In my opinion that is not fair.

Cyprus made a mistake sending their skater in the women's event.

Weird, I didn't see that part of the match but saw the ending/handshake and it looked quite friendly.

Now, this is how you reply to the Pope when he criticises one of your policies “I asked Pope Francis not to let Christian Hungary perish,” Orban posted on his Facebook page, along with a photo of the two shaking hands. As a gift, Orban gave the pontiff a copy of a letter written by King Bela IV to Pope Innocent IV in 1250 asking for help against Mongol warriors who threatened Christian Hungary. https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3148496/pope-calls-openness-after-meeting-hungarys-viktor-orban-heading

in parliamentary elections in Russia also Putin's party came first with 49% (surprise )

Olympic qualification situation after the men’s short program: / Olympic qualification situation after the pairs’ short program: /

From the IIHF... Olympic schedule announced Men's field is all set. Women's field still has 3 teams to qualify. And remember the women's tournament has expanded to 10 teams, so they'll start play the day before the opening ceremony. Men's format is identical to the last 3 Olympics

USA is so desperate to get rid of immigrants they ship them back to Haiti by plane. So much for Joe Biden being any different with the immigrants than Trump https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-58650753