ATHENS 1896

yes, it's the mythological Cheboksary...
 
here are the highlights of the women's pole vault and high jump...
 

 

Thank you @hckošice for your immediate response. Let's hope that during forthcoming European Champs or via the expected Athletics Paris 2024 qualification procedures more insight will be available. 

You are absolutely right. NBC will significantly influence; not to say dictate the date window. 

Actually there is one: https://totallympics.com/index.php?/calendar/event/16024-chess-fide-candidates-tournament-2020/
 
 
I have removed this because of this news: http://bmxsanjuan.com.ar/wordpress/coronavirus-comunicado-del-club-bicicross-san-juan/
 
 

NRL Rugby (XIII or Rugby League, if you prefer) is still goin' on, while Aussie Rules Football (AFL) has stopped every activity at least until the end of April...
 
https://www.nrl.com/news/2020/03/22/nrl-reaffirms-commitment-to-play-on-as-afl-suspends-competition/

I mostly agree with your standpoint. Due to all the uncertainty of this crisis, it would probably be best to postpone it to next year, as I don't see September or October are better options. How will two or one month extra, without a worldwide vaccine available, change anything? For the health of the athletes and for the fairness of the sports, it seems, giving the current circumstances, a postponement would be a fair and reasonable decision. 
I would also like to state that I'm not in favour of having the Olympics behind closed doors. As fans and athletes should be able to celebrate these special moments together. After all, despite of not always being one of the top priorities for some of the people in IOC, The Olympics are about bringing nations, cultures and people from all over the world together in the celebration and love of sports. 
 
Edit: Just to make it clear. I still have the opinion that IOC shouldn't officially postpone it before May/mid-May. Also, Thomas Bach is often not the best to communicate his points or he is just being too honest sometimes to be in sports politics. 

Sure. But everything is in Chinese. Especially the playlist and subtitle. Hard to choose which game to watch and recognize the athlete because they almost wear same NT clothes except Viktor An wearing all black. He only participated 1000m and 5000m relay. The schedule should be similar to WCH.
 
First day 03/13: https://v.qq.com/x/cover/mzc002006giozr5.html
Second day 03/14: https://v.qq.com/x/cover/mzc00200sgsshnh.html
Third day 03/15: https://v.qq.com/x/cover/mzc00200k7qthmk.html
 

Turkey has football, basketball and volleyball leagues.
 
Belarus has football, handball, hockey and volleyball.
 
Russia has some volleyball and some hockey.
 
Australia has a variety of sports still going on.
 
There is plenty of football in Africa, Middle East and Americas including Brazils regional cups.

It’s what happens when people forget that Central America and the Caribbeans are part of North America.

In most sports Australia has the easiest Olympic qualification route of any country as part of Oceania. In most cases their only significant opposition is New Zealand. European countries usually have the toughest route to qualification as in many of the sports the continent has the greatest strength in depth. So I'm sorry, but I really can't find any sympathy for your argument.

I have posted two days ago in womens' thread, now in mens' as well:
 
Kazakhstan was selected as a host country. It was planned that the tournament would be held in the capital of Kazakhstan Nur-Sultan (previously named Astana) in the middle of February (12th – 16th).
But, yesterday, Kazakhstan refused to organize the continental championships. The Government of Kazakhstan suspended all passengers traveling to and from neighboring county China. It also suspended the issue of visas to Chinese citizens because of an outbreak of a new coronavirus spread.
After this government’s decision, the Aquatics Federation of Kazakhstan had to give up the organization of the tournament.
The Asian Swimming Federation and FINA have to find a new solution quickly. The Asian Championships have to be finished before the World Qualifications.
 
Source: https://total-waterpolo.com/problems-on-road-to-tokyo-kazakhstan-refuses-to-host-asian-championships/

I don't seem to understand why a relative small global team sport like water polo doesn't have selection criteria? 
 
In water polo they could be like this:
 
Eligibility for Continental Selection and World Qualification Tournament (both men and women):
At least one of the criteria must be fulfilled:
- Qualify for the Super Final in the World League at least once during the Olympic cycle, 2017-2020. (Hosts of the Super Final who don't qualify via the qualification will not have fulfilled the criterion)
- Achieve a top 8 place at one of the two World Championships in the Olympic cycle.
- Achieve a top 4 place at a Continental Championship or Continental Games consisting of at least 8 teams.
- Achieve a top 2 place at a Continental Championship or Continental Games consisting of at least 6 teams.
 
If one of the criteria mentioned above are fulfilled, a nation is eligible for Continental Selection or participation in the World Qualfication Tournament. 
 
The World Qualifcation Tournament consist of at least 12 nations for men and at least 10 nations for women. 
In case the number of participating nations in one or both of the WQT don't reach its target number, one or more of the following scenarios will apply:
- In case 1 spot has to be filled, the combined highest placed non-eligible nation from the two World Championships in the Olympic cycle will recieve an invitation spot. 
- In case 2 or more spots have to be filled then one of the spots will go to the combined highest placed non-eligible nation from the two European Championships in the Olympic cycle. The rest of the spot of will be filled with the highest placed non-eligible nations from the two World Championships in the olympic cycle.
 
To exemplifly with the current qualification:
 
Australia's men's and women's team are eligible for Continental Selection. Let's say they accept it and are qualified for the Olympics
 
Men's WQT:
Achieved one of the criteria:
 Croatia
 Greece
 Montenegro
 Germany
 Russia
 Canada (Pan-Am Games)
 Brazil (Pan-Am Games)
 Argentina (Pan-Am Games)
 Kazakhstan (Asian Games) (Would likely qualify)
 Iran (Asian Games)
 China (Asian Games)
One more Asian nation if the Asian QT consist of at least 8 nations and Japan is not one of the 4 nations in top 4
 
Has not achieved any of the criteria, but receives an invitaton spot if any of the Asian nations above qualifies:
 South Africa (12th place at the 2017 WCH)
 
If one of the nations above rejects its spot,  Romania would receive an invitation 
 
Women's WQT:
Achieved one of the criteria:
 Italy
 Hungary 
 Netherlands
 Greece
 Brazil (Pan-Am Games)
 Cuba (Pan-Am Games)
 China (Asian Games) 
 Kazakhstan (Asian Games)
One of the two nations above are likely to qualify via the Asian QT
It seems the Asian QT will only consist of 6 teams and therefore it's not likely one more Asian nation will be eligible for the WQT
 
Have not achieved any of the criteria, but receive invitaton spots in case one of the Asian nations above qualifies and no new Asian nation becomes eligible:
 New Zealand (Two 12th places at the WCHs)
 South Africa (A 14th and 16th place at the WCHs)
 France (A 11th place at the 2017 WCH and highest placed non-eligible European nation)
 
You may ask, what if more than 12 or 10 nations are eligible for WQT? If that is the case, which is not very likely as long as Oceania and African don't hold Continental Championships, all eligible nations would be allowed to participate in the WQT. 
 

And in same Olympic cycle they got the silver medal at the 2018 ECh. They can beat any of the other 3 teams and I wouldn't be surprised at all if they qualify. 

No title defense for Chloe Esposito - "a wonderful unexpected surprise has happened", using her own words. The August will bring something else into her life than another Olympic medal.

Rankings are here:
https://www.fig-gymnastics.com/site/rankings/ranking_wag.php
 
https://www.fig-gymnastics.com/site/rankings/ranking_mag.php
 
Everything else is explained in this pdf - criteria 5ART Olympic Qualification Tie-breaking Rules_E._FINALpdf.pdf

For the moment I only found this: https://www.wpnews.eu/asian-water-polo-championship-in-kazakhstan/
 
But will post if found something else.

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.

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

That is the most sensible approach.
 
SEA region (Brunei, Burma (Myanmar), Cambodia, Timor-Leste, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) has geographical proximity to Oceania and will provide some depth in competition. It will also give some extra boost to those countries (since they will have to compete one sport giant (Australia) rather than three (China, Japan, South KOrea).

and here is the updated OQR after today's event...
 
1. Russia 286 (Q)
2. South Korea 224 (Q)
3. France 208 (Q)
4. Italy 202 (Q)
5. Ukraine 180 (Q as the best European team outside the top 4 overall)
6. Hungary 173
7. China 172 (Q as the best Asian team outside the top 4 overall)
8. United States 171 (Q as the best Panamerican team outside the top 4 overall)
9. Japan 147
10. Poland 127
11. Spain 124
12. Germany 120
13. Canada 117
14. Tunisia 107 (Q as the best African team outside the top 4 overall)
15. Turkey 105
16. Azerbaijan 99
17. Venezuela 94
 
as Italy are only a bunch of chokers, despite the 29 point-margin they still have over Hungary, there's a good chance we're going to have some dramatic final events for what concerns the European continental spot, with Ukraine and Hungary probably taking over Italy before the end of the race...
 
at that point, our only hope to qualify to the Games is the unsportsmanlike hope that Tunisia drop out of the top 16, which is actually quite possible, as TUR, AZE and VEN, if they are going to start all the remaining competitions, have very good chances to sum up a loto more points than TUN and eventually end up in front of them...
 
we'll see...
 

There is a near imperceptible moment when Lodadio's forearms are used for him to keep balance in a handstand. This deducts 0.3 from his final score. It's one of those things that casual fans don't see, but judges are very careful when judging. It was a fair result, though Çolak also had some errors, of course. Last year we had a much better final when it comes to the execution of skills, but this year was a lot more unpredictable. Great final, still. 

Yesterday was indeed an awesome day for the Mongolian league with 4 tournaments and 400,000 points gained. Today they played only 3 tournaments, rumor has it that players asked for a lunch break. Hopefully this selfish act won't hurt their chances to qualify.

If I can be of help Blog  2020 Tokyo Olympic Qualification https://clasificacionolimpica2020.blogspot.com.es/search/label/Triatlón 
The changes of the Olympic Program in Tokyo, with respect to Rio.
Of that they consist Mixed relays
The Qualification Process summarized and detailed
Study of how to set the Olympic rankings triatlon  mixed relay and individual

It's not just the latest continental championship that counts, it's the average of the last two actually (with the older one counting at only 50%). You can find the calculations on page 3 of this document.
 
This means continental points aren't so straightforward. For example, if Germany wins this eurohockey beating the Netherlands in the final, the dutch will still be "Euro 1" because they won the 2017 edition while Germany finished 4th.
 
In Asia the calculation is even more complicated because they count 3 championships for their continental points (they also count asian Champions trophy). I don't know if India will keep Asia 1, but in worst  case I think they would lose it to Malaysia (Japan won't, as they don't have great points from before).
 
As Asia 2 they would be losing 45 points. Honestly I don't think both England and Germany can pass them.
 
PS: by the way, I think FIH has the best world ranking system out of any team sport international federations. It's not absolutely perfect but mostly everything is weighted pretty well, many IFs should copy it.

That’s what I did in 2015. I was going into high school as a freshmen and streaming was still pretty new so I didn’t think to check ESPN 3. I would sit at my computer at 9, 12, 3, and 6 to check results. I read through every competition and keep my own sheets of results and stats. That’s honestly when I realized how much I loved multi-sports games and the Olympics. The next summer I watched the 2015 European everyday from 8-8 and that cemented my love for international sports. So these games are very sentimental to me and here you talk about how you’re going to follow is making a sentimental (especially since sports (and comedy) really brought me out of a dark place in my life)