Monzanator

Max Verstappen steals Austrian GP with an actual pass for the win with 3 laps remaining... but he's under investigation for banging wheels with LeClerc in the process

Germany lacks offensive star with Marozsan compromised. They literally had nobody to pose a real threat in this game. Beating Nigeria is one thing but Sweden proved too difficult with such a toothless attack.

Polish commentator said Barbara Bonansea earns 40k per season? Talk about cheap labour

1 hour ago, bestmen said:

well this is one of the most hypocritical story of cheating , 99% of Russia is in Asia

 

look at the world ranking of the largest continents:

Asia is 1rst because Russia is in , but Russia refuses to join Asia because they are white 

 

70% of Russia is basically Siberia which lies in Asia. There's literally nothing there to create the sporting success. Russia has been historically tied to Europe since the medieval times. Likewise with Turkey who has strong ties to Europe since the Roman Empire.

First half pretty boring  but Netherlands has turned up the wick in the 2nd so far.

5 hours ago, hckosice said:

Games to forget... quickly...and never re-open

Bus trip from Kosice to Krakow costs like 7 euro   Come visit us in four years time

28 minutes ago, Nickyc707 said:

Apart from the proviso you have made about football, GB also have a strong record in hockey with more Olympic medals than any country apart from the Netherlands. They also have a good record in rugby/rugby sevens. You're right about the other Olympic team sports but then no country has a record of success in every one of the team sports given their different histories and backgrounds. 

 

P.S. One record that is unlikely to be broken is that GB is the only country to have won Olympic gold medals in both hockey and ice hockey.

Rugby is a Commonwealth sports. There's a reason why so few teams actually excell at this and they are the same nations over & over again. Same applies for cricket which is like played in one country in Europe, lol. Olympics is a global sport, rugby & cricket are no global sports by any means. Rugby sevens appeases the unknown tbh. It's a waste of an Olympic spot IMO.

It happens all the time in events where the "home nations" enter as separate teams. Scotland is only eligible to represent GB in curling as well. If you look at Olympic history, GB hasn't done so good in team sports other than football (when entering) and some of the classic team sports at this stage are non-existent in GB at world class level (minus field hockey). You ain't gonna see GB qualify in handball, volleyball or basketball whatsoever. These sports are DOA in the UK.

Kenya was a part of the British Empire. Froome is like the last living proof in pro sports that colonialism was actually a thing.

Btw, why are we talking Froome in a football thread?

Well, the penalty against Scotland vs Argentina and against Japan vs Netherlands looked as much as this non-give here. Zero consistency IMO.

As for French it has to be said Gauvin looked totally lost out there. Should have rolled the dice with Cascarino much, much sooner, maybe at half-time already. This feels like a total waste for the hosts. Nobody has really taken the game to the USA across all 90 mins so far. Maybe England will be different? Both these teams have a knack for scoring early goals which sets up the rest of the game their way.

Handball penalty against US waved off... seen them given at this World Cup...

Renard heads in from the free kick. Game on?

2-0 for USA and the French goose looks cooked.

USA teakes the lead in the 5th minute from a free kick shot across the face of the goal. That was very soft to begin with but can't see France doing all that much anyway.

Norway has been completely useless.

3 hours ago, ofan said:

So if  win on Friday, the two semifinals on Saturday will essentially be "Olympic qualification championship matches" with the winners qualifying for the Olympics, alongside the winner of the  -  match. 

If USA wins every other semi-finalist will be European hence the UEFA Olympic quota will be set. It's been previously announced Great Britain will field a women's team in Tokyo if England becomes of the three best UEFA teams at this World Cup. If USA loses, the bronze medal match will be also an Olympic decider.

2 hours ago, OlympicsFan said:

How exactly is this the fairest solution? Why should continents with far less countries and overall far less strength be guaranteed the same number of quotas as Europe?

I think the fairest solution would clearly be to have a world-cup in the round-robin format where the top 12 teams qualify, but of course that will never happen. FIFA could create something like a continental coefficient where the results of the last 3 world cups for example count and which determines the number of quota places each continent gets.

Mikaela Shiffrin said something like this: "Olympics are for fans, World Championships are for athletes". You can't fight the IOC policy, some of the best athletes/teams in the world will always miss the Olynpics due to the nations quota or limited team events pool. That's how it works. Look at the Olympics wild card thread, none of the traditional multi-medal countries have been awarded a single one while powerhouses like Bolivia, Nepal or Marshal Islands have been awarded multiple ones.

Yeah, I just put the 'verletzt' in google and it's news from like 2 hours ago. That explains it.

So I guess Frappart & Staubli for the German side QFs and Umpierrez a likely front runner for the final IMO.

Karolina Koszewska (ex-Lukasik, 69 kg) & Sandra Drabik (51 kg) into boxing semi-finals!

Women's boxing is one event we send our best athletes

Lucila Venegas (Mexico) for vs and Kateryna Monzul (Ukraine) for vs

Either Steinhaus is injured or else I have no idea what they're up to. No way they put her in the German QF side.

Claudia Umpierrez should be in there or she's saved for the SF.

6 hours ago, OlympicsFan said:

7 out of 8 teams in the quarterfinal are from Europe + Denmark isnt even here + Spain only lost against USA thanks to a late penalty, but somehow someone still thought that Europe only deserves 3 spots at the olympics ... complete insanity!

Europe should have at least 6 spots:

- Host (Japan)

- Oceania (Australia)

- 3 Americas (USA, Brazil, Canada)

- Asia (China)

- 6 Europe (France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, England, Italy/Norway/Denmark/Spain)

That someone is IOC and they always promote continental diversity over strenght of the event. That's why table tennis has only two athlete per nation quota for instance, otherwise China would have send like 5 men (who are all ranked in Top 7 of the world rankings) and then it would be a medal sweep one Games after another. Yes, UEFA is the strongest football federation but it doesn't matter. IOC will never allow 8 UEFA teams, 2 CONCACAF & 2 Asian just because it's the strongest potential line-up.

1 hour ago, Vojthas said:

In Poland Polsat has the rights. It's the biggest non-public Polish media company and has four Sport channels (Sport, Sport Extra, Sport News and Sport Fight) plus Premium and PPV channels for UEFA Champions League. To show you how unattractive event in Poland the Games are I just say that the Games are not in PPV (which was the case of most EURO 2016 and earlier the FIVB World Champs 2014 matches, with only few games shown in their open channel). The best thing they do is not only the good coverage in the TV, but also streams with commentary on their website - polsatsport.pl. Maybe you should try it, though I don't know, how it looks with geoblocking.

It's safe to say coverage will be better in 2023 when Krakow hosts it?   Then again, one medal for Poland in 4 days is pretty weak? I seem to recall Baku provided more success? But we've openly punted away most events esp. athletics. I can imagine Krakow will be better. Rowing/canoeing finals tomorrow? Guess that helps us a little?