LDOG

Well, if they didn't care there is nothing to do. The USA roster was a complete joke, I think it can not even be called their D team.

Highest ranked team that finished 3rd in one of the tournaments. Likely an european team.

Fiji is out, only one team from Oceania advances. Anyway, Vanuatu will probably withdraw later due to lack of funds, as is tradition of pacific islands in hockey.

Poland and Italy advance to final round. Next step is tournament in Portugal, with Russia and Scotland as favorites (and Gibraltar participation!).

Another GS flop from Zverev.

Following these games got me hyped for pan ams next year. Then I remember we'll probably have even less streaming than this and I get sad again.

Both teams are low level, it's just that Japan is even lower. I still have no idea how India did not win this competition.

A team that lost a game 8-0 ends up winning the tournament. Malaysia squandered a 5-2 lead with 8 minutes to go and a 6-5 in the last minute. I feel their chance for OG is gone with this...

Japan wins, hockey at the asians games was played for NOTHING

Only after the Germany-New Zealand men's QF match in Rio, this is the craziest hockey match I've seen.

lol 6-5 malaysia

ok, this is very crazy

Not true.

2-0 Heung Min Son is saved.

Korea scores in extra time of football final! Still 25 minutes to go.

Malaysia already 4-1 up before half-time. Japan is a low level team, Pakistan really shouldn't have lost to them.

Unfortunately, yes. One team will start the playoffs knowing it's pointless for them.

Because their NOC is only interested in sending world class athletes to the OG and they think that in most sports african qualifiers have insignificant level. It's not that the south african hockey federation rejects them, they actually want to go in any way, it's the NOC that imposes the standard. I don't know how this policy originated but it has more than two decades of being this way, though sometimes they have relaxed it a bit. As for the other question, it varies with each international federation but I think FIH in particular is flexible with them because they don't really want african teams at the OG either, but who knows.

Yeah, last time world qualification took place before continental so it didn't matter, but back in 2012 continental was first, they declined it and then were allowed to participate in world qualification too.

As long as they participate in hockey series and win there, I don't know how they could be denied a place in play-offs regardless of what they do with continental quota.

Although this is confusing to read, I think josh is right... so, no 8th play-off. Just an extra quota for whoever loses the play-offs and is ranked high. Draw stays like I described but if South Africa declines continental then Chile goes a tier down, one team of pot 4 is out and that's it: Pot 1 Pot 2 ( ) Pot 3 Pot 4

Wait, this is even more confusing to me: if you read the section below about host country quota it seems like by "qualification events" they only mean the play-offs (because they say they are "6/7")

hmm now that I see closer you may be right. The use of the term "for the olympic qualification events" makes it harder to understand. They should have just said "reallocated as below".

So, to sum up: Decline continental quota ---> quota adds to play-offs Decline play-off quota ---> quota is given to highest ranked non-qualified

This document is a bit ambiguous: http://www.fih.ch/media/8997773/180406-ioc-approved-qualification-system.pdf In the reallocation section, my interpretation is that any declined continental quota (when there isn't top 20 runner up in the continent) is reallocated to qualification play-offs (therefore rising their number of matches by 1) and then if a team that qualifies through play-offs declines the quota they won in them, only then the highest ranked non-qualified team gets the spot automatically.