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I don’t think the format for speed climbing makes any athlete a lock. Any top 10 speed climber could win on the day. Lead/Boulder however, Janja Garnbret is as safe as you can get for a gold medal.

Shocking stuff, 3 gymnasts got injured within the week. All 3 were team contenders with chances for an all-around medal (Skye Blakely, Shilese Jones, Kayla DiCello) USA are still favorites but it's a massive compilation.

In a team of world record holders, multiple world championships, a world leading sprint team, she is the peak. She looked like she was barely pushing but was miles ahead of the field and the world.

1. Seeing the road race, football (Marseille), Sport Climbing, Rhythmic Gymnastics, and Modern Pentathlon. First half of the games I’ll be like everyone else on my TV, laptop, and phone. 2. I’ll go with and because they’re the likely semi finalists in women’s football I’d support (USA will almost certainly be at the Lyon semifinal)

Comes out of Budapest with the final two quotas needed to be the only country to send the max 8 climbers to Paris. Zach Hammer got 7th in speed climbing at both Shanghai and Budapest, getting him a safe qualification seat considering the 3 Indonesian climbers fighting for one quota (shoutout to former world record holder Veddriq Leonardo for getting that btw) In Boulder/Lead Brooke Raboutou proves herself as a medal contender after posting a 100 out of 100 is OQS points. Winning both legs of the competition and ending her years long qualifying struggles after twice being a the runner up for qualification at the world championships and then Pan American games.

Yuto Horigome winning outright in Budapest to just out qualify the next best Japanese skater, someone ranked higher then Yuto is exactly the momentum he needs to become a superstar with a good performance in Paris. I had fully discounted him after Shanghai. I posted that the success of the inspired young Japanese generation could push him out of defending his gold. And yet in one comp he went from ranked 6th in Japan to 3rd in world (and in Japan.) Yet, the winner of qualifying is still a 14 year old, so maybe the new generation has already bested Yuto.

1. No complaints, it would be simply rude to have any regrets while beating the hosts in qualification. The only jeopardy was men’s football, but that was booked years ago. I’m personally sad to not see an American rhythmic gymnastics team, but that’s really not a big loss compared to the quota quantity elsewhere. 2. Add squash and cricket four years earlier. Cut boxing and wrestling, temporarily. Keep breaking and add parkour while you’re at it. 3. Climbing should have gone from 2 to 6 medals. Speed, Lead, and Boulder.

New renders of these updated venues The diving venue is hilarious with how much seating they have dedicated for it.

These all are sensible updates. Not surprised they released these plans while the swim trials are being held a Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. That was clearly a test run for swimming at SOFI and a very successful one. Diving will move to the original Olympic pool behind Memorial Coliseum. That venue will need a big renovation but it nicely clustered. The other big change is Gymnastics at Staples/Crypto.com/Downtown Center. Gymnastics is the premier arena sport at the games so only right for it to move to the premier indoor venue in LA. The new Clippers arena is looking like a great place to watch Basketball, taking a lot of cues from European and college sports arena design to make things much more intimate. Sepulveda switched from equestrian and shooting to skateboarding, archery, and BMX race and freestyle. Sucks that skateboardings not at Venice beach, but the Sepulveda Dam area has a good aesthetic for those kinds of sports between park and concrete. I wonder if they're allowed to put venues on or near the spillway? I don't know what Oklahoma City did to get softball and slalom, but if they want it they can have it. Assuming these changes remain the other events left without a venue are: Flag Football, Cricket, Lacrosse, Squash, Baseball, Sport Climbing, and Surfing. I would have thought one of Flag Football or Lacrosse would get into SOFI but looks like the stadium is fully booked for swimming. Rose Bowl now? Here's the letter with full details and budget estimations: https://la28.org/content/dam/latwentyeight/newsroom/news-stories/LA28VenuePlanAmendment.pdf

There’s something special in that stadium. Best ticket in the country. Two WRs and the meet is just halfway through. Cannot wait to see the US women’s medley team in action.

: 118 medals, 41 golds. I think Paris will have to be slightly better for medals then Tokyo, but not crazy. Really does come down to the swimming team. Track I’m thinking we could see +2-3 golds from Tokyo but I don’t have a sense of where the swimming team is now that the legends of the late 2010s are out of their prime. If the newer swimmers can keep the ball rolling then breaking 120 is very likely considering the new sports since Rio are all US medal chances. Climbing’s split events could lead to 4 medals with gold possible in men’s speed.

This is a great sign for USAs chances of getting into the super 8. If Ireland is the weakest team in the group you have to assume USA can beat them and 3 wins would be enough. Although who knows maybe Canada goes and beats India and Pakistan and wins that slot, this is group is already peak CONCACAC.

Got all 3 added North American team sports predicated but didn’t put Squash in the top 20. Just shows how poorly squash was treated in previous bids. Wish it was in Paris so we could put a glass squash box inside the Louvre’s glass pyramid.

The women's OQS Shanghai champion, Ayumi, is a 40 year old school teacher. There's a pattern here.

Skateboarding Men's Street could be a Japan sweep or a US sweep. Podium looking like it would be some mix of the top 3 from those teams. Maybe a sprinting sweep, 100m or 200m for US Men? Or am I still living in 2022 with that?

Biggest surprise is Erin Mcniece getting the 3rd position, this is her highest ranking in any competition but with 5th in both boulder and lead at the world cup season opener (also in China) she might just be peaking in the right year. Nearly perfect competition for with a men's win and women's second, should be a strong team with a chance for a medal. And, oh my god, Brooke Raboutou. The grit she presented on Boulder 2 and in the final moments of her lead is what got her this win. That's what you want to see from an olympian. She was 4th in the world championships and 2nd in the PanAm, twice mere points away from a quota, so no surprise she leads this competition. She's basically qualified if she gets top 20 in Budapest. I just got tickets for the women's lead qualification in Paris (and men's speed finals) and based on what happened in Shanghai that should be one of the best tickets at the games. So hyped.

Women's Combined Final Results, Shanghai 1.) Brooke Raboutou: 83.8/57.1/140.9 (50 pts) 2.) Seo Chaehyun: 54.2/80.1/134.3 (45 pts) 3.) Erin McNeice: 59.7/68.1/127.8 (41 pts) 4.) Miho Nonaka: 59.6/68.1/127.7 (38 pts) 5.) Futaba Ito: 59.4/57.1/116.5 (36 pts) 6.) Ievgeniia Kazbekova: 59.1/48.1/107.2 (35 pts) 7.) Luo Zhilu: 59.7/39.1/98.8 (34 pts) 8.) Zélia Avezou: 39.4/57.1/96.5 (33 pts)

Lots of interesting outcomes from this final. After two previous rounds of difficult low scoring lead the final sees 3 athletes touch the top hold while the highest boulder score accounts for only 2/4 tops. That lead round resulted in Lee Dohyun to take the 50 from Shanghai, putting the South Korean inches from an Olympic quota. Alberto Ginés-Lopez shows us why he’s a rightful Olympic champion with a perfect lead to get silver at the comp. An end to his best performance in the sport since his Tokyo gold medal. Adam Ondra ends up only able to use his high boulder score to get 3rd. On the other hand, rough day for Sam Avezou with a very low boulder score and a complete flop on lead, falling before getting to the first scored hold. Still, 8th is not a bad rank in the tight race for France’s two quotas.

Final Men’s Combined Boulder & Lead Shanghai 1.) Lee Dohyun - 34.5/100/134.5 (50 pts) 2.) Alberto Ginés-Lopez - 24.5/100/124.5 (45 pts) 3.) Adam Ondra - 64.0/60.1/124.1 (41 pts) 4.) Paul Jenft - 49.1/64.0/113.1 (38 pts) 5.) Sascha Lehmann - 14.3/96.1/110.4 (36 pts) 6.) Hannes van Duysen -34.5/60.1/94.6 (35 pts) 7.) Hamish McArthur - 48.8/45.1/93.9 (34 pts) 8.) Sam Avezou - 9.8/0.0/9.8 (33 pts)

TOP 20 Women's Combined Boulder & Lead Qualifying (Progress to SF): Scores for boulder/lead/combined sum 1.) Nonaka Miho - 99.6/60.0/159.6 2.) Brooke Raboutou - 84.4/60.0/144.4 3.) Ievgeniia Kazbekova - 99.8/39.1/138.9 4.) Ito Futaba - 99.7/39.1/138.8 5.) Camila Moroni - 99.6/36.1/136.7 6.) Luo Zhilu - 84.8/39.1/123.9 7.) Erin Mcneice - 84.6/39.1/123.7 8.) Laura Rogora - 54.9/64.1/119.0 9.) Lucija Tarkus - 79.5/39.1/118.6 10.) Zélia Avezou - 84.7/28.1/112.8 11.) Seo Chae-hyun - 49.7/60.1/109.8 12.) Anastasia Sanders - 79.6/30.1/109.7 13.) Manon Hily - 64.3/45.1/109.4 14.) Mia Krampl - 74.8/33.1/107.9 15.) Fanny Gibert - 84.2/22.1/106.3 16.) Molly Thompson-Smith - 43.8/57.6/100.8 17.) Kim Jian - 23.9/72.0/95.6 18.) Lucia Dorffel - 63.7/28.1/91.8 19.) Nakagawa Ryu - 53.9/36.0/89.9 20.) Franziska Sterrer - 69.0/20.0/89.0

Any other team and he would be on track to qualifying with this, 17th place here, 7th in the rankings. That’s a 10th place over all, right in the center of the 20 quotas with a semi in Budapest locking in that rank. Except, there’s at least 4 other Japanese skaters above him in the combined rankings. All younger, hell Ginwoo Onodera was 11 when Horigome won and is now above him in the world rankings. His success in Tokyo igniting the sport for Japan is looking like his downfall for Paris.

Really is the battle of teammates on the women’s side. , , , all have close competition between their top 2 with each team only able to send one more athlete. Makes top 20 the mark to aim for, because at least 4 in the top 20 (if things stand after lead) won’t go to the Olympics. Not as much of a problem on the men’s side, only has a completion for the last quota of the country. could be fierce too with only 2 out of 3 (4 if Mawem makes a comeback) with a slot. For those countries it could come down to the final lead wall in Budapest while the rest of the field is decided at Budapest qualifying,

Speed Climbing is going to be the breakout event in Paris. The storylines between the ascendent Americans Sam Watson and Emma Hunt, a strong Chinese team lead by Deng Lijuan, Zurrloni, Mawem, both Kaluckas, and the Indonesian team all clashing in an Olympic bracket is simply going to be must watch. Hope I can get tickets in resale.

It is a direct qualification based on scores from the two events. Scores are just based on standing in each event. The ranking was used to decide qualification to the OQS (along with some extra slots for continental leaders, host leaders, and universality)