clemsonbeav

Beach Volleyball getting underway tonight in India. Looking to LA28, we get one freebie team per gender, with the opportunity to earn one more per gender. We can do that by: -Winning the NORCECA Continental Championship (4-9 Nov 2026) -Winning the WCh in 2027 -Being in the Top 14ish of the Olympic Rankings in March 2028, minus anyone else already qualified, so really Top 20ish. -Winning one of three OQS in 2028 We've sent two teams each the past few Olympics, and the same should be true here. If we only send one team, it will be for the men, but I don't think our placement is in too much danger. (We currently have a team at 19 and 20 in the rankings now.)

Added Badminton and several other sports

Looking at these qualifications... We get a whopping 2 places by default (one for men's singles, and one for women's singles). There are 16 possible slots available (though only China filled up all 16 in Paris). In Paris, we sent 7 athletes. For this sport, it all depends on rankings, and that intersects with continental representation, too. Rough estimates looking at current rankings: We'll just have the one in Men's Singles (currently Mark Shelley Alcala, currently #85) We'll probably just have the one in Women's Singles (Beiwen Zhang, currently #21) We'll probably get a Men's Doubles (we're 14th out of 16th to qualify...currently Chen Zhi Yi and Presley Smith, currently #28 in the rankings) We'll probably get a Women's Doubles (we're 13th out of 16th to qualify...currently Lauren Lam and Allison Quynh Lee are #24, and Francesca Corbett and Jennie Gai are #32) We'll probably get a Mixed Doubles (we're 13th out of 16th to qualify...currently Presley Smith and Jennie Gai are #26) (So, out of these, looks like only the Men's Singles one wouldn't have qualified already.)

https://www.fih.hockey/events/world-cup-qualifiers-egypt-2026/news/usa-mens-team-withdraws-from-world-cup-qualifier Not that this matters. We had lost every game up to this point. The men haven't been at the Olympics since 1996, when we also got the host quota. The women have appeared sporadically since then. Both will be at LA28.

Regarding this event, we will automatically qualify a team of 8, and we automatically qualify a duet of 2 women from the athletes in the team. No other qualification for us is possible. BTW, there was just a World Cup event. Our duet was like 6th, and our team won the Acrobatic and came in second in the Technical. We won silver in Team in Paris. Looking forward to good results in LA28! (I remember as a kid watching us win Gold in Atlanta in '96.)

Oh ok. Sorry, but I can't commit to that right now...but sounds fun! (I used to play a good bit, until they put it behind a paywall.)

Does it require being online at the same time? Assuming not, I'm in.

Of course, we'll qualify some great athletes here. Simone Biles? I doubt she'll return. I think her Olympic story has finished (no disrespect to her...I think she's accomplished everything she wanted to accomplish). Looking forward to seeing how our team develops. Our host country quota only gets us 1 athlete per gender, so we have to place Top 3 in the Team ranking at the 2026 WCh or in the Top 9 (or up to Top 12, depending on who else has qualified) in the 2027 WCh. There's some gymnastics happening later this week...we'll see what goes down!

We're going to have some additional folks competing in archery, and that's not just due to the addition of compound. In Paris, we only had 1 guy (Brady Ellison), but in LA, we get three guys (plus one for the mixed compound). We'll retain the same quota of 3 women, plus another one for mixed compound. The addition of the guys means we also get to participate in Men's Team. These quota are subject to the condition that we enter three+one in the World Archery Championship, but that shouldn't be a problem, I wouldn't think. As a reminder, Brady Ellison won silver in 2024, and Brady+Casey Kaufhold won bronze in the mixed team. (Casey got upset in her individual competition.)

And I think 15-1 is a nice opener.

Part of this is why I started the other Qualification thread, as there are some sports where we can pick up additional quota...I'm just starting the list now, but it will grow as time goes on. (And yes, qualifying automatically does take some of the build-up off. But at least we don't have to worry!)

Gonna try and keep track of what we qualify for automatically, where we can pick up other slots, etc. Sport Host Country Quota Additional Quota Opportunities Estimated Total M Estimated Total W 3x3 Basketball 1 team per gender None 4 4 Archery 3 (recurve) + 1 (compound) per gender (assuming we enter 3+1 in WCh) None 4 4 Artistic Gymnastics 1 per gender 4 per gender, most probably coming in WCh in 2026 or 2027 5 5 Artistic Swimming 8 (1 team and 1 duet from it) None 0 8 Badminton 1 per gender Up to 14 more, based on BWF ranking 3 4 Basketball 1 team per gender None 12 12 Baseball / Softball 1 team per gender None 24 15 Beach Volleyball 1 team per gender 1 more team per gender, pending ranking and/or winning tournaments 4 4 Cycling - Road 2 per gender (Road Race only) Up to 2 more per gender for RR (depending on Nations Ranking, we will probably have 1 more man, 0 more women), up to 2 per gender for time trial (1 is based on Nations Ranking, the other is pending a Top 10 finish in TT in 2027 WCh) 3 2 Field Hockey 1 team per gender None 16 16 Estimated Total: 75 74 Estimated Grand Total 149 Calendar 17-25 October 2026 - World Gymnastics WCh (Top 3 finish = we get a team) 4-9 November 2026 - NORCECA Beach Volleyball Championship (win = we get a team) August 2027 - Beach Volleyball WCh (win = we get a team, if we haven't already) 16-22 August 2027 - World Archery WCh (make sure we enter 3+1 to receive our quota) 24 August-5 September 2027 - UCI World Championship (Extra Time Trial Quota if we place in top 10) 28 September-6 October 2027 - World Gymnastics WCh (Top 9 finish = we get a team, if we haven't already) Rankings to Check UCI Road Nations Ranking - 19 Oct 2027 FIVB Beach Volleyball Ranking - March 2028 BWF LA28 Ranking - 2 May 2028

I went back and checked the doc, and it looks like it's the top 2 from the Americas from WBC, and Premier12 will give us the top one from Asia and Europe/Oceania. The final OQT has some continental restrictions.

Also...since when does it cost $70 to go to a baseball game? That's how much it would cost to go see the exhibition match today...and to sit in the lawn out past the home run wall. Like not even for a seat. Ridiculous.

We're 2/3 of the way through the 1st round of Qualifying for the 2027 World Cup for our Men. We're 3-1 (having lost to ), and still have to play and again in July. Regardless of how those go, we're moving on to the 2nd round, starting in August (but results from the 1st round carry over, so we want to do well). From an Olympics perspective, it doesn't matter if we make the World Cup, as we're already qualified. 7 other teams will qualify based on the WC results, the last four teams coming via OQTs later. For the Women, we're obviously already qualified, and we're also already qualified for the 2026 Women's WC. For this, if we win, then no other team qualifies for the Olympics at this point; otherwise, the winner will qualify. The other 10 (or 11, if we win) teams will come from an OQT in 2028.