Siddhartha Talukdar

Indians have rediscovered hockey due to recent Olympic and Asian level successes. One of the catalyst was a sports movie called 'Chak De! India' (meaning Go India in Punjabi) which is a underdog movie on the women's team. The movie songs has become an iconic patriotic song to motivate our athletes in sports events and the movie title 'Chak De' has become a slogan in itself. The movie is available in Netflix France as well - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0871510/

has poured money into Hockey and popularity of the sport has grown. The state government of Odisha has even adopted hockey and the previous two editions of World Cup was held there. won bronze medals in 2020 and 2024 too. For its more about adminstrative mismanagement and all their sports is declining

Hi, I am aware how the continental quotas are allocated and are unique to different sports. For example, in Football Australia is in Asia and not in Oceania. In Rugby sevens and Football there is separate North America and South America zone while in most other sports its combined Americas. In Wrestling, the Africa and Oceania zone is combined. However, if there are any mistakes feedback is welcome.

I am aware of this, but I segregated the countries with respect to physical geography to see overall how the continent and zone is performing.

What I have read is that qualification will be decided by geographical rankings and 1 spot coming from a Global qualifier. But I would prefer it to be similar to Baseball 1 - Host Nation 2 - Asia Cup 3 - Europe / Africa 4 - Oceania 5 - Americas 6 - Global qualifier Regarding boxing, its been reported that the new federation itself is in existential crisis https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/world-boxing-insolvent-and-on-the-ropes

Hi everyone, with most of the sports' qualification documents released I did my own qualification simulation for all events including Tripartite places based on latest rankings followed by respective World Championships. For the simulation Russian and Belarusian athletes have been considered. Please note Swimming quotas are based on 2025 results. Even though Athletics qualification hasn't been released I assumed it to be same as 2024. Universality places for Athletics and Swimming are indicative only to ensure 1 athlete per gender qualify in the sport. Here is the sheet.

Hi @nitinsanker, @Indian Sports fan, @Fly_like_a_don, @Prashanth, @Roamingrover86 @tirtha22 @Vaibhav Manocha @Vaibhav (minchu) @sanjaydas @rohan sharma @Dolby @Prakash @Sanjib @Shravan Kumar With most of the sports' qualification documents released below is my qualification simulation based on rankings and current performances only for all NOC and events. Hope to hear your views as well Link Here are few revisions from my previous predictions Equestrian Anush Agarwalla doesn't qualify but we have a chance of qualifying an Eventing Team of Ashish Limaye, Fouaad Mirza and Shashank Singh as they are second best set of riders from Group G. (Australia qualifes in WC quota) Tennis Highly Optimistic quota of Doubles pair of Yuki Bhambri and Rohan Bopanna who have combined ranking of 89 Table Tennis Should qualify a Mixed Team which guarantees two singles qualification in both genders. Should qualify a doubles pair in Men, Women and Mixed Our key sports like Cricket, Boxing and Athletics haven't released qualification documents yet Summary - We are 24th ranked in terms of number of quotas across 16 sports and 4th highest in Asia behind

Hockey is mentioned here. Table Tennis documents is released recently and I will add a Google sheet to show simulation of qualifications for all sports and NOC. Cricket, Athletics and Boxing haven't been released yet

True cricket enthusiasts often prefer Test matches or 50-over games because these formats thoroughly examine the skills, temperament, and endurance of both batters and bowlers. However, with declining spectator attention spans, the 50-over format is gradually losing its prominence, while Test cricket largely remains relevant due to the financial and competitive strength of the traditional “Big Three” — Australia, England, and India. At the same time, the ICC relies on regular global tournaments to sustain revenue. With T20 leagues flourishing worldwide, staging an expanded T20 World Cup every two years helps maintain global interest and commercial momentum. It also allows the ICC to demonstrate broader international participation to the IOC, strengthening cricket’s case for Olympic inclusion. Furthermore, T20 cricket is inherently more unpredictable, making upsets far more likely and adding to its appeal among fans worldwide.

Yes I have plan for FIFA World Cup, Commonwealth and Asian Games

Hi @nitinsanker, @Indian Sports fan, @Fly_like_a_don, @Prashanth, @Roamingrover86 @tirtha22 @Vaibhav Manocha @Vaibhav (minchu) @sanjaydas @rohan sharma @Dolby @Prakash @Sanjib @Shravan KumarHi @nitinsanker, @Indian Sports fan, @Fly_like_a_don, @Prashanth, @Roamingrover86 @tirtha22 @Vaibhav Manocha @Vaibhav (minchu) @sanjaydas @rohan sharma @Dolby @Prakash @Sanjib @Shravan Kumar with most of the sports' qualification documents released below is my qualification simulation based on rankings and current performances only. Hope to hear your views as well ARCHERY Only 8 teams shall qualify in Recurve as quotas have been allocated to Compound. Men's team is ranked fourth and women's team is ranked 7th so both teams qualify. In Compound Archery, 12 mixed teams qualify and our team is ranked first. Number of athletes = 8 BADMINTON Men's Singles - Lakshya Sen Men's Doubles - Chirag Shetty / Satwiksairaj Rankireddy Women's Singles - PV Sindhu Women's Doubles - Treesa Jolly / Gayathri Gopichand Mixed Doubles - Dhruv Kapila / Tanisha Crasto Number of athletes = 8 CYCLING In Team Sprint, top 8 nations qualify but India is ranked 16th in Men's Rankings. In Individual Sprint, Esow Alben is ranked 46th and he needs to be 30ish to qualify Number of athletes = 0 EQUESTRIAN Dressage - Anush Agarwalla is ranked 244 and may qualify Eventing - Ashish Limaye is ranked 238. In Group G, its difficult to qualify as there are ahead of him Number of athletes = 1 FENCING None of our fencers qualify automatically and thus have to play Qualification tournament So here rankings of our competitors in each tournament Men' Epee Men's Foil Men's Sabre Women' Epee Women's Foil Women's Sabre - 30 - 36 - 15 - 35 - 26 - 33 - 37 - 63 - 27 - 46 - 31 - 45 - 39 - 98 - 36 - 81 - 52 - 49 - 44 - 113 - 46 - 86 - 54 - 59 - 143 - 289 - 75 - 206 Number of athletes = 0 GOLF In Men's event, only no golfer is expected to qualify as highest ranked golfer is Yuvraj Sandhu who is ranked 420th. He needs to be within 380 rank to qualify In Women's event, Aditi Ashok (172 rank) and Diksha Dagar (245 rank) shall qualify Number of athletes = 2 HOCKEY Both the gender teams should qualify Number of athletes = 30 JUDO In each weight class, top 17 judokas qualify. Shraddha Chopade is ranked 18th in Women's 52 kg and just outside the direct qualification zone. Otherwise she will qualify via continental quota Number of athletes = 1 ROWING One boat in Men's Single Sculls Number of athletes = 1 SAILING Vishnu Saravanan in Men's Laser and Nethra Kumanan in Women's Laser Radial Number of athletes = 2 SHOOTING Predicting atleast 20 quotas SQUASH Abhay Singh and Anahat Singh can currently qualify by rankings Number of athletes = 2 TENNIS Sumit Nagal is ranked 283 right now so will not qualify. There is no Indian in top 10 of Men's Doubles but pair of Yuki Bhambhri (rank 18) and Rohan Bopanna (rank 62) have combined rank of 80 and perhaps may sneak in depending which players want to team up Number of athletes = 0 WEIGHTLIFTING Mirabai Chanu in new weight class 53 kg Number of athletes = 1 WRESTLING Predicting about 7 quotas

Still TBD according to Olympics website https://www.olympics.com/en/milano-cortina-2026/where-to-watch-olympic-games-live

Hi @nitinsanker, @Indian Sports fan, @Fly_like_a_don, @Prashanth, @Roamingrover86 @tirtha22 @Vaibhav Manocha @Vaibhav (minchu) @sanjaydas @rohan sharma @Dolby @Prakash @Sanjib @Shravan Kumar Please watch this video on Why hosting the 2030 Commonwealth Games matters for India

They won't just hot air

Hi @Sindo, the program for Men's Cricket with hosts for respective tournaments has been announced till 2031. The link is here Australia & New Zealand will host 2028 T20 World Cup in October which is after Olympics For Women's Cricket, the program has been announced till 2029 with host named for ICC tournaments till 2028 T20 World Cup. Link is here. The host for 2028 World Cup is Pakistan but the schedule hasn't been announced yet, but generally its expected to be around Feb-Mar. Link

Hi @Sindo, can you add Women's 2026 T20 Cricket World scheduled in England & Wales during 12 Jun - 5 Jul. Link - link

No Canada got Switzerland which is tricky

Somehow gets in the draw

All pots are according to FIFA rankings except for playoffs.

My randomized groups observing all rules Group A - Europe Path B Group B - Group C - IC 2 Group D - Europe Path A Group E - . IC 1 Group F - . . Group G - . . Group H - Group I - . . Group J - . . Europe Path D Group K - . . Europe Path C Group L - . .

Yeah, I am aware of this. Host Nation generally gets top seed. But if the host is weak then the host's group winner gets it easy in the knockouts. Eg Uruguay in 2010, Netherlands in 2022

Why is no one talking about the draw for the inter-continental playoffs? IC-2 includes teams from South America, North America, and Asia, which means its winner will end up in a group alongside two European teams and an African team. The main issue is that the draw takes place before the playoffs, so we don’t know the identities of those teams—or which pots they actually deserve to be in. Another problem is the FIFA rankings themselves. Intra-continental comparisons are usually fine: Iran is clearly stronger than Qatar, Costa Rica is stronger than Haiti, Colombia is stronger than Bolivia, and so on. But globally the rankings don’t always reflect reality. Is Iran really the 20th-best team in the world when most of its players are in the domestic league, whose clubs rarely go past the quarter-finals of the AFC Champions League? Or look at Ivory Coast: ranked 42nd, yet they’re African champions with players across major European leagues. A third issue is that FIFA doesn’t do much to ensure a balanced knockout stage. In most sports, the top four seeds are placed so they can’t meet before the semifinals. FIFA’s system doesn’t guarantee that kind of structure.

In 1954, quarter finals were played where group winners played each other and runners up played each other

Till 2014, draws used to be based on continental zones. Since 2018 pots are based on rankings so groups could be more balanced. But rankings can never be accurate unless nations from inter-continents play more competitive matches. Also, suddenly if a lower ranked team nation gets decent players like Norway or a higher ranked team have lesser quality players like Italy who are ranked 10th right now

Are we playing Cricket 10 times!!