NearPup

Also the size of the soccer team is likely to expand by four (all alternates will be included) per the AP. https://apnews.com/article/international-olympic-committee-international-soccer-soccer-olympic-games-2020-tokyo-olympics-f13246c9c7e38b1ad0e1b93ffd80ea45

Two words: ticket sales.

It is being reported that Football teams will have 22 players instead of the usual 18. This is still to be confirmed. https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/soccer/ioc-to-expand-soccer-rosters-to-22-for-olympics-1.6086532

That’s allowed?

No clue. When Australia won a court case because the FIBT interpreted their own qualification document wrong before the 2010 Olympics they got an extra spot, so that’s a possibility.

I do think the decision is pretty fact specific - you can’t create a qualification system where you denny an athlete the chance to qualify because of a pregnancy that happened three years before the qualification system was published.

Tennis’ qualification system does have accommodations for injured athletes and I actually think that’s mostly a good thing.

I didn’t bother with athletes who’s parents or grandparents are from another country because I don’t have all day :P But ya, Pospisil’s parents are both refugees from .

My people (I have both and citizenships, too)

Well lets just do the current Canadian Olympic team: Athletics: Mohammed Ahmed: born in Badminton: Michelle Li: born in Kristen Tsai: born in Canoeing Roland Varga: born in Cycling Jasmin Duehring: born in Equestrian Mario Deslauriers, also holds citizenship Fencing: Eli Schenkel: born in Shaul Gordon: born in Field Hockey: Floris van Son: born in , raised in Antoni Kindler: born in Keegan Pereira: born in Football: Janine Beckie: born in Gymnastics: Ava Stewart: born in Judo: Ecaterina Guica: born in Shady El Nahas: born in Arthur Margelidon: born in Rowing Christine Roper: born in Softball: Lauren Bay-Regula: also holds citizenship Jennifer Gilbert: raised in Swimming: Ruslan Gaziev: born in Taylor Ruck: raised in Sydney Pickrem: born in Penny Oleksiak: also holds citizenship Kayla Sanchez: born in Table Tennis: Eugene Wang: born in Tennis: Sharon Fichman: also holds citizenship. Volleyball: Brandie Wilkerson: born in

If Dabrowski or Andreescu and Auger-Aliassime want to play they will qualify. I don’t think Pospisil is ranked high enough for Canada to get a second entry.

Honestly really happy for Fichman. I was pretty convinced she would miss out.

Given the variance inherent in such a short tournament any permutation of finalists is plausible.

Whoever recreated that bracket on Wikipedia is a true hero.

A few of them actually. Athletics: Cross Country Running (men’s and women’s individual and team races along with a mixed relay) Climbing: Ice Climbing Cycling: Cyclocross Volleyball: Snow Volleyball My big pitch for XCR and Snow Volleyball is that they would make the Winter Olympics a truly global event since you would have athletes from South America and Africa vying for medals. XCR and Cyclocross are also just better fits for the winter games than the summer games.

That is actually really cool.

Out: Modern Pentathlon In: Squash If forced to pick 3: Out: boxing, weightlifting In: cricket, softball I also think Climbing, Skateboarding and Surfing should be permanent additions. They are low cost, require few athletes, have very well developed professional circuits, have high participation numbers and have the potential to reach a new audience.

Athletics: replace mixed 4x100m with women’s 50km walk, or a mixed 10km road relay, or a mixed shuttle relay, or a mixed 4x800m relay. Really anything but a redundant 4x400m relay. Swimming: replace the mixed 4x100m medley with the mixed open water relay. Or if we want to be really creative a mixed 4x200m individual medley relay. Lets just not give 100m freestylers a *fourth* Olympic gold medal chance. Climbing: replace combined event with speed, lead and bouldering events. I know that’s against the rules but I don’t care. Judo: replace the mixed team event with a men’s and women’s team event. Sailing: simplify the program - men’s and women’s sailboard, one person dinghy, two person dinghy, multihull and skiff.

I am continuously annoyed at the Dutch NOC qualification policies. Like, great, your “substandard” athlete will just be replaced by an even worse one.

That’s a pretty decent medal chance for

It is now 8-3 for the Dominican Republic at the top of the fifth.

Ya, it will be so weird. Japan is so behind in the vaccination and that is so baffling. There were more people in that arena tonight than will be allowed at any venue for the Olympics.

Radio-Canada did a piece on Hamoon Derafshipour, member if the Refugee Olympic Team in Karate: https://ici.radio-canada.ca/sports/1804600/rever-du-podium-olympique-et-dequipe-canada In it he mentions that he plans to compete internationally for Canada as soon as possible with the aim of qualifying for the 2023 Pan-Am games.

You do know why the team is called Chinese Taipei, right?

The precedent for protesting the results of an event on the podium is quite well established. That being said the IOC should obviously not punish athletes who question the fairness of the IOC's policy on transgendered athletes, even if they do so at the games.