NearPup

The problem Azerbaijan has is that whenever they develop their own athlete they go abroad to represent another country xD As for Bobsleigh, here is the quote from the document: "Selected pilots must have been participating and ranked in a minimum of 5 IBSF races on at least 3 different tracks in the period between 15 October 2016 and 14 January 2018. In addition the pilot must have been ranked in at least 3 of the 5 above mentioned races on a minimum of 2 different tracks during the 2017/2018 season by 14 January 2018 and must have been ranked among the top 50 in the Twoman and Four-man or Top 40 in the Women’s Bobsleigh in the IBSF Ranking List per event (IBSF Discipline Ranking List) of the season 2017/2018 by 14 January 2018." So maybe all you need is to have been in the top 40 at any point during the season?

Team event is done unless there are last minute switches in GP allocation (and some miracles). I don't think Australia (11th eligible team) has any mathematical shot at catching either South Korea or Israel.

Worth remembering that the world cup ranking is not what is used for Olympic qualification. For Vancouver and Sochi the added points from two of the world cups (I believe the last two of the season, but I don't remember 100%) where used. For Pyeongchang while all four world cups are qualifying events only an athlete's / team's best three events count for each distance.

Curling is actually not over, the last two men's and women's quotas are getting decided at a tournament in December.

The Netherlands will definitively get quotas, probably 3. Keep in mind on top of the 20 athletes qualified by world cup ranking there are 16 spots available for the best performers in Calgary and Salt Lake City via the time ranking, it's not that hard for a good speed skating nation to qualify three spots in the 500/1000/1500. The real question is if the Netherlands will send any 500m specialists or if they will simply use the 500m as a warm-up race. My guess is that they won't be sending any 500m specialists.

I'll believe it when someone other than the Daily Mail says so.

This is what the quota situation looks like after the first of four world cups, excluding the time ranking which ads 16 places for the 500m/1000m/1500m, 8 places for the 3000/5000m, 4 places for the 5000/10000m and 2 places for the team pursuit. Max number of athletes is 3 per event for the 500m, 1000m, 1500m and the 3000/5000m while it's 2 per event for the 5000/10000m and the mass start. A country can have up to ten skaters if they qualify in every event, otherwise the limit is eight. Women: 500m 1000m 1500m 3000m 5000m MS TP Max 1 1 2 4 1 1 3 2 3 2 1 2 X 10 2 1 2 5 1 1 2 1 1 2 8 1 1 1 2 1 X 4 2 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 X 10 1 1 2 3 1 1 X 5 1 3 3 3 2 2 X 10 1 1 1 3 1 1 1 X 3 2 2 3 3 2 1 8 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 3 2 2 8 Men: 500m 1000m 1500m 5000m 10000m MS TP Max 1 1 2 1 1 2 3 2 1 2 1 1 X 10 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 3 1 1 2 1 5 2 1 1 X 4 3 1 2 1 2 8 1 1 3 3 1 2 X 9 1 1 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 8 1 1 2 X 4 1 1 3 2 1 1 X 9 1 1 2 1 5 2 3 3 2 1 X 10 1 1 2 3 3 2 8

This Milan venue is quite nice, despite the fog. Not the highest quality contest though in terms of caliber of competition.

At least it's going to be fair on the women's side because Kodaira is going to win regardless of the format Men's race is going to be a lottery.

The US federation had a really good proposal for sprints. They wanted both the 500m and the 1000m to be contested over a two run, best time counts (similar to half pipe / slopestyle) with one try on the inner and one try on the outer. Obviously the ISU went the other way, but I actually prefer that idea to the two run format. The 500m especially is just too high variance for a one run format at the godamn Olympics. There are like 15 people who can win on a given day.

Really interesting that the FEI publishes the draft / comment process. I don't think any of the IF is as transparent with how they review their qualification process. I really wish all the IFs where this transparent. Also, lol @ this comment from the Dutch Federation, which is clearly out for blood: "so that we can ensure quality and increase [sic] the risk of accidents". Also the Canadian Fed is still bitter about not having a dressage team in Rio xD

Oh hi. I'm Canadian, I live in the US now. You get a cookie if you can find my (now pretty inactive) GamesBids account

What's the point of even holding that "world" championship? It's going to be a joke.

FWIW it doesn't look like anything overlaps with the men's 50km race except the parallel snowboarding finals (and even that ends less than an hour into the 50km race) so it's not like it doesn't have a good spot on the schedule. The women's 30km free actually overlaps entirely with the men's hockey final so arguable the 50km actually had the better spot on the schedule. It's actually kinda crazy how bad the scheduling is for the last day, they only have four events yet you will always have two events at once (four man bobsleigh and women's curling also overlap).

I think some of those uniforms are actually pretty good - Slovenia, Switzerland, Sweden, Russia, Finland and Norway I really like. I have mixed feelings about Germany, the Czech Republic, South Korea and Canada. USA and Japan are meh, Slovakia's is just bad. Can Nike not have the contract for Beijing please?

Shame it couldn't be Finland, Sweden, Norway and Denmark in the same group.

Slovenia making the Olympics in 2014 was a shock, them making it twice in a row is just extraordinary. They did great in 2014, though, so it's nice to see them back.

Sad for Denmark, they have done really well over the last couple of quads yet they always come short from qualifying for the Olympics. At this point I really hope France and Latvia qualify. I wanted Denmark to make it from the other tournament so I don't have a real preference anymore.

Don't be silly, we don't want to remove the whole sport. We just want to get rid of the sprint

It's a subcontinent that accounts for a billion and a half people and who are severly underrepresented at the Olympics. It's a huge potential growth area for the IOC.

Cricket would add a lot of diversity since it's the most popular sport in India / Pakistan / Bangledesh / Afghanistan / Sri Lanka.

Archery: add mixed team event. Athletics: remove 50km walk. Badminton: add men's and women's team events. Have 64 player singles draws, 32 teams doubles draws and 16 team mixed doubles draw. Remove group stages. Baseball/Softball: remove. Boxing: add two women's weight classes. Cycling: add road team time trial, road criterium, track madisson, BMX time trial. Canoeing Slalom: remove men's C-2, replace it by women's C-1. Hold team events for all boats. Canoeing Sprint: men's and women's C-1 200, C-1 1000m, C-2 1000m, K-1 200, K-1 1000, K-1 10000, K-2 1000 and K-4 1000. Fencing: add two team events so we can stop the farce of the team event rotation. Golf: add a men's and women's team event (four person scramble over the first two rounds of the individual event) and a men's, women's and mixed pair matchplay event. Gymnastics: add men's and women's synchronized trampoline and tumbling. Judo: add men's and women's team event. Karate: remove kumite, add team kata. Modern Pentathlon: remove. Rowing: remove men's LW4-, add women's 4-. Sailing: have men's and women's sailboat, one person dinghy, two person dinghy, skiff, kitesurfing and multihull. Shooting: have men's and women's 50m pistol, 25m rapid fire pistol, 10m air riffle, 50m air riffle three position, trap, double trap and skeet. Skateboarding: add vert. Sports Climbing: change the name to climbing. Remove combined event, add speed, lead and bouldering events. Surfing: remove. Swimming: add men's 800m freestyle and women's 1500m freestyle. Synchronized Swimming: remove. Table tennis: add men's, women's and mixed doubles. Allow three per country in singles. Taekwondo: add two weight classes per gender. Tennis: add men's and women's team event. Triathlon: add mixed relay. Weightlifting: add an eighth women's weight class. Wrestling: remove Greco-Roman, add seventh freestyle weight class for both men and women. Squash: men's and women's singles and team.

Looks like we aren't losing our only ever weightlifting bronze medal for long

Seems insanely early this year...

This is getting ridiculous. They should just wait eight years before awarding the medals >.>