NearPup

Three spots. If Canada and the USA both qualify by ranking the North American spot will be relocated to the repechage (probably because Mexico or Jamaica was literally one series point away from qualifying in 2016 and World Rugby didn't want that...). Still going to be a really harsh road for those teams if one of them don't overtake Australia.

Updated ranking after four of six rounds: New Zealand 72 points Canada 66 points United States 64 points Australia 56 points France 46 points Republic of Ireland 38 points Great Britain 37 points Russia 34 points Spain 16 points Fiji 13 points China 10 points (The All-Ireland team is attempting to qualify on behalf of the Republic of Ireland and England is attempting to qualify on behalf of the UK). New Zealand, Canada and the United States are all but assured to qualify. In fact all three of then can clinch qualification simply by finishing ahead of (or close enough to) France in Langford. France has a slim chance to sneak in over Australia, maybe hosting the final event will help them.

After finishing 11th (!) last year, has won the Japan 7s for their first title since the 2016-17 season! It was a very close 7-5 match with England, with Canada scoring their try more than two minutes into added time. The USA finished 3rd and France fourth. New Zealand was prevented from setting a record winning streak by a draw with Russia and their record unbeaten streak was ended by France in the group stage and the USA in the quarterfinals.

So Basketball will now have three groups of four teams, with the top two teams in each group and the best two third placed teams making the quarterfinals. Great...

Ya, it’s kind of a small prize pool for a “world championship”.

Does she even have a good chance to qualify? I don’t get the impression the UK is all that strong in skateboarding.

The problem isn’t the groups. The problem is that there is no ranking round, so there is very little opportunity for group B reams to finish ahead of group A teams, short of beating one of the top 3 teams in group A... This would actually be a really easy fix.

Incredible, Woods ends his more than 11 year long major draught. Quite the scenes. Tiger Woods has a real shot at making the Olympics now. That would make the IOC pretty happy...

Why not just keep the (useless) points from the first three sprints and just re-run the last four laps? xD

I honestly think Sweden being relegated isn’t that shocking. They have been on a strady decline for a while now. Finland has always been a better team, and for a few years now Switzerland and Russia have been as good if not better than Sweden. With the emergence of Japan and the Czech Republic, along with the resurgence of Germany, this was only a matter of time. This is not a fluke, Sweden is simply not firmly a top 8 team in the world anymore. Hopefully this will force the Swedish Ice Hockey Federation to make the proper investments, because right now the state of elite women’s hockey in Sweden is shameful.

After 1/11 events, the following athletes are provisionally in a qualifying position from the World Surf League. Note: athletes from Hawaii are marked with (HAW) and athletes from French Polynesia with (PYF) as they compete separately in Surfing. Men Itali Ferreira Kolohe Andino Jordy Smith (HAW) John John Florence Gabriel Medina Wade Carmichael Owen Wright (PYF) Michel Bourez Kanoa Igarashi Jérémy Florès The countries who will qualify from the WSL are already almost predetermined. Only Leonardo Fioravanti can change the status quo, but he appears to be one of the weaker athlete on tour. The WSL is very, very heavy on Australians, Americans and Brazilians and the selection battles between those athletes will be the real story. Women Caroline Marks (HAW) Carissa Moore Sally Fitzgibbons Stephanie Gilmore Tatiana Weston-Webb Johanne Defay Brisa Hennessy Paige Hareb As far as country quotas go, the only question is whether can get a second quota and, if so, which of , or will qualify. Silvana Lima, the second Brazilian, is injured but should be able to qualify if she regains her form. The only other qualification battle worth watching is the bloodbath that will be the American qualification process: they have 7 athletes in the top 12.

Sweden is a back to back world champion. With his fourth world title as a skip (only the second person to achieve this) Niklas Edin is, in my opinion, without a doubt the best non-Canadian curler ever.

The finals will be Canada vs Sweden for a third year in a row, with the undisputed two best teams in the world (Team Edin and Team Koe) going head to head. Should be pretty good.

If anyone wants to follow the Canadian trials, SwimSwam has good live recaps every night. However this wouldn’t be a good thread for it since, if it’s anything like the last three times, Swimming Canada requires athletes to meet the FINA standard at the Olympic Trials. Prior times only matter if you get added for a relay or you get some sort of exemption (very rare). Edit: this has apparently changed, though it will be at the discretion of Swimming Canada whether or not to nominate athletes who haven’t achieved the A stamdard during Olympic trials. Not sure how likely they are to so it in practice.

Brazil has won the Hong Kong Women’s 7s tournament, which means they are qualified as one of the 11 core teams for the 2019/2020 Women’s Rugby 7s world series.

Being a little more serious, the only swimming event I would currently like seeing added to the Olympics is the mixed open water swimming relay (4x2.5km).

Not that big of a shock. Shuster’s team can be very inconsistent in International events. The Dutch team has gotten pretty good over the past two seasons.

IMO they got 3/4 right, which isn’t too too bad all things considered.

Alex Harvey (Cross Countey skiing) has retired after the world cup finals.

...do we really think that China is having good results in SHOTGUN SHOOTING because of doping? Come on guys.

Nah, it’s a pretty common strategy.

He isn’t but there is no way to move forward as long as he is still there.

That’s basically my opinion too. One such event in a season is fine. When like half the season constitutes of “stage” world cup... it really cheapens everything.

The whole “stage” world cup idea is so stupid, especially for sprint races.

NBC has VODs for both (behind a paywall).