NearPup

Tennis Canada told Radio Canada that Raonic, Pospisil and Bouchard will play singles in Rio, so no surprise there. No word from them on doubles yet.

Les qualifs pour le double mixte sont confirmer sur place. Donc on saura pas qui vas participer avant le début des compétitions.

So happy, did not expect qualify Canada to make it after the loss to Cuba in the North American qualifier. The team sure took the hard road though.

It would at least make more sense. Not sure I'd consider it fair, but if you want more American teams you should at least to make sure the best American teams qualify.

Ya, it makes no sense. I feel especially bad for the Dominican Republic who by all rights should have qualified avove Puerto Rico (and I'll be quite peeved if Mexico makes it but Canada doesn't). They should have just kept the rule where top 3 at the World Cup qualify.

Would be pretty cool to have four North American / six American teams in the Olympics Come on Poland!

Well set 3 was depressing. Either way, with Canada winning set 4 China is now eliminated. If Canada wins the fifth set Australia only qualifies with a win of any kind over Poland. If Canada loses the fifth set then Australia qualifies if they make it to the fifth set. (I think, stressed)

25-16 Canada in the first set against China. Very impressive first set from the Canadian team, they seem determined to put as much presure as possible on Australia.

Does Mexico have any leeway with their standards?

More or less correct. There is no real high level men's softball or women's baseball (though they do hold world championships for both), but softball is still very popular as a men's participation sport and at a youth level quite a few girls play baseball.

It would help if the ICC got it's governence in order. Frankly I oppose cricket joining the Olympics on philosophical grounds as long as they keep segregating test nations from the peasant associate nations. They would also need to, well, apply to join the Olympics. They seem reluctant so far.

Not really news, been public for more than a month at this point. Personally I am deeply uninpressed by the event package. A six team tournament for baseball/softball is ridiculous, and it still annoy me that they are including a sport where the men's and women's events are fundamentally different sport. Plus no MLB players should continue to he a dealbreaker for baseball. For Karate I find that Kumite is very viewer unfriendly and boring. Kata is at least different but the judging is... old fashioned. Rife for accusations of favouratism. Skateboarding might normally be a good addition but the IOC is dealing with three conpeting IFs with little legitimacy and who don't appear to be willing to cooperate. The combined format for climbing isn't the traditional format. Surfing is hard to hold in many places and, frankly, not that TV friendly.

You got to admite the commitment to cheating.

Really sad Australia didn't win, it was the standout song for me.

The whole thing is so silly. T&T can either send Dick or nobody. By the time it became a big scandal it was too late to change anything.

Those seem like insane selection criteria o.o

Believe it or not something similar happened at the 2012 Olympics. Li Xueying, winner of the women's 58kg, lifted 246kg while Maiya Maneza, winner of the women's 63kg, lifted 245kg. The 63kg class in London was fairly weak in general.

They don't take team sports into account when deciding if a country is eligible for tripartite spots. If they did Honduras wouldn't be eligible for them since they qualified in Football the last three Olympics.

She is ranked around the top 500 right now. I believe she's trying to recover from injury problems. At her age (28) it's hard to see her back in the top 50 unfortunately.

Gabriela Dabrowski? Her father is from Poland and she speaks Polish (along with English and French) but she was born and raised in Canada.

Quite a few Canadian athletes have dual citizenship or where born abroad and presumably could compete for another country, for example Cynthia Meyer, Santo Condoreli, Michel Li, Ashton Baumann, Shawn Barber and Michelle Williams could all conceivably compete for another country. Of the current Olympians on Canada's team only one was potentially naturalized early (Eugene Wang), ahead of the London games. But outside of pairs skating (where it is sometimes necessary to change country in order to find a good partner) there's little example of people that don't already have Canadian citizenship (like Ted-Jan Bloemen) moving to Canada specifically to compete. Usually when athletes from abroad move to Canada it's for personal reasons. There is also the fun country-example of Taylor Ruck, who has barely lived in Canada and could trivially become a naturalized American but has chosen not to do so.

I don't really buy that less nations will take part in Freestyle Skiing. Not all quotas where allocated in Sochi (there where eight quotas nobody wanted / could accept) and only three countries hit the 26 athletes limit. Hopefully by increasing the limit to 30 all quotas will actually be distributed. Plus, honestly, it created some really silly situations in countries like Canada where ski cross athletes would compete against aerials athletes for the same quota. That problem won't go away (both Canada and the US where over 30 in Sochi) but it will relieve a bit of pressure. The other big change in Ski Jumping is that the maximum size of a men's team is now 4, down from 5. So there is no longer any way to bring someone just for the normal hill or the big hill competition. Edit: I love how the solution to the Netherlands sweeping the 10k was "oh, lets just allow two athletes by NOC!"

If he makes it to the top 200 he should get an ITF place for the Olympics (assuming there aren't four Argentine qualified already).

Such a shame she doesn't get to have her swan song at the Olympics thanks to that stupid team event rotation rule.

No. The FIG Executive Board can chose to invite the best athlete from each non-qualified continent.