NearPup

Looks like he still has his protected ranking, so ya, he can just chose to qualify for the Olympics if he wants to.

I also think there is a real reputational danger for the IOC here. People love to bang about how athletes don't take Olympic golf, tennis of men's football seriously. There is a real danger of this being even moreso the case in esports, there is a real risk that the Olympics are not just considered not the pinacle but in fact somewhat of a joke event that people don't take seriously even as a minor competition.

It is official in all but the rubber stamping: there will be an Olympic Esports Games. https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-eb-proposes-creation-of-olympic-esports-games-to-ioc-session I believe I am the biggest (only?) esports fan on this forum. One might think that I'm happy about this news, but I'm honnestly completly disgusted. Not because I don't think esports deserves to be in the Olympics in some form of fashion, but because of the disgusting lack of respect for esports the IOC is displaying. Just going through the announcement: I really hope this is PR spin, because the event was widely seen as a complete flop among the esport community. Notable names ignored it, no notable esport was included and the viewership numbers were simply not impressive. Many of the "esports" that were included are considered complete jokes by the community and simply do not have competitive scenes. This essentially limits us to... chess and motorsports. That's it. No other IF has an "e-version" of their sport that has a significant competitive scene (I mean, zwift I guess, but that's... I mean that's just biking but indoor, and somehow still managed to create one of the dumbest cheating scnadal in the history of esports). FIFA is the closest to a third IF, but they no longer have control of the most popular Football game, and e-Football is a relatively minor esport anyway. This is going to be the death nail. All the popular esports "fail" this test. There will be no MOBA (League of Legends / Dota 2), no tactical shooter (CS2 / Valorant), no RTS (StarCraft), no Rocket League, no fighting game... there is just not going to be anything of what makes esports, well, esports. It's just going to be worse versions of real sports, and chess. The IOC is just way too out of touch with people under the age of 75 for this to work.

I honestly find it pretty wild that one major title was enough to get a legacy quota on the women's side given just how many different major champions there have been over the past decade or so.

I loathe, loathe qualification systems where having more athletes than you're looking to qualify is an advantage. Cycling suffers from this too in having the nation ranking be used to qualify individuals.

Or they will just waive it because the Davis/BJK Cup requirement is more of a suggestion than anything else :P But ya, either way, it would be pretty ridiculous to say Russian / Bielorussian athletes can qualify as individuals, but then ban them because they didn't compete in a team event that their country is banned in.

There is also the question of whether or not would even lost it's quota in this situation. There was a similar situation where went to CAS before the 2010 Olympics because they got denied a continental quota in the two-woman bobsleigh. Ultimately CAS sided with Australia (the qualification document as it was written was quite clearly on their side), but CAS also let , who had gotten the re-allocated quota, keep their quota.

Assuming the Americas get their own quota spot it’s not impossible!

Time for the ICC to stop being cowards and to give us test status :P

wins their first ever T20 World Cup match, winning against Ireland by 12 runs.

Lol, what a substainability nightmare. Of course the countries that bring AC units could be at a big advantage.

Only one.

I have long, long wanted a mind sport Olympics.

Chess at the Olympics would be awesome and I will not accept anyone saying otherwise :<

That would be so incredibly, indescriably lame.

When do you think will host the World Alpine Skiing championships?

Freeriding is now officially an FIS discipline (interestingly, freeriding will be the first FIS discipline that has events for both skiing and snowboarding). I think it's pretty clear they will push for it to join the Olympics.

Makes sense, they were meant to host 2021 before COVID.

I missed this, *Sun Valley* is hosting the world cup finals? Wow. Might have to attend that.

Isn't it a bit late to cheer for the Stars?

I think even the Squash folks were shocked their sport was included in the Olympics

He has literally the worst clay court record of any ATP players (with at least 50 games) going back to at least 1990. Even if he wanted to go he, frankly, shouldn’t be selected by his federation anyway.

My son *and* a generic son? xD

I don't know, and I don't think there is a way to know without going through all 13 tournaments (by my count) he's played since his injury and counting them. There is a nine month limit (which isn't an issue here) and a nine tournament limit, but the nine tournament limit only applies for tournaments entered using the protected ranking, wild cards and direct entry doesn't count. There is no limit to how many athletes qualify through PR. It counts the same as a regular ranking, but the "real" ranking holds the tie breaker.

Looking into it a bit more, a protected ranking must be valid as of June 27th to be used for Olympic qualification. I know Shapovalov used a protected ranking to qualify for the French Open, but I'm not sure when it expires. Edit: based on my understanding of the rules if Shapovalov hasn't used eight or more protected ranking entries since coming back from injury then he is allowed to use a protected ranking to qualify for the Olympics.