NearPup

qualifies for Paris. This is a relief.

The League of Legends esports tournament is, unsurprisingly, a complete joke of an event. The format is bad (Bo1 group stages with Bo3 single elimination bracket), it is being played on an old patch and the bracket is very uneven - the de-facto final will be the - semi-finals. The only real reason for fans to care is that the six Korean players (most notable Faker) have a chance to avoid having their careers ended by military service. The Dota 2 tournament has a similar problem with a bad format and the de-facto final being the semi-final ( and are by far the best teams, with likely being the third best team). It's really frustrating just how bad IOC and OCA events are at showcasing esports. There is well over twenty years of expertise on how to run sucessful esports events, but whoever is in charge here is just not willing to learn what makes an esport event work. Everything is baffling, from the broadcast to the venue to the choise of games to the format. (At least the Street Fighter and FIFA tournaments have a somewhat sensible format, so there is that).

Anthony Rota is resigning as speaker of the Canadian House of Commons effective tomorow.

Domestically this is at worst a footnote on the list of Trudeau’s problems (and also it’s completely believable this didn’t involve the PMO at all, the speaker’s office is very much independent from the government).

43 year old Malindi Elmore, who is an Athens (!) and Tokyo Olympian, got the Olympic Marathon standard in Berlin and came within 18 seconds of the Canadian record. She will automatically qualify for the Olympics unless three or more Canadian women hit the standard. https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/summer/trackandfield/malindi-elmore-paris-olympic-standard-berlin-marathon-1.6976931

It’s how Son Heung-min and Shin-Soo Choo avoided military service!

671 won one battle 9-0 and then lost two straight battles 4-5.

So is anyone happy with how their team is doing?

Even when it was just and as the other big teams the repêchage was not going to be easy for . Now it might just be chaos.

@Benolympique can you help us out and provide some optimism, or do you also think will somehow fail to qualify?

At least they are eligible for one of the diversity driven qualifiers.

Interesting that it worked out so both North America and South America get exactly one Olympic team quota in each team event. is basically guaranteed a men's single quota and is basically guaranteed a women's single quota now.

Unless Canada makes it to the semi-finals will only be one since the team event is single elimination now :P The qualifying a women's team also essentially guarantees that we will have a quota in women's single, since North America still has a dedicated quota.

Presumably there is no scenario where can qualify for the Olympics now that they have lost to . Realistically, if there a chance the qualifiers will not be ? I don't know how swingy the world ranking system is and how realistic it might be for the top 10 to change between now and June.

Isn’t Italy virtually guaranteed to qualify regardless of the results of the qualification tournament?

What a brave prediction, really going out on a limb.

So, err, an update of sorts about Eric Lamaze's health: https://horsesport.com/horse-news/lamaze-submits-forged-medical-documents-court/

Article without a paywal: https://horsesport.com/horse-news/lamaze-submits-forged-medical-documents-court/ (Allegedly) faking a terminal cancer diagnosis to delay a lawsuit is low...

So, when is the whole leadership of Rowing Canada going to be replaced? The results at worlds were absolutely dire.

It’s suspicious he made seven finals in a row, only people who’ve made eight in a row usually win Olympic medals :P

Ya, even if Cricket had no global reach and no potential for growth and it was a case where were the only countries where it was popular… genuinely so what? The Indian subcontinent is a huge market that is massively underserved by the Olympics. There are plenty of Olympic sports that cater to much smaller niches.

Oh ya don’t get us wrong. We love the jokes (not jokes) about 4th place. But just qualifying for the Olympics is a big deal, and so is making the semis at worlds. We’re all really happy about that here, even if we are also grumpy grumps :P This is the best state Canadian men’s basketball has ever been in, and the first time the team was a real contender since the Nash-lead team. Also, honestly, if you told us before these championships we’d finish 4th we all would have taken it xD

will finally win 4th at the FIBA worlds

I think this is very much a case of the NFL lobbying the organizing committee. It doesn’t make much sense otherwise.

As a spectator sport? No. As a participation sport it is fairly popular in North America.