JoshMartini007

Canada needs one more team sport to tie our record of nine (when we hosted the 1976 Olympics). We have four opportunities remaining (men's baseball, basketball, football and water polo). If we can assemble our best team we'd have decent chances in basketball and football, but that's unlikely (especially since the NBA started its season later).

That's the point, the IOC is creating a situation where nations don't want to host the Olympics because of these requirements when in reality almost everyone is watching the games on a screen.

The stadium capacities are another big issue. If the IOC was willing to halve the stadium size my metro area would be able to host the Olympics with only needing to build sport specific stadiums. If they want more ticket sales they could always install viewing areas or even theaters.

The IOC would have to share a significant portion of the media rights for Japan to agree to that.

That kept them safe until the IOC decided to investigate on an events basis rather than just sport. Of course the reality is as long as the current nations remain viable the sport should be safe (unless the IOC wants to get rid of 1000+ athlete quotas for some reason).

And with the IOC looking to cut quotas everywhere water polo (with no ex-Yugoslavia nations) would look quite enticing

Pretty much, if is wasn't for the ex-Yugoslavia nations adding some depth, I imagine there would be quite the push to get rid of water polo.

While I agree France would be the favourite, I'd give those teams a decent chance at winning. At the 2015 and 2017 World Championships (the only recent ones France has competed in) they went 1-1 with New Zealand.

While France may be currently a step above the other European nations, they would have a tough match against the other non-top 10 nations (Brazil, Cuba, Japan, Kazakhstan, New Zealand) for the final hypothetical spot in a 12-team tournament where one of the top 10 nations is the host.

To be fair, Tahiti is part of France. It'd be like when Hong Kong hosted equestrian events at the 2008 Olympics except French Polynesia doesn't have their own NOC.

A 12-team women's tournament won't be too bad in terms of quality. The bigger issue is due to the lack of depth, we'll get the same 11/12 teams for the foreseeable future.

It likely comes down to how quickly the vaccine is administrated in Japan. At the very least, if they are going to allow foreign spectators they may force them to be vaccinated before entering the country. We'll know one way or another by the end of March/beginning of April.

I agree, but you could run into a scenario where in the last match one team is qualified and thus doesn't play as hard.

With South Africa deciding to take the African quota for the first time ever the final qualification tournament has become as tough as ever for the European nations despite there being two extra teams at the Olympics this year. I guess it's slightly easier with no Canada, but still two good teams will miss out.

Hey, how is everyone doing. It's been a while and it seems a lot has changed since I've last been here.

That's still a preference, "I'd rather compete for Ukraine, because I have a better chance to move my career forward." Regardless, we won't be able to classify all athletes is my argument. Some people have strong ethnic ties, others have ties to where they were born while others would compete for whoever gives them the best option.

I don't think there's a way to split medalists from former nations. Would an ethnic Russian living in Ukraine during the USSR compete for the former or latter? It comes down to the preference of the athlete so we can never know.

I think it was more to clarify that people born in 1997 would still be eligible to compete.

Most of them are non-Olympic sports. Based on that list athletics, swimming and taekwondo may have it tough (at least among athletes that will compete at the Olympics)

If Oceania nations participate then Australia and New Zealand will battle for gold. Even if they don't compete I'd take Fiji/Samoa over anyone from Asia.

Yeah, while a lot can still happen, Trump is currently the favourite to win come November.

The qualification formats themselves will likely remain the same, just with different dates for events or cut-off for world rankings. There might be an option to increase quotas in some sports to allow athletes that greatly improve over the year to qualify, but couldn't due to their sport completing the qualification period. Though I feel that's unlikely or the quotas will be given in rare circumstances

Yeah, trying to use world rankings for events with more than one weight class is a bad idea. Some events are more competitive than others.

Weird that they didn't keep things consistent. That adds... to men's -67kg to men's +75kg to women's -55kg to women's +61kg

As all tripartite nations must be in the top 50 of the Olympic Standings here are those that are eligible. Men's Kata (ranked 18th) Men's -67kg (ranked 18th) (ranked 20th) (ranked 29th) Men's -75kg (ranked 24th) (ranked 45th) Men's +75kg (ranked 45th) (ranked 46th) Women's Kata (ranked 36th) (ranked 44th) Women's -55kg None Women's -61kg None Women's +61kg (ranked 26th) Slim pickings on the women's side, it is likely one, if not two quotas will be reallocated