JoshMartini007

It was unlikely to remain even without reducing the number of sports. Basque Pelota should be in danger, but Chile will likely push for its inclusion. Surfing will likely be cut unless it stays on the Olympic program in which case it will likely have reduced events. Skateboarding is on the same boat as surfing, but I'd argue it has a better chance of surviving should it get cut from the Olympics. If there's a push to remove more established Pan Am sports I imagine water skiing will be a likely candidate, perhaps one of Racquetball or Squash if people start to argue that we have too many racket sports.

Nice victory for Brazil, nice to see the top non-European nations hanging with the (relatively) weaker European nations at the World Champs, there's the potential of seeing three non-European teams move on to the Main Round.

They've let Australia compete in handball at the 2000 Olympics so I imagine the standard isn't too high. Though the US may not even reach that standard

I agree, the 800m in swimming is like a 3000m race in athletics.

Can't confirm or deny the Asian qualifier. For North America the team qualifier is on Oct 5 2019, mixed doubles qualifier is on Mar 6 2020 and the singles appears to coincide with the US Olympic trials (Feb 28-Mar 1 2020) though that could be poor wording on the US qualification document

I know Qatar has been slipping since they reached the World Championship final four years ago, but to lose to Angola is quite big and it opens the group up for third place.

To be honest, we should be looking at removal of events rather than reduction of quotas. Any team event with fewer than 12 nations and any individual event with fewer than 16 entrants should either be removed or expanded. If an event's talent pool becomes too diluted than it isn't exactly worthy of competing at the Olympics. The IOC may claim it is trying to reduce costs, but athletes themselves aren't the issue. It's the venue size (and amount) requirements

Table tennis use to be great for providing information towards Olympic qualification, now it quickly has turned into one of the worst sports...

There may be some mind games. Looking at the rankings, Israel and Poland are the top two Group C nations so I'd imagine if the possibility was there someone like the Czech Republic could take their chances and compete in Russia. Or maybe those two nations come to an agreement and one of them (Poland?) goes to Russia.