JoshMartini007

Assuming you are in Toronto 5am makes the most sense, both swimming and gymnastics start. As a west coaster I'll probably start 5:30am Pacific, maybe a little earlier to watch a little bit of fencing.

I forgot Smith was doing the 100m butterfly so she's probably out of the relay. MacNeil and McIntosh would have to pull double duty with only around 1 hour rest. I feel confident MacNeil will, but I'm not 100% sure on McIntosh. She has a long schedule, but she does have a day off on the next day so it's possible. Overall the heat will probably be Oleksiak/Harvey/Douthwright/Ruck and then drop the slowest 1 or 2 for MacNeil/McIntosh for the final.

She probably just hedged her bets. The relay team is chosen just before the event based on their current form. With Oleksiak/Ruck/MacNeil/McIntosh/Douthwright/Smith as other options for Canada there was a non-zero chance she may have been left out of the relay if she regressed from the Canadian Trials (or the others improved). Now that she's officially on the relay team dropping the 400m free was a no brainer.

I guess she's going all in for the 4x100m relay

How big are these boats or are we going to be on two/three boats?

I mean there aren't many ways to say "if the opposing team is in this position during a free kick, this is about to happen" without the next question being "how did you know that?"

They must have known. The spying would have been ineffective if they weren't sharing the results with the players.

What a joke. The information must have been pretty bad and likely more heads will roll in the coming months. What are FIFA's rules relative to espionage? I hope this doesn't lead to a disqualification

Should have invested in stealth drones

Football tends to be hit or miss with ticket sales at the Olympics. You have a pre-opening ceremony match between two non-European teams (requires a long trip), in a city away from Paris at 5pm local time where people may have just gotten out of work.

Honestly, I'd give all eight teams a decent chance for a medal.

I think it's only archery, equestrian and shooting where the best athlete in the world could be female (ignoring artistic swimming and rhythmic gymnastics). After that the only Olympic sport that might have a chance would be sailing and even then it might take a once in a century performance on the right boat.

What a game for Brazil, there might be something to this team...

Those are compensated by men's football, water polo and Greco-Roman wrestling. What causes there to be more men than women is athletics and swimming

I'm quite sure there are still more males than females at the Olympics. This is like in 2012 where they claimed that all nations had a female athlete when in reality the final 3 nations which never had a female entered one.

Happy with the choices

Nice analysis. I don't think we'll make triple digits this time. Around 50 nations are only here because of tripartite and universality. Add in nations which officially qualified by barely making the cut or winning weak continental quotas and we are left with a narrow path to 100. It's possible, but we'll need the small nations to convert their 1 or 2 chance they have.

Yeah, they can't even show the proper score. First day bugs as usual.

I also think Evan Dunfee should get the nod (assuming he's in Paris). On the women's side, I'd like to throw Kelsey Mitchell as an alternative to Ellie Black

Any last minute flag bearer predictions?

My vacation doesn't start until Monday (I guess technically Saturday since it's the weekend) so I only have a small amount of time in the morning to watch. I'll definitely watch some handball on Thursday to cross that off on my sport list. Tomorrow I'll probably catch a rugby sevens game.

They should put them together in the same building, along with and Additionally they should arrange and on the same floors so it looks like they mirror themselves.

I agree, qualification to an event shouldn't depend on whether your nation is also qualified in a different event. Weightlifting is the worst offender, but you also see it in canoe sprint for the kayak events. Technically this can also happen in swimming too, but I don't think any nation has suffered as a result of the rules in the past few Olympics. As strong as China is in weightlifting they wouldn't win 10 golds, they would win even less if North Korea competes.

3x3 is one of the more successful "modern" events so it's not going anywhere. If anything, the IOC should increase the size of the tournament.

I'd give them a pass on that. If they can't figure out who is attending then they definitely aren't looking at the draws.