JoshMartini007

Spain has announced its swimming team. A total of 23 swimmers will compete. Men’s 1500m freestyle swimmer Marc Sanchez who was included on the initial roster has been removed due to not recovering from surgery fast enough. The list doesn’t include their open water swimmer so in actually their total is 24. Link (in Spanish)

El Salvador's Oscar Ticas was found to be doping (also Canada's Jay Lyon). If his suspension stays it will be likely that El Salvador will lose its qualification spot meaning it will be transferred to Cuba. Link

I wouldn’t call for the end of China just yet. They are the type of team that would essentially throw a game knowing they don’t have a chance here and focus on the quarter-final/winning the 5th place match.

Yup, Argentina has a good chance for an upset too. Cuba's second quarter was pretty bad. I want to say Cuba was just saving its energy since it was always going to lose to France, but it was just France outworking them.

China will be the favourite to take the last spot, but I wouldn't call them a lock. Cuba has a decent team and Nigeria has looked decent in its first two matches too.

It will come down to how many divers overlap between the 3m synchro and 3m individual events. Poland is currently third on the wait list meaning it can only afford up to four athletes from nations which qualified to the synchro event to not be selected to compete in the individual event. Overall it is hard to say. Looking at 2012 Poland would have just missed it, but it could be different this year, I say about 50%.

Eligible nations (nations which did not qualify through the world championships) are ranked based on the results of each event, the top three athletes are given 28, 25 and 23 points respectively while the ranking continues in sequential numbers (22, 21, 20 etc). The top six male results or top four female results are summed together to create the ranking list. For the Pan American championships the top seven men's teams and the top four women's teams qualify one quota for that gender which can be used in any event. Overall I think it is a poor system. While it gives weaker nations an opportunity to qualify it hurts middle-tier nations where they may have two decent athletes, but are not strong enough to qualify more than one quota. Plus you have the whole issue of dividing a maximum of six athletes into eight events for the men and four athletes into seven events for the women.

Poor Vanuatu. Maybe without Australia's and China's top teams they can take the continental quota.

Then what's the point of making the requirements harder if you aren't going to uphold them? The ITF gambled and it looks like they lost.

She can still be the flag bearer ;), Manny Pacquiao carried the flag for the Philippines at the 2008 Olympics. I feel the Davis/Fed cup requirements were a bit too harsh and we're seeing it with many top players missing out at the Olympics which will make the sport look bad.

I disagree, having one or two good athletes doesn't mean you are good at qualifying. El Salvadorians may not be top level, but they are strong enough to qualify, unlike most of Panama's athletes. Honduras is like Pakistan, they can qualify in team events, inflating their numbers, but overall they are very weak in Olympic qualifying. I'm not saying El Salvador is clearly better than Panama, but it isn't surprising to see them on the other side of the tripartite line.

El Salvador is stronger than those two nations in Olympic qualification. Honduras is almost nothing without football while Panama doesn't have much outside of athletics. El Salvador is just on the other side of the cut-off for tripartite consideration. They have qualified six athletes without help and will gain two more spots in athletics and swimming through the wild cards so they aren't hurting for spots.

That was back in 2015, but you're probably right. I've heard Nestor is hard to partner with, but I don't expect Raonic to look good once they face a true doubles team.

It's always weird to see an athlete from a different continent competing. What's Iran doing here?

Well he's not in the top 10 so he has to compete with other combined ranked teams to qualify. Of course Nestor + Pospisil have a combined rank of 33 which means they should easily make it in.

Very happy for Canada. It looks like the only disciplines we won't be participating in will be Greco-Roman wrestling, rhythmic gymnastics and water polo. Plus handball being the only entire sport in which we won't qualify in

Update (Remove) Men's -73kg (Judo) Men's +100kg (Judo) Men's -73kg (Judo) Women's -52kg, Women's -57kg (Judo) Women's -48kg (Judo) Men's -90kg (Judo) Men's -100kg (Judo) Women's -63kg (Judo) While that is a large chunk removed it looks like we will not get lower than 2012's number of nations which failed to qualify without a wild card (27). We are currently at 32 with only Bangladesh in golf having a very good chance at being removed. Something special would have to happen in athletics between now and July for there to be any chance.

Yeah, Canada doesn't have its fate in its own hands, they need Poland to win one more set than China against their respective opponents.

10 Refugee Athletes will compete at the Olympics. So what's happening to taekwondo?

That's for swimming. Though I think FINA made some exceptions in 2012, most notable Qatar's female swimmer.

No, but there are restrictions. NOCs can't enter in the combined, 3000m steeplechase or 10000m events. Also athletes wanting to participate in field or road events must prove to the technical board that they have the ability to perform in those events.

Brazil confirms the addition of the men's 4x200m free and women's 4x100m medley relays. Three more athletes have been added to their roster. Link

The best explanation I can give for Argentina qualifying is that since the US only used 2/3 of its athlete quotas from the Pan American Games the other one had to be reallocated. Since you can't give 1 athlete quota in the C2 it goes to the C1, making it go to Brazil and then the host quota goes to Argentina.

I think I figured it out. Brazil qualified an athlete by having someone in the top 100. The reallocation of host quota goes to the highest ranked nation without a quota which is Colombia.

While I think pro boxers should participate in the Olympics I feel it is a bit late to change the rules.