JoshMartini007

Early results for the EU Referendum are in. Things are quite even with England wanting to leave while Northern Ireland and Scotland wanting to stay, no results for Wales yet. Results

He's listed in the 200m free, 200m fly, 100m free, 200m IM and 100m fly. Here's the entry list for the US trials.

It means a lot. The only thing keeping this from being a complete disaster (assuming more withdrawals, it's actually not so bad right now) is that the women's side is intact. First impressions are important and for a sport that barely made the Olympics. They would have to be fully committed in 2020 if they want to stay (or the IOC gets a lot of revenue regardless of the strength of field).

Looks like it was steroids. The Italian Athletics Federation has confirmed the allegation.

It's funny that only the men are withdrawing from the Olympics due to fear of the Zika virus. McIloroy's is the type of golfer that would cause a mass exodus from the tournament. Say goodbye to golf at future Olympics past 2020.

The 2016 Oceania Championships have begun. Nothing interesting on the first day of finals with the exception of Cook Islands' Wesley Robert reached the OST (B Standard) in the men's 1500m. Sadly I don't think it will be enough to make the Olympics.

It comes from the fact that the Russian Olympic Committee is not banned, only a single federation. Even then the Russian athletics federation is not completely suspended as some athletes are allowed to compete. To the IOC, because the IAAF is allowing some Russians to compete this is more like a heavy suspension where the name, officials and the vast majority of athletes are banned. In other words the IOC is using a previous rule to prevent suspended federations from competing independently. It is either be fully banned or limited participation under the Russia flag.

That confused me at first too. Looks like we have another example of a sports federation not knowing their own rules.

Rugby sevens is a bit different. Before I agree it was interchangeable, but now the game has become its own sport. We've seen multiple rugby players try-out for the sevens team and fail due to lack of fitness. It has become a different game with its own strategy. It would be like saying the World Cup for futsal or beach soccer isn't the top prize for those sports because we have the World Cup for football.

Samoa has lately been a wildcard in the sport. They're the only team that can win a world series event one week and finish in last in the next week.

I have to give Germany credit on their development in rugby sevens. Before rugby sevens was announced to the Olympics they were pretty much non-existent in top level European play. Now they are on the outside looking in at trying to join the core teams for the World Series. If things continue they will have a great chance at making the Olympics in 2020.

Russia has defeated Canada multiple times this year. Canada was the favourite, but losing to Russia (especially after losing to Germany) was realistic.

I really thought Canada would at least make the finals and lose to Samoa, but we've had trouble defeating Russia this year too.

It looks like the two spare quotas came from Russia

With that bracket Germany could pull off the upset.

lol Canada. Ireland will be the favourite going into tomorrow, but Samoa will have a great chance at qualifying.

You can't form an opinion on Canada's chances until it at least faces Germany. Sri Lanka is the weakest team in the event while Uruguay isn't too much better. It seems the gain in popularity in rugby sevens has hurt Tonga the most. They use to be on the outside looking in, but to be fair group A is a very strong group, both Zimbabwe and Tonga would have had a chance to reach the quarter-final if placed in any other group.

Ireland just defeated Samoa. It looks like the nation is finally taking sevens seriously.

IAAF could have avoided this if they made their standards harder and added the next highest ranked athletes if needed like in swimming (in fact that's pretty much what is said in the qualification document). Do we really need almost 200 runners in both marathons?

It looks like we may go over the 2005 athlete limit set by IAAF. Even ignoring relay only athletes and Russia we're already around the max. I know the larger nations have additional requirements so the real number is lower, but once you add wild cards and relay only athletes plus last minute qualifiers it doesn't look like they will finish at or below the number, especially if Russia is let back in. I wonder if the IOC will do anything about

Maybe they are waiting for the other nations to confirm the quotas before announcing. Let’s see if we can make some educated guesses. In total there are 103 tripartite nations. Of those 35 qualified to the Olympics through the rankings, leaving us with 68. Only South Sudan doesn’t have a judo federation meaning the other 67 nations have a chance. I remember from 2012 that athletes which did not have an Olympic ranking were given a wild card so you can’t rule anyone out, but here’s a ranking list of nations with athletes which have a rankings (ordered by athlete with the most points). In total 29 nations have ranked athletes. Montenegro – 541pts Monaco – 233pts Andorra – 133pts Yemen – 125pts Cape Verde – 67pts Congo DR – 56pts Burundi – 52pts Liechtenstein – 52pts Palestine – 50pts Afghanistan – 48pts Guinea – 48pts Chad – 44pts Botswana – 30pts Panama – 13pts San Marino – 8pts Djibouti – 6pts Nepal – 6pts Rwanda – 6pts Swaziland – 6pts Macedonia – 4pts Malawi – 4pts Syria – 4pts Laos – 2pts Malta – 2pts Nicaragua – 2pts Paraguay – 2pts Suriname – 2pts Bangladesh – 1pt Central African Republic – 1pt

There’s less participation in the heavier weight classes. If the IOC gives boxing more quotas they may make things more equal, but they are not going to reduce the other quotas. It’ll be interesting in 2020 to see if the IOC gives them more athlete quotas since they want to add more female events. I suspect the IOC may try to get AIBA to reduce the number of men’s events.

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.