JoshMartini007

I looked at the start lists. The men are pretty much sealed with Tunisia, Algeria, Libya, Cameroon and Morocco qualifying. They would require three DNFs to miss out since Ghana is way too far. So unless Congo DR is a secret powerhouse or Nigeria decides to show up (where are they?) those will be the five nations. On the women's side things are a bit more competitive. Nigeria and Tunisia should be safe with Algeria, Cameroon, Madagascar, Morocco and Kenya fighting for two spots. Kenya is a bit of a long shot though. If Madagascar qualify it will be their first athlete in 2016. Also too bad Mauritius only sent three athletes if they had a fourth (even finishing last) they would have had a great shot at winning the quota.

All of the players/pairs are equally eligible based on Australia’s nomination criteria (all have less than 36000 points). The following criteria will be used to make their decision. - Results and performances at BWF international sanctioned tournaments (Within the last 12 month) - Head to head wins at BWF international sanctioned tournaments that indicate that a top 8 placement at the 2016 Olympics is realistic. Matches won against top 30 BWF World Ranked opponents will be considered. (Within the last 12 month) - Results and performances at the 2016 Individual Australian National Championship to be held from 29 Feb – 2 March 2016 at the Melbourne Sport and Aquatic Centre. Without looking at results I want to say that the pairs will have an advantage while the men’s singles will be the least likely.

Only Austria's time was fast enough for the A (OQT) standard, the other two were OST times

It depends on whether the tripartite quotas plus quotas from potential athletes which have withdrawn are reallocated. Technically South Africa can qualify through the world rankings without the stipulation of being the highest ranked African nation which means the NOC will accept him.

Thanks

The German swimming trials have begun and will last until Sunday. Qualifying to the German swim team has two phases. First they must reach the qualifying times at the prelims and finals (prelims have easier times) then they must reach another qualifying time (easier than final) in a different competition selected by the German swimming federation (you can only attempt to qualify in one). Thus athletes listed here will essentially be considered to be on the long list with the final list to be determined likely at the end of June/beginning of July. Germany Long List Qualifiers – Day 1 Men’s 1500m Freestyle – Florian Wellbrock Men’s 400m IM – Jacob Heidtmann, Johannes Hintze Women’s 800m Freestyle – Sarah Kohler, Leonie Beck Women’s 400m IM – Franziska Hentke

Is there any chance that Sourian will defy his federation and fight against Tsaryuk (should he reach the semis)? Or will he have no choice?

I don’t think this thread needs to be made. While some nations and athletes should be looked down at buying/selling their nationality the vast majority that get targeted are immigrants which came before they even began taking the sport seriously or athletes whose parents or grand-parents were citizens of that nation. Quite often things turn into a witch hunt. Look at what happened in 2012 with “Plastic Brits” issue.

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True, plus the tripartite commission looks at all sports at the same time. I wish the commission would publish the list of nations which applied to each sport. It would be interesting to see which nations applied

Australia's Marc Leishman has withdrawn citing Zika virus fears.

Also New Zealand won't get the reallocation in the doubles because they are not in the top 50. Plus US must decide which doubles it must drop, giving Canada a pair of athletes (most likely it'll be the men).

Somalia is the bigger shocker (you could at least sort of defend the others), it was a very competitive weightclass. Even if it had to be an African athlete did Central African Republic, Benin, Madagascar, Congo DR, Togo, Sao Tome and Principe, Sudan, Swaziland or Lesotho not apply? Especially Central African Republic which was one win away from qualifying.

Don't trust Wikipedia. First Cuba hasn't qualified a team quota in the men. Brazil is given the Latin America spot (since it is the highest ranked Latin American nation), the host quota goes to Russia. Also 6 more individual quotas are handed out though the individual rankings due to there being extra spots from from the team quotas.

I agree. My (unlikely) hope would be for the players whose contracts are set to expire between now and the Olympics force the teams to put in a clause to allow them to participate in the Olympics. Stamkos would be a great person to approach about this. His contract is expired after this season and he hasn’t played at the Olympics. He was controversially left out in 2010 (“too young”) and in 2014 he was injured. It will cause quite the media stir, but at the same time teams will still want to sign him because he’s Stamkos.

It won’t be that bad. While all of the top nations will suffer, especially the United States the European leagues still have decent players. If they can convince the AHL to suspend their season during the Olympics things will look a lot better too.

South Korea has announced its initial team after their Olympic Trials. In total 5 women have been selected. I imagine they will add more, but I don't know their internal evaluation.

Yeah, their formula is sometimes weird and they completely ignore non-result things that could be important such as retirements or in some cases whether or not the athlete actually qualifies. I don't blame them too much, it's hard keeping track of over 1000 athletes.

Update (Remove) Men's C1 1000m (Canoeing) Men's Events, Women's Events (Weightlifting)

New Zealand has always been inconsistent about their standards. They sent a male athlete in 2012. I guess their argument was that their athlete could finish in the top 16 (he finished 14th though there were many DNFs)

Pretty much. Australia will likely qualify in both the men and women. New Zealand would be on the edge. PNG, Samoa and Fiji will be the top nations in both genders. Kiribati will be the favourite to take the men's quota. The other nations will end up in a fight for wild cards. Cook Islands and Solomon Islands are more likely to get a women's wild card. Marshall Islands too, but I see their chance being less likely. On the men's side Nauru will be the massive favourite (Kiribati too should they fail to qualify). Micronesia will likely be given a spot. After that things get muddied. Tuvalu and Palau's lifter are essentially their most notable athlete while American Samoa and Tonga have a better team on average. Guam and Vanuatu will end up being a non-factor. This is also ignoring potential wild card athletes from Africa (Libya and Madagascar will be big favourites in the men should they not qualify) and Pan America.

They are probably the most likely Asian nation to get one (provided that they applied), but there is going to be a lot of competition from the Pacific nations. Almost every single one will apply for a quota and with no athlete in an individual ranking position the competition will be even greater.

I decided to see what it would look like if we expand the women's individual qualification to top 15. Currently 9 athletes and 6 new nations would be added to the five already listed. From the total five are from European nations; Azerbaijan (ranked 1), Georgia (13), Latvia (13), Norway (15) and Moldova (15). In Africa Nigeria (7, 14, 15) is pretty much guaranteed to qualify through the team rankings along with Cameroon (10) while Mauritius (15) will have a chance should they send a full team. In Oceania Samoa (10, 13) will be a heavy favourite. In Pan America both Canada (7) and Chile (14) should qualify as well. So even expanding to the top 15 we have a chance at not filling the seven quotas.

I think it's time to allow the top 15 women be eligible for individual quotas. We still have three continental qualifiers to go and we're already at less than seven and there's a good chance that only Azerbaijan's Boyanka Kostova will be eligible at the end.

The final women's spot on the Australian team will be decided in an event occurring from May 20th to May 22nd. Link