JoshMartini007

Opening ceremony starts now

What? The host would never pick events that would benefit themselves On a more serious note, the choice of para athletics (and swimming to an extent) events have always been a bit random, for the lack of a better word. You would think the CGF would take stock at the Paralympics and choose the most well attended events by Commonwealth nations.

There really needs to be a rule that a medal can't be awarded unless you defeat someone. In 2018 got a free bronze medal in the women's flyweight.

Yeah, that may have worked back before the internet where we didn't get the results as they came in, but now they are leaving a lot of viewership behind by not showing it live.

Preview: 2022 Commonwealth Games Talent from around the Commonwealth has descended to Birmingham, England to compete in various sports. While COVID has caused a crowded sport schedule for 2022 where athletes have prioritized other events, Canada is still sending a relatively strong team to compete. Here’s a breakdown of each sport and the chances Canada has in each of them. 3x3 Basketball Sadly, Canada is not sending its best 3x3 teams where they would have been favourites for gold, particularly the women. With that said, despite the lack of information, I feel Canada will have a decent chance to medal in both events. 3x3 Wheelchair will be making its world debut at the Commonwealth Games. In the 5v5 format, Australia, Canada and England are leagues better than the other nations so I’m inclined to believe the same will be true in 3x3. Athletics Due to the proximity of the World Championships, Canada will be missing some key athletes at the Commonwealth Games. As of this writing the only medalist competing is Camryn Rogers in women’s hammer throw where she and Jillian Weir could medal. The men’s side will also be favoured to win a medal or two along with a possibility for Evan Dunfee in the men’s 10,000m walk. Para athletes Josh Cassidy and Alex Dupont will be looking to add medals in the 1500m T54 with Cassidy also competing the marathon. The women will have more opportunities to medal with women’s pole vault (Anicka Newell), shot put (Sarah Mitton), javelin throw (Elizabeth Gleadle) and the women’s 4x400m relay being our best opportunities. Badminton Canada’s best chance will come in the women’s singles while the women’s doubles will have an outside chance. A relatively easy draw would help us immensely. I’d keep an eye out for the mixed team event. We are underdogs, but we do have a chance against England for bronze. On the flip side we could lose in the quarterfinals to Singapore should we meet. Beach Volleyball On paper, our biggest competition in both events will be against Australia. With two of our best teams, I’d consider it a disaster if we fail to medal in either event. Boxing While the sport can be quite unpredictable, the one predictable thing is that Canada seems to struggle to meet our expectation. Our team is led by 2022 world champion Tammara Thibeault in the women’s middleweight. The draw will be very important as any of them can potentially medal. I’d say 3-4 medals would be considered a good haul. Cycling Historically, cycling at the last few games have been one of those good enough to compete, but not good enough to medal consistently. The strength of Australia, England and New Zealand along with Scotland and Wales means Canada has to be on top of their game if they want to medal. Lucky for us this is probably our best track cycling team in a long time. Led by the women’s sprint crew we have the potential to win multiple medals. With that said it will be tough, but I am hopeful. The road team’s chances are not as high with our best hope likely coming from Alison Jackson and Leah Kirchmann in the time trial or road race. Diving Despite the loss of many of our top divers we still have a pretty good team. In 2018 we won six medals and I think we are quite capable of beating that performance, thanks to two new events being added. The team will be led by two-time 2022 World Championship medalist Mia Vallee who alone will be looking for three medals. On the men’s side Rylan Wiens will be looking to accomplish the same feat. Field Hockey Given the strength of the field it will be unlikely for Canada to reach the semi-finals. I’m hoping at least one of our teams advances to the 5th/6th place match which is doable given the teams in our groups. Gymnastics Our artistic team is quite a bit weaker this time around which likely means England will dominate the medals for both the men and women. The team all-around medals are still possible, but we can just as easily finish fourth or fifth. I still expect a few individual medals, but nothing close to the nine won in 2018. On paper, our rhythmic team is a bit better, but that’s about all I can tell you. The level of competition is quite low at the Commonwealth Games so you don’t need to be anything special to win medals. We only ended up two in 2018 so I hope we can at least surpass that. Judo The sport returns after taking a break in 2018. Eight years later, our team is better. We are led by Catherine Beauchemin-Pinard and have very solid chances with Francois Gauthier-Drapeau, Shady El Nahas and the Deguchi sisters. The draw will matter quite a bit if we want to reach the finals. Lawn Bowls I sadly do not know much about this sport, especially since top level play has been so sporadic since COVID. With that said, if Ryan Bester has maintained his form he will challenge for a medal while Jordan Kos from what I heard is an up and comer. Rugby Sevens Both of our teams are in rebuilding mode. The women have a better chance at a medal, but they are in a tough group and with the rise in play from Fiji, things are a lot more competitive than they were four years ago where we failed to medal. Squash This is another example of the level of play being too high for Canada to compete. Our highest ranked athlete is Hollie Naughton who would need probably a couple of upsets in order to win a medal in any of the three events she’s competing in. Swimming Despite the withdrawal of a few of our top swimmers, Canada will be sending a relatively strong team with many medal opportunities. Of course, with Australia and England prioritizing the Commonwealth Games over the World Championships, medals will be hard earned. On the men’s side the team is led by Joshua Liendo who will be looking to win multiple medals which will be more than what Canada had in 2018. The men’s 4x100m relay will also be a medal threat. I’d also keep an eye on Finlay Knox and Javier Acevedo. The women’s side will be led by 15 year old Summer McIntosh who will compete in four individual events. While the loss of Penny Oleksiak, Taylor Ruck, Kayla Sanchez (citizenship change) and Sydney Pickrem hurts, we still have a decent team with the likes of McIntosh, Kylie Masse and Maggie MacNeil along with our relay teams. Additionally, we could see some medals from Mary-Sophie Harvey or Tessa Cieplucha. On the para swimming side, we have medal chances from Nicholas Bennett and Aurelie Rivard. Table Tennis Our hopes will be on Eugene Wang and Mo Zhang, but while the level of quality is a bit lower relative to the World Championships, there is still enough talent from England, India, Nigeria and Singapore to be more than enough of a match against Canada. Triathlon This is another sport where Commonwealth nations perform well. Our best chance will likely be in the mixed relay, but we would have to beat one of Australia, England or New Zealand to win. On the individual side, our top athlete will be Tyler Mislawchuk. Weightlifting Canada has the potential to do quite well in this sport, though the lack of international results due to COVID makes things a bit more difficult to predict. We should probably finish with more medals than what we had in 2018 (five). A really good meet could see us break 10 medals though a more sensible prediction would be 7-8. Wrestling While Canada may have dropped off a bit in wrestling, the good news is the level of competition at the Commonwealth Games is pretty low. India and Nigeria will be our top rivals with other nations only having decent individuals. I don’t think we will medal in all 12 events and winning gold might be a bit more difficult, but we should still end up with a good medal haul. Overall Canada seems to be on the path for around 75 medals. This is lower than what we had in 2018 (82 medals), but our relatively weaker athletics, gymnastics and swimming teams hold us back and the other sports won’t compensate it. Our main medal rival will be India where we may end up in a situation where we finish with more medals, but they win more gold. If gold medals become an issue like they were in 2018 we could realistically finish behind New Zealand on the medal table.

might have a chance in the men's 100m if enough athletes withdraw. like with boxing/judo will depend on the draw so the chance is there. I don't think has a chance, the athlete hasn't performed that well this season and the level is still pretty good. He'd probably need to get around 7.8m to win a medal.

Has our dressage team really dropped that much or is this a cost saving thing?

Unlikely, in terms of talent, I'd give in beach volleyball the best chance at winning a medal. After that it comes down to getting some favourable draws in boxing/judo

The event is too EXTREME!!!! The athletes obviously can't handle that much extremeness on a shorter schedule

I think the hate from the Commonwealth Games comes from people relating it to the British Empire. I like it because of the level of play thanks to the top nations still buying into it. Outside of the Olympics and Asian Games it probably has the highest level of play. This year is a bit of an exception due to the sport calendar essentially merging 2021 and 2022 into the same year, especially in athletics since the World Championships literally just ended.

Yeah, the Commonwealth Games has an athlete cap of around 5000 athletes yet instead of putting caps for each event they just tell each nation they can send "X athletes" so they just prioritize their top athletes (yes there are qualifiers for some events, but most of them don't have any). You end up with events like women's wrestling being seriously under represented because outside of Canada/India/Nigeria there isn't as big of a priority to spend their athlete quotas on it.

The depth in women's race walk is quite shallow so I'm not quite surprised. Maybe it's from my high school days, but I would love to see a race walk "sprint" of 2km be held one day

Here Use the tab if you only want direct qualifiers.

The heptathlon ranking doesn't work quite well in each individual event either since you could be the best in the world overall, but relatively weak in that specific event. I'd revamped it where I'd show the overall ranking and the individual event ranking, but only among heptathlon athletes.

I agree, watching teams competing at separate events in order to qualify was a bit tedious. It also removed the pressure aspect when you have many opportunities to get it right and put up a top performance. There's also no recovering from a disqualification. For example, if the 2022 were the qualifiers Great Britain would be missing out in the women's 4x100m medley.

The big difference compared to their initial documents which were recalled is that the 2024 Aquatics Championships will take a big role. In swimming, only the top 3 relays of the 2023 champs will qualify while in 2024 will determine the other 13, there will be no teams determined by best times. In open water swimming there will be no Olympic qualifier, the quotas will be determined at the 2024 champs In water polo, the world league will offer no quotas, and the 2024 champs will determine the final quotas In diving, the world cup was replaced by the 2024 champs, which will only look at the top 12 rather than top 18 so we are more likely to not end up in a situation where there are more qualifiers than quotas In artistic swimming, the 2023 champs will not be an Olympic qualifier, only the continental qualifiers plus the 2024 champs will offer quotas

We've won medals before in field events or do you mean just the hammer throw?

He's talking about the other foot being the "jumping foot." For example if it was your right foot that was 1cm over the line you technically jumped from your left foot in the previous step. Obviously this isn't in the spirit of the competition. I imagine there is some rule that states your "jumping foot" is your closest step to the fault line.

Yeah, we have the technology to determine proper race walking form, but WA doesn't want to implement it.

has looked decent so far. Of course, the final two matches will be against Brazil and Argentina so they'll need something special to advance to the semis. Group A may end up looking quite messy...

Does it though? The events are almost on opposite ends of the schedule.

The 30 day rule takes precedence so it doesn't matter what is discovered after. Welcome to the world of early sports where poorly made rules can let someone expose a loophole. I'm not saying we should be celebrating Thorpe, but he did sneak his way to an Olympic gold medal and based on the 1912 rules it is legitimate.

Canada falls to 13th in the men's hammer throw right at the last throw

I just wanted you to understand that this was not a case of being punished for a crime that people think today is unjust, but rather the rules/laws at the time were not followed. You see it in court cases where the police/lawyers didn't follow the process correctly.

I don't understand, we "tamper with history" when we strip medals from dopers years later. This is no different, the IOC broke the rules they had at the time. This isn't some retrospective rule trying to be enforced.