JoshMartini007

I think the FIH overestimated the amount of money even the top nations have to spend on travel.

That's a term used by WDSF which essentially means DNS.

Not too many more opportunities for new nations to qualify prior to the end of this year. We are down to four more direct qualifying events. World Artistic Gymnastics Championships - Very unlikely to qualify a new nation, the best chances IMO would be Turkiye in the men and Canada in the women, but again it's very unlikely. European Women's Handball Championship - Again unlikely with the best chances going to Hungary or Montenegro. Shooting Championship of the Americas - We could see a few nations qualify. The United States will eat a lot of the quotas (assuming they are sending a relatively strong team), but I suspect we will see Cuba and/or Mexico qualify their first athletes. There are a few other individuals (Argentina, Canada, Chile, Ecuador, Guatemala, Peru, Puerto Rico) which could also qualify. Urban Cycling World Championship - This is for BMX Park. This event despite occurring first is of a lower priority, but until the Olympic Qualifier Series is completed the quotas will likely be awarded to an already qualified nation. Perhaps Argentina, Costa Rica or Croatia might surprise.

Cricket and rugby may both have ties to the Commonwealth, but they appeal to a different set of Commonwealth nations. Sure they both have but after that things get different. Asia loves cricket while the Pacific nations love rugby and neither care very much about the other. In the Americas the Caribbean nations would easily defeat Canada while the opposite is true in rugby. Even among non-Commonwealth nations the only nation that's relatively big on both sports is Ireland. Cricket could see the likes of (assuming a 12 team tournament) while rugby would see the likes of

Yeah, the arena requirements for cricket is quite large (it has the largest field dimensions out of all the popular sports) so it only makes sense for nations which already have cricket venues to host it. Especially if the IOC is still big on cutting down costs for host nations.

goes 8/8 for Olympic quotas and are in a good position to do it again at the 2023 Worlds. This will open things up for the other Asian nations at their qualifiers.

Yeah, finding 180 quotas for a bare minimum tournament is a hard ask. Most sports are already at their limit so the IOC would have to kick out a sport with significant quotas for it to work. Also a 6-team tournament would be useless (like it was for baseball/softball). Even from a money point of view, sure is the big prize, but and are the 5th and 8th most populous nations and a 6-team tournament likely leaves two nations with relatively minimal Olympic interest off the table.

Only if the IOC drops the hard athlete quota limit

While I disagreed with them adding breaking to 2024 due to the lack of international competition, since then the WDSF has done a great job at promoting it. Just look at how many nations took part at the World Championships. I always felt that dancing should be part of the Olympics, but just like they did with skateboarding, I doubt the IOC will include the more standard dances in future games.

Can't see past the paywall, but is he trying to use equality to try and get more money out of broadcast stations?

Australia is considered to be part of Oceania for the most part plus the culture of the two nations are different. I think they have a good chance if a nation outside of Europe is going to win.

This is first Olympic quota

Good start for Canada, all the more reason to fast track this sport to a permanent spot at the Olympics.

One part of me feels that the West Indies team is coming to a close. Even if cricket never becomes an Olympic sport, I don't think many people feel nationalistic towards them, but they probably are towards their respective nation. There's enough talent on paper for to compete at the World Cup level. Even alone would probably be the favourites against Canada and the United States. The downside of course is funding. Can these nations increase their funding 3-5 times to match the current spending of the West Indies?

The drop off of the West Indies is sad, but as other countries continue to invest in cricket the region is getting left behind. Perhaps a new generation will step up.

Quite excited to see how this goes. The number of entrants is a good size, 53 nations in B-Boys and 43 in B-Girls, that's a more than a few of the traditional Olympic sports. Also love some of these names, it's great we have another sport besides the horses in equestrian with some funny and ingenious names.

Not too surprised, China and India have been investing hard into the rifle/pistol side of this sport. South Korea is a bit snake-bitten while Russia is banned from competing.

To be fair, events with less than 12 entrants should not have continental quotas. At that point you are causing top entrants to miss out. Though if I was in charge I wouldn't have any events with less than 12 competitors. If your event doesn't have at least 12 competitive nations then maybe it doesn't deserve to be in the Olympics (yes I understand that for some events the low number of entrants is due to athlete quota limitations, but I'd also increase the athlete quotas to account for that).

That's a weak excuse. The MER should be focused on safety not talent (unless they want to admit to "score inflation"). They're just trying to exclude the Group F team or individual riders without outright saying it.

For the most part there are enough spots to have both the top athletes and continental representation. For example, a 16 athlete event would have the top 10, the five continents and the host. Besides, the continent/host quotas aren't all complete wastes as some are filled with athletes that deserve to be there.

Remaining NOCs (Potential Events they can qualify in) None Total NOCs Remaining: 0

There's always been a struggle between having the best and having diversity, especially in sports where the best are not very diverse. I'm not a huge fan of world rankings because it benefits athletes who compete more (more money) rather than the best athletes. Personally I've always liked the "World Qualifier - Continental Qualifier - Final Qualifier" format. It gives athletes three opportunities to qualify (can't say they had a bad day) and promotes some diversity without it always going to the same large non-European nations.

Medal Comparison vs. 2018 (Gold Medals) Brazil +43 Argentina +16 Aruba +3 Paraguay +2 Uruguay +2 Panama +1 Chile 0 Curacao 0 Ecuador 0 Guyana 0 Suriname -2 Peru -3 Bolivia -4 Venezuela -12 Colombia -15 Medal Comparison vs. 2018 (Total Medals) Brazil +115 Argentina +32 Paraguay +18 Colombia +16 Uruguay +8 Aruba +3 Panama +2 Curacao +1 Chile -1 Guyana -2 Suriname -3 Ecuador -16 Peru -18 Bolivia -26 Venezuela -26 The big winner of the South American Games was clearly Brazil who sent a much more competitive team relative to 2018. Despite the downward pressure caused by Brazil, Argentina also had a great games. Despite losing the most gold medals relative to 2018, Colombia still won more medals, thanks to an increase in events. As hosts, Paraguay was able to win a good amount of medals, but struggled to convert them to gold. The previous hosts, Bolivia saw a huge drop in medals getting less than 25% of the medals won in 2018. Venezuela saw large drops while Ecuador and Peru saw drops in the total medals only.

No, not anymore.

In Canada's defense, the Olympic qualifiers haven't been favourable. Our best chance so far was probably in football and equestrian and we were far from the favourites, heck even for the remaining qualifying events in 2022, our best chance will be in the Pan American Shooting Championships and that also is a bit of a long shot. Typically sailing has a qualifying event by now which is usually when Canada qualifies their first quota. The beginning of 2023 looks pretty light (though to be fair many events still have dates as TBC), but there is a good chance that our first quotas may be in athletics or swimming.