Jinzha

Disappointing tournament for the Dutch team with exits in the qualifiers (Van de Velde/Immers), group phase (Brouwer/Meeuwsen) and round of 12 (Stam/Schoon). Meanwhile the American women are really impressing me, I feel like they have three teams all capable of winning Elite 16 tournaments or championships: Nuss/Kloth, Hughes/Cheng and Cannon/Sponcil. This time Cannon/Sponcil are in the final facing the inevitable Duda/Ana Patricia.

The Netherlands decline in this sport seems to be continuing, with a week of only losses. Meanwhile I'm very impressed by Thailand's results and their close match with Italy (even if Italy wasn't their strongest team). Some of the highlights on youtube seem like a really fun underdog team!

Strong start by the men with wins against and today. Worthy de Jong really is a great addition to this 3x3 squad. I think our men's team should be able to qualify for the Olympics again.

Wait, in this tournament the Dutch team also faces their two most difficult opponents Argentina and Poland in the final two matches. Yay for more shattered dreams!

China, Serbia and Dominican Republic as final three opponents is a recipe for hope and unevitable disappointment for the Dutch team. Already looking forward to it! Edit: Dominican, not Czech. We might be able to beat the Czech Republic...

I am always a bit jealous when I see how much sports some of you actively watch. For me watching sports in many cases means following live results or watching highlight clips afterwards. I wonder how many different sports channels/streaming services you are subscribed too, if anyone would be willing to share? If I wanted to follow all my favorites sports here, I would need at least ESPN, Ziggo Sports, ViaPlay, Eurosport/Discovery Plus and Volleyball TV. And of course the public broadcaster NOS, which is available for free. I'm not a big fan of monthly subscriptions so in the end I only have ESPN, because it came in a package deal with my TV and phone provider.

I am also surprised two of our strongest rowers are in de W2x, where the Romanian boat is basically unbeatable and you're just racing for silver as well.

is fielding boats in the following classes: W1x, W2-, W2x, W4-, W4x and M1x, M2-, M2x, W4-, W4x. No lightweight doublesculls and no womens eight. Another notable development is Tokyo silver medalists Broenink and Twellaar are back in the M2x, after being split apart last season. In the M4x two of the four Tokyo gold medalists are still present. Based on last season the biggest name in the squad is Florijn in the W1x though!

Hmm, this doesn't sound very hopeful for the Dutch team. It sounds like they'll need a really strong OQT performance where they beat at least one and probably multiple of the listed top 8 countries?

For me personally my group was able to get pretty much exactly what we wanted. We had already decided we weren't going to try for an athletics evening session because they're the most expensive sessions in the entire Games and the friday morning session has a lot of potential for Dutch athletes. Other than that specific morning sessions, we were looking for any quarter or semi final game in beach volleybal and field hockey. We are travelling with a group of 4 and in both draws, at least one of us got in within the first few days and had a choice of category B or C tickets for those quarter/semi finals. All in all, a very pleasant experience for our group and we're super excited about our plans! But we were probably very lucky and not too picky.

Biggest news of the day and no posts here yet! Puck Pieterse wins her debut world cup!! I was thinking how impressive a top 10 result would be for her and she just goes and beats multiple world champion Ferrand Prevot to the win. Super impressed!

All the Dutch contenders out already. Two bronze medals in the end, but for some reason I always expect more from the Dutch squad than the results. Judo can be a cruel sport where a moment of weakness takes you out of the tournament completely. I had hoped for more from especially Van Dijke, Polling, Korrel and Meyer/Snippe. On the bright side Van Lieshout had a great debut championship!

A nice 6th place for Maya Kingma! A top 8 result is a national qualification requirement, better to get it out of the way early. Sadly the gap to the UK and US girls is still quite big.

Single sculls and eights sounds like the best rowing session to attend. Enjoy your trip! I hope you get to enjoy watching Florijn win gold I also got into the individual ticket draw, but our group was already pleased with our ticket pack with beach volleyball, hockey and athletics.

I'm glad Van Lieshout reached the medal matches! If she keeps improving like she has the past year, I can see her being a serious medal contender in Paris.

I can't beat @Joshwith how fast he posts the results! Thanks for sharing again Josh! I'm noticing a big improvement for both the French men teams (Krou/Gauthier-rat and Lyneel/Bassereau). Probably still very far from medal contention in Paris, but last year even in Challenge events they were usually nowhere to be seen. Also didn't expect Xue/Xia to take the women's event over the Brazilian and American pairs. Meanwhile one of the Dutch Piersma/Van Driel teams reached the quarterfinal, decent result for them. Funny how we've got 2 Piersma sisters and 2 Van Driel sisters and they're paired up with each other.

Beach Pro Tour Challenge La Paz Men: 1. Herrera/Gavira 2. Boermans/De Groot 3. Seidl/Pristauz Women: 1. Nuss/Kloth 2. Simo/Rodriguez 3. Tainá/Victoria Very strong return by De Groot, who missed most of last season due to a back injury. I didn't expect Herrera/Gavira to win, but they're always contenders in a field like this. I'm more impressed by French pair Lyneel/Bassereau Rémi, who lost their QF to Herrera/Gavira by small margins after eliminating Swedish favorites Ahman/Hellvig. A strong tournament for the Austrian pairs as well. Seidl/Pristauz win bronze in their second tournament together and even almost won their SF after a 31-33 comeback in the 2nd set. On the womens side Klinger/Klinger finished 4th after eliminating Hughes/Cheng 2-0 in the QF.

Tes Schouten swam 2.23,28 200m breaststroke (NR!) at a race in Paris (Giant Tour), but I don't see that race in any of the lists here, so can I conclude that this time does not count for Olympic qualification?

The Barkley Marathon is such a weird niche in the world of sport and I'm incredibly intrigued by the concept, and the crazy endurance athletes that survive their attempts at it every year. The various youtube and Netflix documentaries are all recommendations. I can barely fathom that people are actually out there doing these survival challenges like the Barkley, Marathon des Sables, Moab 240, Tor des Geants and various others. They make running the 100-mile Ultra Trail de Mont-Blanc look like a piece of cake. There was a great attempt by Jasmin Paris this year as well, who became I believe the first woman to complete four loops.

Fifth European title for Bouwmeester and the first one since returning from her pregnancy. It's been very impressive how quickly she has regained her fitness. Another medal in Paris is definitely a possibility for her.

I agree the other hosts would have been slightly easier, but we did draw the easiest out of USA/Turkey/Dominican Republic. I could see Turkey and USA beating the two host countries.

Not the worst draw possible for the Netherlands. We played a close game versus China at the world championship, if we can upset them this time, there is hope. Chances are still super slim though. In the other two pools it'll be interesting whether there's any home advantage. Otherwise I'd say Brazil, Turkey, Italy and the USA are the favorites.

Wow the Athletics evening sessions got even more expensive, ranging from € 125 tot € 980 for the sessions that are exclusive to this round. I was considering adding Femke Bol's 400mH final to our trip if we got a favorable draw, but that's a bit too much for me.

I haven't seen the official rules for the ranking anywhere, but based on the current ranking with only the Doha Elite tournament I can deduce that the Elite tournaments results give the following points: 1. 1200 2. 1100 3. 1000 4. 900 5-8. 760 9-12. 600 13+. 460- This week the Pro Tour circuit starts up again with the La Paz Challenge tournament, so we should be able to easily deduce the points for Challenge tournaments as well. Based on the entry lists I'd say these are the main contenders for the podium: Men: Ahman/Hellvig, McHugh/Burnett, Boermans/De Groot Women: Hughes/Cheng, Nuss/Kloth, Sude/Schneider

I hadn't even heard of this one yet. There's a lot of unrest in the Dutch team, with Knegt's repeated public complaints and Schulting visibly searching for her new role now that she's not the sole leader of the team anymore. Meanwhile Velzeboer and Van 't Wout are flourishing under Kerstholt. A new commercial team with Otter, Schulting and the Desmet siblings would have been a serious option, but apparently they couldn't find enough sponsors to make it viable.