rajiv

I guess that's an understandable postion for someone who wants Ireland to be a major sporting country. In the past The native Irish have done best through doping but that's harder now. Wasn't your top Olympian a doper? Weren't even your horses in equestrian doped? Now you are doing better in athletics via immigration.If your team becomes as immigrant based as GB's is no doubt you will do better still If you can minimise the number of ethnic Celtic types on Irish national sporting teams there should be grand days ahead for Irish sport.

People here have a very different attitude to these faux national teams to me. I loathe these so-called national teams full of recent migrants and expats who can somehow get their hands on a passport. It's pretty common in places like Qatar and even a so called mature sporting country like the UK is well known for making enquiries of people who may have a UK born grandparent

If, as is likely, the Olympic cricket tournament is a 6 or 8 team affair then USA should not be a participant. Fancy USA taking the place of Bangladesh or Sri Lanka for instance. Cricket is their national sport and their only chance for participating in an Olympic team sport. I don't think Greece fielded a team in hockey in the Athens Olympics so there is a precedent. I recall that there was a real argument about GB participating in basketball as they were several levels below the 2nd weakest team. I doubt that Australia would throw a major tantrum if they were excluded from the Brisbane Games Handball tournament

There isn't one USA player who would even be in the conversation when it comes to choosing a combined Pakistan USA team. Pakistan has some history in, shall we say, not giving 100%. India-or maybe I should say some Indians-desperately wants the USA to take cricket seriously goodness knows why but they do) Connecting the dots isn't ridiculous. Cricket is now so Indian controlled through money. OK England and Australia can survive without Indian money (although their players don't mind the million dollars paydays that India provides) but the rest of the cricket world is so greatly dependent on India

I confess that I wonder about this. Cricket had a large corruption problem and Pakistani players aren't paid much compared to ,say ,India (India won't allow Pakistanis to play in the huge money IPL) India is about 85% of the total money in cricket and is desperate to make cricket a bigger deal game. Connect the dots. There is plenty of history of foul play involving players looking for money. Much sport is questionable these days. Sadly.

Viewing this with little interest but I used to have the impression that Canada was traditionally stronger than the US in what many here would call Commonwealth type sports like cricket, rugby and (field) hockey. Seems to have changed. Maybe due to changing immigration patterns.

Every Olympic medal event must have the support of a minimum of 10% of all NOCs (currently that's 21 countries)) with ño continent having more than half of these NOCs There are so many events-especially in the Winter Games -which are just not really very international (although they can be demonstration sports)

Depends where you're from. In Australa and New Zealand eventing is equestrian

Have a problem with the current system of qualification - seems to have USA as the only team with more than 2 golfers (maybe Sth Korea also qualifies in the women's event ) The no 3 GB Australia or Sth Africa doesn't make it in this system because they are not in the top 10 My alternative? Allow minimum of 21 NOCs(=10 % of all NOCs) to compete (including host + all continents) with all countries having a golfer from outside top 100 in top 100 qualifying. Max of 4 per NOC There may well be more than 21 countries and some golfers outside top 100 qualifying.But not necessarily . Don't see the point oh having a no 250 rather than a no 60 qualifying

This topic makes me realise that reducing the national umbers in swimming events from three to two reduces the number of medals that USA and Australia would win. I think Australia has only had sweeps in swimming but this can no longer happen (say in the W 100m free ) I see that some sports can have 4 entrants from a country. Indeed this is the norm (?)in the Winter Games. The cynic in me says that this is just so countries of the Global North can have more medals ie more entrants =more medal chances

Pretty obvious that the Western Left and the Jihadi lads are natural allies for the time being in that both want to tear down liberal bourgeois democracy. The alliance may not last if they are successful but we aren't there yet

Viewing this as an outsider I confess that I am somewhat bewildered why this event is so popular especially with people here. It's full of music that no one would ever pay money for (admittedly there have been good songs in the distant past) and its greatest fans are either teenage girls or members of the LGBTQIA+ community (not that there's anything wrong with that) Guess it's a European thing

I gather from here that this is really a competition for non English speaking countries

I think an issue for rugby may be that having 7s in the Olympics might mean that many countries will take 7s more seriously than the main 15s game. I'm particularly thinking of USA and Canada who take the Olympics very seriously but are very ordinary in 15s- they often don't qualify for Rugby World Cups and are 3rd tier at best in normal rugby I'm sure rugby wants 7s to be seen as lesser than 15s It would be like 3×3 basketball being taken more seriously than mainstream basketball A similar thing may happen with cricket. All cricket fans see Test cricket as the purest and highest form but Olympic cricket will be the abbreviated twenty20 format

WOW What a surprise! A USA Canada Gold medal match in women's ice hockey. Just like every other gold medal match in women's ice hockey Can't get much more universal than that! Looking forward to lacrosse being an Olympic event do we can have a lot more Canada USA gold medal games

Criticism of the Commonwealth Games existence by non-Commonwealth citizens has been pretty common on this site. Funny how none of the other non-geographical based Games don't get such treatment although maybe they just aren't noticed. Beats me why these Comm Games haters are so bothered.

People here a bit tough on Australia(again!) Looking at their team I'd say that the only soft qualifications they have are in boxing -Australia has remarkably little interest in all the combative sports -and they give out a huge number of medals especially to Japan in judo .Sth Korea in twaekwondo ,Italy in fencing etc etc - and synchronised swimming - the one aquatic discipline which is considered a joke by most (sorry ladies ) New Zealand is the country with the soft entry in association football.They would be favourites to come last (again) in both tournaments

Reading over this topic reinforces my firm impression that Australia and Australians are not particularly liked by many on this site

I think the main point is that Australia wants marketable home games which mean something and can draw a crowd When in Oceania they had one every four years-the inter continental playoff for the World Cup ie one game where they could fill a stadium Now New Zealand has replaced Australia as the" superpower " of the South Pacific and will now get an automatic place at every FIFA tournament(where they vie for last place) Means plenty of trips for the NZ suits and FIFA money If FIFA is intent with giving a very soft place at every tournament surely it would make more sense to give it to a billion population country like China or India Oceania has only 2 members with over a million people-NZ has 5 million people

Ski Mountaineering looks pretty spectacular. However, any sport/ event where 90% + of the competitors/medallists are from the one continent really shouldn't qualify for Olympic inclusion. The Olympics shouldn't be another Continental Championship. There must be a significant element of universality

I've long noted a strong anti Australia attitude on this site Guess they are the obvious target for many users who resent the large teams Australia qualifies for Olympics or maybe it's just Europeans being European and pessimistic about everything and looking for someone to vent their anger on Americans of course see all non Americans (aliens?) as inherently inferior

I've long held the view that there should be a transparent objective system to make these usually contentious decisions. I would grant the Games to the country which has won the most medals since last hosting (guess this would be Germany or Hungary but I haven't checked) And by "grant" I mean that they have first refusal rights. Maybe this means some regions would never host so I would allow nations to effectively "donate" medals to another country so that for instance ,there could be an African Games if that was widely approved of. No country deserves the Games just because they claim "it's our turn" when it really isn't

This a very Eastern Europe view Grand Slam events are the much bigger deal in the rest of the world All the Commo countries considered the Olympics the be all and end all.They were (are?) of the view that Olympic medal counts are everything in sport The Berlin Wall was toppled in 1989 by the way

Yeah like ethe wintersport schedule is such a big deal in an Australian January Over half of singles games are 1st round-64 of 127- so it makes sense to spread them over 3 days (including a weekend day)

Is there any event where you don't think Canada is an outside chance of a medal?