rajiv

I would like to see the number of Olympic events drastically cut My wishful thinking goes like this : Every country can nominate which events they desire to have. All events which have 10% of all countries (that's currently 21) are considered for final inclusion The 300 events - summer and winter - which have the support of countries with the most Olympic medals vote are Olympic events This means that getting the support of high medalling countries is crucial but you require at least 21 of them Yes this system will be political,tactical with trades but it is also transparent You will probably have demonstration events/sports which the host wants but couldn't manage enough votes

Well I haven't any data -I doubt there is any public data - but I am not the only one to note that many prominent female athletes seem to have decided that a (male ) husband and children isn't for them

She sounds remarkably normal and knows what's important and what isn't. I think that most elite female athletes from the US and Europe in her position would be ringing up their abortionist (Can I say that ?)

There are but 5 serious Winter Olympic nations outside Europe -USA ,Canada, Japan , China and Sth Korea ( and the last 2 are medal collecting obsessives who pour millions into events which wouldn't exist in their countries but for their Olympic inclusion ) That's it Sure others compete and may win the very occasional medal - usually in a non classic winter event which is based on a summer event being held on snow ( eg snowboarding is derived from skateboarding which is derived from surfing )

There are but 5 serious non European Winter Olympic countries -USA, Canada.Japan, China , Sth Korea ( and the last 2 are Olympic medal obsessives who will pour millions into any event on the Olympic ptogram even if previously unknown to them ) Other countries may win medals eg Australia & NZ but they are very sporty places who enter everything (& must compete in their summer )

OK I'll bite on this one To get to 21 countries you have to start listing countries which maybe have a couple of Winter Olympic medals or maybe even none Say for eg South Africa or Argentina - really anywhere south of the Tropic of Cancer .Tropical Asia has many ice rinks and local rich kids play at ice sports It seems obvious, to me at least , that serious winter sports (as maybe opposed to a little casual recreational skiing and skating ) only exists because a couple of dudes have aspirations to be Olympians and the Winter Olympics will take anyone from non winter places to boost the nos OTOH I suspect that some landlocked countries -Switzerland and Austria come to mind - have organised sailing competition and are decent at sailing

A lot more people on this planet are closer to water and boats than to ice and snow All winter sports are elite and for the few not the many Just look at the relatively small numbers who live in a snow environment Is there any Winter event which would be supported by 21 countries ? ( ie 10% of all Olympic countries )

Sailing may sound like a rich man's activity to many but I bet many more people from all levels of society have experienced sailing than curling

Better Australia than China. My view , for what it's worth , is that it makes the most sense to hold qualifying events in the top ranked nation competing It is generally accepted that the home nation team has an advantage so it would be fairest for this unavoidable advantage to go to the most deserving- the acknowledged best nation

I've noticed that Australia is pretty unpopular with some folk here I think it has to do with all the Oceania Olympic places it very.easily gets ?? It does gives Australia a huge Olympic team . Ironic that when they do compete for a much harder to gain Asian place they are again complained about

The main obstacle for Olympic cricket is India who refuse to allow any other organisation to have any control of their national team India contributes about 80% of all cricket revenue England would be reluctant to give up cricket revenue at the height of their summer season Australia probably couldn't care either way - they are not so Olympic obsessed as most of their sporting interest is outside Olympic sports All the other countries have low budgets for cricket and are dependent financially on the big 3 (or big one -India ) But it is true that cricket is a 5 continent sport and the winning country could come from any of the 5 continents . How many sports - team or individual - can claim that ?

Oceania has a very small total population.If you exclude Australia -25 million - the remainder is about 13 million mainly in Papua New Guinea -7 million - and NZ - 4to5 This is maybe not such a big deal in most team sports as Australia and sometimes NZ are either among the best dozen nations or they must qualify via a combined Asia Oceania system One glaring exception is football/soccer where Australia has moved to Asia - for better competition and more lucrative games I guess - so NZ gets basically an automatic berth to every international tournament except for the big one -the mens World Cup. And NZ are hopeless .Both M and W . .Have they ever won a game at the top level ? Why not give a guaranteed place to South Asia instead ? 1.7 billion people vs what ? 15 million.8 vs 9 nations both in IOC and FIFA Or if this is too hard just join Oceania to Asia ( and the Americas should also be one confederation )

This topic has become pretty big with all the anti British Empire folk out in force . Personally I also have some issues with Britain -I blame Britain for the creation of Israel which is by far the biggest obstacle to a more peaceful world But this is the wrong forum for that topic. I do rather doubt that India would be a major country if not for Britain . If no Raj there would be a dozen or more separate countries in my view . Also I can't help but notice that the have nots of the world overwhelmingly want to move to the countries Britain created (the Anglosphere ) I also note that there is a French equivalent ( sort of ) of the Commonwealth Games which no one cares about . In fact there are all sorts of Games which no one much cares about Personally I wouldn't care if India said goodbye to the Commonwealth and it's Games . I doubt that many would care anywhere . India has the strongest sense of complaint in the world . Not so many years ago India and China had similar living standards . Now they are miles apart . All this talk of democracy -the courts and civil service are corrupt . Public safety especially for women and the poor is abysmal As for all this talk of whities running the show -the last CWG president was Malaysian and the one before that Jamaican Anyway my general position is to always to take the opposite view to any big fat powerful Indian Boss complaining about being hard done by . Do that and you will rarely go wrong

Just saying how the world outside India sees these things . India is big on shooting as a sport but has an inferior record to UK and Australia at the Olympics . I have spent a lot of time in the UK and Australia and have never seen shooting mentioned in any general sports coverage . In fact shooting is only mentioned in a negative way as in shooting licenses should be made harder to get . For the last 5 Olympics : Australia :3G 1S 3B 7T GB 2G 1S 2B 5T India 1G 2S 1B 4T And the further you go back in time the further behind the other two India is OK I haven't checked the Commonwealth Games medal tallies but I'd measure performance by Olympic results

Well I'll go devil's advocate ….. I recall India didn't hold triathlon when Delhi held the Games as there is no Indian interest in this sport even though it is popular among the white countries . As for shooting I'd say both England and Australia are better at this sport at Olympic level ( both regularly win gold at Olympics . India have only ever won one gold medal ) I'd say the real point is that shooting is poor TV at least outside Asia . People like to see racing events -running, swimming and , yes, triathlon . The second point is that most Western countries ( USA excepted ) don't particularly like to promote shooting as a sport these days I doubt if many outside India would care if India left the Commonwealth . The " Old " Commonwealth might even welcome it in these days of special pleading for migration rights . The other "New " Commonwealth countries probably couldn't care less

The British have a lot of hate and resentment towards foreigners I think they hate Australians the most or at least the loudest as they are safe to hate under very tough UK law as Aussies are mainly white so it's legal In my experience most people have a love hate relationship with England ( as they also do with USA ). They admire the past contribution but dislike ( not hate ) the English of today For instance England is the foundation country of sport as we know it today . But we have to put up with England always trying to run everything Have you seen those dreadful IAAF World Athletics Club videos on you tube for example

Doesn't basketball have a rule limiting the no of immigrants in a national team ? Funny how these "immigrants " are invariably African Americans who are usually in negligible numbers in the country's general population . I take the point about Chinese table tennis players being ubiquitous ( but every Western country especially the New World countries do have large Chinese populations ) These Jewish American baseballers are not descendants of Israelis ( in the last thousand years at least ). Probably their families came from Eastern Europe Would it be so hard to devise a universal general rule for diaspora/immigrants eligibility for national teams ? My (first ) suggestion is that a country cannot field a greater proportion of foreign born in a national team than the proportion of foreign born citizens among all the citizens living in the country So clearly countries like USA , Canada ,Australia could have a fair number . They are immigrant countries whish readily grant citizenship Countries like Qatar which may well have a huge foreign born population but very few Foreign born citizens so would not have many Diaspora producing countries like Italy and Greece would also have few . Maybe nowadays they have many foreign born in the country but few are citizens Funny how a country like the UK which has a huge diaspora -perhaps the biggest (in Europe at least ) ? - doesn't seem to have that many Anglo Americans / Canadians /Australians etc in their teams

Well if we end up with a team composed of Americans who happen to be Jewish taking up one of only six Olympic quotas in baseball I'd say this would be a public relations disaster for those arguing for the ongoing inclusion of baseball in the Olympics . The big question is how many of the team learnt the sport in Israel ? I remember that there was a story that Greece toyed with the idea of fielding a ( field ) hockey team comprised of persons from the Greek diaspora who knew the game ( which is largely unknown in Greece ) for Athens 2004, Fortunately it went nowhere . Somebody will always throw these ideas up, They should be ignored for the integrity of sport

Is the Israel baseball team composed of bona fide Israelis or are they just Jewish Americans ? How many can converse fluently in Hebrew for instance ?

I think - looking over historical results - Australia is one of those countries ( like USA and Canada ) that isn't nearly as fussed about the World Champs as the Olympics . Remember they are effectively in a continent of two ( them and NZ ) so that unlike say Europe there isn't a lot of national team emphasis outside Olympics ( Actually USA and Australia can afford to take this position and still qualify for Olympics -Canada can't ) All these countries lacks that old pro tactics experience in FIBA International play that the major European countries have and have to rely on playing ability alone I've read that there are a no of Australian NBA players who while Australian born and raised have mixed US Australian ancestry who have gone US native and only make themselves available for Olympics . Expect Australia to be better and smarter next year

Olympian 1010 Well Trump is President because he won the Electoral College . If he needed to win the popular vote he would have tried a different strategy for eg he would not have totally ignored California or other States where he had no hope of winning a majority This seems very obvious to anyone familiar with a Parliamentary system of government with individual seats . You put all your ( not unlimited ) resources in winnable seats only Your other point about white men : Most countries are not run by white men . Actually very few are . Which countries not run by white men are great places to live -better than the white men run countries ? Why are so many non white men from countries not run by white men so eager to move to countries run by white men ?

I doubt that any American or Australian surfing enthusiast or aficionado would share your view . this just sounds like another sporting federation full of fat Europeans who are professional committeemen

phelps I doubt that an American or Australian surfing aficionado ( ie from the best surfing countries and cultures ) would agree with your analysis

If they only had the best 12 at the Olympics there wouldn't be any Asian or African teams . Still I don't have much sympathy for European and Americas teams who don't qualify . They aren't in the top 3 from their continent at the qualifying tournament ( the World Cup ) so they can't complain too much about lost medal opportunities Still the Olympics are meant to be global .at least in participation I have a real problem with the Winter Olympics claiming to be some sort of global event where many events really are only seriously undertaken in a few European countries ( And furthermore if they weren't an Olympic event wouldn't even exist outside even fewer countries eg luge ) No country south of the Tropic of Cancer - ie most of the world's people - ever features