OlympicsFan

Dragic is done and they don't have much depth + they would first have to get a wildcard and Latvia, Croatia and maybe Germany (if they don't qualify here) will also want one. Greece, France and Lithuania are the 3rd, 4th and 5th best teams in europe in my opinion and then we have a lot of nations that could get the 4th ticket (if europe even will be able to win 4 tickets at the world qualifier).

I think Serbia and Spain are safe in the semifinal, so you will probably have to make the semifinal too. If you beat Australia, then you will probably have to beat Greece in the quarterfinal (which seems doable), but if you lose against Australia, you will probably have to beat the US, so i would say the easiest way to make the semifinal for you would be to beat Australia and Greece and then Spain in the 3rd place match, which seems like a really difficult path. I would favor Spain to get the 2nd ticket behind Serbia thanks to the ridiculous draw.

Good to hear, hammer throw, triple jump and race walking should be thrown out of the olympics and every other major competition.

Was Lyle the guy who was caught and then was still allowed to compete or was it someone else? Also nice job by USADA once again, 50 % of their athletes in the men's 4 x 100 m relay will be known cheaters, i hope they drop the baton in Doha once again.

The dominance of the 3 guys really was bad for the women's 800 m, before those 3 started to dominate we had girls like Jozwik or Bishop who were much better than everyone we have now except for Wilson (but she was caught before, so everyone should cheer against her). Those girls got really unlucky, if they would have been born a couple years later, then they could have won an olympic gold next year.

Great diamond league finals for Cuba, they won 3 events (men's long jump, men's 110 m hurdles, women's discus throw)! I just wonder what happened to them in men's triple jump ... ? My personal highlight was the guy in men's 1500 m with the patch on his nose (i assume he was the pacemaker?) who just went for it and almost made the top 5, great effort! Also at this point i probably wouldn't bet anything on american women winning more than 2 individual golds (and 3 golds in total) in Doha. Klosterhalfen should definitely race the 5000 m in Doha, but i fear this result will mean that she will instead race the 1500 m. In the 1500 m there are tons of girls who can beat her, but in the 5000 m i would only favor Hassan over her, assuming that neither Obiri nor Ayana will get back into shape until then.

I think that is very unlikely. I would say Serbia and Spain qualify here and then at the world qualifier 4 additional european teams (in my opinion 4 out of France, Greece, Lithuania, Germany, Croatia, Turkey, Italy and Latvia) will hopefully qualify. I think the world cup is the best chance for Italy to qualify for the olympics, they "only" have to beat Spain and then they have to win the 3rd place match or hope that Australia and the US make it to the semifinal.

Not sure about France. I always have the feeling that the french team is less than the sum of its parts, while it is the complete opposite with Serbia or Lithuania for example. I think preparation games dont mean much, results were all over the place. Germany lost against Japan and then a couple days later Germany easily won against Australia, while Australia won against the US. I still see the US as a safe finalist and i would be surprised if they would lose against a team other than Serbia, but maybe i am biased considering that they have Donovan Mitchell on their team who is one of my top 3 favorite players currently ... I think the weakness on the guard positions will kill every team except for maybe France in a match against the US. The american guards are just far superior athletically to the lithuanian or australian guards for example.

Absolutely horrible match by Germany, 4 points in the first quarter and only 20 points in the first half! I am not sure what it tells us about the french team that Germany still could have won this match ... ? The main reason for the loss were Gobert's amazing defense and the horrible german 2 pt shooting (15/47 = 31.9 % from 2 pt range). I am a bit surprised that Voigtmann (25 points and an efficiency of 28) was so much better than the 2 NBA players Kleber (6 points and an efficiency of 4) and Theis (7 points and an efficiency of 7), maybe he should start over them in the next matches. I also can't help but wonder whether it was the right decision to leave Bonga (who is a good defender and probably could have done a better job against Fournier (who scored 26 points today) in this match) and Pleiß/Hartenstein (who are physically better than all other german centers and probably could have had more defensive impact today) at home. After the first, way too early, impressions i would say that Lithuania should definitely make it out of the 2nd group stage and Australia and France should battle for that 2nd spot. Spain and Serbia are a lock for the semifinal, USA should also make it and i think Lithuania and Greece will fight for the 4th spot.

Funk now officially qualified for the olympics. The race in men's C1 between Anton and Tasiadis is still open.

World best/record for Krause in women's 2000 m SC with 5:52. Of course barely any top runner ever runs this distance (in top shape), but the time is pretty impressive and she completely destroyed Yavi (who is a 9:07 runner in the 3000 m SC this year) over the last 200 m, so i am hopeful that she will be in sub 9:00 shape at the world championships. You don't often see a world best/record at such a short distance being broken by 10 seconds. Before this race the top 2 on the all-time list were Virginia Nyambura (6:02 in 2015) and Beatrice Chepkoech (6:02 in 2015). Edit: 41.67 seconds for the german 4 x 100 m relay. With Mihambo instead of Kwadwo and Mayer/Müller instead of Kwayie they would have broken the european record (41.37 by the GDR back from 1985) today.

In 2015 and 2016 she peaked at the world championships and the olympics and in 2017 she was injured. I am optimistic that she will be in top shape in Doha, but of course this will be the first time that she will be the favorite and everyone in Germany expects her to win gold, so we don't know how she will deal with a situation like that.

I hope not, Reese has won enough and some day age has to get to her + even Reese in top shape can't jump 7.16 m every day, a distance that Mihambo achieved this year even with far from perfect wind. She said that she still left some reserves in training for the world championships and she thinks that she can even get better until the world championships. I am a bit sad that she won't be in the german 4 x 100 m relay, she could have helped them to win a medal, but i think next year at the olympics she could compete in both events.

6.99 m into a 1.4 m/s headwind for Mihambo, her consistency is absolutely insane. Would be a travesty if she wouldn't win gold in Doha. Also very nice new PB for Kaul in men's javelin throw. I thought that the U23 european championships were his season's highlight, but maybe he will be able to again score 8500+ points in Doha.

Very sad that he missed the standard. I think it was a perfectly timed race considering the number of personal bests we saw. Not sure he will get another chance like that (at least this year).

Thanks! So this is the horse that is now called Chipmunk and competes for Jung? Why is that horse allowed to compete again, isn't there a rule that horses can also be banned for doping?

Starting at 16:30 as far as i know, i read somewhere that polish TV will start their broadcast at 15:45 or something like that, but i am not sure about the channel it will be on. https://www.zdf.de/sport/zdf-sportextra/zdf-sportextra-182.html

You really think him not picking Chipmunk is an option after buying that horse from Krajewski? I read somewhere that Jung competed in a jumping nations cup for Germany this year, did he use a different horse there? Would you say that Auffarth or Krajewski can get back into the german team next year, considering that both Dibowski and Rüder are far from reliable at this level?

What do you mean with doping trouble? What did i miss?

Louise Romeike? Is she who i think she is?

What a weird game for Germany ... 0:13 -> 17:21 -> 20:36 Horrible horrible offense, but at least a solid defense. Noone expected a victory, but this is just embarrassing. Thanks to the draw i didn't see a chance for Germany to qualify for the olympics here, but i thought they had a chance to make it out of the second group phase. The games against Lithuania and Australia should be closer, but now it will almost impossible to make it out of the 2nd group phase.

Didn't you also just win a medal in men's judo? I think you should also look at it this way: You're men are maybe subpar for a country like Canada, but your women are for sure way better than it would be expected from a country like Canada.

Absolutely horrible world championships for Germany, no medal in quadruple sculls is unacceptable. I thought that 3 golds (men's lightweight double sculls, men's eight and men's single sculls) were safe, but one of them completely messed up (men's lightweight double sculls) and the other two were also worse than expected. The only positive thing is that Zeidler will only get better if he stays injury-free and that the quadruple sculls usually peak at the olympics. Crazy performances by Ireland and especially the Netherlands, sadly i have no doubt anymore that they will be able to repeat those results next year.

Not even a medal for Warner? It's not as if there are many guys currently who can score 8600 points or more ...

6 medals for the Netherlands in olympic events, more than at the last 4 editions combined. Saying that this isn't an insane improvement must be the most retarded thing i have read on this forum over the years.