OlympicsFan

Disaster evening for team GB, Laura Muir also missed Semenya's world lead by more than 2 seconds and Reece Prescod was almost 0.4 slower than Usain Bolt when he set his world record.

I am very impressed by Hungary recently, they are really developing a lot of diversity (artistic gymnastics, judo, athletics). Also nice to see Karl-Richard Frey being back on the podium, he and Wieczerzak/Ressel (depending on who qualifies) are the only german medal hopes on the men's side.

Nope, Wieczerzak won't allow it.

Let's see ... Of course Spain needs some new talent/star, basically no medal contenders except for race walking and maybe women's triple jump (long shot).

Malaika Mihambo proved everyone wrong who doubted her quality after her gold medal last week. She easily beat the best british girls again with a great performance, if she stays healthy she will win a medal in Tokyo 100%. She is definitely the biggest long jump talent from Germany since Heike Drechsler and she always performs when it matters + she is clearly younger than all the other girls at the top.

Dressage: Agree about top 5, but maybe Spain in 6th? Eventing: Agree about GER/GB/AUS/NZ/USA, 6th spot should be between Sweden, Ireland and France, personally i favor France. Jumping: Clearly the most difficult event to predict. I think GB, France, Switzerland and Italy have almost the same chance to qualify. Netherlands and USA are always there when it counts, those 2 should be safe, personally i also think that France will find a way to qualify given their experience.

Hopefully, someone like her should make every team, the sport needs talents like her. Let's hope that Jennifer Gates, Georgina Bloomberg and Reed Kessler will make the team as well.

I doubt that Germany will finish without a medal in dressage ... What about jumping team?

On the womens side so far business as usual: Italy dominating endurance events and Germany dominating sprint events On the mens side things are not so clear and there is much more variety with medals for India, Czech Republic and Kazakhstan Positive surprises: The polish girls and the french guys (maybe we could also mention the australian guys) + track cycling might finally become a more global sport Negative surprises: GB as a team and from a german perspective the whole team except for womens sprint events I wish the german coaches would take lessons from the french coaches. France had one amazing talent on the womens side in Gros and now they seem to focus more on the mens side, Germany on the other hand is producing great female sprint talents every year, which makes not much sense given that there are only 2-3 spots in those events at the olympics. At the same time Germany is clearly lacking talent on the mens side and in all endurance events. Until 2020 Germany should be fine, but after that the german team faces a very dark future in mens sprint/team sprint/keirin.

18 nations seems like way too much, i think it will be hard enough to find that many competitive nations ... Currently USA, France, Spain, Croatia, Germany, Argentina, Switzerland, Serbia, Russia, Italy, Australia, Canada and GB have at least 2 solid players, but Croatia (without Cilic), Switzerland (without Federer and Wawrinka), Serbia (without Djokovic) and GB (without Murray) might have a difficult future ahead of them. Personally i like this new format because it increases the probability that german television will actually broadcast the Davis Cup, something that normally doesnt happen, especially since there isnt too much else going on in November (maybe except for winter sport).

Wont it be necessary for them to play there if they want to play at the olympics? Difficult to find a good spot in such a packed calender, maybe there would have been a better spot between AO and FO.

Very happy to see that american officials listened to me ...

Why no Kent Farrington?

Interesting to note that none of the nominated german show jumpers except for Ehning is ranked top 100 in the world: Tebbel is 105th, Klaphake is 143rd and Blum is 151st

German jumping team: Laura Klaphake (Catch me if you can) Marcus Ehning (Pret a tout or Comme il Faut) Maurice Tebbel (Chaccos' Son or Don Diarado) Simone Blum (DSP Alice) Reserve: Hans-Dieter Dreher (Belinda) No surprises, maybe except for Dreher being nominated as reserve instead of Weishaupt. Let's see what this team can do without Ahlmann, Deußer and Michaels-Beerbaum.

I think it makes more sense to ask whether Germany will be able to reach its highest number ever of top 8 finishes in Tokyo, since the number of medals depends on very few athletes to perform at their best at the right moment, while the number of top 8 finishes is more representative of a teams strength in my opinion. I definitely think thats possible and it would be pretty impressive to have more top 8 finishes than in 1992/1996 considering that the sport got more competitive and that back then Germany still was able to use the GDR athletes.

1) I think you should correct the spelling in your first comment, its very disrespectful towards wonderboy. 2/3) So we are talking about athletes who havent won any medals at olympics/senior world championships so far. I am still not sure whether someone like Tomokazu Harimoto should be included on this list?

I think its ok that the US claimed the record, but its weird that the same person is holding the national record in two nations at the same time. It might get interesting once he jumps world record.

On the one hand thats sad to hear, on the other hand i am still glad that i didnt predict womens 50 km race walking, maybe now IAAF will recognize the big injustice they caused and will get rid of this event again. Also i have to say that i expected to win this contest even with one less predicted event, but i got unlucky in too many events (for example in mens hammer throw i predicted Fajdek-Nowicki-Halasz, in womens shot put i predicted Schwanitz-Guba-Dubitskaya, in womens triple jump i predicted Papahristou-Peleteiro-Gierisch, in womens 200 m i predicted Asher-Smith-Samuel-Schippers, in mens 5000 m i predicted J.Ingebrigtsen-H.Ingebrigtsen-Crippa and in womens 1500 m i predcited Muir-Weightman-Ennaoui). Hopefully i will do better next time.

What do you mean with "without Vetter and Visser"?

Which record are we talking about? Its strange indeed that you can set an american record at european championships, but on the other hand Sweden basically had no part in developing Duplantis, so its only fair that the american federation recognizes it as their own record.

I cant await the ticket sale to open, i hope to get my hands on some tickets for the following events: - Athletics: The day of womens 200 m or womens 5000 m final - Swimming: The day of mens 1500 m free or mens 200 m IM final - Tennis: From quarterfinals onwards, preferrably on the mens side - Basketball: Any game on the mens side with the US or Germany (if Germany qualifies) or any quarterfinal/semifinal - Track cycling: The day of mens sprint final - Equestrian: The day of individual/team jumping final - Fencing: The day of womens individual foil finals - Gymnastics: The day of womens balance beam final - Table tennis: The day of mens individual final Tickets seem rather expensive for athletics/swimming/gymnastics and of course basketball, but for cycling/equestrian the tickets should be rather cheap, so lets see, hopefully not too many other german fans will try to get tickets ...

1) Propz on getting both the first and last name of Jakob Ingebrigtsen wrong 2) What would you define as a star? Would you for example consider someone like Thomas Röhler a star? 3) What do you mean by future? Since you used Jakob Ingebrigtsen as an example, should we assume that athletes who are already world class can be considered future stars still? Someone like Penny Oleksiak can still be considered a future star despite already being an olympic champion?

Would be interesting to know how many perfect predictions dunadan had. If i would have predicted womens 50 km race walking, then my prediction would have been gold for Henriques, silver for Takacs and bronze for the girl from Slovakia, so i would have had 208 points as well. I had 3 perfect predictions (womens heptathlon, womens 4 x 100 m relay and mens 400 m hurdles), which is pretty bad, so i guess dunadan would have won anyways.

I think the maximum for Poland is 7-10 medals (4 in hammer throw, mens 800 m, womens 4 x 400 m, mens pole vault, womens javelin throw, womens shot put, mens shot put), 5 medals are very realistic.