OlympicsFan

Completely different situation. Germany already took half of Syria in, what about the US?

Not surprised that it was correct, time was always on her side. Maybe you would like to take the same bet for Svitolina now?

Is 400 m hurdles the most competitve event right now? Samba, Warholm, Benjamin ... I think there is still a chance that none of them will win gold in this event in Tokyo. Who would you guys consider the 10 biggest favorites (male or female) for Tokyo right now?

Wasn't she number 1 back then ... the odds can't have been very good? Probably would have been better to invest all that money into the greek government bond ...

Very good to take it that early, right now i would almost say that the odds are 50/50. Don't know if the bet was already up earlier but in my opinion even at the start of the year i would have taken the bet for the same odds (if i would bet money).

It's beginning ... https://www.express.co.uk/news/world/1005725/south-africa-farm-seizures-white-farmers-cyril-ramaphosa-anc I hope Russia opens its doors for all south african farmers and all other western countries should open their borders for south african refugees. If certain people in South Africa want to turn this beautiful country into a shithole like the rest of the continent, there won't be anyone able to stop them.

I really enjoyed watching athletics and swimming at the 2014 edition. Many of the medal winners are competitive at the senior level now: Swimming: Romanchuk, Rylov, Chupkov, Watanabe, Zhuhao, Kenderesi, Scott, Chalmers, Duo, Quadarella, Szilagyi Athletics: Lyles, Thebe, Sibanda, Kejelcha, Lysenko, Bukowiecki, Halasz, Naser, Herman, Levchenko Tennis: Rublev, Khachanov, Ostapenko, Kasatkina (interestingly enough none of those 4 won an individual gold back then: Kasatkina lost in the 3rd round against Parazinskaite from Lithuania, Ostapenko lost against Buayam from Thailand in the second round, Khachanov lost in the quarterfinal against Yamasaki from Japan and Rublev won the bronze medal, losing against Majchrzak from Poland in the semifinal) I hope that we will see many breakout performances again this time and of course i am looking forward to see some of the "stars" like Kolesnikov, Milak and Harimoto.

About Friedrich sweeping the sprint events: Emma Hinze would have done the same in 2015 if her teammate Pauline Grabosch wouldnt have won the 500 m time trial in a junior world record time, 0.07 seconds ahead of Hinze. I am sure that Gros would have also swept the sprints last year with a better partner in team sprint. For me the really impressive thing wasn't the fact that she swept the sprints, but the fashion she did it in. She won both races in the sprint final by more than half a second and in the keirin final she also won by a landslide. It was just crazy to see how superior she was to all the other talents out there. Last year she already won bronze in the sprint, only losing to Gros in the semifinal. I am really excited to see which athletes will compete for Germany in the (team) sprint/keirin in Tokyo. Welte probably has a safe spot in the team sprint, but right now i hope that Grabosch and Friedrich will compete in the sprint and keirin. Emma Hinze is also in the mix, but she is the oldest one among those 3 and clearly needs a huge jump in her development if she wants to qualify for Tokyo.

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?