OlympicsFan

Spain is my clear favorite for the OQT. I also like the chance of Lithuania, if everyone plays. Greece will probably be the 3rd favorite if everyone plays.

Latvia is a weak team. They got thrashed by Canada and in most of their matches against the other good teams they were down by 10+ points and only came back because those teams took it easy. Germany tried to lose today (only explanation for why Schröder was allowed to be a -20 and go 4/26) and Latvia still couldn't win. Too bad that Turkey won't participate, but France can participate, so of course Latvia could finish lower than France. I didn't say that France will qualify over them. Lithuania (if everyone plays), Slovenia, Spain, Greece (if everyone plays) and possibly Italy all have stronger teams. You probably missed it, but Slovenia is already out (which of course was completely expected).

Huge wasted chance for Latvia. Don't really see how such a weak team will finish ahead of Spain/Italy/Greece/Slovenia/France/Turkey/Lithuania next year.

You have to feel for Schröder and the german coach. They would have probably become billionaires if Latvia would have won this game. The only logical explanation for this game is that both Schröder and the german coach bet all their money on a latvian win. Schröder went 4/26 from the field and had a +/- of -20, but for some reason the coach kept playing him. Schröder played 30 minutes, no other german guy played more than 24 minutes. I really don't see how Schröder and the german coach didn't bet on a latvian win. Whenever Germany was up by 10+ points, the german coach brought Schröder back in to completely kill the momentum.

Expected win for Serbia … Obviously the US killed Lithuania by losing against them. The same happened to France in 2019. Lithuania fell for their own hype …

Would be shocked if Slovenia wins. Apart from Doncic they are really bad. I think without Doncic they would be on the level of Finland/Georgia.

1) 50 % of the top 8 are small eastern european nations (Lithuania, Latvia, Slovenia, Serbia) 2) Spain, France and Australia all missed the elimination games 3) Interesting that Latvia and Lithuania are so good in basketball, but Estonia is completely irrelevant

[hide] Knockout Stage September 5th - September 10th, 2023 8 Nations, The Winning Nations from each Quarterfinal will qualify for the Semfinals. Quarterfinals Date & Time (GMT +8) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 September 5th 2023, h. 16:45 Lithuania 10 Serbia September 5th 2023, h. 20:40 Italy 10 United States September 6th 2023, h. 16:45 Germany 10 Latvia September 6th 2023, h. 20:30 Canada 15 Slovenia [/hide]

Lithuania

Quarterfinals: vs. vs. vs. vs. All matches with clear favorites. Most likely vs. and vs. will be for the european quota places.

Amazing tournament, lots of surprises. Absolutely love it! I think i got less than half of the winners right today. Brazil winning is clearly the biggest surprise for me, followed by Latvia, Slovenia and Italy. Germany has to decide whether they want to take the risk of not playing Wagner against Slovenia. Canada still looks clearly more dangerous than Latvia, so Germany should try everything they can to avoid them.

Would be crazy if Italy and Latvia would get the 2 european spots here ... Serbia, Spain, Greece, Lithuania, Germany and Slovenia would have to compete for the remaining spots next year.

Absolutely shocking result, especially without Porzingis. Obviously Spain hasn't their most talented team ever, but i still thought that they would win this by 10 points or so. Now Spain probably has to beat Canada to advance, which seems rather unlikely.

Amazing (comeback) win for Italy once again! Don't see them winning a medal, but with Banchero it might have been possible. I think Italy might have some down years in the near future, but in the long run they should be very good again (given their results at junior level).

[hide] Group Stage - Second Round September 1st - September 3rd, 2023 16 Nations, The 1st and 2nd-Placed Nations from each Group will qualify for the Quarterfinals. Group I Date & Time (GMT +8) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 September 1st 2023, h. 16:00 Serbia 8 Italy September 1st 2023, h. 20:00 Dominican Republic 15 Puerto Rico September 3rd 2023, h. 16:00 Italy 8 Puerto Rico September 3rd 2023, h. 20:00 Dominican Republic 5 Serbia Group J Date & Time (GMT +8) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 September 1st 2023, h. 16:40 United States 25 Montenegro September 1st 2023, h. 20:40 Lithuania 10 Greece September 3rd 2023, h. 16:40 Greece 5 Montenegro September 3rd 2023, h. 20:40 United States 18 Lithuania Group K Date & Time (GMT +9) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 September 1st 2023, h. 17:30 Germany 15 Georgia September 1st 2023, h. 21:10 Slovenia 10 Australia September 3rd 2023, h. 16:30 Australia 20 Georgia September 3rd 2023, h.20:10 Germany 10 Slovenia Group L Date & Time (GMT +7) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 September 1st 2023, h. 16:45 Spain 15 Latvia September 1st 2023, h. 20:30 Canada 25 Brazil September 3rd 2023, h. 16:45 Brazil 10 Latvia September 3rd 2023, h. 20:30 Spain 10 Canada [/hide]

Too bad that there are so many weak teams and therefore so many boring games. Would be great to have a tournament with the following teams: USA Canada Australia Spain France Serbia Germany Greece Italy Slovenia Lithuania 5 out of Brazil/Puerto Rico/Dominican Republic/Turkey/Croatia/Montenegro/Latvia/Nigeria/Israel

Asia: Japan/Philippines Africa: Angola/South Sudan

Not sure what you mean with "supported". Canada and Australia are both pretty good in race walking and both are english-speaking countries as far as i know.

Would be great if they would get rid of race walking. The 2nd best option would be to turn it into a real sport (where the winner isn't decided by whether judges coincidentally catch someone cheating or not). I don't understand the need for race walking and i don't understand the need for breastroke in swimming. Breastroke swimming is the slowest possible way to swim and is even bad for your spine.

Quite surprising stat for me: Number of top 8 finishes in field events (heptathlon/decathlon excluded): : 8 (would have been 9 without Hibbert's injury) : 7 Also interesting: Canada has 5 top 8 finishes in field events (decathlon included): Katzberg: Gold LePage: Gold Warner: Silver Rogers: Gold Mitton: Silver All of their top 8 finishers in field events won at least silver. I think Australia and China also have 8 top 8 finishes in field events, don't think that any other country except the US has more top 8 finishes in field events than Jamaica/Australia/China.

https://worldathletics.org/competitions/world-athletics-championships/budapest23/placingtable Really impressive by GB, they almost finished as the 3rd best nation. With the increased pressure on Kenya (doping) and the conflict in Ethiopia i could see them finishing 3rd next year, especially if Asher-Smith gets back into shape. Someone like Ojora could be a wildcard for them, i could see him making the final next year. Number of points GB scored at previous editions: 2022: 68 (5th) 2019: 82 (6th) 2017: 105 (3rd) 2015: 94 (5th) 2013: 86 (7th) 2011: 73 (7th) 2009: 83 (7th) 2007: 63 (6th) 2005: 35 (12th) 2003: 46 (11th) 2001: 58 (8th) 1999: 70 (4th) 1997: 79 (4th) 1995: 77 (4th) 1993: 95 (4th) 1991: 76 (5th) 1987: 88 (4th) 1983: 96 (4th) If we exclude 2017 (home advantage), those were the best world championships ever for GB in terms of points. I also think that those were the tied best world championships ever for GB in terms of the number of medals. The only other time they ever won more than 8 medals was in 1993. At the 2005, 2003 and 2001 world championships they won a combined number of 8 medals.

Absolutely horrible performance by France. The only logical explanation is that they wanted to get their coach fired. Possibly he lost the team after not nominating the guy from Russia. He was in an impossible situation to begin with, his best self-preserving strategy might have been to nominate the guy from Russia and hope that everything is forgotten if they win a medal.

1) I know that he could play for France (or the US?). Austin Reaves also got the german passport, but he still decided to play for the US. 2) Did he give up his cameroonian passport? If not, then he could still play for them. 3) I know that him and Siakam won't play for Cameroon, but i still think that it would be great.

Would be great to see Cameroon qualify, but not sure if that is still possible. Siakam + Embiid should be enough.