OlympicsFan

Which medal contenders exactly were banned/would have competed otherwise? Edit: It's sad that most top athletes didn't really take this seriously, especially because this will be the only global championships of the year. I didn't watch anything live and didn't really follow closely, but i think it must have been hard for everyone to take this event seriously, considering that half of the athletes were disqualified at some point ... I hope that the european championships this year will be much more interesting, without the olympics all the elite european athletes should be there. Let's see what Russia can do at the european championships, whether they can beat Germany and GB in the medal table.

Then you also should ask yourself, why you follow weightlifting or athletics ... https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/mar/04/ruth-jebet-olympic-champion-drug-test-kenya-bahrain-steeplechase

I expect Germany to qualify in mens basketball. Missing the qualification would be a big disappointment with all the talent coming through. Do we know how the qualification will work? How many teams from Europe can qualify? I think qualification in m/w football, m/w hockey and m handball should be pretty safe. I don't see any chance in water polo, softball, baseball, 3 x 3 basketball or rugby. Personally i am not too sad about that, because in my opinion 3 of those sports should not be olympic anyway and the only sport out of those that is really popular world wide is rugby. In women's basketball i also don't see any chance. In men's volleyball it's probably about 50/50, in women's volleyball and women's handball maybe 30/70. It would be nice to have at least two more teams than in Rio, which would mean at least 7 teams. 8 teams would be great, 9 teams would be incredible.

Pervis in 2014 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_UCI_Track_Cycling_World_Championships

Surprised that you never won gold in hammer throw ... ?

Very surprising results in mens sprint ... You know that the level must be very bad when Levy reaches the semifinal ... What do you guys think, how many of the gold medallists from here will win gold in Tokyo? I would say something between 4 and 6.

No problem, wasnt online since thursday ... To be honest: She always looked overweight to me ... Today she was actually quiet good, sadly i had to work, so i couldnt watch any races till now. Overall the Netherlands are doing really well here, Ligtlee probably would have won a medal in sprint, so then it would have looked even better. I think she has the best chance to beat Vogel in the next couple of years.

Facebook ESPN UK, i think you need a Facebook account.

Who? Mens team sprint: Carlin, Owens, Truman, Hindes, Kenny Mens team pursuit: Clancy, Emadi, Hayter, Tanfield

Very sad that Vogel and Grabosch will face in the next round i think both could have won against the other 2 semifinalists.

Scary indeed ... 5+4=8? On a more serious note: In mens team sprint New Zealand was way off and GB was lightyears away from a dutch team that probably wont be a serious medal contender by 2020 In mens team pursuit Australia didnt show up, but the british win was still impressive, although them only being ahead of a german team without Weinstein doesnt scream "out of this world". It is gonna be interesting to see how the competition in those events develops. Italy has been progressing each year, lets see whether they will be able to challenge GB and New Zealand in 2020.

Does someone have a time table? When will the following events take place: 1) Womens sprint quarterfinal 2) Mens keirin second round 3) Mens team pursuit bronze final

Thanks, so she didnt really focus on the world champs? I imagine with her in top shape the dutch team would have been able to go 32.8 or 32.7, but i think they still wouldnt have won the gold.

Sorry that this might sound a bit harsh, but is this the first time you follow womens sprint? Welte is always shit in this event and keirin as well, she is only good in team sprint and time trial. I think at the moment she is the 4th best german in sprint/keirin, its gonna be interesting whether she will qualify for Tokyo.

I dont get most of the formats to be honest ... Could someone please tell me what the idea behind the team sprint format is? Why are the 2 fastest winners qualified for the gold final while the next 2 fastest winners are qualified for the bronze final? Why not: 2 fastest times -> Gold final, 3rd and 4th fastest times -> Bronze final?

Day 1 results were a bit surprising for me ... On the mens side: - Team sprint: New Zealand? Australia? Russia with a completely new team? The Netherlands very dominant? Germany with the same shit as always ... Other nations should be very worried to see GB that good 2 years away from the olympics. Neither in 2010 nor in 2014 GB reached the final in mens team sprint ... we all know how it ended 2 years later. - Mens team pursuit: Again: Australia? New Zealand? Very surprised to see Germany that fast (3:57 in qualification without Weinstein ... ? ) Not hard to imagine that they would have gone 3:55 here with Weinstein. Italy is doing a fantastic job in endurance events lately. On the womens side: - Womens team sprint: Russia? China? Australia? Netherlands without Ligtlee? Very dominant performance by Germany, i never would have thought that Germany could win gold here without Vogel. I am extremely surprised to see Grabosch already being on the same level or even better than Vogel. Let's see whether she can threaten her in the sprint. I am a bit sad that Hinze isnt here. Does anyone know whether it will be possible to qualify 3 or even 4 athletes in the sprint/team sprint/keirin on the womens side for Tokyo? Would be very sad if one out of Hinze, Grabosch, Welte or Vogel would be bound to miss out. Summary: - New Zealand and Australia seem to try to copy GB's strategy of being shit between the olympics, just to peak there. - The track seems to be very fast - Great atmosphere on day 1 - Bötticher is back! - Is Grabosch the one who will end Vogel's dominance ... ?

Womens 3000 m is gonna be something else ... Dibaba vs. Obiri vs. Muir vs. Klosterhalfen vs. Hassan

I am very surprised to see Stefan Bötticher back, never dreamt of this happening, amazing news for german cycling. For me its a scandal that he wasnt allowed to compete individually here, but i guess some people were afraid of him, especially since the situation wasnt much different than the situation we had with Bos last year. On the other hand i am very sad that Max Niederlag ended his career, but if you cant motivate yourself anymore its better to end your career than to take away a spot from a motivated athlete. Domenic Weinstein, by far the most important athlete of the german team pursuit team wont compete due to illness, so if Germany ever had a small medal chance in this event, the chance is gone now. German expectations: 2 x gold in womens sprint/keirin Medal in womens team sprint Medal in mens team sprint Every other medal in an olympic discipline would be a surprise, unless Eilers finally gets his shit together in Keirin ... With 2 more golds here Kristina Vogel could tie Anna Mears' record of 11 gold medals. Doing it at 27 years of age would make it even more impressive in my opinion. If she continues her dominance until 2020, she could very well put the record out of everyone's reach for a very long time. I am really looking forward to see whether Pauline Grabosch can do some damage here.

Congrats to all the medallists. I am very sad about this result, i think this was the most important contest and i had the perfect strategy, i just picked the wrong questions to bet 10 points on. I was sure about the following bet, but ironically Germany messed it up for me: 1- On Day 1, the first 5 Gold Medals will be awarded to athletes from 5 different countries. [YES - 10] The following bet was just stupid, dont know why i was so sure that the US would be better than Canada, probably because i thought that Shiffrin would win 3 golds: 5- Canada will finish ahead of the USA in the medal table. [NO - 10] Same as for question number 5, Switzerland had some surprising gold medallists and Austria was rather disappointing in some events (alpine skiing team event, mens slalom, snowboard slopestyle, freestyle skiing): 10- Austria will finish ahead of Switzerland in the medal table. [YES - 10] I was rather sure that Canada would win mens and womens curling gold, maybe some expert could tell me whether it was a stupid bet or not? 33- Canada will defend its Gold Medals in both the Men's and Women's events. [YES - 10] Another bet that Germany messed up for me, although i still feel good about taking this risk, given the results of this season: 52- Germany will sweep (win Gold, Silver and Bronze) at least one of the individual events. [NO - 10] I thought about giving 10 points to the following questions, sadly i didnt ... 8- Excluding DNFs, at least one irish athlete will finish ahead of a briton. [YES - 1] 20- The podium of at least one event will feature only countries associated with the Alpine Region (Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Slovenia and/or Switzerland). [YES - 1] 37- Spain will win its first ever medal in Figure Skating. [YES - 1] 44- A team from Group B will defeat a team from Group A in the Quarterfinals of the Women's Tournament. [NO - 1] 57- The podium in the Women's Normal Hill will feature at least 2 of the following athletes: Katharina Althaus (GER), Sara Takanashi (JPN), Maren Lundby (NOR). [YES - 1] 58- In all individual events, at least 3 participants will be relegated or disqualified in the A-Finals. [YES - 1] 61- Czech Republic will win at least one Gold Medal. [YES - 1] 69- Four continents will win a medal. [NO - 1]

From a german perspective the games were ok, although there were some bad surprises (womens giant slalom, womens skeleton, mens luge, biathlon relays) + a lot of injured athletes (Zimmermann, Zacher, Luitz, Neureuther) + not many positive surprises. The overall medal count was ok, most of the performances were as well. From an international perspective i think that most results were pretty good and there were also some great surprises (Ledecka, curling). I didnt like the schedule (hard to get the "olympic fever", when you have to wake up at 2 am to watch one event (that then got postponed most of the time), then sleep 2 or 3 hours before watching another event, then sleep another 2 or 3 hours and then watching 10 things at the same time), i didnt like the fact that so many competitions got postponed or had unfair conditions and i was also sad for the athletes that we had so few spectators at many competitions and if we had huge crowds, they were often rather unfair. I doubt that many people will speak about those olympics in a positive way in a few years, there werent much memorable things, of course except for great surprises like the gold of Ledecka. I am not sure whether the olympics were a great advertisement for Korea ... ?

You really liked Rio and Sochi much more. I think the last 3 olympics were pretty disappointing (at least for me), but maybe thats just because the first 3 olympics i really followed were Beijing, Vancouver and London and to me those 3 were really great. I am looking forward to Tokyo, i think those will be the best olympics since London 2012, especially because japanese people seem to be interested/knowledgeable in more sports than korean/brazilian people, at least in my opinion. Athletics, archery, gymnastics, swimming, judo, wrestling should all be amazing in 2020.

What does that mean? "A country like South Korea" = not a winter sports powerhouse?

I wasnt aware that the IOC would upload all the videos (so fast). Great job by IOC and thanks for putting up all the links here!

Joke? Stadlober was on course to silver, dont know what happened.

Of course the medal table isnt the most important thing at the olympics ... but i still think its cool that the question which nation tops the medal table will remain open until the last event of the olympics, probably didnt happen too often in the past. About your question: I would say its either gold for Kalla or for Norway, something between 50:50 and 60:40 (in favor of Norway) probably.