OlympicsFan

1) Is there any livestream? 2) Will the mixed recurve team final take place today?

Pretty good first day for Germany. Obviously the men's team was disappointing. Does anyone know the score of their lost match against the US? (The "live" scoring didn't really help) I think that the women's team (sadly) will finish 4th. Mexico looks like the favorite for gold and the other two teams also scored clearly higher in the quarterfinal.

Encouraging 3rd place for Germany even without 3 of their biggest talents (Bonga, Kalu, Duru). First ever medal for Germany at U18 level. Kharchenkov, Kayil and to some degree Grünloh looked promising. Kharchenkov and Kayil (and Anderson) are young enough to come back next year.

1) Short course times aren't very indicative, mainly because the top guys don't compete or aren't in top shape. Wellbrock swam 14:06 when he was 14:36 long course. Hafanoui swam 14:10, which translates to 14:40 at best -> 9 seconds slower than he went this week. When Wellbrock was as old as Hafanoui was last year, he went 14:36. Now, 5 years later, he improved by 2 seconds. Hafanoui on the other hand improved his PB by 45 seconds this year. Wellbrock improved his PB by 19 seconds when he was younger than Hafnaoui, while Hafnoui improved his PB by 45 seconds while being older. Saying that their progression is remotely comparable is completely absurd. 2) Really wonder how often he got tested after being completely irrelevant last year. Would love to see the number of his tests vs. the number of Wellbrock's tests. Also would like to know who is responsible for him. Hard to imagine tunisian officials regularly flying around the world just to test him. Maybe he wasn't faster because he wasn't rested or maybe he wasn't faster because he couldn't go faster. Anyways you have to admire his "confidence", he doesn't ever need to go fast before worlds/olympics to test his training, somehow he just knows that it will work out and that he will always drop massive amounts of time. You almost have to envy him ... 3) How about you stop throwing around the word "unrested"? If Short would have gone 3:42 unrested, he would have gone at least 3:38 at worlds. If you go 3:42 unrested you don't drop less than two seconds when fully rested. His 3:42 in-season is still infinitely more impressive than anything Hafnaoui ever did in-season. I still haven't heard why exactly Märtens and Wellbrock, who were both already qualified after last year's worlds, had to go fast in-season, but Hafanoui and Short (who both weren't qualified) didn't. The mental gymnastics you need to justify this point of view is astonishing. Edit: I just calculated by how much Hafanoui improved his PB in the 400/800/1500 free vs. by how much everyone else combined (all finalists in the 400/800/1500 free) improved their PB: Overall improvement by Hafanoui: 39.90 seconds (3 races) Overall improvement by everyone else: 41.04 seconds (21 races)

Oh no ... results like that show that IAAF was probably right to introduce a ranking system. Peak Mihambo probably would have jumped 8 m in that competition ...

1) No, i don't ignore it. I explicitely wrote "never done anything in 800/1500 free long course". I also don't ignore that his short course time was still clearly slower than Wellbrock's, who has a long course PB of 14:34. Hafanoui's short course PB doesn't in any way translate to 14:31 long course. 2) If i remember correctly he never swam any in-season time that would final at worlds. When you only need to swim/run fast once a season, then it is much easier to not fail any tests. He can basically hide all-year long and just appear at worlds. Märtens and Wellbrock could have done the same (since they were already qualified), but they chose not to do it. 3) Also interesting that you say that Short (and Finke) didn't need to peak until worlds. So Short just expected to qualify in the 400 free at 80 % against guys like Winnington? Doesn't seem plausible to me. Wellbrock and Märtens had far less reason than Finke and Short to swim fast in-season, but they still did it. 4) Mellouli's doping history, the fact that Hafanoui always comes out of nowhere for worlds/olympics and the fact that he didn't do anything in the 800/1500 free (long course) before this week and then just went clearly faster than guys like Wellbrock or Paltrinieri ever did (after years of competing at the highest level) leads me to be 100 % convinced that he is a cheater. Hopefully one day things will be sorted out.

Also interesting: Olympic events without an australian finalist: 6 Olympic events without an american finalist: 1 (Smith missed the men's 400 free final by 0.34 seconds) Olympic events with 2 australian finalists: 9 Olympic events with 2 american finalists: 19

Not very encouraging that only one european nation finished top 6. Quite surprising that the Netherlands was so close to Italy and that Japan finished ahead of France. Japan for sure has the worst points to medals ratio. More points than France, but 1/3 of the medals of Tunisia ...

Maybe a 50/100/200/400/800/1500 free/100/200 breast/back/fly/200/400 IM mixed medley relay ... I would give the honor of finishing 16th to New Zealand, since they won a medal (women's 400 free), unlike Spain.

I did a nations ranking (only olympic events) according to the FINA scoring system* (can't guarantee that everything is correct): 925 749 499 376 356 309 307 249 237 180 171 141 125 90 67 & 63 53 52 49 46 42 40 39 30 28 27 26 23 & 21 18 & 15 14 13 12 11 10 8 & & 7 6 5 4 & & & 3 & 2 1 * Scoring for individual events: 18-16-15-14-13-12-11-10-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Scoring for relays: 36-32-30-28-26-24-22-20

Crazy swimming predictions ... Silver for Aoki? Silver and bronze for Ohashi? At this point i don't really see them winning more than 1 medal, but we will see.

Very impressive performance by Wumo, must be a lot of work. I think noone would have a problem if you wouldn't post all the results so quickly. Please don't put any pressure on yourself.

Absolutely don't see that happening. USA and Australia would have to massively underperform. I think beating China will be enough of a task for Canada.

Very good news, hopefully China won't choke.

Kevric, Roth und Baievych waren die vielversprechendsten Talente. Kevric hätte mit etwas mehr Glück auch alle ihre Wettbewerbe (6 Goldmedaillen) gewinnen können. Gut möglich, dass wir mindestens eine der dreien nächstes Jahr in Paris wiedersehen.

Sad to see that Germany is in a good position to qualify many relays. Both the german swimming and athletics federation are using the completely wrong strategy (if their goal is/would be to improve their athletes). They should only nominate relays if they are really competitive (if 4 athletes have the individual standard or if the average of the 4 fastest athletes is faster than the individual standard). It is even worse in athletics, where you often only have to be the 6th fastest athlete (100 m or 400 m) to qualify, while other athletes (for example in long jump) have to be among the absolute best in the world to qualify. This strategy "destroys the market". If athletes see that they can get their reward that easily if they focus on the "relay distances", they won't switch to other distances (100/400 m hurdles/200 m) where they might have the chance to rank higher internationally (but a smaller chance to qualify, since those distances don't have relays). You are basically preventing the "most efficient distribution of resources" by this nomination policy. GB is chosing the right strategy and it has been paying off (Men's 4 x 100/200 free relay, apparently now women's 4 x 200 free relay as well). I guess Germany can't do this because then it would become even more apparent what a horrible job the coaches are doing (Less relays = Less qualified athletes, no relays = no reason to have specific training camps for relays in warm countries during pre-season ...), so they can't/won't change the policy because they would hurt themselves.

Surprising bronze for Canada, i thought that China would take it. Kind of depressing for the other countries that Canada wins bronze without having a decent breast/free leg.

Not sure how many swimming fans care about track cycling, but swimming fans should care about the U23 european championships. Guys like Märtens or Wiffen will compete.

More than a second slower than her PB, the trend is obvious for anyone who is able to look at her objectively. Her 200 m races were both PBs while her 400 m races were both at least a second behind her PB.

Miracle year for France. Before this year they were complete trash in men's medley relay and now they found a fast fly and breast leg. Always amazing when nations just switch it on for their home olympics.

McIntosh will learn from this competition. PBs in both 200 m races (200 fly, 200 free) and rather "off" in the two 400 m races (400 IM, 400 free). The 200 free seems like the most difficult race for her to win next year.

Wellbrock has to decide what he wants his legacy to be. I think he has to recognize that he has to decide between open water and the pool. Winning a gold in the pool would be much bigger for his legacy than winning another open water gold in my opinion. I wish he would decide to only compete in the 800/1500 free next year, but sadly that doesn't seem likely. Märtens should probably focus on 2 or at most 3 events. He should definitely either drop the 200 free or the 1500 free.

So far GB has always won 2 medals when they had 2 individual finalists, don't see that continuing in women's 400 IM.

The morrocan guy is probably the most obvious case since Mellouli. Improving your PB by 30 seconds is insane for an age group swimmer, but completely unbelievable for someone of his age. This guy has never before done anything in the 800/1500 free long course. He is mediocre at best all season long and then completely smashes it at worlds. He becomes the 2nd fastest guy ever out of nowhere (ahead of guys like Paltrinieri, Wellbrock, Romanchuk or Hackett) and makes Finke look like a turtle, who himself has always made everyone else look like turtles. I hope that the german coach finds an answer to this. Wellbrock and Märtens won't stand a chance against the moroccan guy, Finke and Short unless they go all out with their doping program as well. If they aren't willing to do that, they should just retire and save the tax payers their money.

Why? This german team is trash, both France and Brazil would be the huge favorites.