OlympicsFan

In 2012 i was really looking forward to 2016 olympics, but now i can see that even Sochi olympics were better. Its very sad to hear that there were so many empty places even during swimming finals, not to talk about sports like hockey or football. I also didnt feel much enthusiasm for the archery elimination rounds today and i thought that there would be many more people watching the road race. It just doesnt feel like real olympics. Sadly it should be even worse in 2018 and i dont care much about winter olympics anyway. I think 2020 will be great again and maybe i will go there. I am just disappointed that we will have 3 bad olympics in a row from 2014 to 2018 and 2022 wont be any better. I think we have to reduce costs for the olympics and only give them to countries where people are really enthusiastic about sport. I dont see any sense in giving winter olympics to countries like South Korea or China.

So i got only 50% of the questions right so far: Argentina winning a gold is quite a surprise for me. I guess question 70 was easier to predict than i thought, but at least i only lost 1 point with it. Just sad i didnt use 10 points for questions 36, 72 and 93. Especially question 93 was a safe bet (i thought that Kosovo would win its first gold medal), but for me there were 31 even safer bets where i used 10 points each, now i see that it was a mistake.

Australia looking very good, nice to see that they at least get some reward for all the tax money they blow. I think they might finish 3rd in medal table ahead of GB, Russia, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. Which other nations will make the top 10? I think it will be France and Germany/Cuba/Hungary. Possible gold medals for Australia: Fox, Glaetzer (sprint), Meares (keirin), mens team pursuit, Willoughby, Buchanan, eventing individual, eventing team, mens field hockey, Brennan, Belcher/Ryan, Nathan/Outteridge, Burton, Willett, Scanlan/Skinner, McEvoy (100 free), Horton (1500 free), Larkin (100/200 back), mens 4x100 relay, Campbell (50/100 free), Seebohm (100/200 back), womens medley relay, womens rugby. I think in the end they will win at least 15 golds, lets see if that will be enough for 3rd place in medal table.

For me every brazilian medal is sad news, at least Vietnam won the gold. If you dont test your athletes for almost one month before the games, then its obvious what you are up to.

Our team made the final, but our two medal contenders Nguyen (parallel bars) and Bretschneider (high bar) missed the final, great first day for Germany. Engleder dropped from 2nd to 4th with her last shot and our swimmers are drowning again, like they did in 2012. Jung also is very unlikely to win the gold in eventing. I wouldnt be sad if they would end the olympics now, with all the doping, criminality, health issues and so on. I am already looking forward to 2020 olympics, they should be much better.

3 new doping records on day 1, thank god i didnt watch this shit. Whoever watches finals in swimming, athletics or weightlifting is part of the doping problem. None of those athletes would dope if they wouldnt get any attention for it. I know that this will go on as long as many nations profit from it, but at least i can say that i did whatever i could to not support doping. I hope that Russia and China will win all the medals one day, maybe thats the time when something will change.

Live scores? Individual apparatus standings would be great.

It would be amazing to see Pantano or Kwiatkowski with a gold, but the most important thing is that GB and especially Froome wont win the gold. I hope that the medals will go to small nations only.

What a horrible result, hopefully this was the only american no-name coming out of nowhere to win a gold. You really have to feel sorry for the chinese girls and Arsovic, who wouldve really deserved the gold.

So they agree with me that Douglas should be rated higher than Hernandez and that Chunsong and Melnikova also have a shot for a medal. I am surprised to see no Mustafina (wont she do the all-around?) and that the british girls dont get any credit + Schäfer wont even compete. I think the odds for Melnikova to medal look very interesting. Isnt there an option like "any other"?

I think they will win it anyway in taekwondo, but i wasnt brave enough to give 10 points in the bet contest.

So out of the top 10 in world ranking only Du, Vdovina and Yi reached the final. World number one Arsovic was pretty disappointing, only finishing 26th, i am also disappointed by Gschwandtner and Zublasing. The final will be a completely new competition, i feel that China will win gold and silver and that bronze will go to Vdovina, Thrasher or Pejcic I hope that Engleder will use the momentum, but usually Chokeleder shows up in competitions like that, so i expect her to finish 8th.

Engleder should final with her score of 420 right? I really hope that she gets there and then the rest doesnt matter much, although it of course would be great to get a good start with a first medal or even gold. For me olympics are about finals and not about medals. I prefer 20 4th places over one gold medal and no other final, because i want to watch as finals as possible. Olympics are only once every 4 years and we should try to enjoy as much as possible of it.

Hopefully you are right. Which german girl will win the bronze, Engleder or Gschwandtner? This is probably our best and maybe only chance for a medal today.

For me Jung, Klimke and Auffarth (in top shape) are the 3 best athletes and could very well win all the medals, but sadly Auffarth doesnt seem to be in top shape this time. I still think that Jung and Klimke will win gold and silver, i predicted bronze for Rose.

1) We should wait for the final decision, before we criticize. 2) Like i said before: Are you sure that Hernandez is superior to Biles at this point? Did you even watch the nationals? She was clearly overscored there, especially on uneven bars. 3) Its funny that you call it a political decision, because many american fans also called it a political decsion that Felix will run womens 4x100m relay instead of Prandini. There is no doubt that Felix and Douglas are much more popular than Prandini and Hernandez, but i doubt that the coaches really would allow some officials to tell them which one of those athletes to nominate. In my opinion Felix and Douglas (apparently) got nominated, because they have much more experience at this level and are able to perform when it matters. Hernandez and Prandini didnt show anything at the global stage so far. For Germany only Scheder and Seitz will do a complete all-around, which is quite surprising, because Schäfer was the best german athlete in the all-around recently, apparently her uneven bars routine was weaker than that of all the other german athletes. Alt will compete on every apparatus except for Floor, Bui will only do floor and uneven bars. I hope that we will be the best nation on uneven bars, surprisingly our second best apparatus should be balance beam. On vault we should be among the 8 best teams, even without Berger and Chusovitina. On floor we are extremely weak (like always) and probably wont be among the 10 best teams.

Very interesting indeed, i never thought that Krajewski would qualify instead of Ostholt/Hoy/Schrade. In the end it shouldnt matter anyway, because Auffarth, Klimke and Jung should be much better. I hope for a sweep in the individual event, but Auffarth doesnt seem to be in a good shape, so in my opinion Klimke is more likely to medal than Auffarth. You might be interested to hear that Bettina Hoy is coaching russian rider Alexander Markov in Rio.

Actually a pretty good draw for Unruh. She will probably have to beat Brito, Bayardo and Dashidorzhieva to reach the semifinal. I think the bottom half is much more competitive with the two korean girls. Brown, Roman, Wu, Boari and Kawanaka will probably need to beat at least one of the korean girls if they want to have a shot at a medal/reach the semifinal. I think the second quarter is clearly the easiest, with no korean girl.

Its really sad that we didnt have a couple points more, 462 wouldve been the perfect number of points. In case someone needs a last second help for the prediction contest: http://www.si.com/olympics/2016/08/01/rio-2016-olympics-medal-picks-predictions-projected-medal-count This is the best projected medal count i have seen so far.

The question sounds a bit strange. Why "a gold" instead of just "gold"? Australia wins gold in both team pursuits sounds much less "confusing" in my opinion.

71: If Australia doesnt win both golds in team pursuit, then NO would be the right answer? What about the predictions of africaboy and ady48 (page 3), they didnt give any points ...

At least Van den Berg has a very good draw, he could definitely win a medal. He would probably have to beat Plihon and Lee/Das. Kim should definitely make it to the final in the top half, the bottom half seems much more open. Pasqualucci, Ku, Van der Ven, Furukawa, D'Ameida and Ellison all could make it to the final, maybe even Worth.

Yes, very disappointing, i thought that D'Ameida would win a medal. Netherlands were also pretty disappointing, some might have predicted that they would win a medal, which seems pretty unlikely (but of course not impossible) right now. I predicted gold for South Korea, silver for Italy and bronze for USA, so my prediction is still possible..

1) Olympic gold medal is pretty much meaningless in football, so why should players want to spend their holidays to win a meaningless tournament? 2) Clubs dont have to alllow their players to participate at the olympics, because it isnt an official FIFA tournament and of course they want that their players miss preparation for the new season or even get injured, so they normally wont allow their players to participate. 3) Players like Neuer, Müller or Özil already played at the european championships and its obvious that they dont want to play both tournaments + their clubs wouldnt allow it, because they would miss the whole preparation and would need holidays afterwards, so they would probably also miss the first few league matches. 4) You really never heard of Sven Bender or Lars Bender? They both played for the german national team multiple times and both play for pretty famous clubs. 5) German head coach wasnt "allowed" to nominate players who got transferred this summer (for example Timo Werner or Loris Karius), players who already played at the european championships (Tah, Sane, Weigl, Kimmich, Draxler), players who play the qualification for the Europa League/Champions League (Weiser or Dahoud for example) or more than 2 players from the same club (for that reason someone like Johannes Geis wasnt nominated). In addition to that there are also some injured players like Stendera or Rüdiger. Unless the olympic games become on official FIFA tournament, the quality will never get much better. Even then it probably wouldnt change much, because european championships take place the same year and all the european players rate the european championships MUCH higher than the olympic games + their clubs wouldnt allow them to play both, so we will have to live with the fact that european top players will probably never play at the olympics. I actually think that football should be out of the olympics, but as long as it is part of the olympics, i am very happy that countries like Mexico or Nigeria, that will never win a world cup, are able to at least win the olympics.

Sounds like a pretty good course for Jung? The bamboo keyhole looks very difficult, do you think that some favorites might have a problem with it? I think we dont have an obstacle like that very often?