OlympicsFan

And thats CLEARLY only your opinion and not a fact. Cochrane wont win a medal unless the following happens: 400 free: Yang, Guy or Horton drown/get caught before Rio 1500 free: Yang, Horton, Paltrinieri, Detti, Jaeger drown/get caught before Rio It would be an amazing result for Cochrane to reach the final in both events. I believe in the old man, he can do it!

I dont even know some of our boxers here ... Christos Cherakis? Pinar Touba? Marutjan, Scheurich, Harutyunyan, should qualify, everything else would be unacceptable (i wrote it without knowing the schedule or the results so far) ... Sadly Hamza Touba has an impossible draw, i really wouldve liked to see him in Rio. Pros arent allowed here? Does anyone know if Anthony Joshua will try to qualify? It would be amazing to see him in Rio.

I think Canada could potentially win 5 medals. Mens 400/1500 free: No chance Mens open water: Very small chance Mens 100 free: McEvoy, 1 or 2 french guys, Chalmers, Zetao, Adrian Womens 100 free: Sjöstrom, 2 x Campbell, Kromowidjojo Womens 400/800 free: Ashwood, Carlin, Ledecky and Van Rouwendaal are all better than McLean Womens 100 back: Nielsen, Seebohm and Wilson are the clear favorites, maybe Franklin can challenge for a medal Womens 200 back: Seebohm, Hosszu, Franklin and probably the second australian girl Womens 200 breast: Maybe a small chance, but 2 japanese girls + Solnceva + Pedersen + 1 or 2 american girls should win the medals Womens 100 fly: I bet on Sjöstrom, Ottesen and either the chinese girl or one of the australian/american girls Womens 200 IM: Hosszu, SMOC and one of the american girls Womens 400 IM: Hosszu, 2 british girls, 1 or 2 american girls, Belmonte Womens 4 x 100 free: Australia, USA, China and Netherlands Womens 4 x 100 medley relay: USA, Australia and China I think Canada's best chances are mens 100 free, womens 100 back, womens 100 fly, womens 400 IM and womens medley relay. 5 medals would be an amazing result for Canada, but i dont see any gold medal: Condorelli (bronze), Oleksiak (silver or bronze), Masse (bronze), Overholt (silver or bronze) and womens medley relay (bronze). It should be pretty hard for all canadian athletes to repeat their times in Rio. Countries like USA, China or GB often overperform at olympic games, so i wouldnt be surprised if those nations clearly raise their level in Rio.

I am absolutely not surprised about those sick times in Australia, everyone knew that it would happen after they hired the dutch coach. Considering the recent doping case of Kylie Palmer, no one can trust australian swimmers. Swimming is at least as dirty as athletics and cycling.

It wouldve been amazing, but sadly it wont happen, Spieth will win again. Still an amazing performance by Langer at such a high age, considering that his drives are 20-30 yards shorter than those of all the other guys and he isnt even ranked inside the top 1000 of the world ranking.

This weekend the first part of the german world cup qualification races took place, the second part will take place on April 30th/May 1st. Sebastian Brendel will try to win a quota place for Rio in mens C2 together with Erik Rebstock. They won the first qualification race ahead of Kretschmer/Müller. Ronald Rauhe won mens K1 200 m ahead of Lemke and Liebscher. This is a pretty disappointing result for me, i thought that Liebscher would be stronger. Mens C1 200 m was won by Kiraj ahead of Holtz and Nuck. Womens K1 200 m was won by Volz ahead of Kowald and Medert. Womens K1 500 m was won by Weber ahead of Hering and Medert. Mens C1 1000 m was won by Brendel ahead of Vandrey and Oeltze. Max Hoff won mens K1 1000 m ahead of Rendschmidt and Spenner.

The german spots are decided by 4 races over the course of 9 days (The first 2 races take place in Augsburg and the other 2 races take place in Markkleeberg), the system is pretty complicated. The winner of each race gets 0 points and in the end those athletes with the lowest overall score will qualify. Anton/Benzien start with a score of -2, because they are the current world champions. Pfeifer and Funk start with a score of -1, because they won silver and bronze at the last world championships. The first race took place on Saturday, here are the results: Hannes Aigner won the first race in mens K1 ahead of Böckelmann and Maxeiner, Schubert and Grimm didnt even finish top 3, so for them it will be pretty difficult to still qualify. Sideris Tasiadis won the first race in mens C1 ahead of Franz Anton and Jan Benzien. Mens C2 was won by Anton/Benzien ahead of Behling/Becker and Müller/Müller. Melanie Pfeifer won womens K1 ahead of Fritsche and Funk, Schornberg was only 4th. Full results of the first race: http://www.kanu.de/_dbe,news,_auto_4928323.xhtml#.Vwq5zSOLRaU Hannes Aigner also won the second race today, ahead of Grimm and Maxeiner, so he is almost safe for Rio. Tasiadis also won the second race today, ahead of Anton and Söter, so the battle for the spot should be between Tasiadis and Anton, but Tasiadis is the clear favorite now. Mens C2 was won by Schröder/Bettge ahead of Anton/Benzien and Behling/Becker. Anton/Benzien are still clearly in the lead and i hope that they will qualify. Lisa Fritsche won womens K1 ahead of Pfeifer and Funk, so this will be a really interesting battle, but i pray that Pfeifer or Funk will get the spot. Full results of the second race: http://www.kanu.de/_dbe,news,_auto_9398637.xhtml#.Vwq9uSOLRaU

Langer in 3rd place before the last round in Augusta, at the age of 58! With a win here he could qualify for the olympics! Please god let it happen!

In addition to that Dohmann is already qualified for the 50 km race in Rio, so our team in race walking is complete before the season even started. In womens race walking no one will qualify.

It happens more often than one might think. There have been many marathon/race walking competitions where the course was too short. Another explanation might be that it was just a very fast course, but thats not very likely. Last year the same competition was won by Link in a time of 1:20.37. Its interesting that two pretty famous athletes, Tysse and Campion both were rather slow today.

I was talking about qualified teams for Rio, i thought thats what we are talking about here ... Netherlands also didnt qualify for european championships in football this year, they arent very strong anymore and you cant compare their current team to the team they had about 40 years ago. Its almost like saying that Hungary is very strong in football, with players like Puskas, Kocsis, Bozsik, Hidegkuti, Grosics, Czibor or Lorant.

It was just the "give me right now ..." part that "sounded" pretty aggressive to me. I think i know enough about you to say that you are not an aggressive person in general. I didnt know that Messi wont play for Argentina, very sad news. It would be cool if Neymar/Ibra/Ronaldo would play in Rio, do you know anything about their "plans" for Rio? Just come back in about an hour, then you can read my list, but i wont only write 18 names. I will write more names and if 18 of them will play in Rio for us, then it will be completely fine for me.

Ok, i dont remember saying that and i dont agree. Macedonia isnt really a strong team and non-european teams like Argentina, Tunisia, Egypt or Qatar can beat them any time. In my opinion Hungary and Russia are stronger, but Macedonia qualified, so there is nothing really to argue about. Iceland is very "up and down", so its difficult to say if they wouldve done better than Macedonia here.

Netherlands? They are pretty good considering their size, but ... 1) They have no teams in water polo, rugby or football. 2) Spain or France are (much) stronger overall in team sports.

True. Its a big advantage for teams from all other continents. There are multiple problems: 1) No german player will play at both big tournaments. Some players probably wont play in Rio, although they didnt play a single minute at the european championships, just because their clubs wont allow it. 2) Some clubs wont allow their players to play in Rio, because they dont have to allow their players to play in Rio. 3) Its already clear that no german club will allow more than 2 of its players to play in Rio. Schalke for example could send at least 4 players to Rio (Sane, Meyer, Goretzka and Geis), but at best 2 of them will really play in Rio.

1) I never make up those excuses, its just my honest opinion. I dont even remember the last time we competed at a big tournament with our best team. At the mens world cup we missed Gündogan and Reus, at the womens world cup we missed players like Keßler or Kulig. At the u20 world championships last year we missed players like Kimmich or Selke. I think the last time we competed with (almost) our best team was at the mens u17 european championships last year, where we only missed Dadashov and Krol. 2) I never said that we will win if we compete with our best team, we also need a decent preparation (and a better coach, but i have given hope that it will happen). 3) I have no problem to give you the list, but please dont be so aggressive in the future. 4) Why are Müller, Boateng and Götze no realistic picks? Is someone like Messi also an unrealistic pick? 5) I already said that we hopefully will only use U23 players, everything else would be unfair for those players who qualified. Goal: Horn, Karius Defense: Mustafi, Can, Ginter, Tah, Rüdiger, Süle, Weiser, Gerhardt, Toljan, Stark, Klostermann Midfield: Weigl, Draxler, Kimmich, Goretzka, Meyer, Brandt, Öztunali, Sane, Geis, Arnold, Dahoud, Stendera Attack: Selke, Werner Some of the following players could miss the european championships, so we might nominate 3 of them for Rio, although i wouldnt really like it: L. Bender, Volland, Schürrle, Bellarabi, Leno, Ter Stegen, Trapp, Schweinsteiger, Castro, Kramer, Kruse, Herrmann, Stindl, S. Bender, Fährmann My team would be: Horn, Karius Mustafi, Can, Tah, Rüdiger, Weiser, Gerhardt Weigl, Kimmich, Goretzka, Draxler, Brandt, Sane, Dahoud, Meyer Werner, Selke

1) Who said that? 2) Why? Just because Tunisia won against Macedonia? You shouldn't forget that ... a) Croatia, Norway and Denmark are in the same group and i am sure that all of them would've beaten Tunisia, so Tunisia got very lucky whit the "draw". b) Macedonia was only 11th at the last european championships, other nations like Hungary, Russia or even Iceland are probably stronger at the moment. I think Tunisia would barely rank among the top 10 european nations in handball.

Irony? The most likely thing is that something was wrong with the timing. The second most likely thing is that the course was too short. Everyone was about 2 min fast than expected. 20 km in 80 min (1:20.00) -> 500 m in 2 min, so i assume that the course was at least 500 m too short OR the timing didn't work.

We have clearly the best team, if we play with our best team. Brazil and Argentina dont even come close concerning individual quality and we dont even need to use a single player who is not U23.

Good, so we only have a 50% chance of getting a very difficult group.

Or no doping tests ... Everyone was at least 2 min faster than expected, so i would say the course was at least 500m too short (1km = 4min) or something went wrong with the timing. Thank god Diniz didnt compete here, he wouldve destroyed the world record.

Crazy race walking times in Podebrady (Czech Republic) today: Men: 1) Karlström (Sweden) 1:19.11 (previous PB 1:21.03) 2) Linke (Germany) 1:19.19 (previous PB 1:20.37), 3rd on german all time list and fastest german time since 2000. 3) Pineda (Mexico) 1:19.20 (previous PB 1:24.54) 4) Vega (Mexico) 1:19.20 (previous PB 1:21.08) 5) Palma (Mexico) 1:19.38 (previous PB 1:21.02) 6) Pohle (Germany) 1:19.58 (previous PB 1:21.29) Women: 1) Ortega (Mexico) 1:29.35 (previous PB 1:31.04) 2) Buziak (Poland) 1:30.36 3) Szwarnog (Poland) 1:30.50 (previous PB 1:30.56) 4) Galikova (Slovakia) 1:30.53 (previous PB 1:31.42) 5) Trapletti (Italy) 1:31.49 6) Golba (Poland) 1:32.36 Those might be new national records for Slovakia and Sweden. I dont really understand those times ... It looks as if something was wrong with the timing ... or the course was too short ... By looking at the times i would say that the course might have been about 500m too short. Full results: http://www.podebrady-walking.cz/vysledky

All matches will be streamed live on "sportdeutschland.tv", but the streams might be geoblocked and i think the commentary will be in german.

Our womens team will have to play against Australia, our mens team will have to play against Fidji or South Africa. The pots are determined by the olympic results in the last 20 years, so our mens team is in pot 4 because 1988 was the last time that we participated at the olympic games. There is a 2/3 probability that our womens team will have a very difficult group. Australia + China/Canada would be a very tough group. On the mens side our group doesnt really matter, we will win the gold medal anyway if we play with our best team and have a decent preparation.

Some really important news: Agnel (France) will be allowed to defend his olympic title in mens 200 free, Pothain "gave" up his spot. Park (South Korea) probably wont be allowed by his federation to compete in Rio, because he was caught doping last year.