OlympicsFan

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.

Another disgrace for sport, now i really hope that the dutch team will qualify and France hopefully will fail. It really reminds me of womens volleyball qualification event earlier this year. I hope that our team wont qualify, which is very unlikely anyway, otherwise the funding wont be cut and we will waste even more money for a dead sport. If you want to go to the olympics, then you have to earn it. Water polo is by far the weakest team sport, so if you cant even qualify in water polo, you dont deserve any funding at all.

Another disgraceful result in womens epee. To all the german officials out there: Either you invest some money for good coaches or you stop the funding for fencing. Stahlberg and Ebert are the most talented athletes of their age group, but both horribly failed here, what a disgrace!

If we do this for all nations, then we have at least 4 or 5 posts for every nation just to name the qualified athletes, so we will end up with more than 50 posts that are just about naming the qualified athletes. There is no need to post the names of the qualified athletes immediately after the end of each session, because everyone who cares will look it up and discuss about it on swimming websites like Swimswam, all other people will have no problem to wait until the end of the event to know the names of the qualified athletes. Of course i cant tell you what to do, but if other people follow your example, then we will end up with tons of comments in the swimming/athletics thread that basically have no value, because you couldve said the same with just one comment.

Your team looks extremely strong. I think you will be the favorite in womens team sabre. Your top 3 athletes were seeded 1st (Infante), 4th (Arrayales) and 11th (Toledo). Infante and Arrayales reached the round of last 32, but Toledo got pretty unlucky and lost 14:15 against Eifler who won the silver medal in womens cadet sabre. It would be cool if you could win a medal, but i will cheer Rifkiss from France, Brunet from France, Emura from Japan and Pusztai from Hungary who was born in 2001! On the mens side i will cheer for Banyai from Hungary.

@JoshMartini007 and Near: Do you guys plan to update the qualifier list every day? I think most (non-canadian) people dont really care about those results (and if they care, they can look it up on other sites like Swimswam), so why not wait until the end of the canadian trials to post the names of all the qualified athletes?

Go Italy, Spain, Hungary and Romania, please qualify!

Another horrible performance by Ebert, she is the far most talented athlete in this age group, but completely lost her shape. By now she should be dominating at this level. I guess we will never come back to where we belong if we dont decide to spend some money for good coaches.

You are pretty unfair, everyone knows that this team will never reach anything important. In fact there are probably very few "serious" teams in the world who are worse than our team. I am still angry that there even is funding for this sport. We should just spend the money for something useful. No one in Germany cares about this sport and we will never win something, so we should give this money to other sports like fencing or boxing.

Our team is playing like always. First it looks as if they might really do something good, but in the end they always fail. I have no doubt that it will be the same here. We are always close to a big result, but never quite get there. Lets not forget that we shouldnt even be here, so you cant even say that we deserve to qualify.

We are just better than you! No, seriously, you will win any way. In the end you should only avoid 4th place in the group, so that you wont face Hungary, you will beat anyone else in the quarterfinal. This reminds me of your mens basketball team at the european championships last year, i have absolutely no doubt that you will qualify here.