OlympicsFan

Finally we seem to show our true potential, sadly it will probably be too late to make the quarterfinal, after our horrible loss against France. What do you think about Draisaitl? I hope that Thomas "The Berlin Wall" Greiss will join us soon, then we should be impossible to beat ...

Article about german relay qualification: https://swimsportnews.de/6140-rio-2016-der-kampf-um-die-staffelplaetze-hat-gerade-erst-begonnen 5 of 6 relays got a quota place in Kazan last year, only womens 400 free relay missed out. Our womens 400 free relay couldve qualified by being among the 4 fastest not already qualified relays this year, but after german nationals our head coach said that they wont get another chance at the european championships to qualify, so they are 100% out. At german nationals our 4 fastests swimmers had to swim certain combined times (1.5s were subtracted for fyling starts) to qualify for Rio and all relays did that, so i think that we will send 5 relays to Rio. Those times equalled the 8th fastest time from prelims at 2015 world championships. All athletes who reached the 100/200 free final can still qualify for the relay, the 4 fastest athletes after the end of the german open (beginning of July) will qualify, no matter how fast they were at the german nationals. The fastest athlete after the end of the german open (beginning of July) in mens/womens 100 back/fly/free/breast will also qualify, but there will be no alternatives if i understood it correctly, so only 4 swimmers for every relay will be nominated. At the moment our relays would look like this: Mens 400 free relay: Wierling, Biedermann, Hornikel, Di Carli Mens 800 free relay: Biedermann, Vogel, Fildebrandt, Rapp Mens medley relay: Glania, Schwingenschlögel, Heintz, Wierling Womens 800 free relay: Bruhn, Köhler, Kullmann, Schmiedel Womens medley relay: Roas, Grimberg, Wenk, Bruhn Required times at german nationals/combined times (1.5s for flying starts subtracted): Mens 400 free relay: 3:15.47/3:13.23 Mens 800 free relay; 7:10.92/7:05.06 Mens medley relay: 3:34.02/3:32.64 Womens 800 free relay: 7:55.08/7:54.05 Womens medley relay: 4:00.43/3:59.60 --------------------------------------------- Womens 400 free relay: 3:38.35/3:39.11 (not qualified) The next 2 months could get really interesting, everyone who didnt finish top 4 at german nationals will try to get a relay spot, so we have to wait 2 more months to know who qualified.

I agree, Brazil has much better medal chances in mens long jump and mens/womens pole vault. In mens race walking there is no medal chance and on the womens side maybe a very small chance, but i think medals on the womens side will go to China, Czech Republich, Italy or Russia. On the mens side medals should go to China, Japan, France, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Italy or Australia.

http://www.schwimm-dm.de/wettbewerb/ergebnisse/ 100 freestyle: http://www.titanium-media.de/cms/sportstiming/competition/2016-05-05_233/protocol/pk_wk218_3.pdf 200 freestyle: http://www.titanium-media.de/cms/sportstiming/competition/2016-05-05_233/protocol/pk_wk240_3.pdf

Great work, thanks, i gave you a reputation for it! You gave me more than i asked for! 13 year old Isabel Gose (born in 2002) had times of 56.06 (100 free) and 2:01.10 (200 free) at german nationals, she seems to be a great talent, but sadly she competes for the wrong country. I am sure that she would become world class if she would train in the Netherlands, we dont seem to know how to develope freestlye talents on the womens side, although we had Van Almsick and Steffen not too long ago.

Biedermann and Koch are qualified, they only had to finish top 2. All our mens relays will compete in Rio, i think Deibler (fly) will therefore also be nominated, although Heintz (who qualified at 200 IM) had a better time in prelims than Deibler in the final. For the medley relay we also might nominate Feldwehr (breast). All finalists at 100/200 free still have a chance to qualify. The 4 athletes with the fastest times after the german open (beginning of July) will be nominated. At the moment this would be Hörnikel, Di Carli + Biedermann and Wierling (100 free) and Rapp (200 free) + Biedermann, Vogel and Fildebrandt. I think that no relay on the womens side will be nominated, so we will probably send a very small team on the womens side (Brandt, Köhler, Beck, Wenk, Hentke, Graf). Our womens 800 free relay might have the best chance, top 4 at nationals were Bruhn, Köhler, Kullmann and Schmiedel. My prediction for the final team: Wierling (50/100 free, 400 free relay and maybe 800 free relay) Hornikel (50/100 free, 400 free relay) Biedermann (200 free, 400/800 free relay) Vogel (200/400 free, 800 free relay and maybe 1500 free) Rapp (800 free relay, 400 free) Fildebrandt (800 free relay and maybe 400 free relay) Wellbrock (1500 free) Feldwehr (100 breast and maybe medley relay) Koch (200 breast and maybe medley relay) Diener (200 back) Glania (100/200 back and medley relay) Deibler (100 fly, medley relay and maybe 400 free relay) Heintz (200 IM and maybe 100 fly) Hintze (400 IM and maybe 200 IM) Heidtmann (400 IM and maybe 400/1500 free/800 free relay) Kusch (Maybe 100 fly and 400 free relay) Brandt (50 free) Köhler (400/800 free) Beck (800 free and maybe 400 free) Hentke (200 fly and maybe 100 fly/400 IM) Wenk (100 fly and 200 IM) Graf (200 back and maybe 100 back) Note: Hornikel (50 free, 22.27), Vogel/Heidtmann (1500 free, 15:14.77), Diener (100 back, 54.36), Hintze (200 IM, 2:00.28) and Beck (400 free, 4:09.08) would have to make the A cut if they want to swim those events in Rio. Graf could swim 100 back without making the A cut, because we dont have any swimmer with A cut in this event. All those 22 swimmers have a realistic chance to reach at least 1 final in Rio. If we nominate a 800 free relay on the womens side, then Bruhn, Kullmann and Schmiedel should be added to the team. If we nominate a medley relay, then Roas, Grimberg and Bruhn should be added to the team, so our biggest possible team would have 25 swimmers in my opinion, but i hope for only those 20 swimmers i named before. If we would nominate all swimmers who made the A cut (if at least one german swimmer made the A cut, not more than 2 in every event) or the B cut (if no german swimmer made the A cut, not more than 1 in every event), then we would have the following team: Men: 50 free: Wierling 100 free: Wierling, Hornikel 200 free: Biedermann, Vogel 400 free: Vogel, Rapp 1500 free: Wellbrock, Zellmann 100 back: Glania 200 back: Glania, Diener 100 fly: Heintz, Deibler 200 fly: Kunert (B cut) 200 IM: Heintz 400 IM: Heidtmann, Hintze Women: 50 free: Brandt 100 free: - 200 free: Bruhn, Köhler 400 free: Köhler 800 free: Köhler, Beck 100 back: Graf (B cut) 200 back: Graf, Mensing 100 breast: Grimberg (B cut) 200 breast: Grimberg 100 fly: Wenk, Schmidtke 200 fly: Hentke 200 IM: Wenk, Wolters 400 IM: Hentke, Mrozinski Schmidtke, Wolters, Mrozinski, Mensing, Zellmann, Rapp and Hornikel might miss the olympics, although they made the A cut. Lets see what our head coach will decide, i think Rapp and Hornikel have a good chance to get nominated. Mensing is 100% out. Zellmann, Schmidtke, Wolters and Mrozinski have to hope that our head coach will nominate them, although they didnt swim the necessary times at the german nationals. Edit: Martina van Berkel had a time of 2:08.50 (200 fly) at german nationals, i think she qualified for Rio (she compete for Switzerland).

Yes, they look like skinny models next to girls like Sjöstrom or Ottesen ... I hope that we can back to our old strength in womens freestlye sprint by Tokyo, especially Gose is an amazing talent. Do you have the opportunity to find out how fast Steenbergen was 2 years ago?

There cant be any doubt that Tallent was robbed in 2012. Of course he got the gold medal, but that will never be the same as crossing the line first and hearing your national athem in addition to that his "market value" probably would have been much higher in Australia is "real" olympic champion, so he could have earned much more money. The story about Schwazer is really funny, if i understood it correct, it happened like this: He won the gold medal in 2008 Then he noticed that he wasnt good enough, so he started doping, but was still slower at 50 km than in 2008 Then he got caught and was banned for 4 years This year he comes back clean as a 31 year old and is about 1 minute faster in his first competition than in 2012 when he was caught doping Did i sum it up correctly? In the end it tells the who story, when some doper in race walking is called a shame by his own team mates and gets more attention then all the russian dopers in race walking together. I think it doesnt really matter whether he is clean now or not, someone who used EPO should never again be allowed to compete, because he will profit from it for his whole life, so you could say that he can never be clean, no matter if he is still doping or not.

I will write an answer just for you and this will be my last input into this discussion, after that i will write another answer with more general thoughts and i would be happy to discuss about them with you: Short answer: I think you are unfair to Pavlo, i think he never trolled, he was always writing his true opinion and i also had some problems with his opinion in the past (concerning athletes with african background who compete for european nations for example). In my opinion you cant compare Germany to nations like Turkey, Azerbaijan or Qatar, Germany doesnt buy athletes (believe it or not) and Germany doesnt force athletes to change their name. In addition to that all athletes who compete for Germany live in Germany and have to learn german (at least i never heard of a counterexample). Why (in your opinion) did she come to Germany if it was only for the money (i think she could have earned much more in other nations)? Why did Germany lose athletes like Hindes (track cycling), Tazegül (taekwondo) or Litvinov (athletics) if Germany would really be willing to "buy" athletes? Have countries like Turkey, Azerbaijan or Qatar ever lost some of their top athletes to other countries? If you dont want to discuss with people like Pavlo or me, then just ignore us, although i dont think thats the right way. We are here to discuss, so you have to respect other opinions. I have also said in the past that i dont want to discuss with user X or user Y anymore, but now i am back to discuss with most of them. You should never say never ... People can change and it should be only about the content and not about the person who wrote it. More general answer: The most important thing: I completely agree with you that no athlete in any sport should be allowed to compete for 2 or more different nations at senior level, of course there are some cases where it might be necessary for one athlete to change nationality, but in 99% of the cases there is no necessity to change nationality. In my opinion thats a problem of federations like FIG and not a problem of the athletes or countries, IOC or all international federations should forbid this in general. On the other hand i can also understand people who have a different opinion about that: Lets take Chusovitina as an example: Did you ever ask yourself why she didnt become world class (again) until she moved to Germany? In my opinion she was only successful, because she had much better conditions in Germany, in addition to that she still lives in Germany with her son and her husband, so she obviously liked it here. Dont you think that its only "fair" that she competes for the country that made her "big" (again)? Germany got a world class athlete "for free", so why should the german federation have said no? Of course you could say that she blocked the way into the national team for some of our talents, but in my opinion rather the opposite is true, she helped athletes like Berger to become much better. Germany didnt force her to come here, it was her decision and both Chusovitina and Germany profited from this move. Considering all this, why should this be forbidden in general? In the end you never know if an athlete gets paid to compete for another country, so you have to forbid it in general. I dont think that you can allow nationality changes if athletes dont get paid but forbid nationality changes if athletes get paid, so you have to forbid both. I think you could compare it to the situation of talents in a sport like football. In the past many talents decided to play for a bigger club at a very young age, before they had signed a contract with their old club, so the talent and the new club profited from it, but the old club (who had invested a lot of money into the talent) got nothing. What was the solution? The old clubs always got some money from the new club, so everyone was happy at the end. Either we forbid transfers between nations in general or we decide that the "old nation" has to get paid if an athlete wants to compete for a "new nation". Why should someone be "punished" just because he was born in the "wrong" nation? If some very talented boxer from Uzbekistan doesnt have the necessary training conditions in his home country, then why shouldnt he be allowed to go to a country with better training coonditions? Why shouldnt someone from Nigeria be allowed to study in GB for example, if there are much better universities in GB? What is the difference between those 2 examples? You can study abroad without changing your nationality, but its more difficult to do the same in sport. Why should GB pay for the training of a boxer from Uzbekistan, if he doesnt compete for GB? The boxer from uzbekistan basically has to "pay" for the training by competing for GB. I think there would be another good solution: For example IOC creates something like a "training scholarship" so that athletes from poor nations can train with the best conditions in richer countries, this would probably also help to make sport more popular in many poor countries. Those are a lot of different "thoughts" and i didnt try to give a general "answer" to this problem, but i just wanted to show that there are many ways to look at this "problem". So if you like, you can only answer to certain parts of my text.

I am quite surprised that we are only 14th in power ranking ... Its true that we miss some NHL players, but we still have a very talented team in my opinion. In Germany most experts say that this is our best team in a pretty long time, so i really hope that we can finish 4th in group. The most important thing for me is that we finish at least 5th and that Draisaitl will play a great tournament. In our test match against Switzerland he played great and scored 2 goals to help us going 3:0 in the lead, sadly we still lost the match 3:4 ...

No, you should learn to read! This thread is about NATURALIZED athletes and then someone named Mladenovic, an athlete who was born in France and spent all her life in France thats why i said that this thread becomes useless if we name athletes like her. The comment was either useless in this thread or the person who wrote it wanted to suggest that Mladenovic is (almost) like a naturalized athlete which also would be completely wrong. About Petkovic: Kerber also said a lot of things like this in the past and one of her best friends is Radwanska, but in the end they all play for Germany and they always want to play, because they love to play for Germany. On the other hand we have 100% russian/american/belarusian players (Serena, Sharapova or Azarenka for example) wo only play for their home countries if they have to. In the end players like Petkovic or Kerber have done a lot for german sport and thats all what counts for me, no one forbid them to play for Serbia/Poland, but they just didnt want to do it.

If people start to name athletes like Mladenovic, then this thread becomes completely useless. It makes absolutely no sense to act as if she is a serbian athlete who got naturalized by France. Petkovic came to Germany at the age of 6 months and was born in Bosnia, so how the hell is she supposed to be a serbian athlete? Its like saying that Carlos Boozer (born in Germany), Ashley Wagner (born in Germany), Bernard Tomic (born in Germany) or Leonardo di Caprio (german mother) are german ... For me naturalized athletes are those who spent most of their lifes in another country and competed for another country internationally before, someone like Kevin-Prince Boateng or Jermaine Jones, but not someone like Mo Farah for example.

She moved to Germany in 2002, so why didnt we naturalize her right away if it was only about money for her (she won a silver medal in 2001)? According to your logic she only came to Germany because we "bought" her, so why did she live 4 years in Germany before competing for us and why didnt she go to "richer" countries (countries that invest more in sport) like Turkey, Russia or Azerbaijan? In addition to that it makes absolutely no point for you to complain about Germany here. You said that she wanted to compete for Germany because winning a medal for Germany is more "valuable" for her than winning a medal for Uzbekistan, how is that the fault of Germany? Germany didnt pay anything for her to compete for us, so this is either the fault of Chusovitina or FIG (because they allowed it). In general many people from former soviet union came to Germany between 1990 and 2000 (Valery Belenky or Anna Dogonadze would be other examples), because they wanted to have a better life and you shouldnt blame them for that. You basically said that Chusovitina moved to Germany, because she is a greedy person, without knowing anything about the true story, so its you who was respectless towards her and her family, please inform yourself next time before writing something. So why did we "buy" her in 2006 and not earlier in her career when she was even better? Why does she still live in Germany if she only came here for the money and now doesnt get money anymore? So you are saying she gets more money by winning a medal for Germany, but if she does "only" compete for Germany without winning a medal, its better for her to compete for Uzbekistan, because ... ? In fact i would say that we lost many athletes in sports like football, taekwondo (Tazegül), equestrian, cycling (Hindes) or athletics (Litvinov), because we werent willing to pay them enough, so the idea that Germany buys foreign athletes is really funny to hear from someone who obviously has absolutely no clue about german sport ... I think there is only one case of an athlete who got naturalized, although he had absolutely no connection to Germany and thats Chris Kaman. I hink we all agree that he for sure didnt need our money. You should also know that athletes get only 15.000 euros or something like that for an olympic gold medal, so if it would be about the money, no world class athlete would ever move to Germany. You should rather focus on "real" cases like Stepko, Solnceva (who was really bought and even had to change her name) or Aregawi (who doesnt even live in Sweden most of the time), instead of trying to make up something about Chusovitnias reasons for her move to Germany. Why shouldnt someone who lives and trains in Germany all year long (Chusovitnia) compete for Germany? At that time of her life (2006), Uzbekistan had absolutely no influence on her success. Did you ever ask yourself why she didnt win a single medal at world/european championships/olympic games from 1993 to 2001? I would even say that she wouldnt have won any medals after 1993, if she woudlnt have started to train in Germany, so for me it seems right that she decided to compete for the country that enabled her to win all those medals. Maybe she also thought that she could earn more money by competing for Germany (sponsorship) but for sure our federation didnt pay her to compete for Germany and we didnt ask her to come to Germany. She came to Germany for personal reasons (illness of her son) and then lived and trained here for a couple of years before she decided to compete for Germany. You can blame FIG (I agree that those nationality changes at such a high age/multiple nationality changes shouldnt be allowed, in any sport) or even Chusovitina (Maybe she thought that she might get more money from sponsors by competing for Germany), but dont act as if Germany directly paid her to come here.

What happened with Hassler? He lost his semifinal, does he still have a chance? Did someone watch the fights of Hassler and Eisele against the turkish guys and were those results fair? Its pretty stunning, that 3 of our 4 athletes had to fight against turkish guys today ... For me its really annoying that Turkey is allowed to host almost half of all qualifying events, especially in fighting sports (taekwondo, boxing, wrestling). I have the feeling that IOC feels "guilty" for not giving the olympics to Turkey ... Why dont we just host all qualifying events in Turkey? It would almost be like small olympic games in Turkey ... EDIT: I see ... Hassler has no chance, its so unfair! He only competed at one of 4 tournaments (2015 world championships included) and then he had to fight against a turkish athlete at home. I feel so sorry for him, he is for sure one of the best athletes in his weight category and deserved to be at the olympic games. He got very unlucky with his injury and german federation probably shouldve nominated him for one previous tournament. We threw away a "safe" quota place.

I dont really agree about the Chusovitina case ... She retired, then gave birth to her first child, then in 2002 her son was diagnosed with Leukemia and she decided to move to Cologne, because her son was treated there and then in 2006 she became a german citizen (4 years after she came to Germany) and competed for Germany as a way to say "thank you". I dont really know why we should "buy" an athlete after his retirement and then dont give him the german citizenship for another 4 years ... Probably it was all a big plan and Germany caused her son to get Leukemia, so that we can force her to come to Germany and thats probably also the reason why she still lives in Cologne with her son and her husband. She herself said that she wil end her career after 2016 olympic games and she wants to do that in the dress of her birth country.

So what? I think this thread isnt about athletes who have a foreign background, its about athletes who werent born in the country they represent now. Germany didnt buy any of those athletes, most of them came to Germany at a very young age and basically all of them were treated as normal citizens, we didnt pay them to come here and they had to do everything that a normal immigrant also has to do. The only exception i can think of is Chris Kaman who was naturalized before 2008 olympic games, although he had absolutely no connection to Germany. In my opinion a country like Spain are much worse, they try to naturalize everyone who plays in the spanish basketball/handball/football league. Germany on the other hand has lost tons of football players to countries like USA or Turkey. We also lost someone like Servet Tazegül to Turkey, althoug he lives in Germany, trains in Germany, competes for a german club and was born in Germany. I think everyone should compete for the country that "educated" him/her. No one should be allowed to compete for 2 different countries. People shouldnt compete for other countries, just because they arent good enough to qualify in their own country.

I only looked at the list of participants for each weight group and for example found this: Mens freestyle -57kg: ... Labazan Sabigulaevich Askerbiev MKD Elmedin Sejfulau MKD ... What does it mean? Which of them will compete?

Foreign born athletes who might represent Germany in Rio: Athletics: Aleixo Platini Menga (born in Angola, mens 4 x 100 m) Peter Emelieze (born in Nigeria, mens 4 x 100 m) Homiyu Tesfaye (born in Ethiopia, mens 1500 m) Fate Tola (born in Ethiopia, womens marathon) Sosthene Moguenara (born in Tchad, womens long jump) Alexandra Wester (born in Gambia, womens long jump) Marie-Laurence Jungfleisch (born in France, womens high jump) Lisa Ryzih (born in Russia, womens pole vault) Lilli Schwarzkopf (born in Kyrgyzstan, womens heptathlon) Boxing: David Graf (born in Armenia, mens -91kg) Artem Harutyunyan (born in Armenia, mens -64kg) Arajik Marutjan (born in Armenia, mens -69kg) Track cycling: Kristina Vogel (born in Kyrgyzstan, womens keirin/sprint/team sprint) Equestrian: Meredith Michaels-Beerbaum (born in USA, jumping) Fencing: Matyas Szabo (born in Romania, mens sabre) Field hockey: Kristina Hillmann (born in Switzerland, womens hockey) (I dont know if she always had the german citizenship) Football: Mahmoud Dahoud (born in Syria, mens football) Kathrin Hendrich (born in Belgium, womens football) Dzsenifer Maroszan (born in Hungary, womens football) Rhythmic gymnastics: Jana Berezko-Marggrander (born in Russia, individual) Anastasija Khmelnytska (born in Czech Republic, group) Handball: Evgeni Pevnov (born in Russia, mens handball) Judo: Martyna Trajdos (born in Poland, womens -63kg) Table tennis: Dimitrij Ovtcharov (born in Ukraine, mens table tennis) Han Ying (born in China, womens table tennis) Shan Xiaona (born in China, womens table tennis) Weightlifting: Almir Velagic (born in Bosnia, mens +105kg) Graf, Harutyunyan, Vogel, Szabo, Berezko-Marggrander, Ovtcharov, Ying and Velagic are already qualified. Maybe i forgot someone, i didnt check all athletes in rowing and rhythmic gymnastics ... Overall 20 different nationalities.

The "different competition" is not selected by the german swimming federation. Athletes have to select one of the following two meets within one week after the end of the german nationals: Mare Nostrum Tour or German Open (beginning of July in Berlin) If they dont swim the required times there as well, then they dont qualify. International times at the german nationals: Mens 1500 free: 15:01.18 for Felix Auböck Womens 800 free: 8:40.51 for Julia Hassler Womens 400 IM: 4:46.01 for Martina van Berkel I dont know if those times are good enough to qualify ... ?

Hassler was injured/ill and thats why he didnt compete at the previous events. I am very happy that he seems to be fit again and hopefully he will qualify. I think ist really weird that a naion can compete with 2 different athletes here but not at the olympic games. What happens if two athletes of the same nation reach the final/win a quota place? I hope that Thiele (mens freestyle 97kg), Kudla (mens greco-roman 85kg), Hassler (mens greco-roman 98kg), Schellin (womens 48kg) and Eisele (mens greco-roman 75kg) can qualify, what are their chances in your opinion?

I am surprised that all those times count. I know that Amusan's time in womens 100 m hurdles doesnt count as junior world record, because there were no doping tests. I think its a bit weird that you can qualify for Rio in a competition without doping tests ...

I wouldnt really call his status "doubtful" ... He planned to make his first competition on May 15th and now he will make his first competition at the beginning of June (Diamond League in Rome), from there on he has 2 more months until Rio to get in top shape. Overally Germany is having a lot of bad luck this year in athletics, Harting, Schwanitz and Storl are all injured. Franz and Schrader are out of Rio.

Philipp Buhl (mens laser) Heil/Plößel (mens 49er) Jurczok/Lorenz (womens 49er) Toni Wilhelm (mens RS:X) Gerz/Szymanski (mens 470) Bochmann/Steinherr (womens 470) Maybe: One team in mixed nacra

I think we might give back our quota place in mixed nacra. One of our boats needs to finish among the top 10 nations at the world cup in Hyeres, otherwise we will probably give back our quota place.

I dont think that Otto will come back, but he "planned" to qualify for Rio and didnt retire until now. I found some older articles from the end of last year, for example this one: https://www.leichtathletik.de/news/news/detail/bjoern-otto-zwischen-gelassenheit-und-angriffslust/ He wrote on his homepage that he flew to South Africa for a training camp at the end of last year with many other german track and field athletes to prepare for this season.