OlympicsFan

Thats true and its nice that german federation supports her, they also couldve said no, considering that she doesnt finance herself. In the end she will probably be less successful, but she will have more fun and will probably get more attention, in addition to that she can still compete in cross-country skiing if she wont make our biathlon team for 2016 olympic games. Edit: I forgot the 2 most obvious cases: 1) Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle switched to biathlon at the age of 31. In her last season in cross-country world cup she finished 60th in overall world cup. Her best individual result was a 4th place in the mass start at 2014 olympic games. 2) Celia Aymonier switched to biathlon at the age of 24. In her last season in cross-country world cup she finished 37th in overall world cup. Her best result (so far) were two 11th places in Presque Isle this season in sprint/pursuit. Denise Herrmann is now 27 years old and in her last season in cross-country world cup she finished 23th in overall world cup.

http://www.iaaf.org/records/toplists/racewalks/5000-metres-race-walk/indoor/men/senior/2016 We improved in mens race walking recently, but sadly we are dead in womens race walking. In mens 50km race walking we are also pretty bad, i hope that Linke will finish top 10 in mens 20 km race walking in Rio.

Slamom canoeing: Tasiadis and Aigner are qualified. Track cycling: Förstemann is 99,999% out. Levy has something like a 60% chance to qualify in my opinion. Germany is allowed to send 3 athletes in mens team sprint and those athletes will be allowed to compete in Keirin/Sprint. Levy wasnt part of our mens team sprint squad at the last world championships, so he has to "do something special" to become part of the team, in my opinion he will do it. Enders and Eilers should be safe, but Niederlag was very disappointing at the world championships and Levy reached the final in mens keirin. Levy will qualify 100% if our team sprint squad will be faster with him, otherwise the question will be: Do we want to give away a medal chance in mens team sprint (by including Levy) for getting a medal chance in mens keirin, in my opinion the answer in this case should be no. Equestrian: Langehanenberg is out, because she sold her best horse and now she isnt competitive anymore. Other german medal winners who might/will miss Rio: Kurt Kuschela (gold in mens C2 1000 m) is 100% out, he ended his career, the same is true for Brink/Reckermann (gold in mens beach volleyball), Ole Bischof (silver in mens -81kg judo), Judith Arndt (silver in womens road cycling time trial), Thomas Lurz (silver in mens open water swimming), Katrin Wagner-Augustin/Carolin Leonhardt (silver in womens K4 500 m), Andreas Tölzer (bronze in mens +100kg judo), Hollstein/Ihle (mens K2 1000m), Helena Fromm (womens -67kg taekwondo). Britta Heidemann (silver in womens epee) is 100% out, she missed qualification. Kerstin Thiele (silver in womens -70 kg judo) is 100% out. She got pregnant last year and therefore couldnt collect enough points to qualify. She competed in womens -78kg weight category recently and probably wouldnt have qualified anyway, because Luise Malzahn is much better (7th in world ranking) in the same weight category. Lilli Schwarzkopf (silver in womens heptathlon) also might miss Rio. I think Rath and Schäfer are clearly better than her, she probably has to fight with Öser for the last spot, the same might be true for Christina Obergföll/Linda Stahl. Stahl, Obergföll, Molitor and Hussong are all pretty much at the same level, but there are only 3 spots. Björn Otto (silver in mens pole vault) didnt officially retire until now, but i think he wouldnt have a chance to qualify anyway. Dimitri Peters (bronze in mens -100kg judo) probably will miss Rio. He is 6th in world ranking, but Frey is 3rd in the same weight category and more than 200 points ahead of Peters. There will also be some medallists in mens hockey, rowing and mens foil fencing who will miss Rio. I think you didnt want to include retired/team athletes into your list, but you could add Thiele (100% out), Schwarzkopf/Obergföll/Stahl (if they miss qualification), and Otto/Peters (who are very likely to miss Rio). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Germany_at_the_2012_Summer_Olympics (All german medallists from 2012 olympic games)

I dont think its that fast. Two german guys were clearly faster this year (18:44 for Linke and 18:46 for Brembach) and a 3rd german guy had pretty much the same time (18:54.32 for Pohle vs. 18:54.18 for Bosworth).

There are at least 3 ways to look at the decision of Denise Herrmann: 1) German cross-country skiing: Its a pretty big loss, because she was one of our best athletes. She was our 4th best athlete in distance world cup and our 2nd best athlete in sprint world cup. The question is: Does this hurt our medal chances in any event? In my opinion the answer is: Not really. Ringwald and Kolb are already on the same level in sprint and both are at least 2 years younger, so she probably wouldnt have been part of our womens team sprint team in 2018 and she also wouldnt have had a realistic chance to win an individual medal in any discipline. In my opinion its a bigger hit for our womens relay, they might have (had) a small chance for bronze in 2018 and Böhler/Fessel are both pretty old, so this might really hurt us in the future. On the other hand we have tons of talented women who could (easily) replace her in the next couple of years, for example Carl, Belger, Gimmler, Fräbel or Hennig. The only reason why i am a bit sad about this decision is that she was the "face" of german cross-country skiing, so cross-country skiing might become even less popular in the future in Germany. 2) German biathlon: We dont really need her, we have a very young team and Dahlmeier/Preuß/Hinz/Hammerschmidt/Hildebrand are all clearly better than she (in my opinion) will ever be, i doubt that she has a realistic chance to qualify for 2018 olympic games. Even someone like Gössner has a better chance in my opinion. On the other hand german biathlon cant really lose anything. At worst she wont help us and at best she could become an important part of our relay. I think she will be among the fastest athletes right away, so she "only" needs to learn shooting. Its hard to tell how likely it is that she will learn shooting, but in my opinion its not very likely considering her age. Gössner didnt learn shooting until now and she started with the shooting training much earlier than Herrmann. On the other hand Hinz also switched to biathlon pretty recently and she has become at least decent in shooting, but she isnt among the fastest athletes in biathlon anymore, so she might have lost a bit of "speed". 3) Denise Herrmann: I can absolutely understand her decision, although she lowered her chances to qualify for 2018 olympic games with this move. There are various good reasons for this decision: a) She can train/compete with her best friend Maren Hammerschmidt. b) She never wouldve won an individual medal in cross-country skiing, considering the norwegian dominance and she already won an olympic medal in relay, so why not try something new? c) Biathlon is far more popular than cross-country skiing in Germany. I think every team member in german biathlon (top 6) gets more attention than any cross-country athlete in Germany, unless someone wins the overall world cup in cross-country skiing. I think a top 10 finish in biathlon gets far more attention than a top 3 finish in cross-country skiing. d) In an interview she said that she had this idea in her mind for a pretty long time already. Before the start of the last season german womens team in cross-country skiing got a new coach, i think she talked with him about this idea back then and he said something like "At least try my training for one season and if you dont have fun/become better, then you can switch to biathlon". I think she wasnt really motivated for cross-country skiing anymore, considering the norwegian dominance, so in my opinion it was a decision between biathlon and retirement and not between biathlon and cross-country skiing. German skiing federation of course wanted her to continue her career, so they "allowed" this move. In the past Gössner competed in both biathlon and cross-country skiing and i think Herrmann might do the same. For me her situation is a bit like that of Roleder (athletics) who decided to train for heptathlon and then won a silver medal in womens 100 m hurdles at the last world championships. The main reason for that was that she wanted to have more fun in training and Herrmann might have the same reason for switching to biathlon. After all biathlon training and cross-country skiing training are not that different, so she might even become faster by training biathlon.

Its not a surprise that Russia wont be banned. I think they wouldve been allowed to play even if all of their players wouldve been caught doping. The explanation i read sounded very weird nevertheless, its obvious that Markin had a pretty big impact in at least one match. I think no one here thinks that he decided to use Meldonium on his own, its obvious that this was more of a "team decision", so its pretty disappointing that a whole team can get away with something like that. In the end we have to ask: When exactly did he stop to take Meldonium? In my opinion you cant just say "He didnt take it in 2016, so he didnt dope". I think the athletes knew a couple of months before the end of 2015 that Meldonium would be illegal in 2016, so they shouldve stopped to take it right away and not wait until the end of 2015. By taking it until the end of 2015, they "planned" to also profit from it in 2016, so you cant say that it didnt improve their performances in 2016. In my opinion all these athletes shouldnt have been allowed to compete in 2016 until all Meldonium left their body.

Great wins for Zverev (against Goffin) and Kyrgios (against Coric)! Zverev vs. Thiem could be an interesting match. Zverev has a good chance to reach top 30 by the end of the year. Its pretty sad that some top players dont plan to play at the olympics, for example Thiem or Isner.

Its always very sad when something like that happens, but in this case its even more "shocking". Two of our best athletes will have one chance less to qualify, in my opinion thats not fair at all. Marutjan at least will have another chance, but Harutyunyan basically had only one chance to qualify for the olympics and he had to fight against number one seed from France in the second round ... For him it was basically: Either you beat the number one seed or you are out of the olympics.

Why is 18:54.14 a crazy time for you? Only for british standards?

So probably no Griffin, Davis, Bryant, Simmons (Australia) in Rio ...

I dont really like the draw ... We have a good chance to win the group and then we probably will have to play against Denmark or Qatar, two teams we clearly beat recently, so we have a big chance for the semifinal. Our goal has to be to not finish 4th in group/not to play against France in quartefinal. I am optimistic that we will reach the final if we can avoid France and play with our best team (Dissinger, Pekeler, Groetzki, Gensheimer, Weinhold, Wiencek, Drux, Wolff, Dahmke, Kühn, Lemke, Lichtlein, Reichmann, Wiede, Fäth/Glandorf!). I hope for the following quarterfinals/semifinals/finals: Men: Germany-Qatar Poland-Denmark Sweden-Croatia Slovenia-France Germany-Croatia France-Denmark Germany-France Women: Brazil-Netherlands Montenegro-Russia Romania-France Norway-Sweden Norway-Russia Netherlands-Romania Norway-Netherlands

German outfits have been presented and for the first time in many years i really like them. Finally they were produced by a big german brand (Adidas), although i wouldve preferred BOSS. This time they arent very colourful, but mostly black, grey, white and red. In my opinion they look way more elegant than the uniforms we had at the last couple of olympic games.

Source: http://worldarchery.org/news/139158/korean-team-rio-2016-olympic-games-announced Of those 6 only Ki Bo Bae competed in London 4 years ago, she will try to defend her olympic titles.

Are you sure that she will compete for Belgium in Rio? If its true, than it would be really disgusting, this never should have been allowed! Basically Belgium had two athletes in the same weight category at the european qualification! Belgian athlete qualified -> She goes to Rio Refugee athlete qualified -> She gets naturalized and competes for Belgium in Rio

No, +2.0 is the limit, he will have many more chances to qualify.

I hope for 4 more qualified athletes on the mens side: As you said Öhler, Eisele (2016 european champion) and Azizsir already should have qualified. We might use Hassler (2nd at 2014 world championships) instead of Öhler for the last tournament, but i dont know if he is fit. I also hope that Denis Kudla will somehow qualify. On the womens side i hope that Schellin will qualify. 10 qualified athletes would be really amazing for us. We already have more qualified athletes (5) than in 2012 (4). I am optimistic that we will have at least as many qualified athletes as in 2008 (7). In 2004 we had 9 qualified athletes and in 2000 we had 10 qualified athletes, so we have a realistic chance to reach our best result in more than a decade.

What do you think, who will qualify at the last tournament (how many quota places for Germany)?

Very sad news. Robert Harutyunyan wont participate in Baku. His family is from Armenia and he said it would be too dangerous for him in Baku, considering the current conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. His brother Artem is already qualified and it was their dream to compete together in Rio. http://www.abendblatt.de/sport/article207451033/Robert-Harutyunyan-verzichtet-wegen-Konflikt-auf-Olympia.html Araik Marutjan for the same reason wont compete in Baku, but he will be allowed to compete at the qualification tournament for pros, because he competed in the APB last year unlike Harutyunyan. Edit: This might also be the reason why armenian athletes were so good at the first qualification tournament, AIBA didnt want to have them in Baku. 5 armenian boxers in the semifinal, 4 of them qualified, at the last european championships they only won 1 bronze medal ...

I dont know, but i found this interview from April 13th: http://www.augsburger-allgemeine.de/landsberg/Zwei-Schuetzen-aus-dem-Landkreis-in-Rio-id37463277.html Her coach (and husband) said that he is optimistic that she will be allowed to compete in Rio, but the final decision will be made after the end of the World Cup in Munich (May 27th). Personally i think that she deserves to be in Rio. She recently beat Kostevych twice in Wroclaw to win womens air pistol (with 203.8 in the final) and one of two competitions in womens 25 m pistol (7:3 against Kostevych in the gold medal shootout). She also finished 4th in Rio in womens 25 m pistol (her weaker discipline), losing 6:8 against Kostevych in the bronze medal shootout after finishing second in qualification with a score of 584.

You can read everything here (in german), pages 7-15: https://www.dosb.de/fileadmin/Bilder_allgemein/Veranstaltungen/Rio_2016/Sportartspezifische_Nominierungskriterien_Rio_2016_DSueB_Aktualisierung_20160126.pdf To sum it up: Mens/womens air rifle: There was a competition in Dortmund from March 12th to March 13th for all the athletes who are part of the german "top team Rio" and only top 3 from there are able to qualify for Rio. The second part of the qualification consists of the world cups in Rio and Munich (May 19th to May 26th), so we will know the qualified athletes after the world cup in Munich. The results from those 3 competitions (Dortmund, Munich and Rio) will be "added" to determine the qualified athletes. Current standings: Men: Justus is clearly in the lead, he finished 4th in Rio. Janker was 44th and Schallenberger was 72th. Women: Gschwandtner was 3rd, Kreutzer was 8th and Engleder was 10th, still very open. Mens 50 m rifle prone: Brodmeier and Junghänel are basically qualified (they are the only 2 members of the "top team Rio" in this discipline). DSB (german shooting federation) cant nominate athletes, they are only allowed to "propose" athletes to DOSB ("german olympic committee") and then DOSB has to nominate those athletes, but they basically always nominate those athletes. Mens/womens 50 m rifle 3 positions: In this event the national "selection" didnt take place in Dortmund, it will consist of 2 competitions in Plzen (May 4th to May 8th) and Hanover (May 12th to May 15th). The top 3 from those competitions (results will be added) will be allowed to compete in Munich (May 19th to May 26th), the final part of the qualification, all results will be added. Mens rapid fire pistol: Results from the two world cups in Rio and Munich will be added and top 2 will qualify. At the moment everything is still open. In Rio Reitz finished 6th, Geis finished 4th and Sauter finished 7th (missing the final only by countback). At the moment its not unlikely that Reitz or Geis will miss Rio ... Mens/womens 10 m air pistol, mens trap, womens 25 m pistol and mens 50 m pistol: No quota place, so no qualification needed. Assuming that we get a spot in womens 10 m air pistol or womens 25 m pistol (I dont think that we will try to get a spot in mens trap, mens 50 m pistol or mens 10 m air pistol): Qualification consists of the World Cup in Munich, one competition in Hanover (May 9th to May 12th) and another competition in Munich (May 26th to May 27th). Scores will be added to determine the qualified athlete. Womens trap: Top 3 from the Grand Prix in Nicosia (March 9th to March 14th) and the World Cup in Nicosia (March 17th to March 25th) (results will be added) will be allowed to enter the second part of the qualification that consists of the World Cups in Nicosia (June 1st to June 4th) and Baku (June 20th to June 28th). In the end the athlete with the biggest number of top 6 finishes (reached finals) will qualify. Scheibl won silver at the world cup in Nicosia, so she should be clearly in the lead right now. Mens double trap: Qualification consists of the the world cup in Rio and the "Green Cup" in Todi (May 26th to May 29th), the number of finals will decide. (Same number of finals -> Better placement in the final will decide, the same is true for womens trap). Löw finished 5th in Rio, so he is clearly in the lead right now, Goldbrunner finished 12th. Mens skeet: Buchheim is basically qualified (same as in mens 50 rifle prone), because he is the only member of the "top team Rio" in this discipline Womens skeet: Same as in mens double trap. Wenzel was the only german athlete who reached the final in Rio, so she is clearly in the lead right now. In my opinion Brodmeier, Junghänel and Buchheim are basically safe for Rio. Justus, Scheibl, Löw and Wenzel are clearly in the lead and almost safe for Rio.

What do you mean? I think the probability that the french team in mens water polo will get disqualified is about 0,000001% and its even less likely that the french team in mens basketball will get eliminated. I didnt watch the water polo match France vs. Canada, so i cant say anything about the behavior of the french team, but i just think it would be completely childish to disqualify them and i am sure that it wont happen. I have nothing against the french team and i am sure that both french teams will play in Rio. FIBA can decide whatever they want, but i would be shocked if IOC would really allow them to disqualify a team from Rio. In the end it will be either all teams or no tournament at all, so there is only one real option ...

Shocking results for us today: Wenzel without a medal in womens skeet, although this was a pretty weak final. Reitz and Geis are clearly the best shooters and qualified 1st and 2nd but completely fucked up in the final, finishing 6th and 4th. In mens rapid fire pistol only the gold medal in Rio will be acceptable for us. Its a complete joke that Reitz still isnt able to control his nerves. He can win as many world cups as he wants, but without an olympic gold he will never become a legend of this sport. Sometimes its really hard when you are able to see the future ... I exactly knew that Geis would shoot 3 in his final round and then get eliminated in shootout, he is only good when he has no pressure.

Thanks, so no quota for Schell ...

1) How many quota places in womens -75kg freestlye? 2) Did Schell win one of them?

Good result for Aga on clay, Siegemund is on fire right now, apparently there is no way to stop her ... Aga might be the most consistent player (she is never really bad), but she needs to peak somewhere if she wants to win one of the 4 big tournaments. For me she is something like the female version of Andy Murray (without a slam), she is always very good at big tournaments, but something is always missing to win the whole thing. I hope that she will win a slam someday, she clearly deserves it, maybe she just has to wait for Serena to retire, then everything could be wide open ...