OlympicsFan

Agreed. People that miss multiple tests should be regarded as dopers. We all know that there have been cases in the past were athletes retired (to dope without the risk of getting caught) and then came back better than before (just recently we witnessed the miracle of Meilutyte being thrash before retiring, just to come back stealing medals shortly after. Gatlin or Efimova would be other examples of athletes that came back stronger/as strong as before). I am glad that WADA didn’t trust him and I wish they would have banned him longer. Absolutely wouldn’t be shocked if he returns eventually.

8th place for generational talent Colin Heathcock. Right now I’d give him a 50 % chance to medal in Paris.

Those times are very impressive for someone of her age, but it is absolutely ridiculous to compare her to McIntosh or predict that she will be the next big thing in women’s distance swimming. McIntosh might very well be the biggest talent in the history of women’s swimming and is on a trajectory to become the GOAT female swimmer. There have been tons of female teenage phenoms in women’s distance swimming that never won anything at senior level and apart from that there are also a lot of other young girls who are clearly ahead of Blocksidge while not being much older (Grimes, Sims, Weinstein, McIntosh, Chinese girls, Dyakova (Russian girl born in 2008 who went 4:07 in the 400 free this week)). McIntosh (born in 2006) only narrowly missed a medal at the 2021 Olympics. I don’t really see Blocksidge (born in 2009) doing the same next year in Paris. She would have to drop 15-20 seconds in the 800 free and/or 35-40 seconds in the 1500 free, which means that she would have to go more than 2 seconds faster per 100 m than she did this year.

I don’t think that it makes much sense to make predictions when many countries haven’t even had their trials yet. Personally I would be surprised if the following swimmers would win an individual medal: Women: 50 free: Wasick 100 free: Steenbergen 100 breast: Van Niekerk/„China“ (Meilutyte? Elendt? King? Pilato?) 100 fly: Hansson/Wattel 400 IM: Franceschi/Colbert/Forrester

Insane how pathetic german fencing is. They can't even get near the top 3, complete waste of money.

https://swimswam.com/a-motorcycle-accident-and-coaching-change-sparked-diogo-ribeiros-breakout-summer/ I think getting famous brazilian coach Alberto Silva really helped. Let's just hope that they don't use the same "methods" that Cesar Cielo used.

https://fpnatacao.pt/Resultados/provas2223/11cnjuvabsOPEN/ResultList_142_us.pdf Not sure if it counts, apparently he didn't swim against any competitors.

Who exactly believes that? The probability of him becoming as great as McIntosh is extremely low. His freestlye times are very good, but he hasn't shown much in other events. McIntosh finished 4th in Tokyo as a 14 year old. Kim would have to qualify for Paris and final there in order to remotely justify this comparison. I think that he will have to be able to swim the following times if he wants to final in Paris: 50 free: 21.7 (His current PB: 23.55) 100 free: 47.8 (His current PB: 51.05) 200 free: 1:45.5 (His current PB: 1:52.82) 400 free: 3:45.0 (His current PB: 3:56.79) 800 free: 7:45.0 (His current PB: 8:17.16) 1500 free: 14:50.0 (Couldn't find his current PB) He will have to drop an insane amount of time within the next year if he wants to be on the same trajectory as McIntosh was.

Really hurts ... I don't even want to imagine how many olympic medals Germany will lose thanks to Jordan Stolz (speed skating), Coling Heathcock (fencing) and Kaii Winkler (swimming) not representing Germany.

Italy with 9 medals after 9 competitions, absolutely insane level! They are clearly more impressive than China/Japan/USA/GB, only event where they didn't win a medal is men's pommel horse. They don't seem to have any generational talents in this age group, but a lot of depth. At this point it would be almost shocking if Italy wouldn't fight for team medals at every world championships/olympics in the near future (post Paris). Tomorrow they could win 2 or 3 more medals. Not sure if China/Japan/USA competes with their best athletes here? They used to be better at junior level, especially the US on the women's side, but maybe they are having a weaker generation?

Italy again with a bronze medal (men’s floor), has to be some kind of „curse“.

Good results for Germany on the men's side so far, not where they should be, but better than in the past. Of course the absence of the russian athletes has to be taken into account.

Really tight competition overall. Only 0.9 points between first and fifth, all those guys seem to be on pretty much the same level. The colombian guy is one year younger than the german/italian guy, so he looks like a bigger talent right now. Overall great results for Italy, they continue to be really impressive at junior level.

Crazy underperformance by Kevric, the best european gymnast in this age group. She should have sleepwalked into the floor and all-around final.

Titley magic already kicking in. Have to be national records or at least very close to it?

We don’t know what her focus has been on recently, but at least the 200 free record seems in danger, maybe also the 200/400 IM records. Still think that the 200 fly record is out of her reach for now, but maybe she can go 2:03 this year and then attack it in 2024 or 2025. The 200 fly record is probably the most difficult to break on the women’s side (maybe apart from Ledecky‘s 800/1500 free records) and the only record (in an Olympic event) that might be even more out of reach is the men’s 800 free record (+ maybe Peaty‘s 100 breast record). I think Phelps holds the record for having broken the world record in the most Olympic (individual) events. He broke the record in the 200 free, 100/200 fly and 200/400 IM. Crazy to think that Summer could actually match that. I don’t See her breaking the 800 free record, but who knows? List of female swimmers with the most Olympic golds: Jenny Thompson - 8 Katy Ledecky - 7 Kristin Otto/Amy Van Dyken - 6 Emma McKeon/Krisztina Egerszegi/Dana Vollmer/Missy Franklin - 5 List of female swimmers with the most individual Olympic golds: Katie Ledecky - 6 Krisztina Egerszegi - 5 Inge De Bruijn/Janet Evans/Yana Klochkova/Kristin Otto - 4 List of female swimmers with the most Olympic golds at a single games: Kristin Otto - 6 Kornelia Ender/Katie Ledecky/Emma McKeon/Missy Franklin/Amy Van Dyken - 4 Number of swimming gold medals that Canada won at the Olympics (all-time): 9 Number of swimming gold medals that Italy won at the Olympics (all-time): 5 Number of swimming gold medals that Russia (ROC excluded) won at the Olympics (all-time): 4 Number of swimming gold medals that Germany (after the reunification -> since the 1992 Olympics) won at the Olympics (all-time): 3 Number of swimming gold medals that Spain/Brazil/South Korea/Poland won combined at the Olympics (all-time): 5 Right now 3 gold medals seems like a conservative prediction for McIntosh.

Apart from Liendo, Kharun, MacNeill, Maße and McIntosh the most interesting swimmers to watch will probably be Ella Jansen and the young Sandpiper girl in the distance events (Dunford?). Oleksiak and Ruck not competing probably kills Canada‘s medal chances in the free relays and at least opens the door in the medley relay. Maybe Canada can put together a men’s 400 free relay that has an outside shot at a medal, it probably depends on Kharun.

You are right about Sjöstrom, I am going to edit my comment. I think Paltrinieri set a new PB just last year, so (surprisingly) I see no signs of decline.

Obviously impossible to predict this early. I think the following records in olympic events are safe: Men's 50/400/800 free, men's 100/200 breast, men's 200 back, men's 400 free relay, men's medley relay, women's 50/800/1500 free, women's 100 breast, women's 200 fly, women's 200 IM. The 3 records in olympic events for each gender that are (in my opinion) the most likely to be broken: Men: 400 IM, 100 free, 200 IM/200 fly/100 back Women: 200 back, 100 fly, 400 free/100 back/200 breast/400 IM/800 free relay Number of world records in olympic events that were broken at the last 5 world championships: 2013: 2 (both by Ledecky) 2015: 5 (4 on the women's side (2 of them by Ledecky) + the mixed medley relay) 2017: 5 (4 on the women's side + the mixed medley relay) 2019: 4 (2 on both sides, but the 2 on the women's side were both in relays) 2022: 2 (both on the men's side) -> From 2013 to 2017 not a single world record on the men's side was broken (but 10 on the women's side), but at the last two editions all 4 individual records that were broken were on the men's side. So if i would have to guess the number of records that will be broken, i would say 3 or 4. Also interesting: Oldest world record on the men's side: 400 IM (Phelps in 2008) Oldest world record on the women's side: 200 free (Pellegrini in 2009) Records on the men's side that were set before 2010: 50 free, 200 free, 400 free, 800 free, 200 back, 400 IM, 400 free relay, 800 free relay Records on the women's side that were set before 2010: 200 free, 200 fly

The fact that you have to sink so low, desperately trying to win a discussion that you can't win, speaks for itself. Obviously you don't care about the "truth", but only about "winning". Still here are some facts to put your "argument" into perspective: - The whole discussion was based on LONG COURSE results. The fact that you need SHORT COURSE results to justify declaring Knox a world class swimmer says it all. Knox finished 17th at the LONG COURSE world championships the same year. Of the 16 swimmers that finished ahead of him there, only 7 competed at the short course world championships. - Why did you feel the need to bring up german results? Did i say that german swimming is better than canadian swimming? No. Obviously this comparison is completely irrelevant for the strength of canadian men's swimming (but if you would have asked me, i obviously wouldn't have disagreed that canadian swimming is much stronger than german swimming). Says a lot about you that you can't lead a discussion without whataboutism. Sure sign that you aren't actually open to change your opinion, so why even bother answering? Knox won one bronze medal at an olympic distance (200 IM) at the 2022 world short course championships, Germany won twice as many medals at olympic distances (men's 100 fly and women's 100 breast) AND Germany was missing 4 of their 5 best swimmers (Wellbrock, Märtens, Gose, Köhler), which should show you how little they thought of this championship. Of course you would have known that if you would have any swimming knowledge. Another proof that nowadays most people think that it is completely irrelevant whether you have any clue about the things you are talking about. Why inform yourself when you can have an "opinion" simply based on emotions? Would be great if we could establish a mechanism where only people who have informed themselves can speak about a topic, otherwise every discussion will be flooded with people who have no clue, but still for some reason demand to be taken seriously.

I am certainly not a fan of Russia, but doping-wise the only thing you can really blame them for is that they were too stupid to cover it up properly. Everyone always knew that Russia wouldn’t change, so I guess the plan was to wait with letting them back in until the public had forgotten about their Doping Problem. What I don’t quite understand is why the western countries can’t use their (political) influence to kick Russia out completely. This would make it much easier for western countries to win more medals. I guess either the western countries have other interests or Russia just has more power over the IOC.

France (and Germany) missed the U19 European Championships (again). Pretty interesting to see that France is producing the most world class talents by far, yet they perform rather poorly at junior level. It also has to be said that the qualifying groups are extremely „imbalanced“. In one group you have Italy, Belgium AND Germany and then you have one group with Greece/Slovakia/Ireland/Estonia and one group with Poland/Israel/Serbia/Latvia.

1) I think the fee was 20 million. 2) So you think that he will sit out the 3 remaining years of his contract (only way that he will get the „missing“ 24 million of his salary)? Obviously I don’t disagree that it was crazy to give him a 5 year contract despite the fact that he had never coached a big team before. I think the 20 million euro fee only would have been justifiable if there wouldn’t have been other world class coaches available, which in my opinion wasn’t the case. I still remember that I thought that Bayern would sign Ten Hag (who had coached their 2nd team before when Guardiola was there). If they could have gotten Ten Hag without paying a (huge) fee, than that probably would have been a better option.

Don’t think so. I think teams like Morocco or Croatia have a ceiling that makes it pretty much impossible to win a World Cup. In the past 70 years or so no really small nations have won the World Cup. Only Germany, Italy, France, Spain, England (although their winning goal was irregular), Brazil, Argentina. Spain (barely beating the Netherlands despite having a once in a lifetime generation) and England only did it once and needed a lot of luck. Nations like Portugal, Belgium or the Netherlands never did it and Argentina had to wait for a very long time. You need the right mentality and the individual quality (which Morocco doesn’t have). Unless something crazy happens, France again will be the favorite, probably followed by Portugal/England/Brazil.

Italy is going crazy in ice sports. 2 medals in figure skating + 2 medals in speed skating + 4? Medals in short track + maybe some medals in curling. They might have won more medals in ice sports than in snow sports. Only other nations to do it are Canada and weirdly enough Belgium ... no China/USA/South Korea. Italy is the only nation to win multiple medals in all those sports.