OlympicsFan

Also men’s 5000 m and women’s 800 m ...

1) Lol @ Someone thinking that the Netherlands could win the 3rd most gold medals. Realistically the top 4 will be USA and then Russia, GB and China in some order. 2) Maybe Namibia could also win a gold after not winning anything in 2016. 3) Interesting that China is considered a lock for second most golds, I think before 2016 it was the same ...

1) Why? 2) Who? Do you mean ROC(K)?

Not sure if you read my comment, but the main reason why I think that breaststroke should be removed is that it clearly isn’t a level playing field when FINA either doesn’t try to make sure that everyone only uses the allowed number of dolphin kicks or they just don’t care. Swimming and athletics are sports where decisions of individual judges shouldn’t matter, unlike in other sports like gymnastics, figure skating, boxing or ski jumping. I used the same reasoning in the past when I wanted race walking to be eliminated. In backstroke and butterfly you don’t have that Problem or at least not to that extent. I just don’t see a reason (apart from Tradition) why some sports (swimming, wrestling, canoeing) should be allowed to blow up their number of medal events by using different techniques, while most other sports don’t have that option. Why not also include compound archery for example by that logic?

Would be great if FINA would get rid of breaststroke, completely pointless when they don’t even try to create a level playing field. The number of dolphin kicks is the most important factor for success and FINA either doesn’t want to control it or they are too stupid to do it. Also not sure what the point is in swimming with a technique that isn’t even among the 3 fastest techniques. Why not also have a 100 m/200 m/400 m/800 m/1500 m/5000 m/10000 m track race at the Olympics where people are only allowed to run backwards? Would make about as much sense ...

Hungary and Poland are hosting 99 % of all important competitions ...

The women’s 400 m will definitely be a funny freak show with Miller-Uibo, the athletes from Namibia and Eid Naser. Would be great if Seyni would also be allowed to compete.

Could you maybe tell me why Ukraine is so good in men’s gymnastics? I am sure that they have less money than Germany and I also don’t think that gymnastics is sport number one in Ukraine, so what is your secret?

Why do you ask whether we would like a prediction contest and than not give us the option to vote No? I think many top athletes won’t show up and even if they do, they won’t be at their best, so predictions will be kind of pointless.

Any chance that them missing the final had nothing to do with their own shape/the level of competition and instead was a result of them only using this as training for the Olympics? In other words: Should we see this as any indication for the Olympics?

If Germany is indeed doing what I think, I would be very glad and I’d have to give big props to their new head coach (Valery Belenky). I always thought that the best strategy for a nation like Germany would be to focus on the all-around to qualify a team and then to have everyone only focusing on one or two events for the Olympics and not give a shit about individual/team all-around results at the Olympics.

Not that crazy of a standard, even two German guys ran 2:08 or faster recently and Germany is pretty bad in men’s marathon. Also you can’t compare marathon times at the Olympics to marathon times elsewhere and with the new shoes it has become pretty „easy“ to run 2:08. Last year 109 men ran 2:08 or faster, in 2019 151 men ran 2:08 or faster.

Also Heidtmann in the 200 IM, but he already qualified in the 400 IM.

Interesting that Braunschweig also made the FINA standard this morning, so in theory Germany could take both Ulrich and Braunschweig and wouldn‘t have to use relay-only spots for them. I read somewhere that a nation can take 2 relay-only swimmers per relay, do you know if that is correct? Let‘s say I have 3 qualified relays, does that mean that I could for example nominate 6 relay-only swimmers for one relay and then no relay-only swimmers for the other two relays? I think the following swimmers are guaranteed a relay-only spot: Men: Fildebrandt, Friese, Zellmann Women: Küchler, Höpink, Pietruschka, Elendt So in theory Germany should have 7 relay-only spots left and could for example nominate Mrozinski and Salchow. Braunschweig, Ulrich and A. Köhler (from 2019) all have the Standard, so you wouldn’t have to use a relay-only spot for them? Also Demler could get a spot (for the women’s 800 free relay), but she might also still qualify in the 200 IM individually. In general I am not a fan of nominating relay-only swimmers, but I think it makes sense if that athlete is actually good enough to be subbed in and still allow the relay to qualify for the final. There is always a chance that one athlete gets sick or is out of shape, so it would be bad/unfair for the other relay swimmers if there wouldn’t be a back up. When I saw that Elendt entered the 200 breast, I thought that she would try to get the standard on the first 100 if she misses it in the 100 breast (but apparently she had other plans) and I wondered why the other athletes (for example Ulrich or Höpink) didn’t try the same.

Braunschweig beat Ulrich and was faster than 54.27, while Ulrich didn’t hit the standard, so he shouldn’t be qualified.

Not sure what he means with excellent chances, but in order to qualify, Ulrich either has to hit the standard or he has to hope that no one beats him with a time faster than 54.27. Not sure if he will be allowed to compete individually even without making the German standard, but in the past that usually was the policy of the german swimming federation (allowing swimmers who qualified in the relay to swim individually if they have the FINA standard).

Don’t like this poll, I thought it would be more about predictions.

1) Impressive that you can judge what rational predictions in all other sports are. 2) Which gymnastics predictions exactly in this thread aren’t rational?

Two for Kamminga, one for Kromowidjojo, one for Toussaint and two in open water.

I don’t know anything about the Dutch medal chances in new sports, but only looking at old sports, I could predict 61 medals for the Netherlands: (Open water) Swimming: 6 Athletics: 8 Archery: 3 Boxing: 1 BMX: 2 Mountainbike: 1 Road cycling: 5 Track cycling: 7 Equestrian: 5 Field hockey: 2 Football: 1 Handball: 1 Artistic gymnastics: 2 Judo: 5 Rowing: 6 Sailing: 5 Water polo: 1

Not sure about Hassan in the 10000 m, Van der Breggen in the time trial (what about the American girl?) and all the sailing golds. 5 golds in sailing would be really impressive given that no nation has won at least 5 golds since Norway did it in 1920 (7 golds) when there were 14 events. In 5 of the Events where they won gold, there were no other competitors ...

I don’t know what medals you already predicted, but in swimming/athletics a super optimistic prediction could look like this: Swimming: 2 x Kamminga (100 and 200 breast) Toussaint (100 back) Kromowidjojo (50 free) Weertman (10 km Open water) Van Rouwendaal (10 km Open water) Athletics: Schippers (200 m) 2 x Bol (400 m and 400 m hurdles) Women‘s 4x400 m relay 2 x Hassan (5000 m and 10000 m) Visser (100 m hurdles) Vetter (heptathlon)

Kind of sad that even I could make better predictions than French media. Your men’s 400 free relay 99.999 % won’t win silver. Olivier winning gold would also be a shock, given that both Wellbrock and Paltrinieri have far superior speed. Manaudou should win silver and maybe you will win a medal in men’s 800 free. You can justify predicting gold for Mayer, but I wouldn’t feel comfortable about it. Predicting medals in women’s hammer throw and for grandpa Diniz also seems questionable. I would rather predict a medal in men’s pole vault and/or men’s 110 m hurdles.

She could definitely medal in both, but obviously she doesn’t belong on that list. There are multiple other woman who could swim between 2:20 and 2:21. I guess you didn’t really get what my list was about.

I think 5-6 medals in swimming is only realistic if Hosszu gets back close to her best (sub 4:32 and sub 2:08). Other athletes should combine for 2-4 medals. 2 medals for Milak and then maybe 1-2 medals for Kesely, Kenderesi and maybe Rasovszky.