OlympicsFan

Nile Wilson ... ?

Sorry, but ... 1) Why not speak about the italian coaches/managers who are the ones that made Kenya (and currently Uganada) a "superpower"? Ever heard of Federico Rosa or Renato Canova? Did you look into the connection between Canova and Salpeter (one of the athletes with the most ridiculous progression over the past couple of years)? 2) If you really think that Hassan and especially Klosterhalfen are a lap ahead of Dibaba and made a huge step forward under Salazar, then you don't know much about those athletes. Just yesterday Klosterhalfen for example lost against Gidey, one of the "flying Ethiopians", while Hassan for example was only third in the London 5000 m Diamond League race behind two athletes from Kenya. Hassan hasn't won a gold medal at a global championships so far (as far as i know) and Klosterhalfen is far from a lock to do win a medal this year. Klosterhalfen already won a medal at the 2016 U20 world championships and in 2017 she was the youngest athlete ever (as far as i know) to do the triple of breaking 2:00 in the 800 m, 4:00 in the 1500 m and 15:00 in the 5000 m. Anyone who followed athletics already back then knew that she was a generational talent (espcially people in Germany knew that, because even back then many scientists were "shocked" to see how little lactate was accumulating in her muscles when she did endurance tests, the consensus back then was that they had never seen anything like that). Since joing the NOP Klosterhalfen hasn't improved her 1500 m PB. She improved her 3000 m PB by 9 seconds and her 5000 m PB by 25 seconds, but we have to take into consideration that: a) All her PB's were back from 2017 when she was still 20 years old and those improvements only look "insane" because she was injured last season, otherwise it is pretty safe to assume that she already would have been much faster than 8:29 and 14:51 last year (before joining the NOP). b) When she set her 5000 m PB in 2017 it was with a massive negative split and even back then most people agreed that she could have gone around 14:40 with better pacing. As far as i know Hassan also only improved her 1500 m PB by 0.5 seconds or so after joining the NOP and i wouldn't call that a massive improvement. I think what both of them have in common is that they shifted their focus towards longer distances/did more mileage and that led to big improvements in the 3k/5k, but their 1500 m PB's barely changed after joining the NOP. Let me be clear: I wouldn't bet anything on Klosterhalfen/Hassan being clean, but if you think they are doped, then (at least in my opinion) you should assume that they were already doping before joining Salazar. Do i think that there is doping going on in the NOP? I honestly don't know ... we hear a lot of stuff and i have no doubt that they use methods that are "semi-legal", but i am also not sure whether Nike would really risk having some of the high-profile athletes at the NOP being caught for doping (that would be really bad for their brand), of course this could either mean that they have "forbidden" doping or that they just make sure that nothing ever gets out. I think that if it is possible to become as fast as the kenyan/ethiopian athletes even without doping, then only if you invest insane amounts of money like the NOP does and i don't think anyone else is willing to do that, so if any of the top runners are clean, then in my opinion it has to be the guys/girls at the NOP. For me personally Muir or Debues-Stafford are much more suspicious, because they reached (almost) the same level as Hassan/Klosterhalfen without the same level of money that the NOP has and without being remotely as successful as Hassan/Klosterhalfen were at junior level.

1) Maybe because (pretty much) everyone else on the top 10 all-time list was caught? I think many people consider it unlikely that the fastest one on that list is the only clean one. 2) As far as i understand it, anyone who is remotely intelligent will dope during a heavy training period (and not shortly before a competition) and will therefore have nothing in his/her system during major competitions. After all they know that there will be retests.

Why? Do we already know that Brazil won't qualify for the world qualifier? I have to say that the american teams have the second most difficult path to the olympics after the european team. In case they will/can still qualify for the world qualifier: Of course it will/would be difficult for them, but not impossible, especially if other teams like the Domincan Republic or Canada will again miss their best players. In my opinion there should be 16 teams at the olympics, for example: USA Canada Brazil Argentina Dominican Republic Japan China Australia Nigeria Cameroon Spain Serbia France Greece Lithuania Germany/Turkey/Italy/Slovenia/Latvia/Croatia That would be a great tournament with pretty competitive groups, for example: USA Lithuania Brazil Cameroon (Siakam + Embiid) Nigeria Serbia Australia Dominican Republic (Towns + Horford) Japan Spain Greece Canada Argentina China France Germany/Turkey/Italy/Slovenia/Latvia/Croatia

Indeed very impressive, especially because Vesely is missing! New Zealand also was rather good so far without Adams. The results here show that the results of the preparation games have absolutely no value. Germany lost against Japan (a team that didn't even make it out of their group and got thrashed by New Zealand), at the same time Germany won against Australia and Czech Republic comfortably and those two teams are doing great so far.

Great, so FIBA is another corrupt organization that changes the qualifying procedure during the qualification process ... Latvia is clearly better than those 2 teams and would have had as good a chance as any european nation not named Spain/Serbia/France/Lithuania/Greece to qualify for the olympics.

Agree, pretty weird. 5k + 1500 m was never an option, but 5k + 10k would have been the better option in my opinion, although i don't think that it will make any difference in the end, she would have been the favorite in all events. In the 10k she should win gold unless peak Ayana shows up and in the 1500 m she should win gold unless peak Kipyegon shows up. From a german perspective this is very good news (assuming that Klosterhalfen will now race the 5k instead of the 1500 m and if she doesn't, then she obviously doesn't want to win a medal), because it increases Klosterhalfen's chance for a medal. If it would have been someone else, then i would have said that maybe it was a NOP decision, but i think Hassan is their big star, so she probably was free to chose whatever events she likes most. If she would have chosen the 10k and 5k, then Klosterhalfen probably would have gone for the 1500 m and there her medal chances would have been clearly smaller, now at least theoretically the NOP could win all 3 events.

Still noone doubts that he is dirty. I find it really fascinating how many american athletes are actually caught. Sadly nowadays the only way you can actually get banned for doping is if you are actually caught with a needle in you, otherwise there will always be some bullshit excuse that will get you off. At this point i really don't see why any clean athletes would still be willing to put in the effort, considering that even the officials don't seem to care about doping.

Spain isn't as good as they used to be. The spanish team in 2008 and 2012 might have been the best european team ever, but they got old. I hope that one day France will reach the same level. They easily have the 2nd best talent pool in the world behind the US, but they often don't play as a team.

Dragic is done and they don't have much depth + they would first have to get a wildcard and Latvia, Croatia and maybe Germany (if they don't qualify here) will also want one. Greece, France and Lithuania are the 3rd, 4th and 5th best teams in europe in my opinion and then we have a lot of nations that could get the 4th ticket (if europe even will be able to win 4 tickets at the world qualifier).

I think Serbia and Spain are safe in the semifinal, so you will probably have to make the semifinal too. If you beat Australia, then you will probably have to beat Greece in the quarterfinal (which seems doable), but if you lose against Australia, you will probably have to beat the US, so i would say the easiest way to make the semifinal for you would be to beat Australia and Greece and then Spain in the 3rd place match, which seems like a really difficult path. I would favor Spain to get the 2nd ticket behind Serbia thanks to the ridiculous draw.

Good to hear, hammer throw, triple jump and race walking should be thrown out of the olympics and every other major competition.

Was Lyle the guy who was caught and then was still allowed to compete or was it someone else? Also nice job by USADA once again, 50 % of their athletes in the men's 4 x 100 m relay will be known cheaters, i hope they drop the baton in Doha once again.

The dominance of the 3 guys really was bad for the women's 800 m, before those 3 started to dominate we had girls like Jozwik or Bishop who were much better than everyone we have now except for Wilson (but she was caught before, so everyone should cheer against her). Those girls got really unlucky, if they would have been born a couple years later, then they could have won an olympic gold next year.

Great diamond league finals for Cuba, they won 3 events (men's long jump, men's 110 m hurdles, women's discus throw)! I just wonder what happened to them in men's triple jump ... ? My personal highlight was the guy in men's 1500 m with the patch on his nose (i assume he was the pacemaker?) who just went for it and almost made the top 5, great effort! Also at this point i probably wouldn't bet anything on american women winning more than 2 individual golds (and 3 golds in total) in Doha. Klosterhalfen should definitely race the 5000 m in Doha, but i fear this result will mean that she will instead race the 1500 m. In the 1500 m there are tons of girls who can beat her, but in the 5000 m i would only favor Hassan over her, assuming that neither Obiri nor Ayana will get back into shape until then.

I think that is very unlikely. I would say Serbia and Spain qualify here and then at the world qualifier 4 additional european teams (in my opinion 4 out of France, Greece, Lithuania, Germany, Croatia, Turkey, Italy and Latvia) will hopefully qualify. I think the world cup is the best chance for Italy to qualify for the olympics, they "only" have to beat Spain and then they have to win the 3rd place match or hope that Australia and the US make it to the semifinal.

Not sure about France. I always have the feeling that the french team is less than the sum of its parts, while it is the complete opposite with Serbia or Lithuania for example. I think preparation games dont mean much, results were all over the place. Germany lost against Japan and then a couple days later Germany easily won against Australia, while Australia won against the US. I still see the US as a safe finalist and i would be surprised if they would lose against a team other than Serbia, but maybe i am biased considering that they have Donovan Mitchell on their team who is one of my top 3 favorite players currently ... I think the weakness on the guard positions will kill every team except for maybe France in a match against the US. The american guards are just far superior athletically to the lithuanian or australian guards for example.

Absolutely horrible match by Germany, 4 points in the first quarter and only 20 points in the first half! I am not sure what it tells us about the french team that Germany still could have won this match ... ? The main reason for the loss were Gobert's amazing defense and the horrible german 2 pt shooting (15/47 = 31.9 % from 2 pt range). I am a bit surprised that Voigtmann (25 points and an efficiency of 28) was so much better than the 2 NBA players Kleber (6 points and an efficiency of 4) and Theis (7 points and an efficiency of 7), maybe he should start over them in the next matches. I also can't help but wonder whether it was the right decision to leave Bonga (who is a good defender and probably could have done a better job against Fournier (who scored 26 points today) in this match) and Pleiß/Hartenstein (who are physically better than all other german centers and probably could have had more defensive impact today) at home. After the first, way too early, impressions i would say that Lithuania should definitely make it out of the 2nd group stage and Australia and France should battle for that 2nd spot. Spain and Serbia are a lock for the semifinal, USA should also make it and i think Lithuania and Greece will fight for the 4th spot.

Funk now officially qualified for the olympics. The race in men's C1 between Anton and Tasiadis is still open.

World best/record for Krause in women's 2000 m SC with 5:52. Of course barely any top runner ever runs this distance (in top shape), but the time is pretty impressive and she completely destroyed Yavi (who is a 9:07 runner in the 3000 m SC this year) over the last 200 m, so i am hopeful that she will be in sub 9:00 shape at the world championships. You don't often see a world best/record at such a short distance being broken by 10 seconds. Before this race the top 2 on the all-time list were Virginia Nyambura (6:02 in 2015) and Beatrice Chepkoech (6:02 in 2015). Edit: 41.67 seconds for the german 4 x 100 m relay. With Mihambo instead of Kwadwo and Mayer/Müller instead of Kwayie they would have broken the european record (41.37 by the GDR back from 1985) today.

In 2015 and 2016 she peaked at the world championships and the olympics and in 2017 she was injured. I am optimistic that she will be in top shape in Doha, but of course this will be the first time that she will be the favorite and everyone in Germany expects her to win gold, so we don't know how she will deal with a situation like that.

I hope not, Reese has won enough and some day age has to get to her + even Reese in top shape can't jump 7.16 m every day, a distance that Mihambo achieved this year even with far from perfect wind. She said that she still left some reserves in training for the world championships and she thinks that she can even get better until the world championships. I am a bit sad that she won't be in the german 4 x 100 m relay, she could have helped them to win a medal, but i think next year at the olympics she could compete in both events.

6.99 m into a 1.4 m/s headwind for Mihambo, her consistency is absolutely insane. Would be a travesty if she wouldn't win gold in Doha. Also very nice new PB for Kaul in men's javelin throw. I thought that the U23 european championships were his season's highlight, but maybe he will be able to again score 8500+ points in Doha.

Very sad that he missed the standard. I think it was a perfectly timed race considering the number of personal bests we saw. Not sure he will get another chance like that (at least this year).

Thanks! So this is the horse that is now called Chipmunk and competes for Jung? Why is that horse allowed to compete again, isn't there a rule that horses can also be banned for doping?