Dmitry

Chinese club Kunlun won their first game in KHL 2:1 vs. Amur in Khabarovsk) They scored winning goal at the 60th minute. And 3 Chinese in their squad even played 3-5 minutes

My prediction is But only Norway look like a big favourite.

KHL season have started on Monday. All ice hockey world are waiting Kunlun's first official game on the 1st of September Looks like Metallurg Nk are not going to play off again. And Dynamo Minsk will start only on September 6th after the Olympic qualification.

OK. But nobody said that it will be easy. That is a work for coaches how to use their squad in a better way. The main thing is that teams have enough players for these 4 games.

I can't see a problem. That's nearly the same like in the other team sport when favourite plays with outsider. Coach of the strong team did some changes in the squad. But the most players still played in all 4 games. Teams used their full squad. More important to see how many changes were in the full squads of the teams with injured players. Let's look to group stage of 2015 World Cup since the teams were started their first game and until they were finished fourth. There are no teams that did more than 2 substitutes in this period. Many teams didn't substitutes in this period at all. So there are no too much problems with it. Previous years I think people can say something like this about professional tennis players. NBA players. NHL players, golfers, professional boxers. But now they are at the Olympics. It depends from the relationships. And they can change very fast. Anyway I just want to say that format of rugby union possible for the Olympics. There are no impassable barrier for it.

Let’s see 2015 rugby World Cup group stage. I count all dates during group stage from and including day of the first game to and including the day of the last game for this teams. Australia - 4 games during 18 dates Fiji - 4 games during 19 dates South Africa - 4 games during 19 dates Scotland - 4 games during 18 dates New Zealand – 4 games during 20 dates Georgia - 4 games during 19 dates Namibia - 4 games during 18 dates Romania- 4 games during 19 dates Canada - - 4 games during 18 dates The others - 21 - 23 dates. At the Olympics we have 19-20 dates for 4 games. It's enough for format which I described or format with 2 groups with 4 teams (with finals but without semifanals). And all teams will start in one day. After I counted this I think it's more possible than I thought before

And I think it's necessary to delete 2 bronze medals. It's like a privilegy for judo, taekwondo and wrestling. Maybe only for boxing it's OK but maybe not.

Football takes 2 days before the Opening Ceremony. I think nothing can stop to take 1 day more for rugby. So it will be 4 games during 19 days with 5 days of rest between fixtures. Final even can be 1 day before Closing Ceremony or it will be 1 day more for the rest. It's hard but possibly. With 8 teams if just play-off format or format with groups (with 3 games in group and finals without semifanals) are bad, there is another format. 1st gameday: 1/4 2nd: 1/2 and repechage 3rd: Losers of 1/2 vs. winners of repechage. Finalists have a lot of time for the rest. 4th: Final, bronze medal Game. So 2 teams will play 2 games, 4 teams will play 3 games, 2 teams will play 4 games.

I tried to forget about my and my country preferences how I can. And I will not write a lot about format of competitions, rules, qualification format, antidoping, referees, quotas because too many changes should be in many sports. It is about disciplines. Rugby/football. 1. If men's football still will be junior it have to be removed. 2. Rugby-7 looks like a promo to rugby union and it have to be removed too. 3. Men's rugby union have to be add. 4. We have men's rugby union/women's football. 5. ???. 6. PROFIT Archery. Delete team events. Add men’s and women’s single compound events. Athletics. Delete 50 km walking events. Add men's and women's cross long races. Table tennis. Delete both team events. Add men's doubles, women's doubles and mixed. Canoeing-slalom. Add women's C1. Canoeing-sprint. Delete men's K2 200 m. Add women's C1 200 m. Maybe change women's K1 500 m to 1000 m. Rowing. Delete men's L4-. Add women's 4-. Cycling-BMX. Add men's and women's BMX Park. Cycling-Mountain bike. Add men's and women's Cross-country eliminator. Swimming. Delete 1 breaststroke, 1 butterfly, 1 backstroke, 1 medley single events for men and the same for women. Add men's 800 m freestyle and women's 1500 m freestyle. Gymnastics-Trampolining. Add men’s and women’s tumbling. Cycling-Road. Add Teams time trial races for men and women. Sailing. Delete men's Laser. Add men's Star, men's and women's Kitesurfing. May be create a new mixed skiff class instead men's and women's 470. Equestrian. Delete 3 team events. Separate men's and women's single events. So sport still will have 6 events. Fencing. Delete men’s and women’s team events. They are for World Combat Games. Create and add 3 mixed team events for epee, foil and sabre for Olympics. Shooting. Delete men's 50 m rifle prone. Add men's 50 m rifle running target. Right now nothing to change with list of disciplines for badminton, basketball, diving, hockey, golf, handball, gymnastics-artistic, gymnastics-rhythmic, modern pentathlon, water polo, volleyball, beach volleyball, triathlon, marathon-swimming, synchronized swimming, cycling-track, tennis, baseball/softball, skateboard, surf, climbing. And some more utopic ideas Shooting. Delete all events. Create something like omnium in track-cycling for 1 pistol, 1 rifle and 1 shotgun events both for men's and women's. So it will be 6 events in general. Boxing/judo/wrestling/taekwondo/karate and weightlifting. I think it will be better to cut many categories for every of this sport at the Olympics. Instead of this I would prefer to add to this 6 sports some categories of 3-4 another combat sport. There are a lot of candidates like wushu, sumo, sambo, aikido, Muay Thai, kickboxing, ju-jitsu, savate, budo, kendo, kudo or even MMA. Full program of any combat sport should be at the World Combat Games. For Olympics I would stay maybe 6 events (3 for men and 3 for women) for every of this sport or something like this. And Summer Olympics needs men’s futsal, men’s beach football and high diving.

Olympic Games was really fun! I visited 9 competitions. All of them was with really nice atmosphere. Especially I would like to say about three of them. 1. Except my schedule which I posted early I was at the men's fencing team foil finals. And I caught Russian gold medal! Cool! 2. Russia - Argentina in women's handball. Brazilians supported Russian team because it played vs. Argentina. I don't think that our team had support like this before. This was fantastic! 3. Russia - Brazil in women's voleyball. I was sitting in isolated 314 block under the roof of Maracanazinho. I was alone Russian in that sector. Around me was about 50 Brazilians and I supported Russian team. Very unusual and funny experience.

I will be in Rio at the Olympics since 11th until 14th August. My schedule. 11 August Canoe slalom Men's Canoe Double (C2): semi-finalWomen's Kayak (K1): semi-finalMen's Canoe Double (C2): finalWomen's Kayak (K1): final 12 August Badminton Morning games Handball Women's - Russian Federation x ArgentinaWomen's - Korea x France 13 August Water Polo Women's - China x SpainWomen's - Russian Federation x ItalyWomen's - Australia x BrazilWomen's - Hungary x United States Voleyball Men's - Poland x Russian FederationMen's - United States x France Swimming Women's 50m Freestyle: finalMen's 1500m Freestyle: finalWomen's 4 x 100m Medley Relay: finalMen's 4 x 100m Medley Relay: final 14 August Basketball Men's - United States x France Voleyball Women's - Japan x Argentina Women's - Brazil x Russian Federation I have excess ticket for men's basketball game Australia - the United States (10 August). Unfortunanely I can not be in time for it.

FISA decision about Russia. Anastasiia Karabelshchikova, Ivan Podshivalov and Ivan Balandin can't compete. I looks like Russia lost women's eight and maybe one men's boat - four or eight.

I think first of all Isinbayeva is a perfect and clean athlete. And without her women's pole vault competition at the Olympics anyway won't be so perfect like with her. And this is the main thing. Her opinion about something and people's opinions about her are important. But opinions can not be the main thing if we speak about sport. So I hope she will start. All is possible. IOC can allowed Stepanova if IAAF allowed Isinbayeva, Shubenkov and Kuchina for example. They are different organisations with different rules. But world of sport is not a space, they are talking each other a lot behind the scenes. But of course maybe it won't be.

And two news about athletics. Mutko asked IAAF to change decision at least for Isinbayeva, Shubenkov and Kuchina. Stepanova asked IOC to change decision about her.

World Archery confirmed that Russian team can start in Rio.

Кажется Россия будет выступать в Рио-де-Жанейро усечённым составом. Вокруг создали иллюзию, что нужно радоваться хотя бы такому раскладу. Но на самом деле это решение несправедливо. Должны ехать все за исключением тех, кто в данный момент находится под допинговыми обвинениями. А в заявленном составе подозреваемых нет.

Yes and with Fyodorova it was a mistake probably. With doping was another Fyodorova.

Russia will compete for: ITF (tennis) Russia banned by: IAAF (athletics) except Daria Klishina Accoring to previous words of officials it looks like Russia will compete for: UWW (wrestling) FIG (rhytmic gymnastic, artistic gymnastic, trampoline) IHF (handball) AIBA (boxing) FIE (fencing) ITU (triathlon) IJF (judo) BWF (badminton) FINA (synchronized swimming, water polo and diving). All the others are still question marks. FINA (swimming) FIVB (voleyball, beach voleyball) WTF (taekwondo) UIPM (modern pentathlon) IGF (golf) ISSF (shooting) WA (archery) ISAF (sailing) FEI (equestrian) ITTF (table tennis) UCI (cycling) FISA (rowing) ICF (canoeing) IWF(weightlifting)

List of Russian athletes in Olympic squad who had problems with doping (not included track and field). Rowing - Podshivalov, Karabelshchikova Swimming - Lovtsova, Yefimova, Krapivina Cycling-Road - Zabelinskaya, Zakarin Cycling-Track - Sveshnikov, Shilov Wrestling - Lebedev Weightlifting - Kashirina, Romanova

I thinlk most federation have done analisys like this before today.

Is it the largest number of finishers ever in Tour de France?

It looks like than Victor Lebedev (wrestling) can be banned from Olympics with IOC decision.

It was decided early that they are clean. Like most of the others with meldonium.

The decision is not so bad like somebody wants. But unfortunately we lost a lot of athletes with this politicians games. I hope IAAF can create new rules and we can see at least Isinbayeva, Shubenkov, Litvinov, Kuchina in track and field. But Olympics is still stay alive!

I've switched the channel when I saw red flag. And I've started to watch Tour de France. OK. Maybe this situation is not a shame. But last years F1 have red flags or safety cars too much times when there are only just a little bigger than some drops. Now if I see wet tires on cars it exactly means that after 5 min or less will be red flag anyway. 10 or 15 years ago it wasn't like that.