Noorderling29

I do little else.

Olympic champion Nina Derwael (Belgium) will not participate, due to a new shoulder injury.

In the 2022 World Champs the silver winning Dutch W8 was formed by rowers double starting. But it’s certainly not a regular event.

Thailand of course are dangerous outsiders. Often nearly there, maybe this time will be different

Slovenia it is then.

Germany qualifying from the OQT will practically torpedoe our chances, unless a few miracles happen.

End of September the World Championships Gymnastics will see further qualifications, both team and individual. Also the OQT Volleybal. The women first (I believe this weekend) and then the men. A total of 12 teams will qualify (I.e. halve of participating teams)

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Dutch coaches decide not to enter any boats. There are 4 events without a Dutch quota. It seems unlikely they will be able to find competitive LDS. There was no Dutch W8 in Belgrade, and one could only be formed through having athletes enter in two events. So it really depends on the schedule in Paris and the willingness of the coaches to take risks on double starts. If they do, it would inevitably be a very competitive boat, consisting of more than a few current World Champions in other boats. Remains the MSS. I think it’s anyone’s guess, but if competitive rowers were available, they would have started in Belgrade. This was clearly the odds and ends boat, without any real expectation of success.

3. Belgium

Probably not, as I follow your example.

Ouch. Thankfully we have you on this forum to educate us.

For a 4th place you mean?

Seriously, the stunning results are testament to the attitude of the Rowing coaches. It would have been quite easy after last years success to be complacent. Instead, the fact that only 1 of those 9 medals was a gold one, was enough reason to look critically at the program. After the EuCh earlier this year, which again saw many medals, but only 2 golds, the coaches reshuffled the boats, making some very tough and risky decisions. In the end, the result was 1 less medal, but 4 more golds than last year.

Given that this was the first time ever the Dutch team won more than 1 gold medal in Olympic events at Worlds, we nearly doubled the number of world titles won in Olympic events from 7 to 12, and for the first time a Dutch Olympic event world champion managed to retain his/her title, that conclusion is premature. It will probably all come to very little in Paris next year.

Last year we won 9 medals in Olympic events so slightly disappointing😀

Germany’s pretty succesfull in endurance swimming events. Perhaps the German doping authorities have overlooked those athletes? There is of course an alternative explanation to the one you keep hinting at. Possibly the German Rowing Federation is just not very good.

Turkey aren’t unbeatable. They had lots of trouble playing Belgium (without their star player). The victories over Italy and Serbia were deserved, but narrow, and these matches could quite easily have gone the other way.

The Dutch team was above expectation in the last two matches of the EuCh. Probably not enough for direct qualification now, but promising for next year’s sprint for World `Ranking points.

But then Base- and softbal are no longer part of the regular Olympic program.

It didn’t work, as the Dutch team did qualify.

Like the World Cup, let’s have 32 participants, then everybody can join

Like other teamsports, there would have to be an equitable division of participants over the continents. That could mean that Asia is underrepresented, but under representation in teamsports is a common occurrence.

Belgium? They lost four of their six matches at the EuCh, while playing at home. OTOH, they played a great game against Turkey, nearly taking it to 5 sets.

Thank you, I now see the logic of the comment.

I assume the subcontinent pays for the tv rights right now. Are you suggesting they pay more just because cricket is added? The fact that Cricket is not popular in parts of the world in itself is no reason to not include it. The same could be said for other sports that are currently included.