Noorderling29

I was hoping to see they crown Tommy B as the lifelong king of IOC. 
 
he shouldn't be just IOC's president, he should be the King. I mean he acts like a true dictator, why not giving him a throne 

The IOC is considering a proposal to make Bach the Eternal President of the IOC.
 
(or rather they are considering letting him run for a third term, but… ya)

Well, Wijler finished 6th at the World Champs and 5th in the men’s team event in 2023 (9th in the mixed event). so not so bad. Schloesser was part of the women’s team that took a completely unexpected 4th place in the team event.

Well, Wijler finished 6th at the World Champs and 5th in the men’s team event in 2023 (9th in the mixed event). so not so bad. Schloesser was part of the women’s team that took a completely unexpected 4th place in the team event.

Well, Wijler finished 6th at the World Champs and 5th in the men’s team event in 2023 (9th in the mixed event). so not so bad. Schloesser was part of the women’s team that took a completely unexpected 4th place in the team event.

What a victory 
 
Thanks Pumas!!, i didnt expect this at all.
 
 
They will be destroy for Ireland or NW but i dont care, nobody cant take us this joy.
 

Very sad for Ireland who once again fail to go further than quarterfinals but damn that was amazing to watch!

Probably not, as I follow your example.

Nothing, really
 
We don't have any sports that are children's versions of real sports (flag football) or that are real sports but immensely popular in a very specific area yet entirely unknown outside of it (cricket), so....yeah. I wonder how @Dennis, @Jinzha or @Noorderling29 would see this, but I very much doubt we'd add something 'Dutch' like kaatsen or fierljeppen which are Frisian things specifically and basically entirely unknown outside of it  (personally I only know of their existence and that's it)

Noor Vidts: if she could not win a medal in Budapest in a weak competion, she’s never going to do it at World level.
There’s a big question mark about Thiam’s return. But even then, Anna Hall must be the favorite for Gold.
The Rowing LWX2 did not make it to final of the World Champs, and failed to win a quotum.
The 4x400 relay Men narrowly failed to qualify for the final in Budapest: time really seems to be up for the incredible Borlee twins and Belgium has failed to find comparable replacements. The women finished 5th, and that was in a race without the Americans. 
Of the five Judoka’s mentioned, only one won a medal at this years World Champs.
Kopecky winning 3 golds?: next year’s Road race is far less ideal for her than the one in Glasgow, she’s really not the favorite for the time trial, and her chances in the Madison are heavily influenced by if the doping suspension of her partner will stand or not.
Hockey: the women are just as capable as sucker punching the Dutch in the final as finishing 7th. Also, they haven’t always been lucky in qualifying. The men failed  to win their last two tournaments, and are in a bit of transition, with some of their older players retiring or not being selected.
show jumping really is completely unpredictable. In Tokyo Belgium won bronze in the team event on the back of the refusal of one the French horses (IIRC).
 
Belgium certainly has a lot of opportunities, but I once read somewhere for most teams only 1/3 of those,come to fruition.

Noor Vidts: if she could not win a medal in Budapest in a weak competion, she’s never going to do it at World level.
There’s a big question mark about Thiam’s return. But even then, Anna Hall must be the favorite for Gold.
The Rowing LWX2 did not make it to final of the World Champs, and failed to win a quotum.
The 4x400 relay Men narrowly failed to qualify for the final in Budapest: time really seems to be up for the incredible Borlee twins and Belgium has failed to find comparable replacements. The women finished 5th, and that was in a race without the Americans. 
Of the five Judoka’s mentioned, only one won a medal at this years World Champs.
Kopecky winning 3 golds?: next year’s Road race is far less ideal for her than the one in Glasgow, she’s really not the favorite for the time trial, and her chances in the Madison are heavily influenced by if the doping suspension of her partner will stand or not.
Hockey: the women are just as capable as sucker punching the Dutch in the final as finishing 7th. Also, they haven’t always been lucky in qualifying. The men failed  to win their last two tournaments, and are in a bit of transition, with some of their older players retiring or not being selected.
show jumping really is completely unpredictable. In Tokyo Belgium won bronze in the team event on the back of the refusal of one the French horses (IIRC).
 
Belgium certainly has a lot of opportunities, but I once read somewhere for most teams only 1/3 of those,come to fruition.

Belgian medal tally has been below 10 since 1924, but everything’s possible I suppose. Belgium certainly has been underperforming, but the inventory of Belgian medal chances seems a bit on the optimistic side. 

UWW provisionally suspended multiple time World bronze medalist Mohammad Ali Geraei because of what happened in Belgrade during the World Championships.
 
his brother M. Reza (World and Olympic Champion) was about to lose his lead in 1/8 final match against a Japanese wrestler until someone from the crowd (later revealed to be his brother) threw a bottle of water to the mat, stopped it for few minutes, giving his already-dead-brother some minutes to recover a bit and somehow survives the match 10-10 or 11-10. Reza lost his next match heavily (he was already dead) but came back the next day to win the bronze and the Olympic quota.
 
that was a very shameful act and he deserves a long ban  I would gladly give up that quota/medal. we were always proud of our wrestlers being fair and committed to sportsmanship

unlikely to be eligible to compete in the continental qualifiers because we already have Jade Jones and Bianca Cook qualifying through the rankings so only way Williams qualifies is by getting herself into the top 5. 

Btw, Hassan won the Chicago marathon in the 2nd time ever: 2:13.38, shaving almost two minutes from Paula Radcliffe’s mark of 2:15:25 which stood untouched as the world record from 2003 and 2019.
 
Hassan is now the current European Record holder on the 1.500m, 1 mile, 3.000m, 5.000m (track and road), 10.000m, half marathon, and the marathon. 
 

Last week also the Dutch championships, without Suzanne  Schulting. On doctor’s advice she took an extended break, and only just started training again. She will probably miss the first part of the season; for the Dutch riders the World Championships in their own country obviously is the main focus of this season.

Last week also the Dutch championships, without Suzanne  Schulting. On doctor’s advice she took an extended break, and only just started training again. She will probably miss the first part of the season; for the Dutch riders the World Championships in their own country obviously is the main focus of this season.

released their final selection policy for Paris earlier this month. In line with the approach used for both Rio and Tokyo, the squad will be capped at a maximum of 30 athletes. 
 
Key Points:
Selections will primarily be based on results from 2024 British Swimming Championships which are taking place in London Aquatics Centre in early April. In order to guarantee selection, the champion in each individual event is required to achieve the nomination time in the final. The first four finishers in the relevant events will be selected if their collective time is within the required nomination standard for the relay. GB Swimming Performance Director has complete discretion to add athletes to the squad.  If not already selected for inclusion in a relay, the silver medalist in each individual event will be considered for selection - if there are places available - where they have achieved the relevant nomination time in the final of their event.   
Most of the above is pretty uncontroversial, although why they would look to put an arbitrary cap on the size of the squad is beyond me. Where I think GB Swimming have gone mad is in the creation of their own qualifying standards:
 
 
Female   Male OQT BQT Event OQT BQT 24.70 24.65 50 Freestyle 21.96 21.88 53.61 53.55 100 Freestyle 48.34 48.06 1:57.26 1:56.85 200 Freestyle 1:46.26 1:45.96 4:07.90 4:04.98 400 Freestyle 3:46.78 3:45.43 8:26.71 8:25.84 800 Freestyle 7:51.65 7:47.80 16:09.09 16:01.95 1500 Freestyle 15:00.99 14:54.29 59.99 59.89 100 Backstroke 53.74 53.68 2:10.39 2:08.91 200 Backstroke 1:57.50 1:57.28 1:06.79 1:06.31 100 Breaststroke 59.49 59.45 2:23.91 2:23.04 200 Breaststroke 2:09.68 2:08.95 57.92 57.17 100 Butterfly 51.67 51.56 2:08.43 2:07.96 200 Butterfly 1:55.78 1:54.97 2:11.47 2:10.62 200 Individual Medley 1:57.94 1:57.49 4:38.53
4:37.84 400 Individual Medley 4:12.50 4:11.90  
 
OQT = Olympic Qualifying Time 
BQT = British Qualifying Time
 
There are some events where GB are strong - the men's 200 Freestyle - where I can understand the rationale for having more stringent qualifying standards, but there are plenty of events where these standards will simply ensure that there is no British representation in the event. 
 
As an example, GB didn't qualify anyone for the women's 1500m Freestyle event for Tokyo. Our national champion in 2023 was Amelie Blocksidge who is, by all accounts, GB's great hope for the longer distance freestyle events. At 14 years old, she set a PB time of 16:19.67 to take the title. Whilst that is not going to win her a medal at international level, it is within 5 seconds of the official Olympic Consideration Time and it is not difficult to believe that she would be able to bring her time down next year to be within the OCT - indeed she could even bring her time under the OQT - but in order to qualify under GB standards, she would have to find 18 seconds which is much less likely. 
 
Under these British standards, we would lose out current qualifiers in the women's 400 freestyle, 100 butterfly and in the men's 800 freestyle. In addition, we would be reduced to 1 participant in the men's 50 freestyle. 
 
Given British Swimming endured the embarrassment of having to change their World Championship selection policy halfway through the trials, you would have thought that they would have adopted a more cautious approach but instead, they seem to have doubled down. 
 

if you're only interested in the OQTs (and not to the rest of their product through the year), you can also use just the 7-day trial twice on 2 different accounts (just need 2 different e-mails) 

I think the judgements of Schippers rather harsh. But evenso, sport is not a popularity contest She was not a very good loser, but that’s not unlike the majority of athletes. At least she was honest about it.

IIRC our 4 x 100 metres squad won two medals at European Championships with Schippers in the team. Not really a regular ocurrence without her. 
 
More generally, before Schippers there was a general feeling that we’re not very good at athletics and never gonna be, with sporadic successes. She proved that a Dutch athlete can be world class, and the level has been raised across the board, with success in youth competions as well. 10 years ago an athlete making it to a semi final at Worlds would be one of the stars of the team, now athletes like Peeters, Jiya and Seedo are bit players.
 
Before Tokyo 2020 I would have considered anyone who predicted that in Athletics the Dutch team could win 7/8 medals at World level as certifiable.

Former double 200 meter World Champion (Athletics) Dafne Schippers (NL). Not very surprising as she’s been suffering from back trouble for years.

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

Qualifiers comparison
Country Projected Qualifiers Qualifiers  Romania 10 11 Netherlands 10 10 Australia 9 9 Great Britain 9 9 USA 9 8 New Zealand 5 8 Ireland 7 6 Germany 4 6 China 4 5 Italy 4 5 Spain 4 4 Switzerland 4 4 Lithuania 3 4 France 4 3 Croatia 2 3 Norway 1 3 Greece 5 2 Canada 1 2 Czechia 1 2 Denmark 3 1 Poland 2 1 Serbia 2 1 Austria 1 1 Bulgaria 1 1 Chile  1 1 Japan 1 1 AIN (BELARUS) 1              1* Mexico 0 1 South Africa 0 1 Belgium 2 0 Estonia 1 0 Moldova 1 0 Ukraine 1 0 Uzbekistan 1 0  
As mentioned above the only big country level misses were New Zealand who significantly outperformed their world cup form and Greece who significantly under performed. The only other countries to be more than one away from what I projected were Germany who had a very good champs by their recent standards, Norway who had a couple of surprise qualifiers and Belgium/ Denmark who both underperformed by multiple boats. This could possibly end up playing in their favour with continental qualifiers though of course.

For the top teams, this event is pretty much useless, as they’ll qualify anyways. Why doesn’t FIVB award five quotas through World Rankings, then do an OQT for the remaining six spots.