dcro

I remember well that match from 2012. Barbora was actually leading our player 3:0 in sets, but our girl made a huge turnover.

This weekend really represents the climax of Olympic qualification. Apart from this test event we also have: Boxing European qualification Fencing American qualification Fencing European qualification Table tennis Asian qualification Table tennis European qualification Taekwondo Asian qualification Weightlifting Europeans Wrestling European qualification +Asian judo championships where a lot of ranking points will be given.

Looks like they (Lizatović and Žugaj) are being "saved" for the tournament in Mongolia next week.

I'm afraid that it will be Čilić whatever happens. They are big friends after all...

Women's trap qualifications are currently in progress. We have an interesting Guamese shooter, she hit 1/25 targets in both of the first two series. 2/50

Robbery! (joking)

Fucecchio, Italy Men's 10000m Olivier Irabaruta - 27:55.92 Already 6th Burundian athlete to qualify! They will have a very impressive team for their standards, they never had more than 7 athletes.

Well, it's not really a question of buying. Olympics are simply becoming Chinese championships (especially women's division). None of the other Olympic sports is as one-sided as table tennis, in terms of nations good enough to win. Sure that most of these Chinese players weren't bought... But everything has a limit for a "good taste", even something like this.

Timor-Leste has the 4th seed in women's -49. We can already know how serious some seedings are.

Didn't see anything, but according to comments here we lost the quota in quite a stupid way. Typical.

I'm sure they will be against the Armenians A.K.A. the Masons.

Ah, yes. Such stories make the Olympic spirit for me though.

Neshamba is the girl that took them to Olympics, as she scored both of the goals against Cameroon. But one has to be a fan of such team. I can already see that they will be candidates for some Olympic spirit award.

Maybe also a tripartite in boxing, they competed at Asian/Oceanian qualifications.

Even though Zimbabwe failed to qualify for the last five African championships I think they are better than people think. It's not easy to be so lucky in a home and away match against Cameroon, and Cameroon is not THAT bad. Though, Germany - Zimbabwe will be highlight for me on day -2. As I said I will be a big supporter of Zimbabwe team.

Oh, looks like I missed that part.

Yes, it is about a horribly unfair qualification system whose main victim are deserving athletes.

Half of the total qualified athletes so far in women's table tennis are Chinese women (or women of Chinese origin)...

Tonga is doing a good job, possibly on the road for their biggest team ever. They already have 3 athletes (without swimming and athletics). Their record is 7 (from their first Olympics in 1984). In 2008 and 2012 they had only 3.

Easy to make comments when Canada is literally guaranteed two table tennis quotas for every single Olympics (like host nation). This is a joke really. When athletes/nations are not bothering to enter OQTs because they are guaranteed a qualification at the final chance rankings than that's a clear sign that qualification system is absolutely unfair and horrible. ITTF actually managed do an even bigger bullshit than replacing doubles with team competition at the Olympics (team competition is in my opinion complete waste of quotas). Well, at least Lebanon qualified a woman today. That's like the only good thing that happened today.

Uzbekistani girl was a complete idiot to drop that kind of a win. So much about new nations in table tennis...

If anything, Italy is in a much better position to "bribe" judges than Armenia. No point in claiming that AIBA mafia is targetting Italy with Armenians and Fetahović...

This tournament is becoming really irrelevant for us. Gaćina is 100% qualified for Rio (not 99.9%, 100%), completely irregardless of what he does here. He is 19th in the World ranking. Others, well, they need a miracle basically. Rakovac ruined everything today. Yesterday she defeated one of the good players from Portugal, but today she lost to Greece (!!). Greece is good in men's table tennis, but their women's team is quite weak to say the least. Tan also lost to a player who probably doesn't have a chance here. Though Tan might have a chance in rankings, at least... Qualification system was much better back in 2012 when the rankings were established before continental qualifications. This time the best players will qualify through continental tournaments while those 2nd tier players will qualify through rankings... 3rd tier players don't have a chance to beat top players at QTs or to qualify via rankings. Ranking qualification is always bad for the teams with limited resources...

Rowing Single Sculls -1 -1 +1 +1

Armenia is being helped in a tournament that is being held in TURKEY (of all places)?? Well, that would be something for the history books. I think that would mean the end of the World. It's a bit silly to say that some matches were robberies based on results only. An Armenian user could also say: "Cappai won even though he was not a favourite, that's a robbery!".