mpjmcevoy

Whcih World Games sports would I like to see cross over? Like many here, I love the tumbling and have a lot of time for the variations in Trampoline - sychro, Team and double Mini...but if I had to choose, Tumbling and Double mini look like events that could be added with relatively few extra quotas and still provide six to eight sessions of excellent sport I agree that I think Lacrosse sixes passed its audition, it works. I'm not sure flag football does/did - it'll be fun but even rugby sevens - which splits opinions - seemed more serious. Field Archery offers more than it provides; the biathlon style event does sound more like the alternative 'wild' event that some people might enjoy, though I could imagine an event that operated almost like golf, with 20 set targets, and twenty set marks to aim from, carrying your bow and arrows on your way, tv cameras at each 'hole', with a variety of elevations and distances, and scoring operating, as I say, almost like golf. I do think the olympics need some form of bowling sport. A amny broad families of sport should have some representation as possible, and bowls and bowling seems the one obvious missing link right now.

I was looking into something like his last year, though never bottomed stuff out entirely, but the evolution of the 'basket ball' sports family is intriguing, and seems to have less 'lore' than the evolution of the various football codes, evolving from mob football through the English public schools attempts to civilise the mob games, the adaptation of those sports in north America, and the invention of the forward pass, the split to rugby league, the parallel codification in Australia and Ireland of their "no offsides" variations up to the bizarre branch-over to the raquet sports world with teqball. In the Basket sports its much easier to pin down the early stages as Basketball was specifically 'invented' by James Naismith rather than evolved. The interesting thing though is the basic idea spread more quickly than naismith's specific rules. Most of the variations we know were being created in the late 1890's and 1900s within just a few years of naismith's orginal idea. Netball, famously, involved a misinterpretation of actual basketball rules by Ciara Baer (indeed, for much of its existance, the sport was also called 'women's basketball' before acknowledging women might actually play the original sport and changing to netball exclusively!). Its defining traits of zones, no dribbling, reduced contact led to its adoption and adaptation in girls schools thanks to a swedish pedagogue and proto-feminist Bergman Österberg - between them, Baer and Osterberg invented netball. Osterberg is then thought to have brought a version of the gam back to her native Sweden, where it quickly evolved into 'Ringboll' - the 'o' is important so bear with it; and it was here that it evolved from a girls sport to a mixed sex team sport. ringboll had no international presence, and wasn't pushed in an organised way. but a Dutch teacher called Nico Broekhuysen went to Sweden, ostensibly to study Swedish Gymnastics, and came upon the game, and really liked it, particularly the mixed sex aspect. Nico brought the basic idea back to the Netherlands, tweaked the rules, and invented korfball in a more organised way than ringboll - so yes, Korfball is a direct descendent of Basketball, via early commonwealth netball and ringboll. 'Dutch' Korfball (simply meaning, of course, 'basketball' in Dutch') Of course, the story has one more twist, as Korfball's popularity in the netherlands led to its swift adoption in South Africa - but on a much bigger playng scale, removing the mixed sex element and being, shall we say, a bit rougher. "South African Korfball", finding itself in a slightly similar situation as Netball in terms of nomenclature, changed its name relative recently, to Ringball ('a', not 'o' - told you watch that)

Tend to agree. Expansion of format is something you do from a solid base, not to try and create that base.

Personally, I think getting private companies to pay millions to keep the naming rights to venues they've already paid millions to get naming rights for, despite the fact that, if they didn't pay these exrta naming rights, most locals would still call the stadium by the naming rights name (e.g. the O2 during 2012, the SoFi in 2028) is absolute genius. The idea that Olympic will be sullied by visible commercialism - when the entire damn enterprise is a vastly commercial, vastly capitalist org and has been for decades - simply shows some people buy the Kool AId that the Olympic movement sells from its unbranded but fully sponsored Kool-Aid Kiosk

Its defo the same format. Olympic Games, from World Lacrosse website World Games

You wouldn't bring no substitutes at all in a team sport.

It's a bit like rugby sevens - team 6, squad 11, much as sevens is team 7, squad 12

I thought they were both using Sixes

5th place, highest ranked European Team for the women, seem well set for continental place if Lacross goes that route, and pretty well set for plain ranking place in any event - with US as host, the top (next) four covering four continents is handy for IOC purposes - unlikely any African team will be close to competitive, so may very well end up with the sixth spot open to the other two Europeans who are also high up in the rankngs.

GB historically are actually pretty strong at the non-Olympic gymnastics disciplines (though not the one with the hint of cheerleading) - probably precisely because they aren't Olympic.

Men's yes, but not women;s.

Sets up an interesting Commies 200 free...

Duncan Scott is a relay cheat code. Big takeaway, apart from astonihing GBR consistency generally, is Jack McMillan is now firmly embedded in the group of 5 first teamers, whereas previously it was a big 4 plus odds and ends.

I imagine Australia, South Africa, England/GB and India - particularly India - will be very glad to hear that. Wonder if broadly similar rules might then apply to Flagfootball, Lacrosse and Baseball/Softballl - GB would be very well set in Lacrosse Sixes to take Euro spot, and an outside shot at Women's flag football.

Third string is probably generous. Hard to overplay how much the GBR people don't seem to care about the World Student Games.

Don't overlook Oscar Bilbao either. That said, Peaty was a bit of a late bloomer in junior swimming terms - he really did arrive from just about nowhere in 2014, with little in the way of a junior pedigree, fully formed at the age of 20 - compare by contrast the long and glorious junior careers of James guy, duncan Scott, tom dean and Freya Anderson, for example. So the fact these lads are faster than Peaty was at 18 is not really as impressive as it sounds - lots of people were. Next year will tell a tale, i suppose - the euro-commies double will be the answer. The other things is the two medley relays are going to be partly out of his hands - Oli Morgan has had an average to poor week in what was supposed to be his breakout champs, so the idea he is 'the answer' at backstroke is no longer a given, and the classic British weakness at butterfly remains a problem. But, still, Ah, but a man's reach should exceed his grasp, or what's a heaven for?

According to the CEO of EWCB today, the intention on the men's side is to have continental playoffs on this occasion, but with a mind to expanding cricket in Brisbane 32, and possible India 36, by which stage it might be entrenched. The idea apparently is to give priority to full members because the tournament is so small, and to have USA as host + 1 from each Olympic continent, decided by playoffs between full members. Which would mean a mini Asian Tournament, a mini West Indies Tournament, and three one off playoffs - GBR v IRL, AUS v NZL and RSA v ZIM. It's also possible USA could lose the host spot, and in that case, word is there will be something of a repechage for the three beaten playoff teams, the runner up in West Indies and the 2nd and 3rd from Asia - but only if USA is stripped, which is unlikely given they have proven ok at the format.

Highest rank for those continents almost certainly guarantees spots for South Africa and GB, probably for India and australia although they have closer rivals, and creates a pretty savage final qualifier which would probably contain New Zealand, Pakistan, Ireland, Zimbabwe, a West Indies constituent team, eg Jamiaca, Guyana, Barbados or Trinidad (the 'next best teams' in each of the five continents), plus three others, probably all asian, based purely on rankings - Sri Lanka, Bangla and Afghanistan - a to poo qualifer could be done in a week, and would probably be a popular tournament for a host (quite possibly England)

It's quite aggrevating how GB have abandoned their wonderful hopelessness in a series of sports for which GB has no traditions - a European Fencing medal a few weeks back, a win in the World Championship Water polo, the Artistic swimmers in Paris, a series of very decent weightlifters- no respect for traditions at all - Rrally, all our chips are now in wrestling, handball and vplleyball, where we seem to remain reassuringly awful.

U23 is a funny meet, still not entirely found its niche, but it was a fun couple fo days for all that, with Popovici obviously the highlight. Different nations give it different meaning, so its hard to really gauge, unlike the Juniors. For many countries, these swimmers are the fringe cast, with World Champs U23 withheld.

12 x 2 might have been preferable to 8 x 3 - if mixed and compound mixed can do pairs, no real reason why men and women's team can't - the twelve men's and women's quotas sliced off then go to the compound pairs, and while you have 12 less archers in the recurve individual, you have the same number of nations as the last time (12+28) If its going to be 8x3, that's a pretty short slightly uninteresting competition, unless you mess arond and create/add a bronze medal repechage (i.e four beaten quarter finalists play off to meet the two beaten semi finalists before the bronze match)

They are, without question, the blue riband events in the sport . That you seem not to know that suggests your expertise in the area is limited, and your advice unlikely to be useful.

Nor Seve, Nor Faldo, No Phil Watson, like Faldo was one of those who ran up good numbers in certain majors without coming close in one of them - he had one 5th in the PGA, and that was it - but absolutely bossed the Open - 5 wis in 9 years

Age can be funny like that, especially in cycling - you chunder along for years and years, well into your mid or even late 30's...and then bang, the legs and lungs just go and you're peddling squares all day. Not sure Roglic is QUITE at that point, but he looks very below where he was even 12 months ago. You can beat time for so long, but when you start losing, you can get spat out the back very quickly...

Eight is going nowhere - it's a totemic event in the sport, essentially the blue riband, new nations notwithstanding. Lightweights are gone.