mpjmcevoy

Clever. Reminds me of the Miami Open Tennis in the Hard Rock. more hosts should think on this line.

Pool B's not that easy to predict. Ireland are world number one for a reason. I'd say the Boks are slight favourite. but only slight.

There are about 1.4 billion Indians - that's 3 full europes -, more than china, a majority of which are fanatical about one non-Olympic sport - and I mean fanatical (my sister in laws family are of indian extraction, it's fabulous). Pakistan and Bangladesh are also huge, and cricket crazy. Pakistan and Indian Olympic interest historically was pretty much limited to hockey. The BCCI will be sniffy about Olympic cricket because they won't control it, and can't make mega bucks off it - but the general - and huge - indian public will eat that shit up, day and daily. There are fanatical baseball nations, but nothing like the IOC gamechanger that cricket is because it cracks that near last frontier - while tying in big Olympic standard nations like GBR, AUS, RSA and JAM - If you think about it, there's one major member in each continent, the international sport is the front face of the sport.

Agree. ICC are in the FIFA situation here. Remember there would also be a woman's tournament, and I don't think ICC would mind their women's tournament's being slightly overshadowed, because Olympics would put rocket boosters under the women's game. I think it would be very short sighted for ICC to reject as MLB did - An Olympics for cricket breaks open new huge territories - China and Japan, the Gulf, Continental Europe, USA, where millions will watch ANYTHING olympic. There are signs of the globalisation working in rugby sevens already, and it certainly worked in women's football, and to an extent women's basketball. If ICC wish to protect their own products, all they need is to settle on a strong narrative about what differentiates the tournaments, and play to it - which, largely will be numbers and global spread - a 16+ team CWC or T20WC will always have a very different dynamic and justification to a tight 'Champions trophy' style Olympic competition,

Can't agree with that (though I can see why you would want it!) Oceania 1, Africa 1, Europe 1, Pan America 1 kind of sells itself Hosts is obvious. I hesitate at World Champs, only because you might have a situation were RSA are world champs, and then you're talking Zimbabwe having a better shot than Pakistan or New Zealand, and that's not realistic. That no longer there world champ spot now goes to Asia to recognise it has 5 'Full members' - so Asia 1+2, Host, Oceania 1, Africa 1, Europe 1, Pan American 1 leaves one last qualifier(or 2 if host is Aus, Ind etc) - which would be a MAJOR tournament in itself It's a 10 teamer - PanAmerica 2+3, Europe 2 + 3, Africa 2+3, Oceania 2+3, Asia 3 + 4 Effectively this might boil down to Sri Lanka + Bangladesh + Trinidad + New Zealand + Guyana + PNG + Ireland + Netherlands + Zimbabwe + Namibia... For a golden ticket to the Olympics, that's a qualifier sells itself. If we start with 2 groups of 5, top 6 go to QF (top of group teams get bye to semi, #2 and #3 to QF) You could very well have a final knock out of Trinidad v Bangladesh, winner to play New Zealand, and Zimbabwe v Ireland, winner to play Sri Lanka, winner takes all. I'd say that might sell in and of itself.

England will become GBR, which stymies Scotland The West Indies breaks into its islands, and normally there's one place kept aside for them. 2 Slots to Oceania is generous. ! sot and 1 final qualifier would be more likely

Interesting event, politically. Can be viewed as analogous to a Para World Military Games (I'd avoid 'World Paramilitary Games' for fear of Hezbollah rocking up) See also Shooting Parasport (rather than parashooting...) but unashamedly represents one bloc.

Gracenotes numbers are always....unreflective of the actuality.

That's such a fabulous story, though - a genuine leader, there.

Welll, I'd call it a Féis, or maybe a Fleadh but yeah, basically

Be great. Imagine following the qualifications in the Flute! Men's solo Women's solo Men's solo picollo Women's solo picollo Men's pair Men's uneven pair (big flute and a picollo).... Women's pair Women's uneven pair Mixed trio... And then the violins... All the dance sport addicts could go there, along with the Rhythmic gymnasts and the artistic swimming I might rock u for Ireland in the Sprint Pottery And finally, the Eurovision song contest, but global... "and now, the votes of the Nepalese jury... Djibouti, 1 point. Djiboutie une point, " It will be magic.

Hell, bring back the Cotswald and Tailteann Games while we're about it.

Does anyone have any idea what Jumbo is doing?

The Olympics also used to be all men in the nude, and religious. Shit changes. today, it's specifically a sports event, and about sport, and the value of sport. Would there be something to be said for similar Games involving art, dance, music? absolutely - and recall, the Olympics was only one of four ancient Hellenic Games (and I don't even think that includes the women's Herean Games) - why not 'resurrect' another ancient Hellenic Games specifically for the arts?

My only problem with sports climbing is there's not enough 'splitting' of the events - it absolutely belongs. I find the park skateboarding fun as a kind of BMX Freestyle on foot i do not see the point in 'artistic' surfing as a 'sport; for the life of me - I'm sure it's amazing to do - so's bunjee jumping but it ain't sport. Yet.

Tham did really well, 172 kg total, 19th overall - easily top of the D group, beat out the bulk of the C group, and took several B group scalps.

I would be sorry to see it go, although it's 'niche' is now filled adequately by Triathlon in my opinion. Losing the equestrian bit rather removes its reason for existing in my view, but a sport in which sheer bad luck, and a **** of a horse, can have such a devastating part seems like a sport that speaks to life in a way other pursuits that always reward "the best", don't.

The thing with three weeks is you could 'reuse' venues as well as the athletes village - especially for sports that are clearly 'connected' - I could imagine three weeks would allow a good even spread of wrestling freestyle, greco roman and judo, for example, or muay Thai, karate and taekwondo, reusing the same spaces again and again rather than new builds.

I think there IS a space for local niche sports (there was even a Gaelic football Olympic tournament way back I think) but they should be recognised for what they are - demonstration sports. I could live with Gridiron being represented with a one off USA-Canada exhibition - as a demonstration sport. Personally, if you want in the actual Games, you should take the World Games route and test your offering. The Olympics will always make exceptions for 'major' sports that happen not to be on the program - tennis, golf and cricket don't have to use the World Games route. I could with the French showing off boules, or the Australians AFL, or even the Americans gridiron, as long as they were honest bout what they were doing.

If the ICC and BCCI play ball, cricket, once in, will go nowhere. Baseball was entirely scuppered by MLB in its routine lack of interest in growing the sport. There is no guarantee ICC or BCCI will playball, but it would be sensible if they did. The Olympics may very well be cricket's entry door to China and the US

There was talk a while back of a THREE week Olympics, that would be possible because athletes would no longer stay in the village the whole time, but would move out as their sports concluded - apparently there would be 'mini' closing ceremonies each weekend to allow departing athletes a big last night, and Swimming, Gymnastics and Athletics would be used as the week long 'tent-poles', with swimming overlapping with gymnastics on the second weekend, and gymnastics overlapping with athletics on the third. The idea seemed to be that there were massive cost savings to be made in having an athletes village of about 7000 - even if you had to fill, empty and refill the village twice.

If you get cricket in in'28, it vastly increases the chances of India bidding for - and getting - a 36 Olympics - and indeed South Africa getting a 40 Olympics - and if cricket is in 28, 32, 36 and 40, you're never getting rid of it, except possibly in a swap with baseball in those hosts who much favour the baseball.

Cricket is incredibly easy to follow. The JARGON is complex. The game is simple. Bat and ball / 'safe haven' game two teams of 11, substitutes can field, but not bat or bowl. large oblongish field of play, in the middle a strip and two targets at either end. A player in the fielding team 'bowls' 6 balls at a time toward a target (wicket), alternating each end, with a specialist 'catcher' behind the target at all times. all eleven of the fielding team are on the pitch. There are two batters at any one time, the striker and the non-striker. They score by hitting the ball, and running between the targets before the ball is returned to the target, each cross over is one 'run', you can get extra runs for getting the ball over the boundary rope, with (4) or without (6) bounces. Both must run to score unless a boundary is scored. Runs are also awarded for foul balls You can get a batter out if you strike the target when he bowls (or the batter does), your team catch the ball after striker hits it and before it bounces, you hit the target before a running batsman has got back in time (run out), you hit the target if a batsman 'wanders' out of his safe haven (stumping) immediately after a ball is bowled, or on some occasions if the ball hits the batters leg, and the leg is in the way of the target (LBW) There are also a small number of ways to be out for basically obstruction, but they are rare. Batsman bat one after another in one big turn until the batting side no longer has two batsmen not out to run - at that stage the team is 'all out', and batting and field team swap places, and the 'new' batting side tries to beat the score of the first side. Bowling can be done in a variety of ways, with the key that ball should be released before a foot crosses a certain line, ball should hit the ground on the way, and ball should be released with an unbent elbow - as such, the ball is 'bowled' not 'pitched' In a 'limited overs' game, the batting team has a maximum number of balls (usually calculated in batches of 6 called 'overs', because that's when the fielding side switch over and bowl from the other end - so 120 balls is 20 overs) and once they've used them up, even if they have men left to bat, the batting teams turn (innings) is over. And that is basically it - everything else is nuance and jargon, not needed to understand the game, only certain commentators Key difference is - Baseball is a pitchers game, scores are low, and the key gamechanging moments therefore belong, largely, to the batter (generally, you get a bigger cheer for a home run than a strike out) - Cricket is a batters game, scores are high, and the key gamechanging moments therefore belong, largely, to the fielder (generally, you get a bigger cheer for a wicket than a four)

Archery was one of the first events in the Olympics - which of higher, faster, stronger is it? I agree the subjectivity and arbitrariness of Breaking is a bad look - it is not Olympics ready, in my honest opinion. The gymnastics set have tried hard to move toward a code of points that has a focus on objective criteria - there's no reason skateboard and BMX freestyle cannot follow suit. Surf is in the same place as breaking - not ready, not sufficiently objective. I have no comment to make on dancing horses as sport.

Hard Agree. There is an established full contact small sided version of gridiron, Arena Football. That could 'maybe' be justified if there was sufficient international interest. but flag? If World Rugby had suggested adding 'touch rugby' instead of sevens, they'd have been mocked forever.