mpjmcevoy

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.

Put the bong down, mate.

Squash is probably the single most obvious sport whose absence is nigh on inexplicable. It doesn't have the reach of tennis obviously, but is probably comparable to any other racket sport in terms of global interest - certainly 5 continents (Egypt, Pakistan, Britain, United States (or at least variants), Australia), venue is an easy relatively build, governing body will bend over backwards to get entry, top players want to be there. I genuinely wonder is there someone high up in the IOC who has a personal grudge against the sport - did so frat boy squash player flirt with Bach's wife or something. There are other sports I'd love to see more in the Games (and a few I'd bin), but it just seems such an obviously Olympic sport. I think Baseball can be justified, especially given it's the US, and leave cricket to 32 in Brisbane. I cannot for the life of me see a justification for flag football - and I say that as a lifelong NFL fan who liked Arena football. There simply is not the reach - it would be like putting Aussie Rules flag football, or Gaelic Football or Hurling or shinty nines in the thing - some sports are just very location specific, and the Olympics aren't the place for them.

Problem is soccer is a HUGE moneymaker for the LOC, and basketball coins it in quite well (though not to the same degree). If India host a Games, cricket will be in it - for exactly the same reason. So if we reluctantly accept we have to let soccer and basketball slide, could we create a system with fewer teams for the team sports, but with qualification tournaments - be they the Continental Games or otherwise - that are an experience in themselves? It does feel like 8 teams is the sensible lower number of teams for a Games, with a 'default' qualification system of Americas 1 Africa 1 Asia 1 Europe 1 Oceania 1 + Host + World Champ + final qualification tournament winner. There may be some sports (handball?) where an Africa/Oceania group would realistically suffice, but Hockey, I think could survive on that scale - ARG - RSA - IND - GER - AUS - USA - NED - NZL/PAK/KOR/GBR?

Big result for Caden, who looks to be on a charge for a spot. Rebecca cannot be that far behind Bianca Cook either. Big loser this weekend may be Lauren Williams, if GB fillup the four quotas on rankings.

Exactly - it's also why the men's tournament is so relatively big compared to other team sports - 16 full squads- because it really pays its way. all joking aside, many Olympic bids depend on the money the football generates - maybe averaging 35,000 a Game (it was more in London) over a 32 Game tournament (24 group, 8 knockout and medal); even if the average ticket were only 25£ (and we know its much more than that in reality) that's still well over 25£M revenue, with pretty limited venue costs. I do wonder if LA might not have something similar with Baseball, really go for it in terms of revenue generation

If cricket and baseball rotated beginning LA 28 baseball, Brisbane 32 Cricket, India might be able to line up a 2040 Games bid, knowing they'll have cricket, and the humongous money making crowds such a tournament would bring.

Personally, I've long believed that baseball/softball and cricket should be rotated. Neither needs the Olympics every four years, but each would like to be Olympic sports, both represent a particular family of sports - bat-and-ball, or 'safe haven' sports (along with GAA rounders and a few others). To me, the obvious solution is to put them in rotation - the Olympics becomes a genuine once in a life time opportunity, and hosts can bid knowing which Games suits them - So if LA did baseball, and Brisbane did Cricket, the 36 bidder would know it was baseball again, and an India or South Africa might wait until 40 for cricket again. Everyone's a winner.

In a television games world, it should not be so hard to find one-off pre-existing venues if a proposed host struggles, even outside the country. Whether Athens should ever have gotten the Games on what was a romantic basis is another matter. We are at the point where every continent, and several countries, has every facility it would ever need to host an Olympics. All it needs is the Athletes village, which should be designed with resale/lease/reuse to recoup building costs in mind.

Once upon a time, Melbourne hosted its equestrian events in Stockholm. Next year, Paris will host its surfing events in the Pacific. If LA doesn't have a suitable venue, it should have said so - but I would be as certain as is humanly possible that somewhere could host the rowing Olympic regatta on LA's behalf

She was very, very impressive - left a lot of finalist quality athletes in the dust. Do wonder if her strength from 1500 might be the best antidote to Moraas sprint speed and construction - just put the hammer down after 300 metres and don't stop. The big three are all 400-800 style runners, Mary extremely so. Of that top group (the Big Three, Rogers and Reekie) only Reekie is more of an 800-1500, but she's only getting her bearings back.

Basketball has something like this too, I think, a place reserved for an emerging nation.

For example (yes, it's a pet subject) - it's farcical that the golfers can't get a few more events with exactly zero extra quotas required. A men's and women's four ball, and a mixed foresomes, seeded on the individual stroke play result, with the top eight teams playing a speed-matchplay format (9 holes, 2 points a hole, 10 points the winning line , 9-9 ties broken with one club nearest the pin on 10th). You are talking a max extra 54 holes per player if they play BOTH foursomes and fourballs, three more events, and golf gets to showcase its other major format, matchplay.

A lot of purists will disagree, but removing the medal ceremonies from the main stadium has proven a brilliant idea. Those countries who want to show them absolutely can, but the flow of the event is significantly better for not stopping constantly for 49 anthems. This was a noticeably 'tight' championships - and seems to have hit a good sweet spot with a lot of casual fans too. Coe has said that this 'experiment' has ensured that ceremonies will probably never be in the main stadium again for a World or Europeans (though probably will stay for Olympics). They will now always be separate, and countries who want to see them - i.e. the medalists countries - still can. Femke's fall and redemption have, perversely, really helped make the mixed 4x4 feel like an important event for the first time. The racing, largely, has been fantastic, with genuine uncertainty in most events. All in all solid 8.5-9 out of 10

Have long believed that the IOC and IFs should be looking at 'bang for your buck' on quotas. As far as possible have as much qualification razzamataz as possible, and as many events as possible without dropping quotas and changes. The mixed archery pairs and mixed relay triathlon being a pretty good example. No extra quotas, no lost chances, extra event with its own rhythm. And another day of venue tickets if that's a good money raiser. I think the ICF have done a pretty solid job on that front, whatever you think of KayakX, it's another chance on the big water with no quotas really wasted. you could push for a slalom relay (really a slalom aggregate), or try and find the quotas to get one Canoe marathon event in, but IOC should be more generous on events if the IF can think of clever ways to use their quotas

Are the quotas athlete specific?

England/GB have this bizarre thing were they can't seem to have a good men's team and women's team at the same time. Men clearly on the up = women clearly on the down...

It's weird. There are certain sports GBR - not many, GBR is notable for having lots of fingers in lots of pies - has just not got any weight in - Canoe sprint is among the hardest to understand, especially given the line of sprint canoeists they had for a while, from Brabants through to Heath. The Slalom squad are pretty good, and have been for over a decade. The Paracanoe guys are excellent. and yet... Other sports where the GB failure to 'matter' confuses me include Basketball, which thrives at grassroots level but nothing much at elite. Sports where I am not confused include wrestling, water polo, rhythmic gymnastics and shooting.

The fact so many of the top ranked pentathletes have already secured a quota does rather reduce the jeopardy in terms both of the two world champs and the rankings quotas

That's a good thing. He's actually had a really bitty season, pulling up a few times with achilles tendonitis - to get himself in world silver, European record shape is little short of a miracle, but there was a gold chance here that might not be there in Paris. That said, if he can do this off bits, he might go into Paris in very good heart.

Wightman made a point in the studio (and I get the feeling the two (Jakob and Wightman) don't get on, btw): Without a pacemaker in the race, Jakob is stuck not only taking the wind, but having to do all the thinking, and he struggles with that.