thiago_simoes

Oh. My. God. This only proves my point: like I said before, it is the Olympic Games for the Northern hemisphere with Australia and New Zealand as glorified guests. In fact, the very first edition of the Winter Olympics in 1924 had no nations from Asia, Oceania, Africa and South America. Now, the Olympic movement aims for integration of all nations (not only nations from Europe). Considering this very important piece of information, the whole idea of winter sports being contested as part of the Olympic Games is a huge fallacy, in my opinion. The Olympic Games are supposed to integrate the whole globe, and the Winter Olympics look like a big, well-sustained and shameless lie, if you ask me. How can you seriously consider integration when 1 billion people from Africa, for example, are excluded when it comes to the Winter Olympics, for very obvious reasons? Not to mention large chunks of South America, Asia and Oceania. In my opinion, in order to keep things interesting for countries all around the globe, we need new ways to expand the program and give fair chances to other nations. As it is, you can call the event "international festival" or whatever you want, but when it comes to providing integration -- a very important point of the whole idea behind the Olympic Games -- it falls short. Why call it Olympics, then?

Sure, I know. Winter time in Rio is like summer time in a number of countries. Maybe some indoor sport, I guess? I know this sounds weird, maybe ridiculous, but take handball or volleyball for example: does it really matter if it's summer or winter when the sport is being contested? They play it indoors, so the weather makes no difference at all. Why do these sports have to be contested at the Summer Olympics, though? But I now this sounds crazy for some people, so I will not take this any further. And I don't really follow winter sports, but I'm sure that there must be something, anything, that does not heavily rely on ice or snow. If all winter sports have to depend on ice or snow, a lot of nations would be excluded, and isn't it the purpose of the Olympic Games to integrate people from all over the planet?

So is modern pentathlon, and we all know no one wants it on the Olympic program. I was kind of joking when I said there should be no Winter Olympics (though I would not miss the event, really). I know it is important to have a dedicated event for winter sports. I'm just worried about how accessible these sports are to the rest of the world. Winter season in Brazil is not the same as winter season in Norway; though it sometimes snows in some cities in Brazil during winter, it's not like we'll be ready to host cross country skiing competitions anytime this millenium. Either the program should add sports that can be practiced in tropical nations during winter as well, or it will forever be the Olympic Games for the Northern hemisphere (with Australia and New Zealand as glorified guests).

In my opinion, these are ridiculous looking sports as well. I like rhythmic gymnastics, but I know it looks tacky as hell, especially when gymnasts from Spain perform their routines. The Summer Olympics program could seriously be reduced to make things more interesting. I mean, who on their right mind could say synchro swimming, trampolining and rhythmic gymnastics add anything to the program? Same old countries winning medals, boring routines that no one understands... I'd rather have extended team events in artistic gymnastics (team vault, team floor exercise, team pommel horse, and so on) than watching synchro swimming or trampolining, to be honest. And as a gay man, even I have to say wrestling has nothing exciting about it (take this comment any way you wish ). As for the Winter Olympics, it might be nice for people who grew up watching these events and have people from their countries fighting for medals, but as a Brazilian the only reason I have to watch the Winter Olympics is entertainment. And there's no way I find ski jumping entertaining, for example. Just a bunch of people doing the same thing over and over again with almost impossible to notice differences. To make things worse, they are awarded a score. What the hell? Makes no sense at all for someone who watches it only for entertainment. Sometimes I think some sports were only added to the Winter Olympics program because they absolutely had to add something or the program would be "empty".

Yes, this is a big problem for people who do not live in Japan, China, Europe or North America. I mean, some sports are nice to watch, but other sports just look stupid. Take luge, skeleton, moguls and ski jumping, for example. I wonder why they added such ridiculous looking things to the Olympic program. Curling also looks very weird at first, though I admit it is nice to watch once you understand what's going on (although it takes too long to finish a match, which eventually gets boring anyway). Not to mention that Figure Skating is too hard for anyone to really understand how scores are calculated, and there are always accusations of unfairness and bribed judges, which is everything the Olympics should not deal with. The same thing can be said about rhythmic gymnastics, I know. Adding new sports to the program would hardly make things more exciting, in my opinion. Bandy? Nope. Ice stock sport? This would be great for Brazil (only winter sport in which Brazil has won a medal at the World Championships), but no. We have curling already. Winter triathlon? This sounds weird. Mountain biking on snow is just something out of nightmares, in my opinion. As it is, there is very little I enjoy watching, and I could seriously live without the Winter Olympics.

None. Let's make another Summer Olympic Games and we're set.

Preview After a very boring year, here is hoping for 2018 to be better. Apart from the World Championships and the World/Challenge Cup stages, we will have lots of other international tournaments this year: South American Games, Commonwealth Games, Pan American Championships, Youth Olympic Games, Asian Championships, Mediterranean Games, European Championships and a lot of Grand Prix events. Russia is expected to dominate the sport once again, with Bulgaria, Israel and Belarus trailing right behind. Georgia and Italy also have some great individual gymnasts. Spain, Ukraine and Azerbaijan will need to improve their game after a slow year in 2017. The United States, Brazil, China and Hungary could achieve good results as well, but are mostly dark horses in international competition right now.

Preview On the women's side, Simone Biles (USA) will return to competition in time for the World Championships in late October, and she will be a very important asset for team USA since their performance at the last World Championships was not nearly as dominant as before. Larissa Iordache announced that she will not take part at the World Championships in order not to hurt her chances to qualify for the Olympics (there are some really stupid rules for olympic qualification in gymnastics). The top 3 nations at the team event will qualify for the Olympics, and there is a huge chance that the US, Russia and China will be the top 3 countries. Exciting new senior gymnasts this year are Gabby Perea (USA), Maile O’Keefe (USA), Emma Malabuyo (USA), Adeline Kenlin (USA), Ana Padurariu (CAN), Martina Dominici (ARG), Fabiane Valentin (BRA), Chen Yile (CHN), Li Qi (CHN), Denisa Golgota (ROU), Valeria Saifulina (RUS), Angelina Simakova (RUS), Varvara Zubova (RUS), Mana Oguchi (JPN), Ayaka Sakaguchi (JPN) and Nora Feher (HUN). Also worth noting is that Paraguay will finally have a senior gymnast in like forever (over 20 years, I guess), named Carla Torres. On the men's side, I do not know much, but I expect Japan to keep their unquestionable dominance, with China right after them. As on the women's side, the top 3 nations at the World Championships will qualify a full team for the Olympics. The third spot for the men's team event seems to be quite open at the moment. Russia, Great Britain, the United States, Germany and Ukraine could challenge for a medal. Brazil, Switzerland and the Netherlands are dark horses. Looking forward to Italy, France, Canada and Spain improving their program. In 2015, 2016 and 2017 we had huge surprises in individual events, so here is hoping for more surprises this year. I'm not familiar with new senior gymnasts, but on the men's side new seniors do not really challenge for medals internationally. Male gymnasts usually fight for medals only at their early twenties, while new seniors will be 18 this year.

I've been absent because I got pretty depressed after so many injuries. No Smith, no Downies, no McCusker, no Iordache, no Andrade, and then Ferrari and Hak-seon also got injured... Pretty depressing competition overall. Congratulations to the medal winners. This is all I'm saying. I just want to forget this championships has ever existed, to be honest.

So, does that mean that speaking (or not speaking) a language does not truly define one's nationality? Oh, I'm surprised. Who would have thought about this? About the US women, Raisman and Douglas only came back to competition in late 2015, In artistic gymnastics, countries have to qualify for the World Championships immediately before the Olympics. So, this means that both Raisman and Douglas took a long time off and had other girls to work their asses off while they did nothing. Then, magically, they decided to compete again and made the team. The poor girls who worked hard in 2014 got nothing. At least Williams is doing all her work herself.

Alexia Paganini qualified for Switzerland. She is a US based skater. Her native language is English and she speaks some German. I'm eagerly awaiting for @dcro to come back here and post about his dissatisfaction with Paganini for not speaking fluently Italian, French and Romansh, three languages that are also spoken in Switzerland.

This happens all the time. Don't blame Williams for only performing when it counts. The American women do this all the time in Artistic Gymnastics and I haven't seen anyone complaining about it.

No chance for Ice Stock Sport? It's the only winter sport in which Brazil has won a medal at the world championships, and the (low) media coverage it receives around here always mentions hopes for it to be part of the Olympics in the future.

I don't buy it either. Makes no sense, with all due respect to fans.

Nice. Winter sports athletes are virtually unknown here, unfortunately.

Man, this is crazy. Take Coline Devillard, for example. She scored 14.250 on vault today, which is I believe would not be enough for a medal at the World Championships (I think the bronze medal winner might score around 14.5-14.6). Should she stay home? No! Her vaults are good and she should go to Worlds. How can she improve her score? The quick and dirty way is performing more difficult vaults. But the thing is: forcing her to add more difficulty could cause a serious injury, so their ambition for medals could harm athletes and ultimately cause the entire gymnastics program to collapse if they keep being so strict.

So, has France set a minimum score for gymnasts to be chosen for the team or something like this? 14.9 is a huge score, maybe even enough for a medal at the World Championships. It's quite ambitious to set a score this high for any gymnast to be chosen for the team, especially when it comes from France, a country not known to be a powerhouse in artistic gymnastics.

Fifth place in my first-ever participation at a prediction contest. I'm glad with it!

The result is right and I believe this is very interesting. It's just the picture seems to be different. Funny thing is that small Asian teams always pull an upset. Maldives beat India in the final match of the 2008 South Asian Football Championships, which is a huge feat if you consider Maldives had a population of around 300,000 people at the time, while India had a population of 1,200,000,000 people.

If this video is correct, that does not seem to be the correct picture.

Every year I have high hopes that things are finally going to be different, but year after year the group competition is a mess. I mean, Italy had a nice routine, but a score this big? Close to 19? Massive overscore. This makes no sense. Bulgaria got the chop in 5 hoops despite presenting a wonderful routine. Then, judges were generous with Bulgaria in ropes and balls. No medal for Belarus? Unbelievable. No medal for Ukraine? Well, I think Ukraine was overhyped the whole year, so I'm okay with that. But, still, totally unexpected.

Japan deserved their bronze medal. Their execution is tight and even though they are too technical (instead of emotional like Italy or Belarus), their medal was deserved. The US is clearly being favored for a number of years now. Still, they have improved a lot. Not as much to deserve the scores they are given, though, Canada was severely underscored, in my opinion. I mean, they got 17 for one of their routines at the World Cup circuit, and now they got 13. Come on! They had some mistakes here and there, but 13 is too low.

Some of the scores today make no sense at all to me. As usual, Russia gets scores unbelievably high, while smaller countries like Estonia receive scores impossibly low.