thiago_simoes

I still don't understand how Rafaela Silva was stripped of the gold medal, but still was allowed to compete (and earned a team bronze medal) at the Judo World Championships.

The following results only take into account medals earned from 2010 to 2019, of course. 1) Arhur Zanetti (artistic gymnastics) - world champion, Olympic champion, Olympic silver medal, 2-time Pan American Games champion 2) Cesar Cielo (swimming) - 1 Olympic bronze medal, 9-time world champion, 4-time Pan American Games champion 3) Isaquias Queiroz (canoe sprint) - 3 Olympic medals, 6-time world champion, 3-time Pan American Games champion 4) Mayra Aguiar (judo) - 2 Olympic bronze medals, 2-time world champion, Pan American Games champion 5) Ana Marcela Cunha (open water swimming) - 5-time world champion, Pan American Games champion 6) Arthur Nory (artistic gymnastics) - world champion, Olympic bronze medalist, Pan American Games champion 7) Ana Sátila (canoe slalom) - world champion, 3-time junior world champion, 3-time Pan American Games champion 8) Hugo Calderano (table tennis) - bronze at the World Tour Grand Finals, bronze at the Youth Olympics, 4-time Pan American Games champion 9) Marcus D'Almeida (archery) - silver at the World Cup, silver at the Youth Olympics, cadet world champion, 2-time Pan American Games medalist 10) Fernando Reis (weightlifting) - bronze medal at the junior world championships, 3-time Pan American Games champion (and he could also inherit a bronze medal from the 2018 World Championships if Rustam Djangabaev really gets disqualified) And a special mention to Brazil's rhythmic gymnastics group (gymnasts vary) - bronze at the World Cup, 6-time Pan American Games champions

This is a very personal list and of course I'll only focus on artistic and rhythmic gymnastics. Male sportsperson of the year: Carlos Yulo Female sportsperson of the year: Brooklyn Moors Team of the year: Chinese Taipei men's artistic gymnastics team Junior sportsman of the year (under 20 years old at 1/1/2019): Edvins Rodevics Junior sportswoman of the year (under 20 years old at 1/1/2019): Lala Kramarenko Greatest moment of the year: Arthur Mariano winning the gold medal at the World Championships Biggest idiot of the year: Brazil missing an Olympic quota in women's artistic gymnastics by choosing Flávia Saraiva to perform on floor. Had she not performed, Thais Fidelis would have qualified for the Olympics as well as Flávia. As it is, only Flávia qualified. Granted, Flávia finished fourth on floor and was robbed of a medal, but anyway she walked home empty-handed and we missed an Olympic quota for Thais.

I only care about artistic and rhythmic gymnastics, so here we go. Overall I think this was a satisfactory year. It could have been a lot better for us Brazilians. In men's artistic gymnastics Brazil had a good year with 4 gold medals at the Pan American Games and 1 gold medal at the World Championships. The men also earned a team berth at the Olympics. The women didn't do so well despite being trained by very expensive coaches. At the Pan American Games they "only" earned three bronze medals, and at the World Championships the women earned one single quota (in theory they can earn 2 more, but 1 of these will be nearly impossible to get). Our rhythmic group got 1 gold medal at the Pan American Games, but they had a disappointing performance at the World Championships. It will be tough to earn Olympic qualification. The biggest surprise this year was Bárbara Domingos who nearly qualified for the individual all-around final at the World Championships and could realistically become the first individual to qualify through her own merits for the Olympics.

I'm very outspoken about how I feel about the Winter Olympics, so honestly I don't care about any specific sport for inclusion. However, if they can add ski jumping (the most absurd sport in the world, in my opinion, even more so than things like kinball or canoe polo), they can add anything, really.

I believe there's a separate federation for Eisstock/Ice stock sport. Fun fact: Brazil won a silver medal at the 2014 Eisstock World Championships, and has been campaigning for the sport to join the Winter Olympics ever since. The Brazilian Volleyball Confederation also admitted snow volleyball as a discipline, and a Brazilian team won a medal at the 2018 World Cup circuit.

And ice hockey too. Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia and Mexico sent teams to the Pan American Ice Hockey Tournament when it existed. The US and Jamaica are also members of IIHF, so we can have 8 teams in the tournament pretty much like any team sport at the (Summer) Pan American Games.

That many athletes? I don't follow anything related to winter sports, but it's nice to see young people here in Brazil (or, actually, sons and daughters of Brazilians around the world) are successful in qualifying for the YOG. There's a push for winter sports in Brazil, though. A training arena for ice sports will be built in São Paulo, so maybe in 20-40 years Brazil can get a medal at the Winter Olympics.

I'm sure someone in Liechtenstein thinks the Summer Olympics are garbage and useless too.

Of idiots, it seems.

So, Jews can be victims but not Mexicans or Salvadorians? Do you have any idea how devoid of hope one must be in order to abandon his or her home, risk being killed, imprisoned, being separated from their families, put their lives on the hands of criminals only to cross the border and live in a new country? Can you imagine what kind of desperation would force people to do this? It could mean that they have no time left to patiently wait for their cry for help to be heard. If they wait, they can be murdered, evicted from their homes, their kids can join gangs and God knows what else could happen.

This is probably the worst thing I've read in a while. I feel ashamed for such lack of tact. How clueless and selfish can one be to completely disregard problems faced in Mexico and even play the victim and mention gas chambers?

If countries like Pakistan can qualify but not India, it's not the Games that needs to improve. It's India.

Panam Sports (Pan American Sports Organization): Male athlete of the Americas: Francisco Barretto Female athlete of the Americas: Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce

This is fantastic. I can't wait for the rants of people who were never going to watch this sport anyway, but feel outrageous by such a long distance between the host city and venue, even though they had never planned to travel there anyway.

Winners of Prêmio Brasil Olímpico 2019: Male athlete: Arthur Nory (artistic gymnastics) Female athlete: Beatriz Ferreira (boxing) Fan's choice: Hugo Calderano (table tennis) Lifetime award: Oscar Schmidt (basketball)

This sums it up: “We were asked to follow the SEA Games technical book, but now they want to change it to FIG rules. What's the point of the SEA Games handbook?" Now, when there's conflicting information, one of the documents has to be taken as the most important one. They used FIG rules for everything from dress code of the gymnasts to the points awarded for each event, but they chose not to follow the FIG regulations when a medal was unfairly awarded to a gymnast. Very poor decision and a blow to the reputation of this event.

Wait, what? FIG's rulebook states clearly that tiebreaking rules apply to all events. To me, this severely pushes back any appreciation I could have for this competition. I know it's a small competition focused on local gymnasts, many of which are not exactly world class, but the organizing committee was completely lost when dealing with this situation.

The only thing I expect from the IOC is to make it look like they are neutral athletes. If there's a team named "Olympic Athletes from Russia", then for all intents and purposes it will be Russia, except for the flag (which is not much of a loss) and the anthem. "Olympic Neutral Athletes" is much more of a slap on the face. However, I'm more inclined to believe that there will be the word Russia in the name of the team, so all of this is supposed to be a bad joke about a state-driven doping system, which I absolutely despise. Getting rid of the flag and the anthem is not enough punishment for a program that has lost any semblance of fair play.

Cruzeiro has some of the worst supporters among clubs in Brazil, so most of the country wanted it to be relegated to a lower division. I have to confess I was among them. I don't feel bad for the club at all.

Anyone watching the Miss Universe contest?

I remember when Mexico sent pictures of their male gymnasts to the Universiade and the pictures were of the same person with the gymnasts' head pasted on them.

I've been following the Thai Gymnastics Federation on Facebook for a while and they were super excited for the SEA Games. Now they are over the moon with the gold medal in rhythmic gymnastics. Many Thais seem to be excited with the gold medal as well, given their reaction on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. It's so nice to see rhythmic gymnastics being able to move fans and bring joy to a nation. Not may countries outside of Europe give proper credit to rhythmic gymnastics, unfortunately.

It's mesmerizing how big is the English-speaking community of fans of this sport event on Wikipedia. All the articles about the competitions are detailed and up to date. There's even a big article listing the concerns and controversies so far. For comparison, there are still a bunch of articles missing about the 2019 Pan American Games.