thiago_simoes

Israel should never take part in these Games, but Palestine should be given a nod. Anyway, it's not that this is a super important competition, but it would still be nice for Palestine to be present in as many sport events as possible.

with gold in C&J! Wow!

The Slovenian gymnast competed for Russia a few years ago. She has always been among the top 8 Russians, so it's only natural she will qualify representing Slovenia (this year she won a bronze medal at the World Cup circuit and a silver medal at the Grand Prix circuit... She's fantastic). Serbia has no chance at all, unfortunately.

So Lebanon is not eligible? Bummer. I don't think the tripartite invitation would go to Europe, so I'm crossing out North Macedonia from this list. Sri Lanka will probably qualify instead, and one Arabic-speaking nation (Egypt) will qualify through the African Championships next year, so there's a bit of happiness for everybody.

Very poorly, unfortunately. Indeed. Among all nations, she is the one that deserves the invitation the most. Much improved over anything her country has shown in the past The Lebanese girl is not so far behind the Sri Lankan. Maybe we'll get to see an upset, who knows?

Random thoughts so far: 1) The tiaras worn by the Russians are tacky, overly pretentious and add nothing to their routines. 2) I'm not a fan of Ashram, but she deserved gold over Selezneva in hoop. But of course "weird" things always happen so Russians end up with the gold medal. 3) Israel in second so far in the team event is a big surprise. They still have their "weakest" performances to come with Telegina and Voronkov, but so does Italy with Maffei and Russo. Bulgaria and especially Belarus could benefit from this. Granted, Bulgaria has Vladinova to come (and she has been nothing but disappointing in the last few months) and Belarus has a team of three excellent gymnasts, so Belarus definitely has the edge over Italy in my opinion, provided they hit every single routine. But it will be close. 4) Griskenas ahead of Zeng? What? Griskenas even made it to a final! Very unexpected! 5) I am very surprised with Barbara Domingos from Brazil. 19.100 and 18.450 are huge scores for her level, and if she's lucky (like, extremely lucky) she could finish 24th and qualify for the final for the first time. Unlikely, but definitely not impossible at this point. 6) Angola, of all nations, has a competent gymnast: Luana Gomes. Nice to see their level has risen considerably. 7) Canadian competing for Sri Lanka, Anna-Marie Ondaatje, is doing pretty well. She is on the right track for the tripartite Olympic qualification. 8) Alissa Sadek from Lebanon is also posting very decent scores, and I honestly never heard about her. Is Lebanon even allowed to apply for a tripartite invitation? 9) There's an Egyptian gymnast also posting good scores. She's currently in 55th place, ahead of both Portuguese gymnasts, and Portugal invests considerable money in rhythmic gymnastics (they even hold one of the World Cup events), so it's surprising to see Egypt ahead of Portugal. 10) Even Australia now has a good gymnast sitting in 58th position! Rhythmics has truly become a global sport by now. I'm amazed!

Hard to say. In my opinion, she is really ill because her performance in Portimão was baffling (even though she won AA gold). But of course we can expect anything from Viner. Truth be told, she had no chance to reach the Olympics, and even her participation at the 2019 Worlds would have been nothing but a footnote for the Russian team. I don't think she would even be able to earn an individual medal. She should have gone the Vedeneeva route by choosing another country to represent (but to be honest I'm not sure Viner would allow her to do this).

Unbelievable. I'm at loss for words. He was such a nice guy. May he rest in peace.

Expected individual Olympic qualifiers: Dark horses for individual qualification: Expected group Olympic qualifiers: Dark horses for group qualification: Groups already qualified: Expected tripartite invitation:

Things are not so simple. I am a lot of different things: male, Brazilian, overweight, mixed race, agnostic, professor/teacher... being gay is one of these things. It's not the most important thing in my life, but it is something I'm very comfortable about being. Let's suppose we engage in a conversation and I decide to tell you about something my students did, or about one specific subject from a class I've taught. You'll immediately understand I am a teacher, and hopefully the conversation will go on without me explaining that I am a teacher; you will understand from the context and hopefully will not be pissed off by this specific information. Now, let's suppose you tell me about something your wife did, and then I tell you "my boyfriend did the same thing". You will probably understand at this point that I am a gay man, and if you live in a muslim nation, this will probably trigger someone who is eavesdropping (or maybe even you). However, since there's nothing wrong about me being a teacher, why must it be wrong when I say (or imply) that I am gay? Why should I suppress this information in a conversation when I would never omit from a conversation the fact that I am a teacher, if I believe this is relevant. It's brutal, but in order to be safe, I have to take extra care, especially when I am in a foreign country. When you are gay, you learn to be afraid of even the most trivial conversations in unknown territories whenever you feel threatened. You either have to 1) omit any information about your significant other, or your sexuality; or 2) be vigilant and completely rephrase your sentences on your mind before you speak them, if your sentence somehow refers to your (or one's sexuality or significant other). It sucks to speak about my former relationships by saying "person" or "significant other". I'm sure straight people would never be afraid to openly speak about their wives and husbands, but gay people always feel threatened whenever they have to speak up. There's another thing: not being "effeminate" doesn't make me any less gay. And I 100% support effeminate men, or butch women. Anybody lives however they want to live, and if this is how they chose to present themselves to the world, so be it. They should never ever be afraid of even walking outside on the sidewalk, and unfortunately these people are the number one targets, especially in ultra conservative societies. As a final point, why would I ever spend my hard earned money in a country full of conservative people who have specific laws against gay people and clearly do not like people like me? I would never.

Here: https://twitter.com/CordeliaGymFan

Huge score for Egypt's Ali Zahran on rings. He could even win a medal at the World Championships with this score! Also, Japan is on fire. They sent a bunch of unknown gymnasts and even so, some scores were well over 15. Fantastic!

I still don't get why you create suck a link between pedophilia and young girls competing. I know it may be harsh on their bodies both physically and emotionally, and that they may be forced to pursue other people's dreams, but pedophilia refers to sexual excitement towards children, and this has nothing to do with young girls competing in a sport. I mean, I understand your point, but if one wants to protect children from potential predators, one would lock children at home until they reach 18. It's important to discuss the effects of being a world champion at 11 on her mind, but maybe worrying about sexual predators being attracted to this sport is a bit too much.

With all due respect, I'm never ever going to visit a muslim nation. Not a chance. I know many muslims are nice people, but all it takes is one conservative muslim to make my life a nightmare once they discover I'm gay, and I fear for my life, so nope. Nope, nope, nope. I have my fair share of shitty protestants to deal with in Brazil. (PS: not all protestants are bad towards gay people, but in Brazil 90% of them are, and dealing with them is unbearable.)

Wait, what? While I agree that there should be an age limit for every sport, or no age restrictions at all (what pretty much makes the Youth Olympics an useless event, even more than it already is), what's the point between young girls competing and pedophilia?

Come to think about it, yeah, this could work if it's not taken too seriously as a sports event. I mean, drone racing and e-sports are a perfect fit for this kind of event, and if you add 3x3 basketball and parkour then there's a semblance of physical effort and it could gather fans from the best of both worlds.

Exciting finish for the World Challenge Cup circuit. I still had no chance to watch the routines because I've been dealing with the loss of a beloved relative, but once I manage to gather enough strength, I hope to watch the routines. Amazing results for Italy. I'm very curious about the routines now.

Yes, of course. Success is relative and for some nations winning a medal at all is a huge accomplishment. But when it comes to India or Indonesia, it's just terrible management and probably rampant corruption, so opinions here probably mean that people play along with the problems of their nations, which I definitely don't (Brazil is very underwhelming at the Olympics, even at the 2016 edition). But to each their own, for sure.

Not surprised when people from India or Indonesia vote for this option, since these nations rarely win gold and this is the perfect opportunity for them not to finish behind countries like Grenada or Bahamas in some editions, for example, but some of the voters are surprising.

Even when there's a tie, I'm always favorable to a tie-breaking system. In swimming and athletics they could count the qualifying time also to break ties. There's absolutely no reason go award two gold, silver or bronze medals.

The judges keep forcing Israel down our throats with their botched and unimaginative routines. Disgusting.

Gold medals first, of course. Any medal counts, but if one earns gold for his/her nation, this should be displayed first, even if it's only one gold medal compared to ten bronze medals. That being said, silver and bronze medals are extremely important, especially for smaller nations. However, I dislike sports where they give out two bronze medals because you basically allow someone who should finish fourth to brag about a medal.

This is the kind of joke I don't support.

You suggest either of two Asian nations should have hosted the African Games? Ok.

A medal for Romania. Seriously? It's not that this is a scandal, but it's suspicious to say the least. This is Romania's fifth medal at the World Cup. The first one was earned in 1990 in Belgium. Then, in 2013, Piscupescu won three medals at the Bucharest World Cup. Let's consider for a moment she had an awesome day. Yeah, that could be possible. However, she never won another medal at the World Cup or Grand Prix series in her career, let alone European, World or Olympics medals. In fact, she did not even qualify for the 2012 Olympics. Now, Mailat won another medal for Romania at a World Cup stage... in Romania. Granted, this time everybody basically messed up their routines, so Mailat deserves some credit, but still very weird. And poor Hungarian group was robbed of a medal. Azerbaijan did not deserve a medal with that flawed 3+2 routine. This would have been Hungary's first ever medal at the World Cup. They were merely 0.050 behind the Azerbaijani group. I'm somewhat upset with the results of this stage. I would honestly not grant Romania the privilege to host any other World Cup event anytime soon. Very suspicious results for the home gymnasts, and not only once, but twice in two occasions (2013 and 2019). However, they were granted another chance in 2020. Let's see what will happen then. I don't know if Guadalajara decided not to bid to host a World Cup stage in 2020, but if they did and got the cold shoulder, this is very surprising. There's no reason for FIG to decide to keep Cluj Napoca and Portimão as part of the World Cup series except for extreme necessity (i.e., Spain not bidding). Even Berlin is a better option, but I know that Berlin dropped out because the costs are too high. It's easier for most cities to apply as hosts of the Grand Prix series instead of the World Cup series, unfortunately.