CCB

There is nothing left of the Dutch European Champs-vibe. They are completely stressed and make so many mistakes. And Canada plays really well. Congrats @Josh in advance.

Netherlands and Japan played three friendly matches. Two 3-0 wins for Japan, one 3-2 win for The Netherlands. Other results from friendly matches?

I read it yesterday. That's not a good sign for their Olympic chances.

Unbelievable championships for . Five gold medals and ten boats qualified for the Olympics is way more than expected. Only 11 months to go before Paris. Hopefully we can keep this level up!

Tomorrow big day for Dutch rowing. The Dutch Olympic champions in the M4x (Quadruple Sculls) will fight for a world title against last year's World Champs Poland, Italy, Great Britain, Germany and Switzerland. Since European skiff champion Lennart van Lierop entered the boat in June, things have started going well. It proves that one change can make a big difference. This is - together with the women's skiff Karolien Florijn on Sunday - the biggest chance for a Dutch world title. in 9 finals this weekend, very curious about the outcome.

In my opinion it depends on Hannah Ohrtmann can compete or not. She got injured at the ECh, hopefully she is able to play. Though competition nevertheless for Germany with Poland (and their crazy but lovely home crowd), USA and Italy. But is not in a good shape and Paola Egonu is not selected. I would even select her with a broken foot, but the Italian coach decided not to. as well is not in the best form, they lost the final of the Continental championships against Dominican Republic. All by all Germany has a chance, but it will be very difficult.

Yes, Belgium, when their star player Britt Herbots is able to play, Belgium can surprise a lot of teams, however they messed up their home European Champs. is also in this group, they didn't impress either in their continental tournament. But normally and will get the quotas.

Don't underestimate the teams of Czech Republic (who won against Germany at the ECh) and especially Ukraine. I think all the teams in this group will have to play at a good level to beat these teams. Will be a close battle, but in the end I predict and to win the quotas. In the other groups: B: and , but watch out for C: and

Good results in the preliminary round for our 10 desired Olympic boats. Only the Men Eight expected more. The Dutch federation did everything possible for a gold medal for the Men's Eight, but we were just over 2 seconds behind GB today. Sometimes it seems as if the Men's Eight is the only thing that counts in the Netherlands, because we accidentally won Olympic gold in 1996. I'm very happy with every boat that qualifies for the Olympics and even happier with every medal.

Dominican Republic won the NORCECA Championships and also gained a lot of points for their 3-2 win against USA. Netherlands and Dominican Republic both have 286 points now.

A bronze medal for the Dutch team with a 3-0 victory over Italy. How on earth is that possible?

Well, I think you're new star Ekatarina Antropova plays good enough to beat Turkey.

What happened with Bulgarian volleyball? They are playing for a home crowd and two sets down against ... Spain

Best performance of in this tournament. Semifinal against Serbia will be very, very hard. Let's try to win a set at least.

Thanks for uploading this video. Very nice to watch!

Nice final, but the video referee was a complete disaster. And Leo Hinrichs from player of the tournament. Although he is a very good player, I was a bit surprised.

My mistake, I completely missed that the NORCECA championships will be held next week.

Losing a set against Hungary was needless, but Ukraine plays on a very acceptable level. So losing a set against Ukraine is not that bad. Good luck against Germany, they miss their key player, so it should be a clear Polish victory.

Yes it is. Nevertheless, Kenia is the best women's team in Africa. About the ridiculous qualification format: It is unfair that the results of the European Championships are counting for the ranking, and most other continental tournaments aren't. For teams like Germany, Belgium and Netherlands every match counts towards the top 10 in the rankings. While in other tournaments like the Pan American Cup, Asian Championships and so on the better teams can play with their B-team. Like Canada, Dominican Republic, USA, Brazil ... I expect those teams fresh at the start of the OG-qualifier. Some European countries will arrive tired and injured. For example: Germany's star Hannah Ohrtmann, Belgium's star Britt Herbots and Dutch revelation Nova Marring are already injured now. Hopefully this three top players can compete in the OG-qualifier. Not to mention the VNL of next year, which results are counting for Olympic qualification too. A lot of the topteams will play with their B-choice, like Serbia, Italy, China normally do. Not all the teams will play against each other. So you're lucky when you play against teams that play with their B-choice. It really makes me angry already.

First round matches: - - - - - - - - Don't know what happened exactly, but Italy, Netherlands and Serbia should easily qualify for the semis. Meanwhile 4 top countries Turkey, Belgium, Germany and Poland will fight for the last spot. Very unbalanced draw. From Dutch point of view: nice that we have an easy route (although Bulgaria has a chance to win against us), but we played awful in the qualifying round. So we not really deserve to be in the Final Four, we just had a lucky draw. I watched matches from Poland and Belgium this week, they play on a better level at the moment. Big surprise of the qualifying round was the level of Ukraïne, Czech Republic and France. The first two are capable of some surprises at he OG qualifier in september.

Our coach is apparently not impressed by Belgium. I'm not surprised at all. He always is a little arrogant. Belgium is so good because they found the right way to play against the Netherlands. It is certainly not attractive. I like the way of playing of Germany and Argentina much more.

No surprise, and will play the final on Saturday. The two best teams of Europe for sure. Final will be a though battle, last times Netherlands scored 'only' 1 or 2 goals against Belgium. The Belgian team becomes better and better.

Netherlands is playing against right now. One of our best players, Nova Marring, injured her ankle. Looks like her European Championships and Olympic qualifier is over . A big problem for our team, as we don't have many good attackers left.

And eventually our girls somehow won the fourth set coming from 18:23 behind. A 3-1 victory against a surprisingly strong French team. Tomorrow .

France is playing very well. Fourth set coming up. I'm prepared for a 3-2 loss. That would be typical for this Dutch team.