CCB

Since the Dutch Gymnastics Federation yesterday decided to discontinue the Olympic Sport Program (due to all the accusations), I suppose there won't be Dutch gymnasts in the all around final. I feel sorry for Eyhtora Thorsdottir and Naomi Visser, who were very likely to be in some finals. 
 
But today we also have rowing, beachvolleyball and the start of the BMX competitions, with Niek Kimmann as Dutch medal hope!

Yes, still possible he qualifies. But living legend Uchimura will be there as well. So Epke will definitely not the favourite on high bar. But we still have another participant: Bart Deurloo. He is fully committed to high bar and focuses on a medal.

Today the 200m freestyle swimming; likely no Dutch entry, but still one of the highlights for me! 
 
Time trial women: Chloe Dygert will destroy the rest of the field, but maybe a silver for Annemiek van Vleuten (the one with the horrible crash in Rio)? At the men's side I'm hoping for Tom Dumoulin. Hopefully he'll somewhere finds his form back.
 
Biggest chance for gold for The Netherlands is the Women's Four (rowing). Will be close with Australia and China, but they can do it!

Well, in the Women's Quadrupple Sculls Poland has a great chance to win. Germany and Netherlands aren't that good anymore. Biggest threat for Poland: China and Ukraïne. 

I would start with women's triathlon if I don't oversleep.
 
Then rowing finals - it looks like we are all going to watch quadruple finals - Poland has its chances for medals here, too. Both in men's and women's races.
And I wonder how the views at rowing and canoeing venue will look like - it will be hard to find something more spectaculiar than Rio, with Christ the Redimeer and all the mountains around, but who knows ;-)
 
Then swimming finals obviously - men's 200 free above all - Sun Yang launched an appeal but I do hope that it won't be successful and we will not see him in Tokyo next year. Anyway, it should be another open race, like 400
 
Then women's K1 slalom and MTB finals, but they are on the same time - some bad schedulling here
 
Then some fencing - Polish women's epee team has some chances for medal - there will be only 8 teams, so with some luck... who knows...
 
And finally women's artistic gymnastics team - it's a pity Romania is not as good as before, I was usually supporting them.
 
In a spare time - rugby and maybe some tennis or beach volleyball
 
I hope after day 4 Poland will have its first medal at least - if not in judo, then in rowing.
But still no gold I'm afraid.
 
PS. I do like this discussion, but writing this makes me sad somehow ;-) what if...
 
 
 

Day 4, another day with a lot of Dutch athletes. The second match of our handball women and hockey women (both world champion). But the main focus from a Dutch point of view today is on rowing, the finals of the Men's and Women's Quadruple sculls. Hopefully they can medal both.
 
Other interesting events for me to look forward to are the 200m freestyle swimming (men), triathlon (women) and MTB (women). What a day!!!

Day 4, another day with a lot of Dutch athletes. The second match of our handball women and hockey women (both world champion). But the main focus from a Dutch point of view today is on rowing, the finals of the Men's and Women's Quadruple sculls. Hopefully they can medal both.
 
Other interesting events for me to look forward to are the 200m freestyle swimming (men), triathlon (women) and MTB (women). What a day!!!

The Schurter - van der Poel clash definitely highlights day 3 for me. Furthermore the start of the RSX sailing; Kiran Badloe took out two times Olympic champion (12,16) Dorian van Rijsselberghe in the qualifications, so Badloe is a great medal hope for us. 

The Schurter - van der Poel clash definitely highlights day 3 for me. Furthermore the start of the RSX sailing; Kiran Badloe took out two times Olympic champion (12,16) Dorian van Rijsselberghe in the qualifications, so Badloe is a great medal hope for us. 

Well, normally I would be very happy with our first medal at this moment: in the mixed recurve competition. Our handball women were in the form of their lives, like swimmer Arno Kamminga and some rowing teams. We would have seen them at the first day, but instead I have to cry all day in between hoping for a vaccine. 
 
Strength for all sport enthousiasts! And more important: stay healthy!

Women's gymnastics with Rio gold Sanne Wevers on beam and Eythora Thorsdottir on floor 
Road cycling women with Annemiek van Vleuten and Marianne Vos
Swimming 4x100 women and Arno Kamminga breaststroke

You  just gave to wait 6 years.  

Well, normally I would be very happy with our first medal at this moment: in the mixed recurve competition. Our handball women were in the form of their lives, like swimmer Arno Kamminga and some rowing teams. We would have seen them at the first day, but instead I have to cry all day in between hoping for a vaccine. 
 
Strength for all sport enthousiasts! And more important: stay healthy!

I hope they are not so "stupid" to pretend an effective vaccine is made worldwide available by next year...
 
to me, the point is just looking at how the pandemic develops in the next northern emisphere winter...if there are no major cases all around or if we just find an effective medicine rather than a vaccine, why to waste all that was built?
 
as extreme measures, I only see some restrictions to foreign visitors (of course they should be refunded in full, if they lose the chance to travel to JPN), reselling tickets within the local residents only (with heavy price drop, if needed) and a 4-week quarantine for athletes and officials before the beginning of the Games...
 
actually, imho, under these conditions, they could even hold the Games tomorrow...

Handball EC!!

Handball EC!!

People are losing their mind over the whole qualification system like I don't know what? Hell, every fed uses their rankings and it's all fine. It's not like March or April is a MUST deadline for qualifying. You could have taken care of that, like sooner?
 
Japan has two months to get the official word out. Save the drama for late May when we should have a much better picture what's going on. Right now it's all drama & click-baiting.

Well, hopefully Netherlands and Italy will be in the same poule, so they won't play against each other in the deciding match.
 
A shame that South Africa plays at the Olympics. Probably they lose 4 times with 50 goals difference.

Yes they have.
 
Ten countries will participate: we already know six of them. China, South Africa and two out of     will complete the field.

Yes, but Netherlands played with their A-team (only De Kruijff didn't play), many other teams played with their B or C-choice. After the disappointing results this summer (EC and OGQ) it would surprise me when Netherlands grabs the last Olympic ticket. My prediction: Turkey.

Lois Abbingh's role has been huge, she spent hours with the coach taking the Russian team (which she knows very well) apart  Having the Russian coach as her club coach and being in the same club as 8 of the Russian players helped a lot  

What a shame that the 7th spot at this WCh will be awarded with an Olympic quota (the two non-European nations won't have any chance in that OQT). In this format teams will be encouraged to lose a match purposely to finish 4th in their group. 
 
 

So once again 7th place gets you much easier group than 5th place. Nice.

Too bad for Turkey they didn't draw the Netherlands, that would have given them a free home match basically.