thepharoah

well , I guess Africans , Asians , South Americans , Mexico , Central America and Caribbean Nations don't have any problem with competing with Russia in international events and i guess they are more than half of IOC Nations , also France that will host OG seem that they don't have much problems with that so , i don't really see majority of world want to exclude Russian athletes from Olympic movement 

I can’t imagine UKR vs RUS competition in any indivudual combat sports event

Probably you are right. 
 
we here in Europe didn’t care about some other NOCs competing in some previous Olympics despite those countries starting unnecessary wars somewhere far away from us
 
we are not without blame ofc

that's the thing, the majority of the world doesn't support it. (blaming and condemning Russia for the unnecessary war is another thing)

What is funny is that Russians have always hated it when people called them “Asiatic”

This will be great for Asian sports in general if they stay in Asia (which I highly doubt) because that will help lots of sports in the continent to develop, same as Australia joining Asia in some other sports and with Russia we (in west Asia) don't have to travel half the world (which is the main problem with Australia)
 
BUT this is most probably a temporary thing that's why I do not really like the idea. and if they participate at the Asian Games in full force they (alongside BLR) will steal lots of our medals they are very strong exactly in our strong sports.
 
but I can't understand how this is supposed to work, they can't participate in World-wide Olympic qualifiers but can only participate in Asian qualifiers ? how the hell that's even possible?!
 
 

Aryna Sabalenka beats Magda Linette 7-6(1) 6-2 and advances to the final.
 
No random AO finallist this time, two very much in-form players.

Don't worry! The joke of the day is the Hungarian team!

Spain won 35-34 

Denmark won 40-23 

Yeah, i saw some articles about him, when we had our national championships a week ago. I'm definitely not excluding ourselves from the mix, as we have one of the biggest foreign teams around   Mnatsakanian, Umarpashaev, Bataev, Magamaev, Abdelslam (even, if he is always injured), now this Ukrainian fellow. Quite embarrassing i would say from a historical plan, but that's how "the mighty have fallen". 

Podolski in his homeland supporting Germany yesterday  

Podolski in his homeland supporting Germany yesterday  

Take that Qatar, nobody beats us 7 times in a row.

Plot twist! Apparently Fernando Santos will be our next NT and he's in Warsaw already. Official announcement is scheduled for tomorrow.
 
https://www.abola.pt/nnh/2023-01-23/polonia-fernando-santos-em-varsovia-para-negociar-com-a-federacao/973608

If Egyipt wins by 3, and Croatia by 20, Croatia will be in the QF. Slight chance but chance...

I think is impressive how Portugal managed to do such a good World Cup, especially when you know how “football only” the country is, really happy for those guys!
 
And if you don’t believe me when I talk about the unfairness of treatment of other sports, even when they do an amazing tournament like this one, just try to find out yesterdays match news on the front page of our daily sports newspaper….

Congratulations for going into quarters 

Congratulations for going into quarters 

I was not surprised by this, Ostapenko is an aggressive player and if she has a good day not much can be done. Gauff is a good fighter but she has limitations in her game. However she is very young and seems to be hardworking so I'm sure she will improve and get to the next level but it might take time!
 
Also, who knew that Magda Linette would be the last Pole standing in Melbourne? 

The question about Kiwior is that he's unproven at a high level. He turned out to be better than Jan Bednarek who was rooted to the bench in the last few months but I have no idea how he does at Arsenal. I can't see him being a starting '11' player there soon...

@Belle You will have a lot of supporters outside of your country tomorrow. 
 
The frontpage of the Hungarian National Sport with the headline: "Go Sweden!" 
 

As far as I can tell the teams most likely to finish 9th and 10th are  and  right? 
 
That way is the how the OQT spots will likely go...
 
 - host
 - should be a direct qualifier from Africa
          (  or ) - one of them gets the WCh quota, another of them wins the ECh quota next year, rest go to QQT
    - last two OQT spots goes to them if four Top8 teams directly qualify to the Games
 
Now watch Egypt "mess this up" by stealing the WCh quota from Europe.  In that case two African teams would directly qualify to the Games, probably Egypt and Cape Verde.

C'mon Netherlands