De_Gambassi

Not necessarily, Fed/Davis Cup exemptions can only be given in cases of long term injuries (> six months), which was not the case here. IMO, as long as she is in good term with her federation (is she ?), the ITF will find a way to let her in Rio. But, it is not a given.

What will happen if the number of athletes qualified to Rio overpass the cap of 2,000 athletes set by the IAAF and the IOC ?

They won't need it.

Yeah, I've read that too, but I find it amusing that when everyone (from medias, to fans and themselves included) act like they are qualified to Rio, that someone will look at a wikipedia page and say: no, you all are wrong Anyway, the reason why they are "selectable" is because of the "Strenght of Nation" amendement The Davis Cup/Fed Cup thing exists only to exclude from the olympics players that refuse international duty, not the ones who are not selected in the first place.

Ah thanks, didn't know that. By the way, do you know what would be the tie-breaker in case of an equal combined ranking ? (like we have at the moment between Fed/Hingis and Mahut/Garcia)

"Not selectable" as in you can't press the button select on them ?

For France, Mladenovic announcerd before RG that she was going to play with Herbert during the Olympics. Garcia-Mahut is also a given There should be the 4 top seeded doubles: Federer/Hingis (Sui/4) Mahut/Garcia (Fra/4) Bryan/Williams (USA/5) Muguruza/Nadal (ESP/6)

La période de qualif' pour le Tennis vient de se terminer. Encore un système de qualif' auquel je n'aurais rien compris jusqu'au bout Bref, si je ne me suis pas - de nouveau - planté, et à moins d'une blessure ou d'un désistement voilà l'équipe que l'on devrait avoir à Rio. Simple Homme: - R. Gasquet - J-W Tsonga - G. Monfils - G. Simon Simple Dame: - K. Mladenovic - C. Garcia - A. Cornée Doubles Homme: - Herbert-Mahut - Tsonga-Gasquet Double Dame: - Garcia_Mladenovic Double Mixte: - Mladenovic-Herbert - Garcia-Mahut Les 5 équipes de double, sont autant de chances de médailles A noter, que Parmentier est 9ème non qualifiée et a petite chance de voir Rio si assez de filles devant elle n'y vont pas.

In 2012, it was end of june. There is a great post on the tennisforum.com about the women's race.

Really ?

Yes . It's worth noting that even professionals didn't understand the rule up to the end. French TV commentators were still about this "best asian" thing during the Iran-Poland game and thought Iran was allready qualified. They didn't understand why Iran players were so happy when they actually won and finally validate their ticket to Rio

It's the other way around. Top Asian team + the best remaining 3 teams (ie, here, the top 4 teams will qualify regardless of their continent)

Why ? Even with a loss against Japan, Canda would still have a chance.

Overall sets ratio.

It's very much what happened, only the third shit* was convincing. It is not a clinical team by any means as we allready have seen it during the games against Poland and Australia (and it really well might cost them during the olympics btw) Edit: *Set, not shit

Fi-NA-LLY Rio, here we come !

As you said ealier : That's really the only difference betwwen the two sports. I suppose that FINA would love that top end swimmers had access to the same kind of high tech - undetectable - drugs. Then , they could simply pretend to fight againtst doping by catching some random mid tier swimmers once every blue moon.

The César Cielo case alone should be enough to put FINA on the joke tier alongside FIFA and ATP/WTA

The stadium will fill up latter on (lunch ain't over yet...). But, yeah it's a shame and likely not going to change anytime soon. Last year, the stadium was not even filled up for the beginning of the Tsonga semi final

Nah, everything is sold out month ealier. People do come (and pay for), but they don't watch a lot... For a large part of the RG audience, business and PR are more important than actual tennis... It looks even shittier on TV as the first irer of the stadium is the one which is filled up with VIP/business seats.

Not quite We need Australia not to win the three points against Japan to be officialy qualified today. Anyway, Poland, France and Iran are basically In The last spot will be fought between China, Canada and the winner of the game between Japan and Australia.

My two escudos: Baseball/Softball. Baseball is not less an international sport that water polo or field hockey. One of the biggest cons of the sport was always the cost for a dedicated sport infrastructure, something that is obviously not a issue in Tokyo. Why not, then ? On the other hand, softball is a very, very minor international sport and has no business to be in the olympics. Drop Softball, have a proper - men - baseball 12 team tournament. Reassess it after Tokyo. Karate: Only if we ditch taekwondo in the process. Too much redundancy between the two. Surfing. Despite growing up in an heavy surfing/skateboarding culture (mostly made of wanabee though, my younger myself included), I certainly don't support surfing inclusion. The sport is far from global, being only popular in some smallish regional pockets. Judging controversies are common. A large part of its fanbase considers it as a 'culture' first and foremost, and not a sport in the tradiontional - IOC - way. It can also be a very, very lame spectacle. Skateboarding: To me, it sounds like the church bringing a guitar, a few colorfull shirts and thinking that they will appeal to the youth that way. Hint: It doesen't work and it makes you desesperate and ridiculous. All the surfing cons in worse (+ a split between governing bodies). No, not even close. What were they thinking ? © Sport climbing: Actually the only sport that I fully support the inclusion of. It's fresh, it offers something trully new, the sport is fully supportive of its inclusion. And it's actually a somehow spectator-friendly sport. My concern is the combined event, I'd have much prefered to have a propper speed and bouldering event. Generally speaking, I don't get the IOC and the japanese OC. The process and the sport's choices make very little sense to me. PS: we need a dedicated sport program thread

(scrap that) As long it includes four wins, it might be enough (and it was the case for the women's tournament). I'd say 14 points is a safe enough bet though.

Poland is all but in name qualified to the Olympics. It's impossible not to qualifie with 5 wins and you still have to play against Venezuela... So congrats I guess

It seems there have been a few 54-52 sets in modern history. Not sure about international volleyball though. Back in the days, before the change of rules, there was a 87-85 set in former Czechoslocakia.