rafalgorka

NGR and RSA can’t qualify both in W football because they are both in the same half of the bracket. It will be one from: GHA ZAM TUN MAR and one from: CMR NGR TAN RSA i think it will be MAR and NGR I would love to see TAN advance though but it will not happen

Many people dead after explosions near Soleimani’s tomb in Iran. This Middle East thing doesn’t look good at all

Rio!!! Lucky you… that’s our big plan - Rio in 3-4 years time! A bit worried about crime there though

Adrian Moryto is out of ECH due to injury. That’s the end of our very slim chances to do sth in this tournament I’m afraid 😐🤷‍♂️

And the whole season of my local football and athletics club (we have a small but nice stadium just 200m close to where we live)

Speed skating wch…

Us gymnastics trials…

But for now - 4 hills tournament in Innsbruck today and tour de ski and I surely forgot handball m ech and all the Paris qualification events , especially in team sports : handball, m basketball, m football Uefa champions league in spring - FC Barcelona 💪

Outside shots: Golf M masters , Athletics World indoors and European Ch, us trials swimming wch, us trials, Aus trials F1 season Biathlon WCh figure skating wch Alpine skiing world cup Road cycling m- spring classics, Tour de France, wch copa America footbsll volleyball vnl nba play offs hockey wch in cze with pol team in it tennis grand slam - Wimbledon is my fav rugby six nations ski flying wch athletics diamond league i have probably missed sth

One of the stats which I will be looking for the most after Paris: it is only 3 years after Tokyo, not 4 years gap like normal so how many Tokyo medalists will get a medal in Paris again ? will it be really much more than e.g. London-Rio 4 years gap comparison??? it should be more but it may go other way as well because of other issues (no RUS, more events than before, COVID issues…)

What are your trip plans for 24 if you don’t mind asking? Any places worth recommendations? we would like to go to Venezuela in Feb but we are not sure it is safe there with this whole Guyana / Essequibo thing… I wonder what our users from America think about it, Brazilian users perhaps will find some spare time to write about it… thanks in advance! in Sep after Paris Olympics we want to go to Balkans, probably Montenegro , we will see Florida would be good option as well but we have to avoid the bad weather, hurricans etc… so maybe it’s in 25

What’s the sports event in 24 you are waiting for the most outside of Paris Olympics ??? I would say UEFA euro 24

My biggest hope is that Poland will have 0 doping issues in Paris though. Noone does anything stupid this time. 0 is my fav number here

Tried to count it for Poland myself… I am worried that rugby W team will not qualify… that’s -12 i don’t see we can qualify in diving… that’s -3. Or maybe one individual - that would be -2 i don’t know much about rhythmic gymnastics but I don’t see it happen either… -1 i think we qualify 3 athletes in sports climbing - Ola Mirosław is already in and I think we get one more girl and one more boy in speed - that’s +1 50 quotas in athletics is a lot but I think it may be even more although we won’t be that strong like in Tokyo for sure, we were so lucky in Tokyo that things like that just can’t happen twice . I think we qualify a lot of relays and we send everyone who is in by world rankings . One possible drama is whether our heptathlete goes (Ada Sułek who is pregnant now but she is already qualified) . Heads (CEOs) of our Athletics Team don’t like her because she critized them heavily in Eugene WCH so as I know Polish reality now they will want her to prove that she’s in good form before the Olympics and they won’t send her if she’s not… but other will go without any extra tests… so I say it’s rather 60 quota in athletics +10 but there will be surely 2 or 3 injuries so it’s +7 in the end . But only 2 medals in athletics this time and I won’t be surprised if there is no gold overall around 195-200

Still fighting with this flu or whatever this thing is. So I am able to write here during usual working hours at least. On our Polish forum one user wrote that Maryia Zhodzik may be eligible to represent Poland in Paris in high jump. A girl for Belarus, jumps much higher than Polish women these days. But she had some doping issues, Wikipedia says. So I am not 100% happy that she can join our team even if I love HJ so much .

Day 8 Sat - swimming - M 100 fly final, not 100 free

Cuba - modern pentathlon - 3 ???

I like you call one particular NOC the way it should be called - Taiwan. And the flag is good as well 💪

Thanks a lot once again for your work! It’s awesome. in your spare time, please share with us list of events you think Poland will qualify for 210 quotas is too much this time imo but I hope you are right, not me

one of my first Olympic memories. Andrzej Gołota in Seoul. A very oldschool video, somehow funny after all these years

There is quite an interesting (at least to me) discussion on our Polish National Forum going on (not many users involved though) on who may become a totally "new kid on the block" in Paris - I mean some athlete(s), we don't focus now much on them now, but they will 1. qualify for Paris and then 2. make a "really good" result there, not necessarily a medal, maybe a final, a SF, a huge PB or just a very interesting performance which will be remembered for years. I don't think about athletics only and i don't think about the youngest athletes. I just wonder who are your very very very dark horses for Paris?

Day 2 Sun 28.07 - updated predictions Event #26 - SWIMMING - W 100m Fly 1. Yufei Zhang CHN +1 2. Margaret Macneil CAN +1 3. Torri Huske USA -2 All the other day 2 events left as they were before Changes in medal table: CHN 43-28-23---94 G +1, S -1 CAN 5-12-2---19 S +1, B -1 USA 44-43-36---123 G -1, B +1

When you look at the schedule, which day in Paris looks the most interesting for you? I would say Saturday Day 8 Tennis - W singles final (even more interesting if Iga is in) Athletics and Swimming finals (W 100m SF and F - will Ewa Swoboda gets into the final or not? M 100 free swimming final) Cycling M Road Race. M Road Race in Paris!!! Gymnastics ind apparatus finals Rowing Singles and Eights finals And moving day in M golf Nice combo...

I am double-checking my predictions on day 2 and i am seriously thinking about changing my W 100 fly (swimming) guesses. I thought 1. Torri Huske USA 2. Zhang Yufei CHN. But now i would say 1. Zhang Yufei CHN and i am not sure i would say Huske gets a medal at all now. But look - if i change that - overall medal table changes very significantly: now it is 1. USA with 45 golds and 2. CHN with 42 golds. After W 100 fly change it's 1. USA with 44 golds 2. China with 43 golds. Very close battle here. Then imagine one more gold for CHN in diving (instead of UKR) and we have a tie 44-44 And then one more gold for CHN in weightlifting (because i predicted one of CHN athletes will DNF ) and China is on the top 45-44 Well, well, well - i won't say nothing new here - but this overall medal table battle in Paris will be so close that the outcome is simply unpredictable And my first impression is that BLRUS absence works better for China - there are more events where Chinese chances for gold are bigger due to Russian staying at home than such events where US will get adavantage (e.g. artistic swimming, men's artistic gymnastics...) ofc, i can't say for sure that i didn't make any mistakes in my maths, and my medal table may be wrong, i would have to count it again but honestly i don't want to do it now, maybe after double-checking all 16 days

Bad news: got some flu or sth and i am on a sick leave until next Friday. Even worse news: i will have more free time so i will probably produce some more spam here in the coming days. Here's a sample of this: One very amateurish question on eventing. Why the start lists for cross-country part are not a reversed order after dressage (individual ranking). I don't watch equestrian often but i think such a start list would be much more interesting. During olympics i always want to watch cross-country live but i never can do it because it takes too long and all the most important riders are put all over the start list. This way i could watch only the last part or sth and i would see all the most important moments live. I just don't get it what's the purpose of it - such a strange start list in cross-country. Even figure skating changed their rules about starting order in free programmes eventually so i don't lose hope that the same happens to eventing. The same could happen in ind apparatus finals in gymnastics (reversed order with the quali results - like it is in the last event of AA)