Giovanni Gianni Cattaneo

This might be better phrased as “Athletes Who Will Miss the 2020 Summer Olympic Games”, so we talk about the likes of Chloe Esposito too. *Cough*and all the golfers who will skip because of coronavirus*Cough*

However, this is how South Africa goes to the Olympics without having to show any performance or beat anyone. Just because it's the only African country that can take 11 swimmers. Nonsense. Positive discrimination.

no, thanks...
 
Winter Olympics are and must stay as the "Ice & Snow Sports" Olympics...
 
and frankly, who cares if they are not as "global" as the Summer Games...
 
it's not written anywhere that all the beautiful things of life must be "global"...

well, in many sports the Asian qualifiers are down to CHN, KOR and JPN...
 
the remaining Nations are not much better than those small Oceanian Countries outside AUS and NZL...

Australia/NZ should always compete against Africa or Asia, it makes no sense having an Oceanian quota cause it's basically a free cuota for Australia (not like they need it in a lot of sports because they are competitive).

While increasing my collection of coins and other memorabilia on the occasion of the biggest annual charity event in Poland, I just found out that this year's Olympic Collectors Fair is taking place in Artena near Rome. So, my question to our Italian Totallympians @AlFHg @Henry_Leon @Gianlu33 @Giovanni Gianni Cattaneo @SteveParker @Pablita or anybody else familiar with the Lazio region - how can I travel between Rome and Artena (also in a little bit later hours)? Is it better to accomodate in Artena and travel for sightseeing to Rome or to live in Artena for the three days of fair and visit Rome earlier with accomodation in the capital (maybe with a possibilty of leaving luggage for three-four days somewhere in Rome for little money).

Well, it wasn't the best start of season for Italy. I expected something more from Busato honestly...

Regarding water polo, IOC had reduced team sizes from 13 to 11, but FINA seems to have reached an agreement with them to bring team sizes to 12 + 1 substitute - it's not officially confirmed by IOC yet as far as I know
 
https://www.wpdworld.com/en-news/tokyo-2020-12-players-roster/

yes because I am moving and I would not have internet from Friday 10 to Thursday 16 January

Obviously it'll be ignored by Russian authorities, because blindly crying "it's all just politics!!" is so much easier, but Mariya Lasitskene has some questions to the authorities who screwed her and other athletes big time, again and again. 
 
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2019/12/10/i-am-a-russian-world-champion-and-i-demand-answers-a68545

no, and you know that...
 
it's dropping from the Rio bonanza (and the undeserved gold at the following worlds in Hamburg)...

the truth is that they know they won't win a single match without their usual corrupted judges to protect them...
 
with all the officials from Rio 2016 out of contention, I expect also KAZ, UZB and FRA (at least) to drop their usual medal number dramatically...

do we really need to give credit to all the idiots opening their mouths just to be mentioned in the news headlines?

Tonight 4regattas for every class. Points are not resetted, fleet are divided in gold (first 25/30), silver and maybe  bronze 

Sailors are now divided into gold and silver fleets...
 
This means the Olympic qualification battle is now limited to...
Men's 49er -
Women's 49er FX -
Mixed Nacra 17 Foiling -
 
 
Nacra 17 Foiling is essentially decided, since we can expect to have a reallocation coming from Oceania...

I was bored so I tried to see if I can come up with a better system for predicting medals. Places like GraceNote essentially take the top three contenders and give them gold, silver and bronze. That tends to cause situations where a nation with a 50% chance to win say 12 events would be predicted to win 12 medals, but in reality they would only win six. Usually this is masked by the overall medal count, but it becomes apparent if you look at the details for individual sports.
 
Currently my model is quite early in development, it doesn't take into account the maximum athletes per nation in a specific event or the chances of an athlete to fail (DNS/DSQ/DNF etc). It also only currently works for events where you can obtain a score/time/measurement (placing/head to head events will have to wait).
 
Here's a sample of the men's 100m (top 5) that I was using as my test data.
 
Men's 100m
Gold
- 76.4%
- 17.8%
- 1.9%
- 1.5%
- 0.9%
 
Silver
- 60.6%
- 17.8%
- 5.8%
- 4.4%
- 4.2%
 
Bronze
- 46.0%
- 14.7%
- 9.9%
- 7.7%
- 6.3%
 
 
As mentioned above, the United States is currently a bit inflated due to more than three athletes contributing to its chances (removing them manually and redistributing it would give them 73.3%, 53.5% and 38.6% chances respectively).

No, the ranking will be announced on 9th (Monday), and Wuxi Grand Slam is on 14-15 I think

Grand Prix Final in Moscow is not a direct qualification event, it's "only" the last ranking event, that's why it's mentioned in the document. The final which gives the quotas (1 per weight) is Grand Slam Champions Series Final in Wuxi, which is a week later,

NACRA: ITA, AUS
49ers M AUS, ARG
49ers F NZL, DEN

oh, yes! so, quick update...both marathons finally will have less starters than BMX freestyle competitions...
 
p.s. by the way, when I wrote about Kenian, Ethiopian (and I should add the new powerhouse, Uganda) cheaters, most of them are those implicated with the shady doctors from the Mediterranean Sea...
so, they were already somehow mentioned (even if not explicitly)...

WTF!!! they want 15 Euros for watching the streaming of these races...
 
f*ck them and all of their greediness!

never seen Ondra celebrating like that! for a 14th place!!!
 
and he won so many gold medals here and there!
 
that's a sign of how much does he feel the pressure and how does he really want to make it to the Olympics...and well, now he can only lose his spot, after such a good (for his standard) performance in his only weak discipline...

Both the qualifications and finals will be streamed live on Youtube from 28 November to 1 December.
 
Fans can join the conversation on Twitter with the hashtag, #IFSCToulouse or #ClimbToTokyo.
 
Today's events
 
Men's Qualification, Speed
 

 
Men's Qualification, Boulder
 

 
Men's Qualification, Lead
 

to me, the important is not to see that farce of OAR anymore...
 
I hope Bach & co. are going to reject at least the "no Russian Flag must wave at the Olympics"...
 
if there are some Russian athletes who are considered "clean" beyond any doubt and allowed to take part into the Olympic Games, they must have their Flag and Anthem playing in Tokyo and Beijing...
 
p.s. however, I'd like to hear/read the same recommendations for all those Nike protected cheaters normally speaking another Language, from this and the other side of the Ocean (any reference to USA, GBR, AUS and all their allied Nations is purely intentional )...

How many skaters qualify to semis? Thanks!