The Olympic draw took place! US was placed in Group G with New Zealand, France, and Colombia. So the group schedule will be: Aug 3: v New Zealand in Belo Horizonte Aug 6: v France in Belo Horizonte Aug 9: v Colombia in Manaus (yes, Manaus) By winning Group G, #USWNT would get 3rd-place team in quarters, then presumably BRA/SWE in semis. Likely couldn't play GER/FRA until final.— Paul Carr (@PaulCarr) April 14, 2016
Nooooooooo!!!! NOT Manaus! Well, the simple solution is just not to procreate for a year. I like this draw for the USA; at least the USA doesn't get stuck with Sweden again in the group stage. Brazil, Sweden, China AND Germany, Canada, Australia. Wow! Some good matches there. It'll be interesting to see who advances out of those 2 groups, with Germany and Brazil being favored.
The other reason to win the group: So #USWNT and France will definitely want to top the group. Winner gets a 3rd-place team; runner-up likely gets Germany.— Paul Carr (@PaulCarr) April 14, 2016
Here's the actual draw: GROUP E 1. Brazil 2. Sweden 3. China 4. South Africa GROUP F 1. Germany 2. Australia 3. Canada 4. Zimbabwe GROUP G 1. USA 2. France 3. Colombia 4. New Zealand And here's the schedule for the both Olympic futbol tournaments: http://resources.fifa.com/mm/document/tournament/competition/02/73/19/20 /olympicgames_rio_matchschedulemix_fifa_14042016_neutral.pdf
Odds in Vegas - - - - Bet $100 that the USWNT will win Gold (and they do)........you profit $135. Bet $165 that the USWNT will NOT win Gold (and they don't)........you profit $100. (and you are off my Christmas Card list)
Pretty bold Zika-Olympics public health stance coming out of the Harvard Public Health Review: http://harvardpublichealthreview.org/off-the-podium-why-rios-2016-olympic-games-must-not-proceed/
Unfortunately there is no real precedence for postponing/moving an Olympics in the modern era, and even more unfortunately I have a feeling this will become the first precedence. Terrible to say, but this will probably catastrophic. I hope I'm wrong.
Well, the 2003 WWC was moved from China to the USA because of a SARS epidemic, and a men's WC moved from Colombia to Mexico City because of political instability and a bankrupt economy. The 1940 Olympics was cancelled outright because of a certain instability. The scheduled venue was Tokyo. It didn't seem prudent to go forward. Since there are folks still alive from then, it would seem to qualify as modern. And there are other issues in Brasil besides Zika, among which being that the government looks ready to implode into anarchy, and that all the ocean water sports are risking the health of athletes by making them compete in water that is full of shit to 1200 times safe levels....
There is a precedent. The 1976 Winter Olympics were originally scheduled to be held in Denver, but in 1973 they were moved to Innsbruck, Austria because of a financing problem in Denver.
The 1916 Olympics scheduled for Berlin were also cancelled. It seems there were reasons for that, also. I'm not sure a 1944 games were even contemplated. The "modern Olympics" includes anything from 1896 on. Games previous to that are the Ancient Olympics.
From Wikipedia: The 1944 Summer Olympics, which were to be officially known as the Games of the XIII Olympiad, were cancelled due to World War II. It would have been held in London, England, United Kingdom, which won the bid on the first ballot in a June 1939 IOC election over Rome, Detroit, Lausanne, Athens, Budapest, Helsinki and Montreal. The selection was made at the 38th IOC Session in London in 1939.[1] Because of the cancellation, London went on to host the 1948 Summer Olympics.
I'd forgotten about the 2003 WWC being moved because of health concerns. I'm not sure you rate the WWC as close to an important event as the Olympics but it does give me hope that this might be moved. and might I add that it is refreshing once again to have people reply to my posts without being complete assholes.
I don't watch National or Local News.......to depressing. How much traction is story getting??? If it isn't, the reason may be that NBC paid $1.23 billion for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. NBC.....the caring folks that rigged a GM pickup to explode in 1992 to reinforce their own "crash test" documentary claim that the vehicle was unsafe. We'll see how concerned they truly are about public safety when its their wallet at stake. Ya want to shine a big spotlight onto your sport? Boycott, convince the other top eight teams besides Brazil to boycott. Organized the "We May Want to Get Pregnant Someday Without Complications Tournament" (or "WMWGPSWCT" for short) in the US opposite the disease infested Olympics.