North American Olympic Trials 4/20-22/12

Stay tuned for the livestream link hosted by NBC Universal to watch the North American Olympic Trials. The tournament is being set up as we speak and hundreds of people will be coming out to the venue from all across North America. I'm really excited because I'll be heading down to help set up and Direct the Trials Live Stream.

It will be super exciting to see who if any can upset the Canadian team who came down last month to check out the venue at the 2012 Cary Cup.

JOOLA USA is sponsoring the U.S. team so we're super excited to see them play and give it their all.

Hope you're all ready to see another qualifications tournament.

EDIT*** Link is UP 4/20-4/22 Starting 10 AM & 4 PM EST each day.

http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Table-Tennis/Features/2012/April/01/North-American-Olympic-Trials.aspx

Link is hot boys and girls.

Check out the action so far at http://www.tabletennis.teamusa.org


The live stream link is posted in the first post.

He lost the first draw and he now has 2 more chances. He's playing Pierre-Luc Hinse and that's probably the toughest match he'll have as he lost first draw to Pierre-Luc. He beat Barney Reed Jr 4-0 on some really lucky points. He was down in deuce 3 of the 4 and got back in it with net edge points. The guy is so lucky and seriously is probably the most likely to make it for the U.S., but I doubt he'll make it to the Finals for the second draw.

Adam Hugh and Timothy Wang are the other semi finalists for the second draw and Tim is on fire now. After having beat Chen Hongtao the second seed and the most skilled player there, he's really got his game face on.

Matches start at 10 AM EST and the final is around 1 PM and the third draw starts at 4:00 PM EST. Come check out these epic matches guys and gals it's truly awesome to see this.

Andre Ho was the first victor and has made it to the Olympics. He seriously could not have been beaten today because he was just playing truly amazing. If you got a chance to watch him on the live feed today you know that he can Out Cho Lin Gaoyuan easy.

Ariel Hsing was the victor for the women's event. Winning in the 6th game against Chris Xu a very skilled chopper. Her parents and everyone were very emotional as she's been the poster girl for Olympic Table Tennis in the U.S. for quite some time. She also gave some shining hope to two of the team members as 3 of the 4 will be able to compete in the teams event if another U.S. player can win one more draw.

Tune in again tomorrow for some more great action all. Thanks for checking it out and spread the word.

Pierre-Luc Hinse infamous of the "Impossible Shot," has made it into the Olympics. Now it's up to Tim Wang and Barney Reed Jr. for the U.S. Singles Spot. Hopefully my boy Tim will be able to get the spot because he's worked hard to get where he's at. Also he wants it badly enough maybe even more so than Barney. Barney's been playing for 15 years trying to get to this stage in his career, so to whomever wins they deserve it for all of their hard work.

Sadly this means the U.S. will not be able to compete in the teams event, but hopefully whomever represents in the singles can shake up some players to let them know we're growing.

There is video for the Qualification matches. There was a live stream on the page link. But we are also setting up the recordings with ITTF to post on their archives and also The U.S. Woman's team is not 100% certain. There is a tiny chance that if Canada wins another female candidate that they will be taking the team for North America. The chances are slim, but anything's possible. We won't know if the Woman's team will hold for sure until the results of the last Olympic Qualifier. But Ariel and Lily for sure are going as well as Tim, Pierre-Luc, and Andre.

Michael Landers was the only one for the first Draw, but he lost all the draws.

TTTT- Canada only needed to qualify 1 because Mo Zhang has already qualified. And for a team standing to go for North America it is based on World ranking and Mo Zhang's qualifies her team over the U.S. because Erica's ranking is so much lower than the rest.

It's not likely that Canada can qualify the one player they need for Qatar, but it's still a small chance and that's enough to be wary of anything in Erica's point of view.

It is messed up, but there are far too many countries to do that. It would create an uneven bracket and then not to mention that there are some countries that have different systems of choosing who their best is, but that may not always be the case for the actual best player at an event like the Olympics.

It's very easy to look at new rule changes and even tournament formats and to think that is so stupid why would they do that, it is such a waste of talent, but few have seen what goes on behind the scenes.

As a person who's really been behind the scenes you have to open your mind to the possibility that yes they have thought of the same things you are suggesting, but fail to produce the resources to make it that way. Or they are experimenting for a long term regulation that will solve a lot of problems on both sides and hopefully create better tournaments for the future. That's the side of things that a lot people only speculate about and few really know about.

Send me a link to where I can read this because I can't find it. Plus Raul Calin was the one who speculated about this from what I remember at one of our dinners and as he is an ITTF employee I'm thinking he knew what he was talking about. However I could be wrong and have misinterpreted what he said. What I know is that team members are based on World Ranking. So even though Chen Hongtao was the representative in this NA Qualifier Wang Zhen will still go for teams assuming his citizenship goes in. The U.S. however was competing for the top 3 spots and gives those to its team. So I'm not certain exactly how it works this year and I can't find anything specifically on how a team qualifies.