Tom Daley and Dan Goodfellow booked their place at the 2016 Olympics after combining for a bronze medal at the Diving World Cup in Rio de Janeiro on Sunday. The pair finished in third place in the mens 10m synchro event behind Chinese pair Aisen Chen and Yue Lin and German duo Patrick Hausding and Sascha Klein. The result confirmed Great Britain would take one of four remaining Olympic quota places in the event, with Daley and Goodfellow sure to get the nod.It was a promising international debut for Daley and Goodfellow, who had first competed together in the National Cup in Southend last month.Daley has been looking for a new permanent synchro partner since splitting with Peter Waterfield, with whom he finished fourth at the 2012 Games in London. Freddy Woodward will also be competing in Brazil this summer Earlier, Freddy Woodward qualified a second Olympic quota spot for Great Britain when he booked his place in the semi-finals of the mens 3m springboard event.And Oliver Dingley will become the first Irish diver to compete at an Olympics since 1948 after he also finished within the qualification zone in the same event. Also See: Brit trio qualify for Rio Couch, Barrow secure Rio place Cheap Pittsburgh Penguins Jerseys . -- Stanfords Kevin Danser knelt on one knee and hardly moved on the sideline as Michigan State celebrated its Rose Bowl victory and his Cardinal teammates made their way to the locker room. Adidas Sidney Crosby Jersey . With the first unit struggling of late and Amir Johnson - one of the teams iron men - hobbling on an injured right ankle, Patterson knew he could get the nod in a challenging matchup against one of the leagues up and coming players at his position. http://www.adidaspenguinsjerseys.com/?tag=adidas-nick-bonino-jersey . Any real chance at payback wont come until the playoff. Still, Pittsburgh knows its taut 3-2 win over the Bruins on Wednesday night is a pretty good place to start laying the groundwork. "They are a very good defensive team," Penguins forward Brandon Sutter said. Adidas Daniel Sprong Jersey . -- Jaye Marie Green shot a 4-under 68 on Thursday to increase her lead to five strokes after the second round of the LPGA Tours qualifying tournament. Adidas Evgeni Malkin Jersey . In the lead up - which seemed to begin the moment Mike Geiger blew the whistle in Houston last Thursday night - the Impact rumour mill went into overdrive. The speculation went into meltdown mode, of the golden nugget variety. INDIANAPOLIS, Ind. -- Its right there, in bold type, on the College Football Playoff website.Every Game Counts. Well, and sorry if this seems a little weird, truth is that maybe not quite every game. Maybe the game that does not count is a conference championship game, like Saturday nights Big Ten matchup of Penn State and Wisconsin, and try to explain that one.Because, in the very next paragraph, the playoff websites criteria go on to proclaim, The selection committee ranks the teams based on conference championships won . . .In other words, a conference championship is the key factor.Except when it isnt.Critics used to mock the people who run the college football bowl games because they paraded around looking like peacocks in all those brightly colored blazers with their oversize logos, spending fall weekends wining and dining athletic directors.Well, those guys look like Einstein compared to the clowns now in charge of the college playoff.They played the Big Ten championship game Saturday night at the dome in Indianapolis, and as game time approached, tickets could be had for less than $10, which should give you some idea of what the public thought of it.And about a dozen hours after the end of the game, Ohio State, which failed even to qualify for the conference title game, is expected to be chosen one of the four teams for the college playoff.The Big Ten champion will finish the season with a high place in the national rankings and a boost in its recruiting. It just will not be given a chance to play for the national championship, not be allowed a Cinderella champion like Texas Western in 1966 or a Villanova in 1985 in the NCAA basketball tournament.The consolation prize will be a trip to the Rose Bowl.Thats not bad.And, an argument can be made that Ohio State was the best team in the Big Ten this year, anyway, and maybe it was, although it lost to Penn State and beat Michigan only because of a few dunderhead plays by the Wolverines in critical spots. But the point is the Buckeyes did not even win their conference championship and they are going to get a chance to play for the national championship and the team(s) that finished ahead of them in the conference are not.You have to wonder what the geniuses who dreamed up the college playoff were thinking when, by design, they guaranteed a degree of controversy by setting up a four-team playoff among five power conferences. In other words, you know you are starting out by leaving out one of the conference champions. Period.Its a small step from there to leaving out another.The playoff, of course, was supposedly designed to eliminate the controversy that occurred in the past when the national champion was decided by a vote instead of, oh, say, an actual game. Which is how an undefeated Nebraska was selected over an undefeated Penn State in 1994 or several years when two groups of voters seleected different teams as national champions, giving a little for everybody.ddddddddddddA word, supposedly, appears in the previous paragraph because it would never pass a lie detector test. Lets face it, the playoff was set up to give a small group power and a bigger group money, because nothing much happens in college sports that does not really involve power and money.The five major conferences brought six bowls into their playoff orbit and only under pressure allowed one of the dozen spots to go to a school not a member of their cartel. But they certainly did not want one of the outliers getting super rich on the playoff, which is why they limited the playoff field to four teams and put the rest into a so-called Group of 6 bowl lineup which they controlled -- and, of course, sold for a huge sum to television.One interesting sidelight is that the people who run this sham championship arrangement, try as they might, could not fool everybody. Youd think, ordinarily, the championship game of the richest conference would be a huge magnet for fans, but since the fans realized it had so little to do with the national championship they smelled it for what it is.On Stubhub earlier in the week, there were more than 15,000 tickets available for the Penn State-Wisconsin matchup. As late as Saturday morning, more than 5,000 were still available, with sideline seats going for as little as, get this, $9.71.You can be sure that would not have been the case were the winner assured of going on to play for a bigger prize, but as it was, even Penn State and Wisconsin fans kept their wallets in their pockets because, since the meaning of the game was diminished, theyd prefer to save for, say, a trip to Pasadena instead of Indianapolis.Going into the game, the coaches, of course, tried to downplay the bigger picture by simply talking about the import of a conference championship -- huge, said Penn States James Franklin -- and deferring any questions about the playoff possibilities.But it didnt take a deep reading of Franklins comments to know how he felt.You could make a really good argument that the Big Ten, specifically the Big Ten East, may be the best conference in all of college football right now, Franklin said.He is probably right. The Big Ten is probably the best conference in college football right now, just a couple years after people were writing obituaries about the leagues weakness. Its just not a good enough conference, apparently, to allow its champion to play for the national title.--Ira Miller is an award-winning sportswriter who has covered the National Football League for more than five decades and is a member of the Pro Football Hall of Fame Selection Committee. He is a national columnist for The Sports Xchange. Jerseys Wholesale NFL Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys From China Nike NFL Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys Store Wholesale Jerseys China Jerseys NFL China ' ' '