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In case you're interested in some help following the slower athletes, my little noted start list for tomorrow At first I used "x" to mark the slower athletes, but then I thought "hey this athlete is not just slower, she's REALLY slower" so I used xx, and the same process happened again resulting in xxx for the athletes who were several minutes behind Gabi (in skiing time) last weekend Sadly it's horizontal so you'll have to break your neck to see it, but hey, it's all part of being a Biathlon Brazil Fanclub member (it's hard to guess where Greenland's girls would be in terms of speed, but they might be able to fight against the two Serbians and the Moldovans)

One thing that pisses me of a lot is the fact that there are no tripartite invitationals for the Winter Olympics, when some nations could really use them. I remember specially a Bahamas snowboarder from Sochi who was not far from clasification. Then in summer olympics it's like a free pass for no level athletes.....

I hope you don't mind I'm abandoning Brazil as my team for this one race because Greenland Still wish well on Gabi of course! I agree if she shoots clear she could make the pursuit.

Biathlon Brazil fanclub update: tomorrow we have the Junior Cup sprints in Hochfilzen, the venue of the (senior) World Championships. This time it's followed by a pursuit, and the interesting but slightly bad news is that the start lists are huge! 116 guys is not so special at this level, but 108 girls is more than I've seen at IBU Cups..Gabi will have to keep 48 girls behind her to qualify for the pursuit! I have identified 24 athletes who, in my opinion, Gabi should 'easily' be able to keep behind her in terms of skiing speed, so now it's a matter of hoping she has a good day on the tracks and a better time on the range and who knows what's possible

Colombia is going to make its world cup debut this weekend in Korea!

Point of interest, as well: There was an athlete from Uruguay, Philip Schmid (not to be confused with the German WC racer) who competed in a FIS race in 2013, and I messaged him on Facebook about whether he will try and qualify, he says that 'he would love to' but he's studying at the moment and doesn't have much time to train so he 'probably' won't try qualifying this year. He said he'd let me know if he does, though. Apparently he lives in Switzerland now.

Also Bermuda could be back for 2018, but it's a longshot. They have a few freestyle skiiers who aren't doing too badly. https://data.fis-ski.com/global-links/search-a-athlete.html?listid=&lastname=&gender=ALL&sector=&firstname=&nation=BER&status=ALL&fiscode=&birthyear=&Search=Search&limit=50 And I know Puerto Rico will probably reject their quotas, but it is worth mentioning they do have an athlete near qualification position currently. I mean you never know. https://data.fis-ski.com/dynamic/athlete-biography.html?sector=AL&listid=&competitorid=210830

Qatar apparently has a curling team now which competed at the Mixed Doubles World Champs: http://www.dw.com/en/qatari-curlers-aiming-for-winter-olympics/av-19197290 Think they're just a BIT too optimistic about their prospects.

Guess who's back