Cross-Country Skiing Discussion | Qualification to Winter Olympic Games Milano Cortina 2026

[stepansevs 219]

4 minutes ago, Jan Linha said:

Who would you guess the 7th quota for? Still surprised Japan would drop three quotas 

I really do not know them 😄

[Jan Linha 632]

Just now, stepansevs said:

I really do not know them 😄

The only guess in my opinion is Barbora Antošová. Let's see tomorrow 😁😁

[heywoodu 16,468]

3 minutes ago, Jan Linha said:

The only guess in my opinion is Barbora Antošová. Let's see tomorrow 😁😁

What are the criteria, do you know? Speaking from a performance point of view, one would assume Antosova should be in the first 6 anyway...

Edited January 20 by heywoodu

[Jan Linha 632]

6 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

What are the criteria, do you know? Speaking from a performance point of view, one would assume Antosova should be in the first 6 anyway...

It is hard to say. I am never sure about the internal criteria. But my guess would be that the 6th spot takes Sandra Schützova who showed great results in Alpen Cup. Even better than those who were in world cup last weekend. Additionally, she is doing really great in Ski Classics this year so I would guess she may get the spot. 

[heywoodu 16,468]

2 minutes ago, Jan Linha said:

It is hard to say. I am never sure about the internal criteria. But my guess would be that the 6th spot takes Sandra Schützova who showed great results in Alpen Cup. Even better than those who were in world cup last weekend. Additionally, she is doing really great in Ski Classics this year so I would guess she may get the spot. 

She was specifically strong in distance classic though, while the 10k interval will be freestyle...

 

I would probably go for this list:

 

Janatova
Havlickova
Jaklova
Schuetzova
Antosova
Beranova

 

Milerska as 7th

 

But that's after just a quick look, I'm not that deep into all of their results and specialties, I must admit.

[Jan Linha 632]

4 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

She was specifically strong in distance classic though, while the 10k interval will be freestyle...

 

I would probably go for this list:

 

Janatova
Havlickova
Jaklova
Schuetzova
Antosova
Beranova

 

Milerska as 7th

 

But that's after just a quick look, I'm not that deep into all of their results and specialties, I must admit.

You might be right about that. Well, let's see. The lists of athletes will start coming in every country's local news soon so I suppose we will soon be sharing team sizes with the name lists....

[Josh 13,615]

21 hours ago, heywoodu said:

And @brunamoura officially announced 

 

 

Missed this yesterday, but YESSSSS I’M SO HAPPY 

 

Good luck at the Olympics @brunamoura we’ll all be cheering for you 

[brunamoura 264]

Thank you so much!! 

[copravolley 656]

Italy with 5 spots... It's simply unfair that we scored 22 points less than the USA last year in Nations Cup, yet we have 5 spots, and they have 8. On top of that, we have 7 spots in the women's team that we don't need—7 is completely unnecessary, and we can't trade 6th place in the men's team, which we have at a much higher level. Twenty years ago, we had 10 men in Turin, and now we have 5... Because of this, I think we're losing our chance at a medal in the relay because the IOC is making a joke. The system is unfair and promotes the top 5 too much, at the expense of others - for me it's funny that Norway (1st last year Nations Cup) and USA (5th) have 8 spots each, and Italy (6th) only 5. But one can only feel sorry that the IOC discriminates against the host country

[heywoodu 16,468]

Somewhat annoyingly there's some comments on some social media about how the Brazilian ranking favored those who are good in sprints (i.e. Bruna), over those who are good at distance races, and so the ranking 'was unfair'. Sigh. To be clear: the internal ranking consisted of three (3) classic sprints and also three (3) freestyle distance races within the qualifying period. Average of those 6 results decided. Not a weighted average or anything, simply an outright average.

 

In case more than one athlete reached the A criteria, there would be a ranking that does in fact favor a discipline - distance. That ranking would consist of 2 classic sprints, 2 freestyle distance races and 2 'wildcards' which would be any discipline. Considering the number of points in distance races is nearly always lower, that would favor whoever is better in distance races. And that makes sense, because with A criteria, one would actually do 3 distance races and 2 sprints. However, with no A criteria, one will do 2 sprints and 1 distance race at the Olympics. So even though the ranking that decided things now did not in fact favor sprints, it would not even be bad if it did, since there will be more sprints than distance races.

 

I guess it's disappointed talking for people who had hoped to see someone else qualify and don't really know how the qualifying system works in reality. That's fine, although I'd generally try to be more respectful.