Speed Skating ISU World Cup 2017 - 2018

[heywoodu 15,174]

8 minutes ago, dcro said:

 

You want New Zealand to win gold in team pursuit. Bergsma is making that happen.

In that case, true  

[dcro 10,210]

Yay, Lorentzen.

 

But I can already see him finish 11th at the Olympics... At least Poutala isn't in his top shape at the start of the season, maybe a good sign...

[heywoodu 15,174]

By the way, 35.37 for Colombian Pedro Causil in the B-division, arguably his best ever result and very, very promising in terms of a 34-second race for when we're going to Calgary and Salt Lake 

[heywoodu 15,174]

10 minutes ago, dcro said:

Yay, Lorentzen.

 

But I can already see him finish 11th at the Olympics... At least Poutala isn't in his top shape at the start of the season, maybe a good sign...

 

2nd one day, 18th the other day, Poutala is never in good or bad shape, he is just Poutala and anything can happen on any given day  

 

Although it's not as inconsisent as Pekka Koskela used to be, down the rankings one day, 1000m WR the next 

Edited November 10, 2017 by heywoodu

[dcro 10,210]

Lol, Dubreuil wins today's 500m (placed 3rd in the B division yesterday). This is so random.

[heywoodu 15,174]

13 minutes ago, dcro said:

Lol, Dubreuil wins today's 500m (placed 3rd in the B division yesterday). This is so random.

Not that random, mostly a matter of 'Dubreuil shouldn't have been in the B division based on pure quality'  

 

But yeah, apart from that, this is yet another reason why it's absolutely insane that they changed the Olympic 500m to one heat. Apart from things being so close, that's nothing less than 'falsifying' the competition, since there's always one skater that has an advantage by having the last outside turn. That was eliminated by the normal system of two 500m races, but apparently a fair competition is not what the IOC/ISU wants.

[dcro 10,210]

Leenstra

[heywoodu 15,174]

Takagi 

[heywoodu 15,174]

Dutch NOS has a new segment called 'Masters of mass start', where they're introducing the main mass start riders throughout the season. Today was the first one, Francesca Lollobrigida, and she agrees: 16 laps is way too short  

[dcro 10,210]

Mass start is cool because a decent number of nations could actually qualify for Olympics. are all provisionally qualified after the first stage, and yet none of them competed in Sochi.

 

But apart from that, mass start is just stupid.

Edited November 11, 2017 by dcro