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Pts. 100 The 553 metres tall CN Tower stands ...? ♦ A: hey Woodu ♦ B: sin Do ♦ C: wer Loc ♦ D: in Toronto

btw just imagine the moment when more than 15 million of people in the whole Czechia and in Slovakia facepalm at the same time Just today our medias presented this : In the last USA edition, this guy gave up the 500.000 question because he didn´t know the answer to this.. a moment when 15 million people living in former Czechoslovakia would wish to sit in his place

Well, that was unfortunate and you do get to take that 50:50 with you. But here's the good news. If I do more in the future, I will not limit by a one-time appearance. Generally, the only ones who are allowed to return in the actual show are celebrities - and on totallympics I guess everyone's a celebrity here.

Pts. 4,000 Who famously won a gold medal in fencing at the 1976 Summer Olympics? ♦ A: Michael Morris ♦ B: Juan Antonio Samaranch ♦ C: Jacques Rogge ♦ D: Thomas Bach

@mrv86Looking good so far. For 4,000, I want to know this... Pts. 4,000 Who famously won a gold medal in fencing at the 1976 Summer Olympics? ♦ A: Michael Morris ♦ B: Juan Antonio Samaranch ♦ C: Jacques Rogge ♦ D: Thomas Bach

It is soon time for our first quiz night and the first contestants are on their way! So, what will happen? Well, I don't know. Anything can happen. What's certain is, we will play a stack of questions in "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire" format. That means a maximum of 15 questions, objectively and subjectively going from easy to difficult and specific. You receive a question with 4 choices. Only one of them is the right answer. Contestants can at any time give an answer, drop out with the amounts of points won (yes, simply points) or use a lifeline if they need help answering a question. More into that once we start our first game. Questions were made by me, for the most part, but we will also have questions by @OlympicIRL. A small panel below the question will show if it was a question by OlympicIRL. He also looked through every single question I made, which is why he can't be part of the expert team as a lifeline. Now, without further ado, let's get ready for our first contestant. And he's from Mexico, welcome mrv86! mrv86 ♦ ♦ Mexico @mrv86 Let me know whenever you are ready.

Hello Totallympics and Happy New Year! Tonight, around 8-9 pm CET, we will start our first runs with @mrv86, followed by @Vojthas. For those who want to get involved, there is still time to support @Olympian1010and become part of the audience/expert lifeline to help contestants on specific questions.

@mrv86 But that means as our first contestant you do leave with a respectable five-figure sum. TOTAL WINNINGS ♦ P t s . 3 2 , 0 0 0 ♦

Nah, champagne bottle. It's the wire cage on a cork.

How would you know that?

First day of the championships in Otepaa, entire Estonian team present, most of Lithuanian team and a few Latvians. Men's sprint: 1. Vytautas Strolia 0+0 2. Tomas Kaukėnas 1+0 +28.9 3. Karol Dombrovski 0+1 +33.4 4. Kristo Siimer 1+1 +44.8 5. Robert Heldna 0+1 +1:10.4 Women's sprint: 1. Tuuli Tomingas 0+0 2. Regina Oja 2+0 +1:00.0 3. Johanna Taliharm 1+2 +1:27.0 4. Lisbeth Liiv 2+0 +1:59.5 5. Kadri Lethla 1+3 +2:04.8 best Lithuanian was Gabrielė Leščinskaitė in 6th place, another 30 seconds off of Kadri as for the Latvians, Matjuhins and Bulina both finished 10th in their respective races Tomorrow it's the mass start

I've been studying English for 30 years and I am an English teacher. I think in Portuguese, not English. When I'm speaking English or reading a text in English and I notice something that can't be quite clearly expressed in Portuguese, I think in English, but it's not like a random thought pops up on my mind in English if I don't have to use the language. When I think about things that I have to do, or when I have to come up with a solution for a problem, I think in Portuguese. Of course, I can switch languages and start thinking in English if I really want to, but it usually makes no sense for me to do this. The most interesting aspect of studying a different language is how I learned to deal with time in a different way. For example, the concept of Present Perfect is wildly different in Portuguese than it is in English. Portuguese usually expresses past actions as finished events; there's a form of Past Continuous, but this works like it does in English, for ongoing events in the past. It usually takes a lot of time and effort to teach students about the very concept of Present Perfect. This is something that Spanish speakers will never know because there's a form of Present Perfect in Spanish. Even Japanese has it. But not Portuguese -- at least, not exactly like it works in English. Japanese is my favorite language, by far, even though I'm not very good at it. I understand the basic concepts, and I understand most sentences if I use a dictionary, but it's still very difficult for me to come up with sentences on my own. I've never even felt like I could think in Japanese because it's still hard enough for me to say basic sentences. Still, it's a fascinating language.

When I worked at the University, I noticed that International students would often speak English to each other when discussing particular subject. So Indian students would be chatting in Hindi, but when they started talking about cricket, or business, or economics or whatever subject they were studying, they would switch to English. Presumably because the vocabulary of these subjects just did not exist in the native language.

The amount of athletes and federations who aren’t even familiar with their sports qualification procedures is astonishing.

Arabic?

Thank you @Quasit and @Olympian1010 for your work. I have a lot of fun today. And I volunteer myself tomorrow for the expert panel at @OlympicIRL run

@mrv86 Well, that goes better than expected in between. Only 2 questions away from the final question. It's getting rather dark in here. Pts. 250,000 In 1838, who was the last ruler to be crowned with the Iron Crown of Lombardy? ♦ A: Franz Joseph I ♦ B: Umberto I ♦ C: Ferdinand I ♦ D: Napoleon Bonaparte

And she won it for Two Women! Pts. 125,000 For her performance in which film was Sophia Loren awarded her only Academy Award as best actress? ♦ A: A Special Day ♦ B: Two Women ♦ C: Marriage Italian Style ♦ D: The Black Orchid

Funny, mrv86's guess was mine too, champagne bottle was my second choice.

Ethiopia are the Walia Ibex and Egypt Al-Firaeina. That took one lifeline (and half an hour) but you are on 32,000. 50:50 X Switch Team 15 Pts. 1 Million 14 Pts. 500,000 13 Pts. 250,000 12 Pts. 125,000 11 Pts. 64,000 10 ♦ Pts. 32,000 9 ♦ Pts. 16,000 8 ♦ Pts. 8,000 7 ♦ Pts. 4,000 6 ♦ Pts. 2,000 5 ♦ Pts. 1,000 4 ♦ Pts. 500 3 ♦ Pts. 300 2 ♦ Pts. 200 1 ♦ Pts. 100

is wrong. And you're right! Pts. 32,000 If you cheered for Team Melli, which national football team do you support? ♦ A: Iran ♦ B: India ♦ C: Ethiopia ♦ D: Egypt

@mrv86 Then I'll have to consider myself defeated on this one. Pts. 16,000 Which two US states share a border? ♦ A: Ohio & Oklahoma ♦ B: Maine & Maryland ♦ C: Nevada & Nebraska ♦ D: Illinois & Indiana

Next question, what is the 1345th decimal of pi

@mrv86You are a very quiet man. But you are right once again. Pts. 8,000 On 22nd March 2020, what caused a spire of Zagreb Cathedral to break off? ♦ A: Plane crash ♦ B: Earthquake ♦ C: Storm Ciara ♦ D: 2020 TAISC riots

@mrv86 8,000... Pts. 8,000 On 22nd March 2020, what caused a spire of Zagreb Cathedral to break off? ♦ A: Plane crash ♦ B: Earthquake ♦ C: Storm Ciara ♦ D: 2020 TAISC riots

You sound confident enough... Pts. 2,000 In economics, what term refers to a reward or money that a company gives to its shareholders? ♦ A: Equity ♦ B: Tariff ♦ C: Dividend ♦ D: Margin Question by OlympicIRL ... and as a laywer you should know this. Yes! Pts. 2,000 In economics, what term refers to a reward or money that a company gives to its shareholders? ♦ A: Equity ♦ B: Tariff ♦ C: Dividend ♦ D: Margin Question by OlympicIRL

Absolutely right and you win at least 1,000 points! Pts. 1,000 What book of the Old Testament begins at Mount Sinai? ♦ A: Letters ♦ B: Numbers ♦ C: Spaces ♦ D: Punctuations

Good morning, Charlie. Who doesn't know them. Pts. 300 What is the name of a film and TV show which follows the crime-fighting adventures of three women working for a private detective agency in Los Angeles? ♦ A: Charlie's Angels ♦ B: Derek's Honeys ♦ C: George's Saints ♦ D: Matthew's Goddesses Question by OlympicIRL

@mrv86Here's your next level, and the first by OlympicIRL: Pts. 300 What is the name of a film and TV show which follows the crime-fighting adventures of three women working for a private detective agency in Los Angeles? ♦ A: Charlie's Angels ♦ B: Derek's Honeys ♦ C: George's Saints ♦ D: Matthew's Goddesses Question by OlympicIRL

@mrv86 I hope you're not hungry but the answer is correct! Pts. 200 If you haven't eaten in a while, it is quite possible you're ...? ♦ A: liechtensten ♦ B: astria ♦ C: hungry ♦ D: czech repubic

Pts. 200 If you haven't eaten in a while, it is quite possible you're ...? ♦ A: liechtensten ♦ B: astria ♦ C: hungry ♦ D: czech repubic

Then we will go for three lifelines here. 50:50 Expert Switch Team 15 Pts. 1 Million 14 Pts. 500,000 13 Pts. 250,000 12 Pts. 125,000 11 Pts. 64,000 10 Pts. 32,000 9 Pts. 16,000 8 Pts. 8,000 7 Pts. 4,000 6 Pts. 2,000 5 Pts. 1,000 4 Pts. 500 3 Pts. 300 2 Pts. 200 1 Pts. 100 I also apologise if I appear a bit slow at first. Gotta handle all these panels. Let's go.

Awesome. No problem at all. As a lawyer I assume you had to give advice to someone just now?

Interestingly enough this might have taught me more about English than about Portuguese, which I find just as valuable, so thank you The examples did definitely help in understanding what you meant, it was an interesting read and I'll surely keep it in mind

4 Hills Tournament Stage 3 Innsbruck KO Round Starting Order Q Athlete Pairing Athlete Q 26 Yukiya SATO 1 Ryoyu KOBAYASHI 25 27 Maximilian STEINER 2 Niko KYTOSAHO 24 28 Ziga JELAR 3 Aleksander ZNISZCZOL 23 29 Thomas LACKNER 4 Markus SCHIFFNER 22 30 Mikhail NAZAROV 5 Gregor SCHLIERENZAUER 21 31 Cene PREVC 6 Martin HAMANN 20 32 Clemens LEITNER 7 Antti AALTO 19 33 Domen PREVC 8 Anze LANISEK 18 34 Artti AIGRO 9 Mackenzie BOYD-CLOWES 17 35 Pius PASCHKE 10 Robert JOHANSSON 16 36 Sander Vossan ERIKSEN 11 Michael HAYBOECK 15 37 Gregor DESCHWANDEN 12 Johann Andre FORFANG 14 38 Evgeniy KLIMOV 13 Andrzej STEKALA 13 39 Jan HOERL 14 Daniel Andre TANDE 12 40 Klemens MURANKA 15 Keiichi SATO 11 41 Severin FREUND 16 Philipp ASCHENWALD 10 42 Vladimir ZOGRAFSKI 17 Peter PREVC 9 43 Junshiro KOBAYASHI 18 Piotr ZYLA 8 44 Simon AMMANN 19 Karl GEIGER 7 45 Decker DEAN 20 Stefan KRAFT 6 46 Constantin SCHMID 21 Kamil STOCH 5 47 Maciej KOT 22 Markus EISENBICHLER 4 48 Timon-Pascal KAHOFER 23 Dawid KUBACKI 3 49 Manuel FETTNER 24 Daniel HUBER 2 50 Viktor POLASEK 25 Halvor Egner GRANERUD 1

Before the KO rounds start in some 2 hours, let make a quick look to the Preliminary Round stats and fun facts First of all another prove who we are going to face tonight and sum up pretty well our chances to make a miracle by just scoring a goal is the best team in Power Plays with 40.00 % efficiency (6 goals in 15 PP) is the best team in Penalty Killing with 100.00 % efficiency, the only team not conceeding any goal when being shorthanded so, yes, RIP Slovakia the worst teams in PP and PK were Austria (0 % in PP) The only team to not scored in any of its 4 Power-Plays and (50 % in PK) survived only 5 of their 10 penalties also lead the Fair Play competition with only 12 Penalty minutes (6 Minor penalties) in the Preliminary Round. on the other hand of the ranking with 60 Penalty Minutes was the worst (25 Minor Penalties and 1 missconduct penalty) lead the Goaltending ranking conceeding only 4 goals, only 1 more than in 2nd place. in last place with 28 goals against (16 of them ofc in the match against Canada) lead also the Shooting Efficiency 20.75 % ahead of Germany 14.89 % and the USA 14.88 %. In last Place Austria with only 1 scored goal 2.04 % Trevor Zegras lead the Top Scorer stats with 6 Goals+7 Assists ahead of Dylan Cozens 6+5 and Tim Stutzle 5+5 Cozens and Zegras with 6 goals each lead aso the Goal Scoring competition and Zegras with 7 Assists lead this competition as well At least in one statistic we are quite high, Oleksii Myklukha is somehow leader in the Face-Off stats with 73.91 %, he won 17 of the 23 Face Ofss in the preliminary round. 6 Canadians are leading the +/- Competition Bowen and Drysdale both in 1st place with +13. Justin Volek is the most penalized player with his 27 penalty minutes. More Fun Facts can be found here https://www.iihf.com/en/events/2021/wm20/news/23764/this-n-that

In English one can say: 1) She has broken the window. 2) She broke the window. In the first sentence, we know that the window is still broken, while in the second sentence it might have been fixed. In Portuguese we can only say "Ela quebrou a janela". This literally means "she broke the window", so the whole concept of something like "she has broken the window" is impossible to be carried over to Portuguese only using a verb form. We need to explain that it's still broken if we want to make sure that someone knows it needs fixing. To be honest, I believe that most people would immediately ask "tem que consertar?" or "does it need fixing?", but the thing is that in English, when we use the Present Perfect, it's very clear that the window is still broken, while in Portuguese we need to ask another question to make sure that it's still broken. Most people would assume by the context that it is broken anyway, but in order to make sure we need a second question, while in English this is not necessary. Now, there is an equivalent structure in Portuguese with the verb ter (have) + past participle of another verb, but it only works for specific situations. For example: Tem feito tempo bom. Literally: (It) has been weather good. As you might have guessed, this means "The weather has been nice", so it kind of works in Portuguese. But if you try to apply this to the first example, it makes absolutely no sense in Portuguese. "Ela tem quebrado a janela" (literally: she has broken the window) would raise many eyebrows as people would have no clue about what you want to say. I'd probably guess something like "she has been breaking the window again and again", but even so I'd use a completely different arrangement of words if I wanted to say something like this in Portuguese, like, for example, "toda vez que a gente coloca uma janela nova, ela quebra" (every time we set up a new window, she breaks it). There's also a form with andar (walk) + gerund. For example: Ele anda fazendo coisas erradas. Literally: He walks doing things bad. This means "he has been doing bad things". Of course, anda doesn't mean here that the person is walking, but instead it has the same meaning of Present Perfect in English, but it's not something that we can easily apply to "ela quebrou a janela" or "tem feito tempo bom", for example. It's like we're dealing with three completely different notions of time (even though "tem feito" and "anda fazendo" are not that different) in Portuguese, instead of a single notion of time in English like the Present Perfect. In short, often the meaning of sentences in the Present Perfect cannot be entirely replicated in Portuguese. I know these were not the best examples in the world, but I hope I was able to help, somehow.

Saturday January 2nd, 2021 - Knockout Round Day 1 Schedule (GMT -7) Quarterfinals Mountain Standard Time (GMT -7) CET 18:00 Russia vs Germany Period-by-Period: January 2nd 2021, h. 10:00, Rogers Place, Edmonton I CET 21:30 Finland vs Sweden Period-by-Period: January 2nd 2021, h. 13:30, Rogers Place, Edmonton I I CET 01:00 (03.01.) Canada vs Czech Republic Period-by-Period: January 2nd 2021, h. 17:00, Rogers Place, Edmonton I CET 04:30 (03.01.) United States vs Slovakia Period-by-Period: January 2nd 2021, h. 20:30, Rogers Place, Edmonton

I sometimes think in English, especially when communicating with our resident Brazilian cross-country skier*. Plenty of times I notice that even though my grammar is very far from perfect, I find certain things to be easier to discuss in English than in Dutch, like when we're talking about the more serious sides of life. Which is something I find both weird and interesting, maybe it's because I'm much more used to doing that in English than in Dutch since often those are not necessarily things I talk much about with my Dutch 'social circle'. *Who is supposed to (and does) speak more and more Dutch these days, while I throw in a few Portuguese sentences here and there.

Tim Singer and Martin Haven commentating together.

I really love it every year, when our guru @Sindo creates the annual discussion thread and changes an author to me. And then I think I have some memories washed.

So I emailed Taekwondo Canada asking if Yong was given a quota. They are not even aware this is the procedure if there is an extra slot lol. They are now getting in touch with WT about it.

I like to play totally opposite - even saying a sentence with an easy mistake on purpose to show, how bad I am in that language, so that they use an easier version of it

I'm not sure, but I've never noticed such a thing, unfortunately, even during our discussions.

Plus lots more sand.

Wow, I had completely missed this: she finished 4th and then I went on to watch the men's final and that was it. Lampic really didn't do anything wrong there, that's a sad relegation.

FINAL STANDING 9th-10th Place 9 Switzerland - 10 Austria -

Happy New Olympic Year to all Totallympians !

World Team Challenge now up as well.