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I feel bad for Ginnis, but at the same time happy for Popov. I like it when guys from non traditional nations get on podiums. That's why slalom is the most exciting discipline in alpine at the moment for me. That and the fact that you have around 30 guys who can easily get to the podium. Yesterday as you can see from the picture above you had guys with numbers outside of the elite 7 there. Remove Noel and you get guys who aren't even in the top 15. It's crazy how tight everything is in slalom these days. One mistake and you're out (as long as the slope is good enough for everybody).

He said he had three shirts on and was still cold. He couldn't get anything going. He's not happy and is going to Estonia now to train.

No Klara Lukan? She posted that she's competing in Birmingham at the end of the indoor tour.

So it happened again , wrong flag was used when an athlete from the dreaded Slovakia/Slovenia tandem was playing. At this point I feel we need a dedicated thread just for these posts.

Both Ema and Silva have declined this season. Considering Janus is their coach I find it funny that they both declined in ski jumping. Ema is still somewhat decent at xc, but Silva is just poor. She was poor last season and I didn't think she could have been worse this year, but she managed to do it. If Ema somehow finishes in top 6, I will be happy. Any higher would be a surprise. As for men, Gašper is the only one who can realistically finish within top 30. But his recent jumping form was terrible. And he needs a good jump like Sahara needs water.

We have only 6 nations on the final medal table standings. Should that be a concern, considering how many races there are? I mean even sliding sports have had 9 different nations podium (let's forget that Germany basically owns those sports). I just hope this is an anomaly, but if you look at the top 5 nations they all won multiple medals, while Austria is the only one with just one silver. It feels like there is a clear gap to the rest of the field.

I was talking about Nations Cup not the world cup. And it turns out our girls are still 16th which allows them 4 racers next season! So they are still on track.

What did Lampič do wrong? Our girls would have finished 9th which would gave them valuable nations cups points for next season.

Handball is still one of the most infuriating sports that exist. After a long time I decided to watch a champions league match between Celje and Barcelona. Celje led the whole game. The refs were god awful. After Barcelona went down by 4 they started giving out two minutes like it was candy. Barca got the momentum and came back. Still Celje fought hard and went back in the lead by a few goals. But that wasn't enough. Barcelona won in the end by a goal. 30 second before the end was the first time they led in this match. I probably won't watch anymore handball this season. This sport always leaved me angry when it's done.

Fak won't compete tomorrow. He said he will see if he will stay and be able to compete at all in these worlds championships.

From what was said after today's competition it looks like Slovenian jumpers apart from Jelar will also not travel there.

Anamarija has decided to start, according to her interview yesterday

Good performance from our young guns today. Sadly the one who should have been the best (Jakov Fak) doesn't even make the pursuit. Like Anamarija, Polona and a few others he was ill and has said in the post race interview that in the second lap he started hurting. He knew that he wasn't going to make a good time. On a positive side, Anamarija has confirmed that she will be starting tomorrow so there's that. Dunno what she can do, being so far down, but it seems like she will use it as practice, as she said her only goal is to not be caught by Denise. We have a good young core. Here's hoping Ricco Gross stays for the whole olympic cycle and they keep improving together. They've already made a huge progress this season, and that's with Ricco not knowing the team at all before the start. It should only get better from here. As for the race itself. It was interesting seeing them race in such conditions. Our commentators said it was on the edge of regularity. I think we all expected way more missed shots, thus giving a chance to someone with a higher bib if the conditions would get better. As usual it didn't happen. JTB was also super lucky today. I think he hit at least 4 or 5 shots on the edge. Every one of them could have gone wide. Especially in the standing. Overall 5 NOR flags in top 6. One for the ages. Clearly they're doing something right.

Am I disappointed yes. The starting bibs had the advantage today. Ilka lost 0.40s in the upper part which should have been her strongest, the part where she would have gained the lead and hopefully carried it to the finish line. Strangely she lost the most out of all in the top 10 there, and gained in the part that hasn't suited her in the past. In her post race interview she sounded less cheerful than usual. If only she had started in the top 10... Plus her mom being in the hospital didn't help things today. Still after those past few season it's a miracle that she's even challenging for medals today. Now lets see what the rest of the season brings. Hopefully she will be able to fight Goggia for the downhill globe and come back stronger next season. But something tells me, that this could be it. After so many injuries I have a feeling that if she would have got a medal today she would have ended her career on the spot.

Lampič very likely won't start the pursuit. It seems that her major illness has left some consequences on her skiing form and she will want use that time to get back to full strength. Polona Klemenčič was also ill (she missed all the competitions since Pokljuka) and she got a top 10 today! Amazing result. Hopefully a few more results like this means that our girls get one more spot next season so that Lena Repinc can finally transition to the world cup.

For 14 games per season to work there would need to be seven home and away matches. But if there are 20 teams in the league this means not everyone will play eachother. Unless we see it slip down the middle and have two leagues within the league with say eight teams each. That brings us to 16 teams overall. It all sounds quite dumb. Another feeling I'm getting is that despite what they say that there would be teams who qualify through the national leagues, is that teams won't be relegated or lose their spot in this new league. And how would they even determine who gets to play in the top division? UEFA coefficient will not be used as they won't be part of UEFA anymore. Will they go by instagram followers? Twitter shares? Onlyfans subscribers?

Anita Horvat had the slovakian flag next to her name. 😕I would expect better from Poles. This is a huge embarrassment for them. I mean I would expect something like this from a western country and not from a fellow slavic one.

No Mariya Lasitskene. Interesting. Perhaps because her biggest competition are Ukranian girls and they don't want that conflict there.

Silly question here. Since there are (and probably will be in the mens race too) so many DNS in the slalom part of the combined, this means someone like Moreno from Andorra or Muzaferija from Bosnia might end up in the top 15. Will this give them anything? I'm not talking about points for the world cup, but perhaps FIS points for a better start number perhaps or something of that nature (points for the nations cup, I dunno)?

Tina Šutej set a new Slovenian NR yesterday in Ostrava, with a 4.82m mark in pole vault. Current WL too!. She is one of the big favourites in the upcoming EICH.

This world championship felt like a bit boring and predictable. It feels like the gap between the top and those behind has grown. We have Denmark at the top which are almost impossible to beat. Then the second group of nations which include Germany, France, Spain Sweden and Norway. Then you a drop off in those who can make it to the top 8 but won't cause an upset in Egypt, Hungary, Croatia, Iceland, Portugal, Slovenia, Serbia. The rest are even further behind and any win against the teams above would be a surprise. So we have about 5-6 nations that are capable of fighting for a medal. I expect those same nations to be in contention in ECH24.

Arena Sport (delayed on AS3 until Saturday 22:45 CET) Those jokers

Great. It's on a channel only 15% of Slovenians have in their tv scheme. This also means the youtube streams will be geo-blocked for us.

I still can't believe how Norway threw away a secured win in the last 4 seconds. Like just hoof the ball towards the goal. Just throw it away. Fair play to Spain who punished them. I will admit I hoped that the game would go to the seven meter shootout. It also feels a bit better knowing we lost to two teams that are now in the semi finals.

Shiffrin wins number 84. Neja Dvornik climbed up 15 places. From 27th to 12th in the second round. Great result.