Monzanator

Laura Woods

Low-hanging fruits are always going to be exposed. Curling is a low-hanging fruit. The problem will only become real if we have Canadians competing in European Championships and driving out true Europeans - unless they expand the number of teams. It's never a good thing when we're gonna have more Canadians than Europeans at the European Championships

At least Viktor Ahn did quite well for Russia in 2014 And people are criticizing when Kenyans or Ethiopians are representing Qatar or Bahrain I really hate those double standards and hypocrisy. The best Polish female table tennis player - Li Qian - is obviously from China as well

If Biden survives the first term then he probably won't run for the second one citing "health" reasons. And Harris will have a free path to become President in 2024.

Well, Portugal is non-existent in winter sports so they might as well field some Canadians in curling. Half of the world is fielding Chinese in table tennis so we've been there before

Magdalena Gwizdon is back for the second Hochfilzen weekend. I warned you she's not done yet! Piton, Maka & Jakiela are off to Obertilliach for some training.

[hide] Nation Captains Dorothea Wierer (23) Johannes T. Boe (29) Nation Women Marte Olsbu R. (25) Marketa Davidova (15) Elvira Oeberg (8) Dzinara Alimbekava (5) Nation Men Simon Desthieux (24) Julian Eberhard (11) Anders Rastorgujevs (10) Sean Doherty (6) [/hide]

Maryna Gasienica-Daniel finished 11th (second best time in 2nd run). Talk about catching some form this season!

Americans are total hypocrites indeed. Thankfully baseball isn't a global sport so most people around the world doesn't give a damn about Chief Wahoo to begin with.

I stopped watching when Alexander crashed I don't understand a word but the guy seems excited enough!

I have to admit, snowboard cross is exciting but then again I come from a motor racing background so I enjoy the race style of a event. Slopestyle, Half-pipe or Big Air? Neah, not so much. I mean Aerials was an Olympic event long before Big Air ever became a thing and it's like a totally Asian/ex-USSR event with some one-offs from Australia. FIS is run by Norway and that won't change for a long, long time. They don't see the value of expanding the nations pool which is quite shallow by default due to snow being non-existent in half of the world.

Welcome to Polish school of pro boxing. We have a line of these undefeated guys who never got tested on mere EBU level! Jezewski was supposed to fight past-prime Youri Kalenga yesterday. Obviously he was not ready for Okolie. This was worse than Glazewski vs Brahmer back in the day.

North & Central America controls WBC, WBA and IBF though. When will that change? AIBA is for Asians & former Soviet Union. Everyone has its own cake.

Americans have the X Games so I believe FIS World Cup is second rate for them? Not to mention the money, Ester Ledecka earned more money after one Lake Louise weekend than in the entire snowboard season. This discipline is really kinda going nowhere. It looked like it might be a blast 20 years ago but Europe rallies around the classic alpine skiing & cross country events. Snowboard has fizzled out like the Segway

March 2019. Changes were supposed to come into effect on January 1, 2021 and of course they will go ahead. https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1076641/iaaf-council-approves-in-principle-reduction-of-50km-distance-in-race-walking-after-tokyo-2020

@Olympian1010I used the word "can" not "will" Latvia seized the opportunity, Japan & Norway obviously don't care about luge whatsoever

Norway has always been about cross country skiing. They even hardly had a presence in alpine skiing before the 1990s. They ain't gonna bother with luge or bobsleigh! Just because a country is forced to build a sliding track for Olympic Games it doesn't mean anything. These tracks are easily abandoned once the Games are over and done with. Just look at the Italians and the Cesena 2006 track. It run into economical issues literally within five years and that's despite Italy actually having a strong presence in luge. Has France done anything in luge or bobsleigh since Bruno Mingeon retired? Probably not France doesn't even have a proper women's alpine skiing team other than veterans Worley or Noens and that's despite being located in the middle of the Alps of all places And you want them to make a run at luge? Not gonna happen. Latvia on the other hand can make a run at the low-hanging fruit because they have ZERO winter sport presence elsewhere (other than hockey). Since they don't have any cross country, ski jumping or alpine skiing relevance, they build the Sigulda track and are cashing in with style.

Style marks got Geiger ahead - plus distance being worth less on ski flying hills.

Luge/bobsleigh/skeleton is a low-hanging fruit. Build an ice track and suddenly you can become a force as evident by Latvians and Sigulda. Ski jumping is a low-hanging fruit too but Finland has like several ski jumping hills and they've completely gone off the boil. Czech Republic has Liberec and the Harrachov zombie and they barely hang on. USA were a power house in nordic combined not that long ago and God know what happened to Steamboat Springs that used to be the North American staple. Canada demolished the hills in Thunder Bay, Calgary is done too. They simply don't care about ski jumping anymore, they have more interest in moguls where they continue to be a power house for almost 30 years. It's sure a lot easier to build a moguls track than maintain a ski jumping complex

Under the post-1993 scoring system Marie-Therese Nadig scored 445 points in first five races of the 1981 season - and 545 points in first six races so that's the "eternal" record that still stands.

I'm shocked someone from Netherlands even pays attention to ski jumping. I've watched this sport on & off since Toni Nieminen's flash in the pan. There was a time when Finland had the most Olympic medals in ski jumping and now they're completely irrelevant. It's like Netherlands suddenly struggling to get a Top 10 in speed skating. This is how far ski jumping has regressed. Most winter sports actually begins to attract some "new" nations, in ski jumping the former power houses are going belly up and the whole sport goes backwards. Finland relegated to third tier, Czech Republic to second tier, France and Sweden don't bother to enter jumpers anymore. Canada is like a one-man team (no offense to Soukup) and USA is somehow staying afloat with bunch of no-names. It's been over 15 years since Alan Alborn was doing the one-man US show Boyd-Clowes now does for Canada Enough cynicism for you or do you want MORE?

Ski jumping basically cycles around the same names over and over again. Zajc is 20 yo and that's like the future of Slovenian ski jumping. If they kick him out and have to rely on Peter Prevc who is on a down spiral then it means there is no real choice. Ski jumping basically has 8-9 nations competing, if such a power house like Slovenia has issues it speaks volumes how irrelevant ski jumping really is these days.

These stats are as useless, the same as these overtaking probability numbers shown in F1. Must be some crazy Americans working on the TV graphics. Maryna Gasienica-Daniel finished 21st which is a great result after a big mistake in the 2nd run. We are light years behind everyone in alpine skiing, even our neighbours Czech Republic & Slovakia

Don't count her out yet! Two days ago we "celebrated" 25 years since Gwizdon's World Cup debut. 76th place in 1995 Ostersund sprint https://www.biathlon.com.ua/en/results/id-2646-ostersund-1995-1996-sprint-7.5-km-zhenshtini

Russell being talented has nothing to do with it. It's about how he matches to Bottas and potentially Hamilton. It's not like Bottas was hired from the street. He had some good results at Williams himself. F1 unemployment line is littered with talented guys who were ousted through things out of their control. If Russell labored to 5th or 6th place last week and couldn't beat Perez or Stroll on pace then Hamilton would have never be so quick to return IMO.