Monzanator

Only if they remove the individual alltogether. Again, it's down to the leverage by the big nations. If single mixed relay becomes a Germany/Norway/France/Italy/Russia/Sweden playground then it doesn't make any sense other than rich getting richer. Poland once won a WC medal in the defunct team event and it hasn't translated to any success for our relay over the long run either.

As is often the case though, there are these sponsors and other crap to consider. It's not like USA has another global alpine skiing star now that Vonn has retired.

It's not a question how many like it but if the big nations like it. If they do then it's a wrap and the single mixed relay is here to stay. I don't think it happens at the WOG, two relays is too much tbh.

5 Norwegians in Top 6 for women and 8 Norwegians in the Top 12 for men. I wonder who the hell is watching this crap outside of Norway?

No surprise here, I said Ofterschwang is the place where she could come back. If she misses that then she's given up on the season alltogether IMO.

Estonia would probably disagree with you But it could be an exception from the rule. Any team event favors the big nations by default

When there's a change of positions from several seconds back after the last shooting it's always a steal It's not like they came in together.

Samuelsson meltdown and France will steal the bronze.

Italy on the penalty loop. Game over for them.

France is even struggling on skis here. 0+4 but over 20 secs. behind.

Tomasz Sikora going sentimental and says how David Panyik's father finished one place behind him in the 1994 WOG sprint

Assange is a Russian mole and everyone knows that. However Wikileaks used to be a darling of the liberal left (esp. after the Afghanistan war leaks) and it's so difficult for them to swallow that pill

Poland is the 5th most populous EU member. We have roughly the same population as Romania, Greece and Czech Republic combined. That's a lot of pissed off voters if you tell them: "Nope, we don't have any money so if you wanted to improve your status after 1989 you were all wrong" Quite frankly this is what the Civic Platform finance minister said in 2015 ("There is no budget money and there will be none") right before they got removed from power and have struggled ever since.

Single mixed relay squads have been announced. (Olsbu & JTB) and (Wierer & Hofer) in full gold medal mode. (Preuss & Lesser) and (Bescond & Jacquelin) will be menacing though. (Zuk & Nedza-Kubiniec) will be lucky to get a Top 12 finish IMO.

The problem in Poland dates back to the 90s when 1% (or even less) of our population cashed in on just about 100% of the state-owned assets in the privatisation process leaving millons of blue-collars feeling betrayed and quite frankly poor per modern standards.

Yeah, exactly the former DDR lands have the same problem though their issues only dates to post WWII. However it doesn't matter whether the excuse is valid, if someone feels like the wealthy capitalists haven't helped them enough to make up for the years of communist regime, they will turn to anyone who offers them a better future. Civic Platform has dismissed millions of blue-collars who lost their jobs after the state-owned companies went belly up after 1989. A small percentage of wiseguys made enormous profit but millions of people didn't really feel their economical situation got all that better. We've waited 30 years to cash in on overthrowing the communism and it's not happening. Yeah, everyone can buy a car these days but two holiday family trips to Soelden or Canary Islands per year? Hell, that's still beyond most of Pole's economical resources. Forget Canary Islands, some parents can't afford to send their kids on the Baltic shore. I was lucky enough my father's mine funded three weeks of seaside holiday in the summer for the employers' kids like me. Now it's obviously gone.

Martin Fourcade becomes the first 4x World Champion in the individual. Vladimir Melanin, Alexander Tikhonov and Heikki Ikola have won it three times.

People do most things out of fear. Politics has simply embraced the psychology. Btw, Polish Newsweek run an article last week about Finnish speaking Swedes in Finland and showed how divided that community is. Swedes living in Finland obviously want to speak Swedish in private and there's a clear divide between native Finns and Swedes. And the conclusion is Finland hates immigrants too - in this case the Swedes. And Newsweek is the chief liberal/progressive newspaper here so it's not like some conservative morons came up with such an idea to make the liberal Scandinavia look bad. There are xenophobic behaviour everywhere under the sun, not just the outdated and conservative Poland. Gay marriage is still forbidden in Poland. You can't run before you learn to walk. Even the liberal Civic Platform who ruled for 8 years was too scared to push with LGBT rights since deep down they are pretty conservative. You have to remember over the last 225 years Poland has enjoyed pure freedom & independence for 20 years between 1918-1939 and since 1989. So that's basically 175 years of Germany, Russia, Austria & Soviet Union telling us what to do and punishing us for keeping the Polish spirit alive. That's why it's very easy for the current government to put EU in the same category. Some damn politicians from foreign country tell us what to again. It's no coincidence Czech Republic and Hungary have a similar strong anti-EU political representative. The siege mentality is very real over here and it's something the old EU members from the West simply don't understand.

Poland simply isn't a multi-cultural country and never will be one (not in this century anyway). 98% of white population, 88% Catholics (and it doesn't matter 60% of them doesn't go to church). EU is the easy way to blame for the government's shortcomings espeically that some of these Brussels morons play the race & climate change card. That's not moving any needle in Poland. Outside of the big cities like Warsaw, Wroclaw and Gdansk nobody cares about LGBT rights or stuff like that. And you can't win any elections in Poland winning just the big cities. And that's the problem. Rural areas win the elections and Law & Justice appeases them which means it directly contradicts the EU mainstream policy of appeasing LGBT and ethnic & religious minorities.

First time since March 2008 two men score WC points in the same race! Lukasz Szczurek in 37th (his first points since 2011 and Ruhpolding individual). Does anyone even remember we had individual races in Ruhpolding? Andrzej Nedza-Kubiniec in 39th (his first points finish ever, previous best was 48th in Poklujka individual last season).

Well, Yalta conference & Iron Curtain cast a very long shadows

Everyone does. But if it came down to taking less money from EU but to stop Brussels from telling Law & Justice what to do, they'd be very happy with it.

Andrzej Nedza-Kubiniec threatening to score points? Hold the damn phone!

Yes, my stance on inability of copying the Scandinavian system into USA is quite clear and obvious. As for conservatives being responsible for all the evil in the world, how do you explain the rise of AfD in Germany directly after Angela Merkel opened the doors for millions of immigrants? As for Poland, well, our government wants a return of the authoritarian rule and it's doing whatever it can to distance themselves from the EU bureaucrates in Brussels The very same bureaucracy basically caused Brexit already.

Fak lost 25 secs to Landertinger on the last lap and probably the medal with that