Monzanator

Power gymnastics has killed all the elegance & finesse in gymnastics, now it's like robots performing drills for the highest score. Base value or whatever that's called determines who wins each event barring a major error but Maroney still won a medal despite landing on her ass. That should be impossible. As for figure skating there is the artistic impression value that prevents this sport going all power skating like in gymnastics. They got rid of the compulsory figures which used to be more important than actual skating programmes. They allowed vocals in background music and hell, it's no longer all classic violin & piano music anymore either. Figure skating has evolved a lot over the past 30 years but grace & elegance don't ruin this sport at all. All of these skaters have background training in gymnastics & ballet in first place. There's nothing artistic in artistic gymnastics anymore but it's still there in figure skating. After all it's mostly about dance and dance is an art. Gymnastics is only a bunch of moves during a routine that has nothing artistic about it, even the floor exercises are boring as hell these days.

McKayla Maroney won an Olympic silver landing flat on her ass on 50% of her vaults Haven't seen any sport determined more by bad judgement than gymnastics. Figure skating is for insiders, others simply look for cool outfits and music. Not to mention the sport is notoriously boring in first place.

Rugby is even more shallow when it comes to teams than volleyball. And the host team will always get a bonus in the Olympic tournament. Japan's women team is actually quite good, obviously the men's team is much worse but FIVB wants to pamper the hosts and this is the way going forward. Poland and Italy will be in Japan's men group together with Canada, Venezuela & Iran if the serpentine holds up. USA, Brazil, Russia, France, Argentina & Tunisia will be in the other group.

London OG was the first time FIVB used the serpentine system. Back then two highest men seeds (Brazil, Russia) were in the same group with #3 (Italy) & #4 (Poland) were in the GBR group. Same in the women's (USA, Brazil together while Japan & Italy in the GBR group). The last non-serpentine global volleyball tournaments were the 2010 World Championships (both men & women).

Classic seeding BS case, everyone wants to be in the host Japan's group. It will look even more ridiculous in the men's tournament.

The biggest problem is indeed with Super G replacing Downhill. Moroever the rise of the so-called "technical" speed events compared to boring old school speed races. The all-arounders are effectively gone BUT more & more tech speciallists do the Super-G which further ehnaces their chances in AC. Bringing back the old school DH is the only reasonable solution I can think of to limit the tech skiers advantage.

Yeah, obviously his. I'm sorry but I don't trust things will get better in 10 years. Coaching is broken in Poland and our run of success started with Wenta who spend years in Germany and brought all his coaching prowess from outside of our woeful system. In 5-10 years time our run of success in ski jumping will end too and we'll drop to Finland levels IMO. Stoch and Zyla are over 30yo already and late bloomer Kubacki is 29. We're gonna field a grandpa team in 2026 WOG? Like really? This thing will collapse after Beijing 2022. No way Zyla and Stoch will be in the 2026 team at age 39.

Yeah, Bogdan Wenta lost his mind over these morons long time ago but even he called it quits and entered politics instead. Let's face it, we're back to being irrelevant in men's handball.

Btw, it's been confirmed Manfred Moelgg suffered a torn ACL. Given his age this could be game over for him.

Poland blows 5 match points, Turkey needs only one! Meryem Boz had 38 pts or something. Totally overshadowed Smarzek-Godek in crucial moments.

Safe to say I have more faith in my handball picks than water polo

Divisional Round starts in 20 mins with 49ers vs Vikings

Kinga Rajda's 21st place in Sapporo is the best ever World Cup result for a female jumper.

You know well the people who shot down the Dutch plane had Ukrainian passports but were ethnically Russian. Obviously the Western World doesn't give a flying fuck about that anymore. Macron, Merkel & co. are too scared of Putin & the Russian cyber war influence to do anything about it.

But it was Ukraine who didn't close their air space over a war zone Ukraine & Iran are guilty of the same neglience here.

[hide] Women's Tournament - Preliminary Round January 12th - January 19th, 2020 12 Nations, 2 Groups, the 1st, 2nd, 3rd and 4th Nations from each Group will qualify for the Quarterfinals Group A Date & Time (GMT +1) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 January 12th 2020, h. 11:30 Slovakia 10 Russia January 12th 2020, h. 13:00 Greece 23 Serbia January 12th 2020, h. 19:00 Hungary 18 Croatia January 13th 2020, h. 13:00 Croatia 17 Greece January 13th 2020, h. 14:30 Russia 20 Serbia January 13th 2020, h. 19:00 Slovakia 21 Hungary January 15th 2020, h. 14:30 Greece 19 Slovakia January 15th 2020, h. 16:00 Serbia 4 Croatia January 15th 2020, h. 19:00 Hungary 2 Russia January 17th 2020, h. 14:30 Russia 19 Croatia January 17th 2020, h. 17:30 Slovakia 4 Serbia January 17th 2020, h. 19:00 Hungary 1 Greece January 19th 2020, h. 13:00 Slovakia 6 Croatia January 19th 2020, h. 17:30 Greece 1 Russia January 19th 2020, h. 19:00 Serbia 15 Hungary Group B Date & Time (GMT +1) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 January 12th 2020, h. 14:30 France 7 Spain January 12th 2020, h. 16:00 Germany 11 Italy January 12th 2020, h. 17:30 Netherlands 23 Israel January 13th 2020, h. 11:30 Germany 17 Netherlands January 13th 2020, h. 16:00 Israel 12 France January 13th 2020, h. 17:30 Italy 1 Spain January 15th 2020, h. 11:30 France 4 Germany January 15th 2020, h. 13:00 Spain 22 Israel January 15th 2020, h. 17:30 Netherlands 3 Italy January 17th 2020, h. 11:30 Germany 10 Spain January 17th 2020, h. 13:00 Netherlands 12 France January 17th 2020, h. 16:00 Italy 14 Israel January 19th 2020, h. 11:30 France 6 Italy January 19th 2020, h. 14:30 Germany 14 Israel January 19th 2020, h. 16:00 Spain 1 Netherlands Men's Tournament - Preliminary Round January 14th - January 18th, 2020 16 Nations, 4 Groups, the 1st Nations from each Group will qualify for the Quarterfinals, the 2nd and 3rd Nations from each Group will qualify for the Round of 16 Group A Date & Time (GMT +1) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 January 14th 2020, h. 11:30 Slovakia 8 Montenegro January 14th 2020, h. 14:30 Germany 9 Croatia January 16th 2020, h. 10:00 Germany 1 Slovakia January 16th 2020, h. 20:30 Montenegro 2 Croatia January 18th 2020, h. 16:00 Slovakia 9 Croatia January 18th 2020, h. 17:30 Germany 6 Montenegro Group B Date & Time (GMT +1) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 January 14th 2020, h. 10:00 Romania 2 Netherlands January 14th 2020, h. 17:30 Serbia 3 Russia January 16th 2020, h. 13:00 Romania 8 Serbia January 16th 2020, h. 14:30 Russia 5 Netherlands January 18th 2020, h. 11:30 Romania 5 Russia January 18th 2020, h. 20:30 Serbia 6 Netherlands Group C Date & Time (GMT +1) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 January 14th 2020, h. 13:00 Malta 16 Spain January 14th 2020, h. 19:00 Turkey 17 Hungary January 16th 2020, h. 11:30 Malta 3 Turkey January 16th 2020, h. 19:00 Hungary 1 Spain January 18th 2020, h. 10:00 Turkey 20 Spain January 18th 2020, h. 19:00 Malta 17 Hungary Group D Date & Time (GMT +1) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 January 14th 2020, h. 16:00 France 3 Georgia January 14th 2020, h. 20:30 Italy 2 Greece January 16th 2020, h. 16:00 Greece 11 Georgia January 16th 2020, h. 17:30 France 7 Italy January 18th 2020, h. 13:00 France 4 Greece January 18th 2020, h. 14:30 Italy 9 Georgia [/hide]

Meanwhille Corinne Suter wins her first World Cup race in Altenmarkt downhill. Nicol Delago 2nd, Michelle Gisin 3rd. Ledecka 8th. Breezy Johnson made her comeback after 22 months off with two injuries and finished 25th.

They shipped the snow from World Team Challenge in Gelsenkirchen over to Oberhof

Fourcade, Jacquelin & Kuehn on the podium. Good day for Doherty 21st, Nordgren 26th. ( @RobtheAggie should be satisfied?). Great day for Strolia 20th, Dombrovski 36th.

I didn't realize we have two Lithuanian biathlon fans in this thread Tomasz Sikora noticed Strolia's result and calls it the biggest shock of the race so far For obvious reasons Karol Dombrovski used to get a quick mention from time to time (and Diana Rasimovicuite when she was still racing but mainly due to her marriage to Bricis).

Boe basically lost one minute on going back to complete the loop. Still better than the 2 min penalty if he skipped it alltogether. Don't look now but has a shot at some WC points. Vytautas Strolia only 1:50 behind Fourcade with 1 miss! @Werloc will be satisfied

Tarjei Boe forgot to do the penalty loop and went back to do complete it

Fourcade 10/10. Eliseev 10/10.

/ Said Karimulla Khalili with bib #102. Maybe he gets some extended TV time like Porshneva yesterday

2,5 km & 7,5 km. There was rain in the night so they had to bring in the fresh snow. Women's morning training was cancelled today.