Josh

Kim Dae-Huyn delivers on a tough blank, lead 4-2 over heading into the 4th end break.

[1] Novak Djokovic is the first men’s semifinalist, as he defeats [12] Taylor Fritz 7-6 (3), 4-6, 6-2, 6-3! Djokovic has now won 33 consecutive matches at the Australian Open (dating back to 2018, where he lost to Hyeon Chung in R4), and has also improved his H2H against Fritz to 9-0 in the process.

Canada with a tough draw for 2 (could’ve been 1), and Nathan Gray delivers! Came down to a measure for the second point actually (the first of the event), but in the end Canada is in fact confirmed to be second shot. lead 4-2 after 3 ends.

South Korea scores their 2. and tied 2-2 after 2 ends.

Miss by Chloe Fediuk with her first in end 2, and it’s looking like it’ll be a 2 for South Korea.

Kim Dae-Hyun misses an easy nose hit with his last to give Nathan Gray a shot for 2, and he delivers. lead 2-0 over after 1.

First full curling match of the Winter YOG for me (I watched the end of Brazil v. South Korea, ended 17-1 in favor of the hosts) as Canada takes on South Korea in a couple of minutes

JAN ZIELINSKI TAKE A BOW

70 piece for Joel Embiid yesterday, as the Philadelphia 76ers (29-13) defeated the San Antonio Spurs (8-35) 133-123! Embiid becomes the 9th player to score 70 points (or more) in a regular season game! (still none in the playoffs, MJ holds the record at 63 in game 2 of the 1986 NBA Finals)

Quota simulation time (I’m bored again as you can probably tell) If ice cross were to become an Olympic event for Milano-Cortina 2026 (it isn’t, but let’s just say hypothetically), here’s who would qualify as of now. Not exactly sure what the athlete quota for this sport might look like, so I’ll just go with 16 quotas for each gender (and a maximum of 2 quotas per gender for each NOC) Women Veronika Windisch Justīne Zonne Amandine Condroyer Virginie Schneider Michelle Mulder Tammara Meeuwissen Suzanne Driscoll Courtney L’Arrivee Junko Yamamoto Karolína Pflugová Camille Phillipe Piipe Hintunen Alice Zenz Alina Kukarina ? ? Men Mirko Lahti Robin Worling Shayne Renaud Richard Van Wijhe Marco Dallago Patrik Merz Leevi Nakari Arthur Richalet-Chaudeur Michael Urban Luca Engler Brittan Morris Jack Schram Martin Náhlovsky Andrew Worling (brother of Robin) Jonathan Merlino Lorenzo Callegari

[4] Coco Gauff advances to her first career Australian Open semifinal, after defeating Marta Kostyuk 7-6 (6), 6-7 (3), 6-2. 12th Grand Slam match win in a row for her as well. What a horrible, extremely low-quality match, I wanted to shut my TV off but I couldn’t. Neither one could hold serve, Gauff’ kept producing untimely double faults, Kostyuk was complaining the majority of the points. Kostyuk was also up 5-1 in set one, so a big missed opportunity there to wrap it up in straight sets. But honestly, winning a match with 16 winners and 51 (!) unforced errors (compared to Kostyuk’s 39 winners and 56 unforced errors) pretty much tells you all you need to know. Up next the winner of [2] Sabalenka v. [9] Krejcikova

Kael Oberlander qualifies for the semifinals in girl’s ski cross!

Canada defeats Germany 5-2 to improve to 3-2 in mixed curling competition!

After one run in women’s giant slalom (alpine skiing), Giorgia Collomb (silver medalist in alpine combined) leads (48.42), with Shaianne Zehnder in 2nd (48.56), and Camilla Vanni (gold medalist in super-g) in 3rd (48.88). Off the podium currently, but not completely out of reach of the medals are Romy Ertl in 4th (48.99), Rita Granruaz in 5th (49.05), Justine Herzog in 6th (49.14), Fabienne Wenger in 7th (49.27), and Astrid Hedin in 8th (49.40).

Where can I find results for Canada Cup #2? Very tight internal battle between Dylan French, Leon Xiao, and Nicolas Zhang in men’s epee for a ticket to Zonal Championships (winner qualifies themselves for Paris, assuming we don’t qualify a team/athlete through World Rankings), and this is one of events that counts towards the selection.

ISU Four Continents Championships | Salt Lake City, Utah, United States Sorry I’m a bit late with updating, was busy watching the GSOC Canadian Open final between Team Homan and Team Tirinzoni when it finished, and completely forgot about it afterwards Day 3 Women’s Team Pursuit Gold- Canada (2:54.02) Silver- Japan (2:57.54) Bronze- United States (3:04.32) 4 entries here as well. Men’s Team Pursuit Gold- United States (3:36.80) Silver- Canada (3:36.84) Bronze- Japan (3:42.08) Women’s 1000m Gold- Miho Takagi (1:12.35) Silver- Kimi Goetz (1:12.65) Bronze- Min-Sun Kim (1:13.84) Men’s 1000m Gold- Jordan Stolz (1:06.27) Silver- Taiyo Nonomura (1:06.68) Bronze- Tatsuya Shinhama (1:07.04) Women’s Mass Start Gold- Ivanie Blondin (66 SP/8:42.56) Silver- Giorgia Birkeland (43 SP/8:44.45) Bronze- Kyoko Nitta (26 SP/8:47.19) Men’s Mass Start Gold- Jae-Won Chung (60 SP/8:16.33) Silver- Shomu Sasaki (40 SP/8:16.43) Bronze- Antoine Gelinas-Beaulieu (20 SP/8:16.46) Full Results

Go Even if Messi decides not to compete at Paris (although if they do win the quota I hope he does), I still want to see Argentina qualify.

Was the entry list particularly strong? Did it have any notable names?

Pools for each of the OQTs have been revealed Universality OQT 1 | April 12-14, 2024 | Hong Kong, China Pool A Hungary Poland Egypt Hong Kong Pool B Netherlands Azerbaijan Mongolia Chile Universality OQT 2 | May 3-5, 2024 | Utsunomiya, Japan Pool A Germany Japan Austria Brazil Pool B Canada Netherlands Australia Kenya OQT | May 16-19, 2024 | Debrecen, Hungary Pool A Germany Azerbaijan Poland Tunisia Pool B Canada Lithuania Czech Republic Chile Pool C Spain Japan Egypt Mongolia Pool D Hungary Netherlands Italy Israel In a normal circumstance, Australia would be capable of winning a medal, but they might not even qualify Their only chance to assure themselves a spot at Paris is at the Universality Olympic Qualifying Tournament 2, but there’s only one quota, and Canada is favoured over them IMO.

Pools for each of the OQTs have been revealed Universality OQT 1 | April 12-14, 2024 | Hong Kong, China Pool A Netherlands Austria Switzerland Hong Kong Pool B Mongolia Latvia Egypt New Zealand Universality OQT 2 | May 3-5, 2024 | Utsunomiya, Japan Pool A Lithuania Latvia Brazil Puerto Rico Pool B France Mongolia Japan Egypt OQT | May 16-19, 2024 | Debrecen, Hungary Pool A Lithuania Switzerland Madagascar Germany Pool B Netherlands Austria Puerto Rico Hungary Pool C France Latvia Canada Egypt Pool D Mongolia Belgium Japan Poland

Squad for ICLA 7 World Championships: https://www.sailing.ca/canadian-sailors-aim-an-olympic-spot-for-the-country-in-ilca-7-at-the-world-championship/ Top 7 unqualified NOCs earn Paris quotas.

Since I was bored, I decided to go over all the remaining Canadian medal chances. Without further ado; Matthew Lepine- Men’s Slopestyle/Big Air (Snowboarding) Charlie Beatty- Men’s Slopestyle/Halfpipe (Snowboarding) Jean Christoph-Bougie- Men’s Moguls (Freestyle Skiing) Men’s Hockey Team

Canada improve to 2-2 (8-3 loss to Italy in their first match, and 6-3 loss to Great Britain in their third match) after an important 6-5 win over Switzerland!

Tied for silver actually Both her and Kotane recorded times of 56.84