Milano-Cortina 2026 Quota Simulation: 2024-25 Data Edition
Hello fellow Totallympians and welcome to another quota simulation. This time, the focus has shifted over to the winter Olympics. There's still a ski mountaineering world cup and some a few world championships to go but I thought I would post this while everyone is still in winter sports mode. I'll post minor updates if any data changes over the next month but I don't there'll be many changes. There's a few things to note before we begin.
Total # of NOC's
Overall, we have a total of 88 NOC's that are qualified/projected to qualify for the Olympics. This would represent a decrease of 4 NOC's from the 91 nations in Beijing although Russia and Belarus were competing separately then. On the other hand, with Russia/Belarus being limited to how many sports and how many athletes they can qualify, many of the major winter sports nations are projected to have their largest team ever.
Russian/Belarusian athletes
Speaking of Russia and Belarus, they are included in this simulation and just like in 2024, it was very annoying to factor them in considering they didn't compete in competitions in the last year at all (besides ski mountaineering). I've only included these athletes in the skating sports and ski mountaineering. The ISU has already announced a pathway for Russian/Belarusian athletes to qualify and neutral athletes are already competing in the ski mountaineering competitions. Russia was easy to simulate since it was safe to assume that one athlete would qualify in each event. Belarus was a bit harder and involved me looking at individual times/scores for their athletes this year. At the end of the day, I decided to include Belarusians in women's singles and pairs for figure skating and the men's 500m & 1000m along with all of the women's events in speed skating. All of the women's speed skating events may be a bit too generous but that was how it was in 2022.
Total # of athletes
In total, 2874 athletes are projected to qualify from this simulation. This is despite the athlete cap being at 2900. There are a few reasons for this discrepancy.
Bobsleigh: Only 162 of the maximum 170 quotas were used.
Curling: Only 109 of the maximum 120 quotas were used. This is due to certain players being simulated to play in both the mixed doubles and 4 person events resulting in them taking up two quotas.
Figure Skating: The additional 5 quotas allowed for the team event were used here. After simulating the final qualifying event, only Canada, France, Georgia, Italy and the USA had full teams so I gave an additional quotas to Great Britain in men's singles, Japan in ice dance, and South Korea in Pairs.
Freestyle Skiing: Only 277 quotas were used here compared to the maximum 284 quotas. The women's halfpipe looks like it will have trouble filling up their 25 quotas as only 23 quotas were used and I believe 5 athletes simulated currently do not have the required amount of FIS points to be eligible. Men's aerials and women's ski cross originally had enough athletes to fill up the allotted quota. However, Canada and the USA were over the maximum limit so after simulating rejected quotas, those events didn't have enough athletes to fill the allotted quotas and women's aerials just made it. Henry Sildaru (EST) is also projected to qualify in both men's halfpipe and slopestyle/big air.
Luge: Only 105 of the maximum 106 quotas were used here because Wolfgang Kindl (AUT) is projected to qualify in both men's singles and men's doubles
Snowboarding: Only 237 of the maximum 238 quotas were used here. Cody Winters (USA) is projected to qualify in both PGS and snowboard cross.
In addition, there are also 3 athletes expected to compete in multiple sports: Phillip Bellingham (AUS) in cross-country skiing and ski mountaineering, Ester Ledecka (CZE) in alpine skiing, and snowboarding, and Arianna Fontana (ITA) in short track and speed skating. Please let me know if there's any other possible athletes that could also be in this list.
Internal qualification procedures
Internal qualification procedures for countries like the Netherlands and New Zealand WERE NOT taken into account this time for the sole reason because it's fun seeing the Netherlands have an athlete in Nordic Combined
Differences from the FIS quota simulations
If you have a look at the FIS quota simulations on their webpages for alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, and snowboarding, you'll notice there are some differences.
Alpine Skiing: NOC's with a man or woman that hasn't qualified yet were taken into account. If the athlete hasn't had the required amount of races to qualify but is averaging the necessary amount of points to qualify, I simulated them as qualified (e.g. Morocco).
Cross-Country Skiing: FIS only simulated 138 quotas in each gender. I reallocated the remaining 10 quotas per gender based on the Olympic nations' ranking. There is a clause that if an unqualified NOC scores 300 points or less in a world cup race next season, they can qualify. However, that is very unlikely to happen (unless Russia and Belarus are invited back) since there are already athletes from qualified NOC's competing in World Cup races that get lapped.
Freestyle Skiing: I took into account Canada and the USA rejecting quotas since they were both initially over the 32 athlete quota limit. I had Canada rejecting 2 quotas in women's aerials, 1 each per gender in moguls, 1 in men's halfpipe, and 2 in men's slopestyle/big air. I had the USA rejecting 1 quota in men's aerials, 1 in men's ski cross, and 2 in women's ski cross.
Snowboard: Two athletes in women's snowboard cross were not eligible to qualify and were replaced with athletes on the reserve list that were eligible.
Speaking of athlete eligibility, there were some athletes that were simulated by FIS that didn't meet eligiblity requirements. I decided that if there was an eligible athlete on the reserve list, then the ineligible athlete would be replaced but if there wasn't an eligible athlete on the reserve list, I would keep the ineligible athlete in the quota list (e.g. Vanuatu in freeski halfpipe).
Anyways, that's enough talking. Let's begin! The numbers in brackets represent the change from the NOC's athlete total at Beijing 2022.
Please comment if you have any questions, thoughts or observations.
The Canadian women’s team defeat New Zealand 22-19 for the first time ever and win the pacific four series title. This moves Canada into second in the world rankings behind England .
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