Col_Frost

Tomorrow, the Lithuanian winter championships are starting in a 50m pool. It is the first opportunity for our athletes to go for the Olympic qualifying standard, so even athletes from other countries plan to swim here. I'll definitely update if there are interesting times. Some of our top athletes are planning to start: Rapšys, Šidlauskas, Bilis, Teterevkova.

And seeing medals being won by the likes of 'B4', 'Ram' or 'Bumblebee' gives me spontaneous itches. 
 
(Which by the way doesn't mean I hated watched it, I just really don't think it's fitting for the Olympics)

Why is @Olympian1010 running around the course in a dinosaur suit holding an American flag? American sports fans are weird  

Forget I said anything about men. But in women's competition Meyers won with great style. I was expecting that she'll win on her own track but not with such advantage. Maybe it's because of not so good performance of Jamanka?
 
 Heinrich 2nd! What a result! When was the last time when French was in top 3? And this second run of Lochner, what a poor start. I hoped that finally somebody will win with Friedrich in two-men.

Polish Biathlon Fed twitter keeps up the standards as usual
 

 

Tour of Israel 2019 is cancelled for "timeline" reasons. 
Two city, no race
 

Great, don´t let them forget to book tickets for Krakow

IOC rules are a lot stricter than National federations'...
normally, athletes can change Nationality already after 6 months/1 year (if not even earlier, think about the new Wrestling rules) with the new team...
meanwhile the IOC requires 3 years from the last appearance with the former team, unless there is the explicit permission of the old federation directly given to the new one...
and usually this comes down to money (with only a few Nations that regularly deny any permission until the 3 years have gone by...nowadays not even Cuba is as tough as they once were)...

IOC rules are different though. Remember Kipketer winning WCh for Denmark but missing 1996 OG?

Some photos from the women's pursuit in Arber, just because. At the individual and sprint I was near the shooting range, a bit too far away for photos, during the pursuit I was at the course.
 
Waiting for Jill Colebourn, who we - in an attempt to emulate German coaches who yell in their athletes' ears from two meters - succesfully yelled towards her goal of not getting lapped.

 
Dying Jill.

 
Cheering for Chinese Yu Qing (50, gave us a nice Chinese present during the week after befriending my girlfriend at the IBU Cup in Duszniki) and Jill, both fighting with Ana Maka of Poland. On the right is Norwegian former biathlete Tobias Torgersen, until around two years ago the coach of the Brazilians (and the Swedish IBU Cup team), then coach of Poland's women's World Cup team and now working for China.

 
Victoria Slivko of Russia on her way to the sprint-pursuit double.

 
Janina Hettich (7), Nadine Horchler (4) and Ragnhild Femsteinevik (7) fighting behind Slivko. Eventually only Horchler would manage to hold on and get a podium.

 
Kirari Tanaka of Japan can finally go right - towards the finish - instead of left - towards the shooting range and yet another lap.

 

I think Salt Lake might apply for 2030 . 

It depends what alternatives will IOC have if any  

That would be hard or maybe I should write expensive (for Polish conditions). Canal+ and Polsat are two different sat TV's, so if you want have programs of competition (for example you have sat from Polsat, but want also C+) you must pay extra. For six Polsat channels with Champions League you must also pay extra. Eleven is always separate package - you must pay extra. Even for Eurosport and Sportklub you must buy sport package because it's never in standard. Etc,etc, etc  

Final Round
 
in Belfast (GBR) (GMT)
Last Day
Sunday 13.01.2019 - Results
 
13:00  HK Gomel (BLR) - GKS Katowice (POL)   0-5
17:00  Arlan Kokshetau (KAZ)  - Belfast Giants (GBR)   3-2 After Penalty Shoot-Out
 
Final Standing:
1. Kokshetau 8, 2. Belfast 7, 3. Katowice 3, 4. Gomel 0
 

They were working fine, but there was brake due to wind conditions after jump of BIB 34. After break jury change start gate from 11 to 3 (!) and then to 1 and after that they cancelled qualifications  

First ever win for Latvia!

Netherlands and Poland will host 2022 women's World Championship

in live 7-1
 

This crazy idea about merging freestyle and GR comes from lack of knowledge about the sport. yeah they "look" similar if you just watch one match in 4 years. but in past 50 years only one wrestler managed to win medal in both styles in major competitions and that wasn't at the Olympics. and that was a special case in super heavyweight. yeah there are some wrestlers switch their styles early in their career when they are teenager but it's not like you easily can switch style whenever you want.
 
how many swimmers win medal in different styles ? freestyle and butterfly for example ? they look very similar to me. since we are all free to have crazy idea. let's drop the boring/predictable Swimming. we will have lots of spots to add multiple new sports.

Lin Sin-Rong quite possibly became the first Taiwanese luger to advance from Nations Cup to World Cup proper (after placing 13th out of 13 today).

Angola wins in the vary last second  historical victory for Angola 

Three quick goals for Qatar after break and I thought everything is back to normal. But now is 17:14! Come on, Angola! You can do it! 

Mostly because it's a junior tournament. It's just as useless as the water sports were at the 2015 European Games. Just like the ice hockey in Pyeongchang it can be fun, sure, but not Olympic-worthy.

Junior men's football
 
288 quotas freed up, easy

Drop the gender equality policy...