JockCartier

Finished ahead of Nozomi Maruyama too... I was starting to wonder if anyone would. She kinda came out of nowhere and was CRUSHING everyone this year Strate is putting together a really nice season.

That would suck But looking at the world ranks, it kinda looks like Dandjinou, Dubois and Roussel could be the guys for all three of the individual events... and with everything spread over six days, it's not a huge deal. Only days guys would have to double up are for the Mixed Relay and 1000 qualifying (Feb 10), and the 500 Q and the men's relay semi's (Feb 16th, which at least two would be doubling up anyway) Who would be odd man out? Pierre-Gilles? Would be nice to have the extra body, but not sure it will effect our plans much. And with injuries and whatnot with all the other countries, it may be a non-issue anyway. Do they let countries with relays bring substitutes, like athletics, where they're physically there, but don't count as active athletes unless officially substituted in?

Pretty sure we did in 2014

Dandjinou certainly spent a lot of quality time in the padding

I'm willing to go as high as two out of three... gotta leave some room for short track to be short track

For the women at least, I think the last couple Olympic relay bombouts are karma... they went 7 straight without a DQ or a fall, so 2018 and 2022 were the comeuppance

I think that's reasonable. We've got a stacked team, but short track is unpredictable at the best of times, and I get the sense Italy and Korea aren't showing all their cards and will come out firing

Yeah, I don't think the B races are produced for tv/streaming... if you can get to Calgary in time, I think tickets are only $10 to see it live though!

And the men’s relay bombed out on day two 🤦‍♂️

I'm not 100% clear on how they allocate the quota, but there seems to be special consideration given to teams with 0-1 jumpers for either sex to get an 2nd so they can field a mixed team and/or men's "super" team. So might have hope. They did come in a respectable 8th of 15 in the mixed team

That's a big part of it. Most of the development program was run thru there, it was well established and easily accessed by a large population. Just in general, our sliding program results softened across the board those from the Vancouver 2010 pipeline started retiring. Money and other resources dried up, in-fighting, and organizational issues took root, and we lost half our tracks.

I think it's gonna be tough to unseat Gogolev for the Olympic spot. Putting up scores, and at 20 is the youngest of the contenders, and would benefit most long term. Sadovsky skated well, but was underrotating his jumps... and at 26, he's no longer someone we can think of as a developing skating, it's put up or shut up time. With Gogolev putting up scores in the short around 90, I'm not sure there is much need for Messing. If we can get the same scores semi-consistently from the up and comer, we might as well go with the up and comer

Amazing Maltais keeps getting better with age! Weidemann looks like she's competitive again, and Bloeman even seems to be having an resurgence. My hopes for our long trackers has certainly risen in the last couple weeks!

Nerherlands would need to learn to do something more than skate to have a chance

I'm a bit dubious on the value of the YOG, but looking at the 2018 results I do see a number of names that are now familiar. They certainly don't hurt. I see we won a gold in Badminton "mixed team relay"... alrighty then

I'm hoping we'll start seeing a few fully home grown products of the new Quebec oval starting to emerge by 2030

The Georgians had a bit of a nightmare... actually, pretty much the entire last flight other than Japan had nightmares. Lifts were being missed entirely, people were falling on spins, it was a fiasco lol Laurin/Ethier don't really have the scoring potential to compete with most of them typically... but they skated clean, and everyone else were throwing points away by the dozen

We found out... so much for that theory

Yeah, I thought he had big things in store for him. Hasn't been the same since the pandemic.

I wondering if he was treating it as just a warm up for his main event... I guess we'll find out soon

I was happy Weidemann looked in pretty good form after a couple off years. All three members of the Team Pursuit team look to be dialed in for their defense. Had heard talk that Lamarche was putting up great times during training... they weren't kidding, huge breakthrough for her!

I'd imagine they'd request a re-skate at the Olympics or Worlds... not sure they'd bother for a World Cup, especially at this point in an Olympic season. He'll have no problem qualifying, so they'd probably just rather he do a regular recovery and stay on his program

Did he move to Whistler and someone talked him into lending his name to the program?

Phelps never swam 8 individual, most he did was five. He always got 2-3 freebies in relays thanks to swimming for a powerhouse McIntosh will be lucky to get one relay medal the way Canada's relays are shaping up. I think she's hoping to swim five individual events, schedule permitting

Ben Johnson... no further questions!