NearPup

Temporary quotas in short track (assumes nobody loses quotas because of the overall limit): Men's 500m 3 skaters: 2 skaters: 1 skater: Men's 1500m 3 skaters: 2 skaters: 1 skater: Women's 500m 3 skaters: 2 skaters: 1 skater: Women's 1500m 3 skaters: 2 skaters: 1 skater: Teams that are currently eligible for the mixed relay:

https://twitter.com/chelscarey/status/1464312704059908096?s=20 Chelsea Carey tweeted acknowledging the very hilarious stat that teams she is part of have now won 16 Canadian Olympic trials round robin games in a row (of course she is an alternate this year since her regular team failed to qualify, but still, it counts!)

We have two Brads left (Gushue and Jacobs). So the pattern will hold as long as Koe doesn’t repeat.

I don't think having the top four decided before the Olympics starts is a good idea. The two wave approach makes a lot of sense, but presumably the point of that would be to be able to increase the athlete quotas across the board.

Canadian Olympic Trials (Men's event) No drama on the men's side! Brad Gushue's team gets a direct bye to the finals where they will face the winner of the semi-finals between Brad Jacobs and Kevin Koe. All three active skips who have previously won a Canadian men's Olympic trials have made the playoffs, and the last four winning teams are represented. Eight of Canada's fifteen gold medallists in men's curling (twelve if you exclude alternates, which you should because the alternates on the three Canadian gold medal winning teams were truly random people who had unimpressive careers before or since) made the playoffs. They are: Team Gushue: Brad Gushue and Mark Nichols (2006) Team Jacobs: Brad Jacobs, E.J. Harnden, Ryan Harnden (2014), Marc Kennedy (2010) Team Koe: John Morris (2010, 2018 (Mixed Doubles)), Ben Hebert (2010) The only people left who haven't been to the Olympics previously are Brett Gallant and Geoff Walker from Team Gushue and B.J. Neufeld of team Koe. These three were however also in the playoffs of the 2017 trials.

"We believe that it could be possible to limit the number of teams to only four per competition." This proposal is some serious nonsense. The team competition is already basically as lean as it possibly can get, and eliminating the team competitions would be extremely bad for the sport (you're talking losing half the medals). And it's not like team competition medals only go to the big countries - Romania and Estonia won their only gold of the games in 2016 and 2020 respectively from fencing team events. (and no, there are no possible fair formats for a mixed weapons or mixed gendered team event) The only realistic way to fix this problem is with more quotas but, well, we know that ain't happening.

Canadian Olympic Trials (Women's event) We have an almighty mess! First, Team Fleury has beaten Jennifer Jones and is only the second women's team and third team overall to go undefeated during the round robin. The only men's team to go undefeated was Brad Jacobs in 2013, he went on to win the trials and the Olympics. The only women's team to go undefeated? Well that was a team skipped by Chelsea Carey, in 2017. If you only follow curling in the Olympics you probably don't know who Chelsea Carey is. That's because she actually lost the finals to Rachel Homan's team. Well, some fun trivia here: there are two people on Team Fleury's bench who are sure to be extremely nervous during the finals. That's because the team's coach, Sherry Middaugh, was the skip of the team that lost the 2013 finals and the team's alternate, Chelsea Carey, was as mentioned above the skip that went a perfect 8-0 during round robin only to lose the finals in 2017. Both have an opportunity for some measure of redemption. It would actually be a great story is Carey managed to make it to the Olympics after losing the 2017 trials final and then having a horror quad in terms of results and team stability (why is she an alternate at trials? Her team disbanded completely last year). Now, here is what the playing order looks like: Team Kerri Einarson takes on Casey Scheidegger in tie-breaker #1 The winner of tie-breaker #1 takes on team Krista McCarville in tie-breaker #2 The winner of tie-breaker # 2 takes on team Jennifer Jones in the semi-finals The winner of the semi-finals takes on team Tracy Fleury On current form Fleury is the favourite, but curling is a funny game and this final match will be by far the most pressure packed game in the career of any of the four starting players. If they can get through that test they will be a scary team at the Olympics.

D2.1: “A maximum event quota of three (3) athletes will only be provisionally allocated in the case that the NOC has three (3) athletes placed in the top 20 (500m, 1000m, 1500m) or top 14 (Women's 3000m & Men's 5000m) in the respective event’s SOQC.” D2.5: “For NOCs having a third (3rd) ranked athlete placed between the positions of 21 and 30 in the 500m, 1000m, 1500m distances or between the positions of 15 and 20 for Women 3000m and Men 5000m, these athletes will be placed in the reserve list of quota places in accordance with the SOQC rank of the athlete.” Either the ISU changed the qualification rules, the quota simulation they published is wrong or they are taking into account countries needing to decline quotas due to entry times not being reached (no idea if that would explain the discrepancy).

FFS making my script take into account that a third skater can’t qualify by time (but can get on the reserve list) was a massive pain in the butt and they just change it on me? Come on… Seems like they did their simulation with the rules from 2018.

Until Canada actually qualifies we’re all going to be incredibly paranoid. Canada has a long history of underperforming the low expectations they had put on them in big moments. This is very much a new team, but I think we’ve seen teams wearing the Maple Leaf give themselves away cheaply too often to not be worried.

Isn’t that the entire reason that team even exists?

I thought that too before I actually started watching it. I was once one of those school children that was sent to fill some seats (2005 Canadian junior championships) and we were all so bored. Worst field trip I've ever been on. But that's because none of us really understood what was going on. Now that I know the rules and have an understanding of the strategy I really enjoy watching it.

Women’s Olympic Trials update: Team Fleury, which has been the team to beat so far this season, has already qualified for the finals with a game to spare. They have a 7-0 record and they play the 5-2 Team Jones to end the round robin. Team Jones is, incidentally, guaranteed a spot in the semi-finals. The last semi-final spot is still very much up for grabs. Two-time defending national champion Team Einarson will get it if they win their final game, however if they lose we are guaranteed at least one tie-breaker. Up to four teams can still finish at 4-4, which would lead to two rounds of tie-breakers. Unlike in the International game tie-breakers are still in force in Canada. Team Homan, who represented Canada in Pyeongchang, are currently in last place with a 2-5 record and cannot qualify.

Different shade of blue, red line under the USA logo.

The traffic light coalition has been formally formed, meaning Olaf Scholz is now the chancellor-designate.

Canadian Olympic trials: Fleury on the women’s side and Gushue on the men’s side are now the only undefeated teams left.

The tweet says he was cleared of murder, as in he was found not guilty.

The defending Canadian champions, Team Bottcher, have started the Olympic trials 0-3 and are likely to miss the playoffs. 2006 gold medalist Brad Gushue and 2014 gold medalist Brad Jacobs are both 3-0 while former Canadian number 1 and 2017 trials finalist Mike McEwen is also undefeated at 2-0.

Prime minister Erin O'Toole, who will surely win the 2021 general election, will make sure the COC boycotts.

Kersten is almost guaranteed to qualify at this point.

I think he may be a slight favorite to win two golds in Beijing. Also I would be very surprised if the 5000m world record doesn’t fall in SLC or Calgary.

Qualification summary after day 2: Men's 500m 3 skaters: 2 skaters: 1 skater: Women's 500m 3 skaters: 2 skaters: 1 skater: Men's 10000m 2 skaters: 1 skater: , , and are guaranteed at least one quota in the men's 10000m. It looks like will just miss out on having a host quota in the men's 10000m, as it stands they are about 0.5s from being on the reserve list (which would have granted them a host quota). The time ranking is obviously final, but the point ranking might still change how deep the reserve list goes.

IBSF only takes points from the 2021-22 season into account. They take into account the same number of races as there have been world cup races (so if there have been five world cup races at the time of the Olympic cut-off they take each athlete's five best results).

Actually makes a lot of sense. There isn't a mass start (the event is most likely to qualify in) and their best path to qualifying for another individual event is through the time ranking. So it's probably better to get to North America a week early and acclimate.

Qualification summary after day 1 of the second world cup stop (these are my calculations so they may be wrong): Men's 1000m 3 skaters: 2 skaters: 1 skater: Women's 1000m 3 skaters: 2 skaters: 1 skater: Women's 3000m 3 skaters: 2 skaters: 1 skater: Women's 5000m 2 skaters: 1 skater: The qualifiers in the women's 5000m are unlikely to change.