NearPup

Ya he’s pretty good.

Converting to Judaism can make you eligile, too.

They are just trolling at this point >.>

Team Sky and Bradley Wiggins are at the very least unethical. It’s possible they didn’t break any ruled, their use of TUEs shady but probably within what is allowed. But I don’t believe for one second the British government helped cover up for them. I also don’t believe for one second this is a conspiracy to meddle in the Russian presidential election. The Panama papers being leaked to hurt the Russian government, sure. But a state sanctioned doping program doesn’t even register in people’s opinion of Putin. Either you believe he is shady and it’s just the latest in a long line of transgressions or you don’t believe he is shady and no evidence of state sponsored doping would change your mind about him anyway. It would have been a lot better for the IOC to sweep this under the rug. The fact they aren’t shows they really believe in the evidence they have gattered. Believe it or not people in the West don’t want Russian athletes to miss the Winter Olympics. NBC isn’t out there beating the drum of banning Russians. Trump probably doesn’t even know there is a Russian doping scandal, so the idea this is some US lead conspiracy is ridiculous. It’s not good for anybody if Russia is banned or made to compete neutrally.

Assuming Zubkov's disqualification stands it would be ridiculous to not disqualify the entire team since the driver is by far the most important member.

The US and New Zealand have shown that transitioning inline speed skaters to long track a very viable model so I'm pretty optimistic that Colombia could be quite good at speed skating in a couple years. Not sure how the training conditions are in Colombia, though, would help a lot if they had an oval.

The only two remaining competitions for the time ranking are Salt Lake City and Calgary. In practice almost all the qualifying times will come from those two world cups, except in the women's 5k / men's 10k.

Also from the linked article: it looks likely that Russia's best and second best Bobsleigh teams will be disqualified, leaving a gold for Switzerland, a silver for the USA and a bronze for Latvia in the two man event and a gold for Latvia, a silver for the USA and a bronze for Great Britain in the four man event. This would also be a big blow for 2018 because Alexander Kasjanov is a legitimate medal chance still.

It’s a terrible qualification format for any team that relies on NBA players, too. I think the old qualification cycle format was much superior because the best players could participate and it was much easier to follow.

Park City is a starter’s track but, unlike Nikitina, Yun clearly outdrove the field by a lot. I also don’t think Nikitina will be much of a factor at the Olympics ever again

Because he’s going to inherit the 2014 gold medal. IMO Yun is almost a lock for gold in 2018.

Silver linning: Martins Dukurs is finally going tonget his long overdue gold medal.

Presque Isle and Fort Kent are both in the middle of the woods, fwiw. So not surprised they would have attendence problems.

They don’t list Italy because they don’t have a world cup ranking in the relay. I’m not actually sure if that matters since Italy has sleeds in all events (that and I am pretty confident the Italians will finish at least one relay).

Stock reminder that the current time rankings are going to be completly irelevent after the Calgary amd Salt Lake City world cups (except for the 5000m/10000m since the time ranking is based on only one world cup race).

I hope they all get their visas, these world championships are already lacking in star power, the Iranians are just about the only big team left. I wouldn't worry too much about form though, as long as Rostami and Moradi can physically make it they should have no problem eating the competition alive xD

For women's Nordic Combined it's a matter of 2022 or 2026, not a matter of if. I think it needs a couple world championships under it's belt, so I think 2026 would be better, but I can easily see the IOC hurry things along and add it for 2022 since it's the last remaining discipline in the Olympics (winter or summer) that doesn't have women. To be perfectly honest I don't care about Nordic Combined enough to have strong feelings either way. For the same reason I wouldn't be surprised at all if women's doubles luge gets added for 2022 despite never having been held at high level (or any levels, really), and if it doesn't get added I think it should make people worry about the future of doubles luge in general. I do think women's Ski Jumping is ready for a second event, though. The caliber isn't nearly as high as men's Ski Jumping, sure, but it's comparable to a lot of winter sports and depth seems to be developing fast. You wouldn't even need to add any athletes to add a large hill event.

So that explains the media reports that Nigeria qualified.

Is that the case for all B division races or just the 5000/10000m?

This is what the quota situation looks like after the second of four world cups. I exclude the time ranking for all events except the men's 10000m and the women's 5000m. Max number of athletes is 3 per event for the 500m, 1000m, 1500m and the 3000/5000m while it's 2 per event for the 5000/10000m and the mass start. A country can have up to ten skaters if they qualify in every event, otherwise the limit is eight. Women: 500m 1000m 1500m 3000m 5000m MS TP MAX 1 1 2 4 1 1 1 3 3 2 3 2 2 2 X 10 2 2 1 2 7 1 1 1 1 1 2 7 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 X 4 1 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 2 X 10 3 1 X 4 1 3 3 3 2 2 X 10 1 1 1 3 1 2 1 X 4 2 3 3 3 2 1 8 1 1 1 1 1 3 2 2 2 1 2 8 Men: 500m 1000m 1500m 5000m 10000m MS TP MAX 1 1 2 1 1 3 2 2 2 2 1 X 10 1 1 2 2 1 1 2 1 1 2 1 2 2 2 7 3 2 1 X 6 3 1 3 2 8 1 1 3 2 1 1 1 2 X 10 1 1 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 8 1 1 2 X 4 1 1 3 2 1 1 X 9 1 1 1 1 4 2 3 3 1 1 1 X 10 1 1 1 3 3 2 8

Olympic time ranking for the women's 5000m and the men's 10000m (top 12, two per country): Women: Claudia Pechstein - 6:56.60 Ivanie Blondin - 6:57.34 Esmee Visser - 6:58.04 Martina Sáblíková - 6:59.95 Isabelle Weidemann - 7:00.82 Irene Schouten - 7:01.03 Natalia Voronia - 7:02.40 Anna Yurakova - 7:06.33 Nana Tagaki - 7:08.77 Misaki Oshigiri - 7:09.56 Marina Zueva - 7:11.39 Carlijn Schoutens - 7:11.45 Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and the Czech Republic are now guaranteed at least one quota each in the women's 5000m. Men: Sven Kramer - 12:50.97 Ted-Jan Bloemen - 12:52.64 Davide Ghiotto - 12:53.63 Jouke Hoogeveen - 12:56.62 Alexander Rumyantsev - 12:57.45 Nicola Tumolero - 13:02.11 Sverre Lunde Pedersen - 13:02.42 Patrick Beckert - 13:04.97 Peter Michael - 13:07.20 Moritz Geirseiter - 13:08.87 Seung-Hoon Lee - 13:09.26 Jordan Belchos - 13:10.30 The Netherlands is guaranteed two quotas (the maximum) in the men's 10000m. Canada and Italy are guaranteed at least one quota.

Looks like is completely in the clear to qualify in women's short track, the women's 1000m didn't qualify allocate any new athlete quota so the total number of women's quota remains under 60.

My thoughts: Ski Jumping Mixed Team Competition - I'd rather see them apply for a women's team competition or a women's large hill competition. ·Ladies’ Nordic Combined Individual Competition - whatever, if not in 2022 it will be in for 2026. It's absolutely necessary to do this for the sport to stay in the Olympics. Freestyle Ski Big Air Men’s and Ladies’ - uses existing athletes (from slopestyle) and venue (from snowboard big air) so why not? · Alpine Skiing Individual Parallel Event - I'm okay with this as long as they don't remove any of the existing event (that noise about getting rid of the Super G has got to stop). It makes for a good TV event TBH. · Freestyle Ski Aerials Mixed Team Event - meh, the format is stupid. · Snowboard Cross Team Event - I actually really like this event. · Snowboard Mixed Team Parallel Event - never seen this event. Seems like an odd format. · Snowboard Parallel Slalom - I think removing the parallel slalom was a mistake (it uses the same venue and athletes as the PGS) so I'd definitively bring that back. · Telemark Parallel Sprint and Team Parallel Sprint - no idea how popular Telemark skiing is in Europe.

There where 14 non-relay qualifiers in the women's 1500m in Sochi and they where still four short of reaching the max total quota, while in Vancouver they had 15 non-relay qualifiers in the women's 1500m and they where seven short of reaching the max quota, so she's probably fine.

That would be a lot of fun xD