NearPup

Japan just set the world record in the women's team pursuit! Meanwhile Germany finished 0.03 seconds ahead of Canada for silver. The Netherlands failed to finish (fall on the last lap).

Apparently she was in her best form ever. Too bad, these Olympics where probably going to be her best shot at ever getting a medal.

Ya, it's a very impressive result from Yu-Ting Huang. She's not that young (30) so I'm not sure how much further she can go, but this is just another example that if good inline speed skaters transition to speed skating they can do very well even if their country doesn't have a speed skating tradition. Wouldn't be surprised to see more good speed skaters come out of Taiwan (and Colombia).

There are 37 athletes with sub 1:18 just this world cup, and presumably more people will go under that in SLC. I don't think the time has to be achieved at a world cup either? Also it's just a minimum time, you have to be in the top 20 of the world cup or the top 12 of the world cup time ranking (excluding the top 20 in the world cup) (with the caveat that only the top 3 athletes per country count). It's unlikely you would qualify with a 1:18 flat.

http://www.fis-ski.com/news-multimedia/news/article=fis-imposes-provisional-suspensions-six-russian-cross-country-skiers.html The FIS has finally (provisionally) suspended the six Russian cross country skiers the IOC disqualified, based on the detailed reasoning in the Legkov case.

It’s kind of madening. The old format was fair, worked well and provided meaningful continental tournaments where teams could send their best players. This format is just... bleh.

I think it's a shame there aren't tripartite invitations available for cases like this. Alternatively, the America's quota in IBSF events should not include Canada or the US. It's actually really hard to qualify for something like women's skeleton unless you can grab a continental quota.

That post didn’t age well

Can we take a moment to appreciate just how good of a race this is? Tons of great performances, seems kind of unusual for a season opener.

The point is to try to add three new events at the Olympics xD

There isn't a World Cup in La Plagne this year. Europa Cup?

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).