NearPup

It will basically come down to getting a time qualification time next week-end.

We might never know why he did it, but given how quiet he's been I wouldn't be surprised if he changed his name *because* Svenson is such an anonymous name in Sweden. And sadly he was quite clearly completly burned out on speed skating by the end of his career.

I don’t do it manually, I use a script that pulls the data from the ISU website, so same amount of work on my end regardless of how many skaters it is. I would like to hide the lower half of the list, I know that’s possible on Wikipedia, but I haven’t figured out how to do it yet.

Well the Dutch women are on track to do what they need to send a full team so far - as it stands they have a full contingent of points qualifiers in the 1000m, 3000m and 5000m

I mean ya, but it doesn't affect everybody the same. Could be something else, but in his case there is a clear difference in form pre and post pandemic.

Added summary of current qualification standings here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_skating_at_the_2026_Winter_Olympics_–_Qualification Will keep the Wikipedia page updated as best I can. If I'm feeling really ambitious I'll update my script to output in a Totallympics format too, sadly the speed skating qualification system is somewhat complicated so I'm not gonna do this by hand xD If anyone finds any issues with the list please let me know, I haven't thoroughly tested my script with the new qualification system. Fun fact: as it stands is already not at the maximum quota on the men's side (since Marcel Bosker is only a time qualifier in the men's 5000m)

He had COVID before Beijing and he’s never looked the same after…

Something something ice is slippery. Sven Kramer was a sure thing to win gold in the 10k in Vancouver, after all.

Well this has really scrambled up how I think the Olympics are gonna go. Probably the biggest surprise of the winter sports season so far.

Oh ya, van der Poel changed his name to Svensson

This also means Nils Svensson no longer holds any world records. Crazy they didn't even survive a single quad given how unbeatable those felt at the time.

Someone must have read "How to skate a 10k… and also half a 10k" over the summer. More seriously, these inline speed skating transfers do sometime seem to have huge drops in time. He probably massively improved his technique since last season.

What the hell just happened? O.o 5000m world record by Timothy Loubineaud, 6:00.2

Inside the Games is really a joke now :<

No, it's up to two men.

Just in time for it to be removed from the Olympics? xD

Well I guess it's finally confirmed that the Tennis mixed event continues to be mixed doubles.

Ya, that's also the kind of thing gay people say (I should know :P ) The most enby (but still kinda gay somehow) person I know was a fairly high level rugby player and they've commented on how queer friendly the sport is (at least in the United States)

I mean, it's rugby. Hard to imagine a gayer sport (meant as a compliment xD )

Comfortable victories for Democrats on friendly turf tonight. Abigail Spanberger will be governor of Virginia (Democrats also won the offices of lieutenant governor and attorney general), Mikie Sherrill will be governor of New Jersey and Zohran Mamdani will be the next mayor of New York City. Californians also overwhelmingly approved the new congressional district map that was gerrymandered to favor Democrats.

…none of these offices have anything to do with immigration.

Election day in today. This is an off year election, which means mainly local elections (my ballot here in Washington state was extremely local). The big mayoral election everyone is talking about is New York City, where Zohran Mamdani is expected to win. The big suspense is whether or not he gets over 50% (not important electorally but very important psychologically). Seattle also has a very interesting mayoral race between two Democrats, incumbent mayor Bruce Harrel is being challenged from the left by Katie Wilson. The big events are the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia. It would be a political earthquake if Democrats Mikie Sherrill and Abigail Spanberger (both former US House memebers) fail to win. New Jersey, which was unexpectedly close in the 2021 gubernatorial election and the 2024 presidential election, is probably the state to watch tonight.

I do wish that when they made new weight categories they would go back and reset the world record based on the best result for anyone who would qualify for that weight category. We all know why they don't do that though (changing weight categories is a soft way to remove dopers from the record books)

A really fascinating anachronism that arose from this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Autonomous_Oblast

Actually won't be able to watch Friday (friends take priority over sports unless it's the Olympics :P ), but if it goes to seven I will try to watch game seven with a friend who's a Dodgers fan. We have a bet on the outcome so it would either be an amazing or terrible experience depending on the outcome xD