NearPup

Final US Speed Skating team (as long as the 180 athlete quota isn't surpassed): Men: Jonathan Garcia — 500m Kimani Griffin — 500m Mitchell Whitmore — 500m, 1000m Shani Davis — 1000m, 1500m Joey Mantia — 1000m, 1500m, mass start Brian Hansen — 1500m, mass start Emery Lehman — extra skater for the team pursuit (and second alternate for the 5000m) Women: Heather Bergsma — 500m, 1000m, 1500m, mass start Brittany Bowe — 500m, 1000m, 1500m Erin Jackson — 500m Jerica Tandiman — 1000m Mia Manganello — 1500m, mass start Carlijn Schoutens — 3000m, 5000m

Canada is sending it’s 10th or so best team against Brazil so... yes, actually. (TBH some of the matches Nunavut will play at the next Scotties and Brier, if they send a team, are going to be bigger mismatches).

Zhou is 17, Miner 26. That’s why they picked Vincent. That and Zhou did well at nationals last year and the margin between them was small (2 points) even though Zhou had an off day.

I would be so, so, so happy if he won a gold medal. He says that if Sapporo gets the 2026 Winter Olympics he'll consider competing until then xD

Brianne Tutt and Kali Christ hit the standart (they need to have it over the last calendar year, not during trials). But yes, the speed skating Canada time standards are insane.

North Korea has indicated today they will probably send a team, and the IOC has said they where willing to give invitations to North Korean athletes that had not qualified, so one thinks they will probably be there. But it's North Korea so who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I think the team pursuit / team sprint are still in the spirit of long track (I can't really think of a better team format for speed skating), but I agree that the mass start feels very out of place.

For the past five years Humphries was quite behind the Americans in terms of her starts, and her win in Sochi was quite miraculous as a result. With George on the team she's going to be really hard to beat in Pyeongchang. She outdrives the field more often than not, if she outstarts them too...

I'd actually like to see both the team sprint and the team pursuit, since there isn't much overlap between athletes (an ideal team sprint team seems to be two 500m specialists plus a 1000m specialist, team pursuit is middle to long distance skaters). But then again, I'm a big fan of the track cycling team pursuit and team sprint so it figures I'd like the winter version. Right now the team sprint is kind of a joke but I think if it gets added to the world and the Olympics (...which I feel has to be the plan given how hard the ISU is pushing it) it's going to get taken very seriously very quickly.

Hey man, the team pursuit was a great adition. The Olympic format is obviously better (the 2006 format especially). I think the team sprint would also be a very good adition with a knockout bracket. The mass start, well, bleh. They should make it twice as long and remove the sprints.

To highlight the insanity of Speed Skating Canada's selection criteria, if the Netherlands followed the same standards they would be sending nobody in the women's 500m (the third ranking Canadian, who will be left off the Olympics, is higher on the Olympic time list then the number one ranked Dutch skater).

So Erin Jackson qualified for the US women's Olympic team. In case you don't recognize the name, well, she started speed skating four months ago. She achieved the ISU qualifying standard time at trials, too (and trials in Milwaukee, not Salt Lake). She is a world champion in inline speed skating and, clearly, she has potential.

For anyone wondering, the slopestyle world cup in Laxx, Switzerland next week should be the best one of the year in terms of caliber. It’s an existing, well respected event that is now part of the world cup. It was a really good contest last year.

The 10km was just to be national champion, and the women’s 5k was more or less decided in advance. For Canada in events other than the mass start you needed to win a world cup medal this fall and be ranked top 5 in the world cup for the distance (with the caviat that there must be at least one open spot at the trials, which is why Bloemen didn’t prequalify in the 5k).

Oh, Carlijn Schoutens won the women's 5000m at the US Olympic trials by something like 10 seconds. Just as well since she's the one who earned the spot (and no other US women was anywhere close to getting a quota).

First results out of the Canadian selection. Ted-Jan Bloemen qualified for the men's 5000m (surprise, surprise) and on the women's side Ivanie Blondin, Isabelle Weidemann and Brianne Tutt qualified for the 3000m. Edit: as an FWI, some athletes qualified from previous results before the trials. Alex Boisvert-Lacroix qualified for the men's 500m, Ted-Jan Bloemen qualified in the men's 10000m, Olivier Jean is qualified for the men's mass start, Ivanie Blondin is qualified in the women's 5000m and both Ivanie Blondin and Keri Morrison are qualified for the women's mass start.

Very disappointed, I actually quite liked Chen and felt bad he missed out on 2016 due to the Russian suspension. Just what I deserve for rooting for a Russian weightlifter I guess.

What a ridiculous situation. Those jury members should not be on a jury again. If it snows so badly that track workers can’t keep up then it’s just snowing too much.

I’m holding you to that.

It was actually not a slam dunk, another athlete on the US team (Mia Manganello) is about as good as Carlijn Schoutens in the 3000m. Schoutens was more of a sure thing in the 5000m.

I’ve always felt it was pretty stupid to have higher qualifying standards. They tend to be pretty arbitrary.

Kind of odd, I feel like in the past Speed Skating Canada didn’t have dificult qualifying criteria.

Cruel way for Letita de Jong to be bumped off the team. Still, she is definitively the least deserving of the 11 on the selection matrix. Edit: Also I get Bergsma is going to get to do the 5000m anyway xD

We are pretty dang far from the total from LA. Looking at golds and even ignoring '84 we need eight to have an all time high. That's pretty tough.

Does this result mean Achtereekte and Das are qualified? Edit: to answer my own question, Achtereekte is officially qualified, Das still isn't.