NearPup

Long time lurker who decided to jump into the convo here to say that I think Charles Hamelin deserves serious consideration for flag bearer... it's his 5th olympics, he's won 5 medals (including three gold) and he has a shot at becoming one of Canada's most decorated Olympians at these games! 
 
Also thanks so much to all the posters in this thread, you guys made the Tokyo Olympics 6 months ago super enjoyable!! 

my heart is, as always, with Slovakia and Switzerland (for different reason, of course)...
 
by my pick is  Sweden
 
my full top 8 prediction (btw, I'm really famous for missing badly all of my predictions...so, don't get mad if I didn't pick your team...and start touching wood if you're a Swedish fan )...
 
Gold:  SWE
Silver:  FIN
Bronze:  SUI
 
4.  CZE
 
out in QTFs
 
-  CAN
-  USA
-  SVK
- ROC
 

Breaking news: confirmation that the beds in the athletes’ village are *not* made out of cardboard.
 
 

Breaking news: confirmation that the beds in the athletes’ village are *not* made out of cardboard.
 
 

Breaking news: confirmation that the beds in the athletes’ village are *not* made out of cardboard.
 
 

I'm glad that you're okay and Bruna is alive, but I'm heartbroken. She is and always will be an Olympian in our hearts. My thoughts and prayers that @brunamourahas a speedy recovery. Força, Bruna! Vai ficar tudo bem, guerreira! Melhoras!

I'm unhappy about J/R being on the team because of their... personalities, shall we say. But in terms of the sporting merits J/R when they have a bad skate are about as good as W/M when they are clean, so it's not like there was much of a case that isn't reliant on emotions for picking W/M. W/M are also not really improving all that much, they are clearly not a team of the future either (and frankly they should probably split and attempt to find new partners).

To be honest these two are not very consistent.  I am not impressed by them to be honest.

Ya, the period from three to one week before the Winter Olympics is always a bit of a clown show where at least half a dozen qualification rules are broken by IFs…

Guess there was some room on the Canada jet too. At least this has once again showed us, that when it comes to the Winter Olympics, nations can reject, accept and rearrange quotas whenever they want, procedures and deadlines be damned.  

Breaking news: confirmation that the beds in the athletes’ village are *not* made out of cardboard.
 
 

Long story short: she was on the way from Austria (where she had been in quarantine until today) to Munich, to get tested three times there in the coming five days, starting today. Somewhere along the Austrian/Italian border (Vintl), the transfer we had booked for her (a minivan, her as only passenger) had an accident, a bad one, one might say. Sadly the driver didn't make it, and considering they hit a truck head-on, Bruna sitting in the back (to keep some distance) quite simply saved her life. Transported to the hospital by helicopter.
 
Broken arm, two broken feet and an unknown number of broken ribs seems to be the damage. Which, considering the gravity of the accident, is barely short of a miracle.
 
As for me, I'm at home in the Netherlands, which is where we are trying to get her as soon as possible (when medically allowed, of course). It has been a long day of back and forth contact with insurance and Brazilian federation and everything to see what can be done. But, again, the main thing is she's still with us.

OMG the spin. Team Canada has “received” four additional quotas. Sure.

OMG the spin. Team Canada has “received” four additional quotas. Sure.

https://olympics.com/beijing-2022/olympic-games/en/results/all-sports/athletes.htm

If he went on a 15 minute speech in a 100 minute ceremony, that is already a human right violation

In hopeless faith for also a minimalist Bach and the OC president speeches

Nobody in NA builds hockey specific arenas either. They just build arenas that can have a good layout for both hockey and basketball, along with concerts (and any sport where the field of play can fit within the size of a hockey rink). And generally they get fans closer to the court in every sport than you see in European arenas.

About a year ago I made a prediction on the team sizes, here's the link. Let's see how I did.
 
First the following nations qualified, but I didn't predict.

 
Nations which I thought would qualify, but did not.

 
Overall not too bad, the ones that I missed were not active a year ago and only qualified one athlete. Kenya technically qualified, but the athlete was not selected and I made my prediction before finding out North Korea will isolate itself until COVID passes. Cayman Islands was a bad pick since I thought an already retired athlete would try to qualify.
 
The following nations I underestimated (predicted a smaller team) by at least five athletes.
 
- 59 athletes
- 10 athletes
- 6 athletes
- 5 athletes
- 5 athletes
 
Sorry Denmark, but in my defense they were the first reserves in curling and one win away from qualifying in ice hockey. Unfortunately for me, the nation qualified in those four team events, account for 58 athletes. I kind of knew I was underestimating Australia given its restrictive travel regulations so I'm not surprised that I was off by a lot. I also missed the mark on Jamaica considering how small their team is. I originally only had them qualifying in women's monobob, but they were able to barely sneak in the two men's events.
 
The following nations I overestimated (predicted a larger team) by at least five athletes.
 
- 33 athletes
- 32 athletes
- 12 athletes
- 11 athletes
- 11 athletes
- 10 athletes
- 10 athletes
- 9 athletes
- 6 athletes
 
Originally I had Germany and Norway qualifying ice hockey teams which explains why they are at the top of the list, but even if we ignore that both nations would remain on the list with 10 and 7 athletes respectively. One weakness from my prediction is I didn't take into account whether a nation will decline quotas which is why you see a lot of the big European nation here.

Canada's first batch has left Vancouver for Beijing including the women's hockey team among others.

Wait, I'm just getting notifications now that Hockey Canada is going to release the roster in an hour.  

Well, Jakobsen made two gates, so there’s that.  

TBH I don’t love the “look of the games” so far. I’d say it’s my least favorite since SLC. But that’s of course highly subjective (I loved Vancouver’s, and that one was pretty divisive iirc) and I may change my mind as I see more venues (so far only got a really good look at curling and speed skating).

Quick look at the oval all decked out.