Werloc

Yup, welcome to the stage of denial, followed by anger, bargaining, depression and then finally acceptance This year it was far more prevalent than ever

Anyways the medal table has shifted quite a lot when comparing 2018-19 and 2019-20 seasons. 2018-19 there were 15 nations on the medal table and 14 nations this year. There were 10 first time winners and 10 athletes for the first time on top of a podium in 18/19, compared to 2 first time winners and 8 athletes with a first podium. There were 12 different women that won a race and 8 men, compared to only 8 and 6 for this season. Although there were less races, Norway became even more dominant, getting 55 medals (32 gold) this year compared to 48 medals (28 gold) last year. France stepped up EXTREMELY this year, they went from 32 medals (7 gold) to 51 medal (15 gold) this year. For the second time in succession, Italy finishes above Germany on the medal table, although they went down from 21 to 12, due to Vittozzi and the women's relay underperforming. Germany is falling down even further after Laura's retirement from 33 medals in 2018/19 to 22 with even less golds. Another 3 big losses of the season go to Russia, Slovakia and Makarainen, going down from 14, 12 and 7 medals to 7, 1 and 1. Loginov's and Makarainen's underperformance as well as Kuzmina's retirement are the likely cause of these. Sweden remains relatively unscathed going from 12 medals up to 13. Good relay performances and Hanna Oeberg kept them above their 2019 performance, but a huge dip of strength on the men's team with Samuelsson being invisible all year as well as Nelin and Ponsiluoma not getting much better in the off-season. Czech Republic and Ukraine stay somewhat on the same spectrum as last year and Switzerland improves by a huge margin to finish above them in the medal table. Austria has not had a good year. With the women not being strong enough to challenge for the podium, it was all on the men, but Eder and Landertinger are not exactly young now and Eberhardt did nothing to help the Austrian cause, so they went down from 6 medals to 3. No medal for Bulgaria and Poland this season, but Estonia got on it in a midlly competitive single-mixed relay.

Otherwise known as Maekaeraenen to those that really hate those scary unfamiliar letters

I would love nothing more for her to end on a surprise win with a final lap outskiing Herrmann.

That's it. Kaisa Makarainen has announced retirement today. I'm losing my favourite athlete of all time and I doubt that I'll ever find a biathlete that I can support more than I supported Kaisa Really hoped she would continue till the Olympics. Fourcade and Makarainen retiring in front of no crowd is the biggest fucking robbery for biathlon ever.

Perhaps Dale becomes very strong during the off-season and Quentin for France, perhaps Jacquelin if he gets a bit more consistent. Germany is slightly washed up. Peiffer is not going to do anything at his age, Doll and Kuehn are a coinflip, so not going to be overall contenders and it doesn't seem like Schempp is ever going back to his best. Tarjei won't be able to challenge his brother, he's like Simon was to Martin, just a bit more consistent, but never better than his bro. Not expecting any miracles from Russia either and Austria is full of old men. Leitner and Seppala look like the most talented youngsters that are not from the big 4 countries, but they still need 2 years of experience at least to really climb up the ranks. Perhaps Samuelsson can pick himself back up and Cisar should be debuting next year with the grown-ups, so we'll see what he can do.

Someone will have to step up next season or Johannes will get bored and quit too

With all of the events in the world cancelled and postponed, @dcro should hire ten additional Croatians to help make the templates so we would get the contest rolling earlier

Yup, so the nail-biting relays are not going to happen. For the first time in Lithuanian history, we finish our season in 16th place on the men's side. This means that we will have 4 quotas for our men in every race now. 10 years ago our biathlon team was Diana Rasimovičiūtė, less than 10 years ago we had 1 quota for our men. It's truly an amazing feeling to see our small team achieve this, too bad that the women's team is slowly falling apart.

Tell that to the doctors

Oh I am very much invested in this, because Lithuania can lose 100 points in relays to Estonia, Poland and Finland in their sleep. But as an outside perspective, without nation cup at stake, I still would love to end the season with a mass start, because it's the best race to end the season on and it's always highly exciting.

I think that Kontiolahti should've stepped up and at least agreed to host a final mass start after all of the races. Ending the season on a pursuit with mixed relays just seems so anti-climactic.

Nice to see Vytautas Strolia back in points again Tomas less than 1 second from pursuit, not the first time this season We're still in the fight for top 17 in the nations cup. I am scared for our relays.

Huh? I kinda heard some news that Kontiolahti would host another stage in Oslo's stead to lessen the amount of travelling and to give the world cup the proper finish that it deserves?

Funnily enough, since March 10th was Lithuania's 30th Independent birthday and March 11th was Independence day, I was on stage less than 16 hours ago in front of a massive crowd and I shook at least 40 hands yesterday. So this whole panic mode that started just this morning seems extremely ridiculous and makes me wonder that we didn't officially close down anything earlier simply because we were preparing for our national celebration. That final big bang of everybody being together and having a good time before the virus hysteria takes everything away

Technically I can't run in colder weather, because cold air affects my throat and I'm more susceptible to illnesses then. (hence, I have to be very careful, because regular concerts already strain that area, that's why my running season starts mid Spring and ends mid Autumn) Seeing as all of my work is cancelled now, you're kinda right in me not having anything to worry about anymore so as long as we're not jailed in our houses, there's nothing stopping me now from running

I'm just wondering when will I have the chance to gain those sweet 5kgs from the moment when they decide to close down all of the gyms, because they already did close them in Vilnius. My only hope is that I'll be losing some weight simply from starvation.

and Lithuania is now fucked as well. Every single concert and event is cancelled, school is going to be stopped as well. Cinemas closed and any other activity with any fun included is also closed. I am completely out of work now with no ability to make any money from music with more than 14 cancelled shows in the next two months It's safe to say that I am very willing to kill someone at the moment

Don't cancel Oslo. We need a frikkin' extra men's sprint if we're going to fuck up the relays and fall below 17th in the nation's cup...

Yeah, but Mamas really need to fix their final 40 seconds of improvising, because that is far from clean too.

Hard disagree. I've tracked Dotter's performances since she was very hyped and none of them were vocally stable. She was never comfortable at the start of the song, which did not give me confidence, nor was she ever truly comfortable using her head voice. If I could compare her to anyone, I'd say budget Sia, less talented vocalist, less appealing song. I stand by Sweden's choice this year. Although, Dotter's final was much better than her semi.

Well, my votes were finally sent. I was able to come to a place where I knew I wouldn't regret the end result. It was honestly the most difficult TISC experience for me by a long mile. I was often thinking to myself that there are a lot of songs that are not getting enough points, but I had no place to move them up the order and it was an extremely frustrating experience, which I did not often have when ranking the songs before. I'd say the top 6 could have easily stolen 12 points from me in some of the other contests, so knowing that one of those songs is there, sitting on only 7 points, feels like a stab in the back to the song But you can only judge what is in front of you and the quality this year was the best there ever was and I'm extremely happy, because I got introduced to some gems and you're sure as hell going to get praise from me in the coming month when I will finally be able to post my votes, but for now my lips are sealed Very happy that I could vent to @dcro on how the voting process has dragged me to hell and beyond this year and my Excel spreadsheet was an inconsistent trainwreck

Same, over the years this contest has made me realise that I'm a sucker for some of the languages

You know something is wrong when the 2019 Autumn edition and 2020 ratio of songs that made it onto my Spotify TISC playlist is 7 to 17

OMG, finally nothing moved You can probably expect my votes tonight