Werloc

Well, Lithuania is in points yet again, this time thanks to Karol Dombrovski. Although it's very sad that Vytautas Strolia had a disaster on the last shooting together with Rastorgujevs and mass start dream for Lithuania is now dead.

Yeah, this is our best chance since 2006. Let's hope Finland doesn't send a Lordi again.

Zuk is a bit too far-fetched for me. I'd be more inclined to see something from Brorsson, Hauser. Franziska Preuss looks to be close to podium form, don't know if calling her an outsider would do her justice though

To be brutally honest, a lot of outsiders with potential are having a terrible championships. Apart from the unexpected women's sprint result, these championships so far belonged to the favourites.

Doubt the whole 10 nations on the medal table. Most likely candidate is Sweden, but Oeberg is running out of chances. As for the women's relay, Sweden or Switzerland could climb onto the podium, but not likely that both will make it. The next possible candidates would be Austria or Finland, but Austria does not look alive at the moment, perhaps single-mix Eder's and Hauser's combo get a bronze? Depending on what the big nations start there. Finland, well there's a mass start for Kaisa and it's safe to say it's her strongest discipline, but she is not looking reliable with the rifle. Following that, there's Ukraine (also possibly only for the women's relay or perhaps a surprise 20/20 individual tomorrow) and a surprise medal for Fialkova in the mass start as Slovakia's only option. Not really seeing Belarus, Poland, Canada, Estonia doing anything and Fak for Slovenia is looking miserable in these champs so far. If I had to make a safe bet, I'd say only Sweden joins the medal table. Would like to be proved wrong.

Wait for the relay gold redemption.

First zero from the prediction contest for me today :/

If we keep this up, we're going to get a brand new thread

You can communicate with other members of the forum to give me 1 reaction of each.

I had that thought replaying in my head more than once or twice. Like one deranged person ruining it for everyone. At least with 5 bullets in a magazine another biathlete would shoot the 'killer' before too much damage is done. Unless it's Jesipionok, with that 14s standing shooting, nobody would be left alive.

What further proof that biathlon is doing well do you need?

Wait a second, when did he become 20? The real mystery of this entire forum.

Well, Lithuania is still "heartbroken" after Elisabeth Tobias threw away our nationality half a year after The Olympics and became Jewish or something. So I'd say that's unlikely, seeing as our athlete nationalising history is probably at a huge number of 4 or 5? Very closed-minded country. As for Jesipionok, she's a talent. She lost more time in that IBU sprint than she did in a World Championships sprint

has she ever been on skis before? If yes, we take her.

In before Simona Fourcade debuts in 2021 to get all of those medals that he didn't win whilst his brother reigned supreme.

We kindly offer them the wondrous world of eSports Edit: and breakdancing of course

All jokes aside, we actually have 8 men right now with World Cup qualifications thank god you're not after our three women.

Of course not. There wouldn't be enough Lithuanians for our relay then. Unless of course they could use our retired Lithuanian male biathletes and that would be the formerly doped Zlatkauskas and some of the very unsuccessful junior career quitters such as Šarūnas Jukna or Kipras Daugirdas.

Ooooooooor, we could do the original gender relays with 4 women or 4 men, but every single team gets a Norwegian man with the best skis to start at any (1-5th) leg that they see fit and you would draw your Norwegian from the pool just like you draw a bib number in the sprint.

Full Quality, you mean?

Why not go ahead and have a non-binary gender relay as well since it's 2020? I've always wondered if the best women on tour would be able to crush our team's men.

Well, the World Cup I think has less pursuits this year, but really a fuck tonne of relays that I would definitely cut down on to add one more individual or do something like a single-mixed concept with 30 athletes starting with short skiing intervals and 4 prone + 4 standing shootings with 20 best qualifying, 5 qualifying that collected most points during that stage and 5 qualifying based on best shooting percentages.

Gandalf did offer them his staff you can't prove me otherwise.

They cannot remove pursuits and such, because you needn't forget that IBU cup is not only a qualification competition, but it is also the gateway for younger, less experienced athletes from larger nations such as Norway, Germany, France etc. that would be sent off to the World Cup level, get a 35th place in the sprint and would have 0 pursuit competition experience compared to athletes that have long been on the tour. For example, Lithuanians ALWAYS go backwards in every single pursuit that they participate. Why? Mostly because we never qualify to them, so pacing problems, shooting problems, all of that really can be seen in a technical race such as the pursuit. And most especially that's the only HEAD to HEAD practice if you can't qualify to the mass start and in relays, the second leg from smaller nations is usually already out of it, so you're on the shooting range with two other people at best. Another point is that you can't overcrowd IBU cup with individuals either, because athletes from smaller nations would just die on the course. People lose 7 minutes in the sprint, seeing yourself 22 minutes behind in 104th place would not really inspire you to compete further.

Honestly, I just imagined that after I proposed this idea, the other Totallympics members would rally behind me with: "You'll have my staff" "And my bow" "And MY AXE"