Werloc

I think this is only but a start of Italian women becoming mainstay favourites in women's relays, because the depth is insane. There are like 6-7 more Comolas and Auchentalers growing up ready to take their place if they ever have an off-season.

What the actual fuck is going on down in Finland?

So tragic that Russia got lapped and finished 22nd today.

Yay, money, I guess??? Dombrovski on the worst form that he's been in years, Strolia sick, Fomin with some huge confidence issues with the rifle. The funding gods are grateful we've made the top 16.

Lithuanian indoor championships start this weekend. Last chance for our athletes to qualify to the European Indoor Championships. Right now we have Jogailė Petrokaitė qualified for long jump. Modesta Morauskaitė and Tomas Keršulis were qualified for 400m, but seems like they're withdrawing, which is unfortunate, since Keršulis NR that he reached a week ago was actually the 5th qualifying time, so he could've done some damage in the championships. Other than that, Urtė Baikšytė and Juozas Baikštys are qualifying from the rankings as well as Dovilė Kilty and Aina Grikšaitė in the triple jump. Safe to assume these five are going to be representing Lithuania there, unless Palšytė surprises with a very good jump on the weekend, but I highly doubt that she's in form to jump anywhere higher than 1.90. Possibly ever again.

"For A Pessimist I'm Pretty Optimistic" is one of the best records on that album. I'm not entirely sure though that Paramore will be releasing that many more albums, they've been going at it since 2005. Many dramas, Hayley's somewhat unsuccessful solo attempt, if they don't stop after the record deal, I think they have 1 or 2 albums max in them, but I wouldn't be surprised if the deal is the last thing that's keeping them together. After Laughter was in 2017, the length of this break is Adele territory

If I had to go for a top 5, then "Still Into You", "The Only Exception", "Ain't It Fun", "Fast In My Car", "That's What You Get" and many other tracks in Riot! are the first ones that come to mind. I actually liked the sound direction in After Laughter, can't really form a strong opinion on This Is Why, since I've only listened to the album once up to now and remember the songs not really grabbing me. It's nice, cause it's Paramore, but it's not Paramore at their best.

If they pick Paramore, I'd rather have them choose Paramore for an open contest. The 2023 album just doesn't compare to some of the legendary songs from previous albums.

Very excited that the first real swimming competition in the 50m pool starts tomorrow in Lithuania. A three day event, Lithuanian winter championships. Rūta Meilutytė is skipping it, but Rapšys, Šidlauskas and Teterevkova are going to be present. Also, I'm very interested in seeing how did the junior talents develop in this past half-year. I'll update if anything interesting happens.

Feels surreal that the championship is halfway over and I didn't see a single race At least the Lithuanians were nice enough to not surprise me with any significant results. With the way that the European Championships went and the fact that we only have two relays to go here at Oberhof, the funding's gonna be very rough next year

LITHUANIA Well, I didn't expect to pick a song in Lithuanian at all this year, but here we go. Jessica Shy is one of the most famous artists in Lithuanian pop music right now. The song was released less than four weeks ago and already hit a million views, which is pretty big for any of our artists. "Dėl Tavęs" is a modern retelling of a Lithuanian folklore fairytale: "Eglė - žalčių karalienė" (Eglė - the queen of grass-snakes) and there are similar motives of this tale across Baltic, Slavic and Nordic countries. Anybody interested in this tale, can read more on it here, because it would be a lot to translate: https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eglė_žalčių_karalienė ALSO, I am mega proud of my translation this time, because I made it match the rhythm for anybody that will try to sing along And marked the parts in bold to make it easier to follow. It is not 100% accurate, because I had to omit some parts to make it rhythm friendly. Jessica Shy - Dėl Tavęs / For You Jeigu man leistum, dėl tavęs / If you would let me, just for you Aš perplaukčiau jūras ir upes / I'd swim across rivers and the seas Ir tegul į krantą mane išmes / Let me be swept towards the shore Ah, ah Kaip man pavyti tolyje lekiančias mintis? / How can I catch up with thoughts that are drifting away? Prisijaukinti kaip vėją tave, vėją tave / How can I tame you? Like the wind, like the wind Gandais apipinta, tu pasaka mano užburta / Entangled by rumours, you're my fairytale bewitched Jei visa tai tikra / If all of this is real Žinau - galiu bet ką / Then I'd do anything Dėl tavęs, dėl tavęs / Just for you, just for you Kai jūra išmes gintarais geltona / The sea glows yellow with amber Kaip surast, kaip surast / How to find? How to find? Per smėlio audras kelią man pas tave? / Through sandstorms, the way towards you? Kai žėri mėnuliu vanduo / When water glistens with moonlight Bandau aš pasikalbėt su juo / I try to talk with it at night Ir gal jis pašauks tave vardu / Perhaps it will call you by name? Melodija bangų / The melody of waves Kaip man pavyti tolyje lekiančias mintis? / How can I catch up with thoughts that are drifting away? Prisijaukinti kaip vėją tave, vėją tave / How can I tame you? Like the wind, like the wind Gandais apipinta, tu pasaka mano užburta / Entangled by rumours, you're my fairytale bewitched Jei visa tai tikra / If all of this is real Žinau - galiu bet ką / Then I'd do anything Dėl tavęs, dėl tavęs / Just for you, just for you Kai jūra išmes gintarais geltona / The sea glows yellow with amber Kaip surast, kaip surast / How to find, how to find? Per smėlio audras kelią man pas tave? / Through sandstorms, the way towards you? Dėl tavęs, dėl tavęs / Just for you, just for you Kaip surast? Kaip surast? / How to find, how to find? Dėl tavęs, dėl tavęs / Just for you, just or you Kai jūra išmes gintarais geltona / The sea glows yellow with amber Kaip surast, kaip surast / How to find, how to find? Per smėlio audras kelią man pas tave? / Through sandstorms, the way towards you? Dėl tavęs, dėl tavęs / Just for you, just for you Kai jūra išmes gintarais geltona (na-na-na, nai, na-na-na, nai) / The sea glows yellow with amber Kaip surast, kaip surast / How to find, how to find? Per smėlio audras kelią man pas tave? (Na-na-na, nai, na-na-na, nai) / Through sandstorms, the way towards you?

Filmed the semifinal today, really satisfied with what I was able to achieve today even if I don't qualify on Saturday.

Wow, if I didn't decide to log in just now, I might have completely missed this. I'm in my biggest "overworked" era right now, but I'll try to somehow make this work. Lithuania is in.

Nope, no chance Might not even qualify for my third consecutive final.

Interesting season for Lithuania, seems like everyone is getting into shape as we're getting closer to the European and World Championships. Karol with his best ever sprint result and his second best world cup performance of all time. Vytautas was quick, if he didn't miss, another flower ceremony was in the cards. Kaukėnas was the fastest that he's been this entire season, Fomin with his second best result. Kočergina with her best performance in years and Leščinskaitė looks to be getting better. Very intrigued how this will all pan out

That was nice to see, really gave me the Rupholding pursuit 2022 vibes, but without the miserably dying on the last lap part. Very proud of Strolia and his first flower ceremony of the season

Tomas Kaukėnas with his best important fourth shooting performance, missing only two this time to fall out of top 40. Four-five years later perhaps he'll get it down to 1. Very surprising & legit performance from Romanov, whom showed that his ibu cup performances were not a fluke and that he is also very close in the fight for Lithuania's fourth best. And to do it in an individual nonetheless... Big red card to everyone though, you can't afford to shoot this slow, especially when you're slow on the snow. 37s and 39s for Vytautas and Karol in shooting 3 is really far away from the level they should strive for.

Rupholding is providing us with the best biathlon experience of the season

A switch in the Lithuanian team as Romanov gets to start in the individual, replacing the other youngster Fomin. Also, does anybody have any info on why Seppala is missing the second world cup stop? Also, what happened to the other Invenius brother, he was a very talented junior athlete. Jacquelin is not on the start list either. To the Italian users, Lukas Hofer is out for the entire season, since he hasn't started still?

Didn't expect the Lithuanian team to come out swinging, especially in Pokljuka I guess this is our "we've rested after Christmas, but be worried about Rupholding" kind of stage

You are absolutely right, Fischer skis don't work at all on ice surfaces and this is why we saw JTB struggling as much as he did, slipping so many times. This is why some unusual faces had the best skiing times, they were not using Fischer skis, including Strolia that posted a top 10 ski time today out of nowhere.

Meilutytė is just amazing, after everything that she's overcome, I was glad with only her coming back, but I never expected her to come back this strong.

The first point absolutely matters, because it has been a problem for Lithuanian biathlon during our entire existence, with Diana and Tomas struggling with the very same problems when they were at their peaks. Dombrovski and other Lithuanian athletes struggle with this as well every single year, getting significantly worse with every ongoing race, so what if they're not amongst the leaders, the fact that Lithuanian biathletes have one of the quickest declines in form, usually being at full capacity for one world cup stage and then on survival mode till the next longer break, it is a very prominent problem. I'm not sure if I can remain positive about Dombrovski, if he is not threatening point positions with a single miss in a year with no Russians and Belarusians. As for Pokljuka, the shooting won't help, the track is probably the worst for Strolia overall. All of his worst ski speed performances come from Pokljuka. He'll probably be in the 30s with one miss just like here.

Exposed to every other national team that gets their athletes rehabilitated after the race better so that their leaders look fresh at every world cup and not at the 1st WC stop, 4th WC stop and so on, so on... He's doing better than last year, but last year he wasn't DNF'ing from exhaustion, losing ski speed drastically at the very start of the season, when they didn't even have pre-season starts in Sjusjoen this season. With the shooting getting sluggish and ski speed going down with every single race, it's actually a question if he needs to skip the pursuit to have the strength to finish the mass start. Karol, Tomas speed is dropping down with every single race as well. If this is not exposing the fact that we don't have the fortitude and stamina to run a full world cup season, then I don't know what is. I'm sure it's going to look better after the new year, but that's because of a break that everyone will get. And that's only if no one gets sick, because famously half of the team catches a cold during Christmas break Pokljuka is going to be the third venue in a row where we can say the magical words - "historically not good for Lithuanian biathletes". Really makes you wonder why we're only productive in four world cup circuit venues.

If I'm remembering correctly, Bourgeois Republique and Sanfilippo had announced retirement last season, nice to see them at the ibu cup. With Sanfilippo's case, might even be invited to the world cup team after that win.