Werloc

Honestly, should Lithuania care? Our cc-skiing is absolutely abyssmal, I just hope Dainytė gets bribed to join biathlon, she only lost 2:39 to Bendika, that's salvagable, very very salvagable.

Lithuania are sending 9 athletes to these championships: Agnė Šerkšnienė - 400m (broke the Lithuanian indoor record earlier this month, could be someone to watch out for) Modesta Justė Morauskaitė - 400m Diana Zagainova - Triple Jump (hasn't jumped over 14m in a long while, not really expecting much) Gediminas Truskauskas - 60m (semifinal at best) Rapolas Saulius - 60m Hurdles (broke his PB and qualified in the Lithuanian Championships last week) Simas Bertašius - 1500m (is a capable runner, could surprise with a final) Adrijus Glebauskas - High Jump also two other athletes were approved without a qualification mark: Juozas Baikštys - High Jump Jogailė Petrikaitė - Long Jump for these two, it's going to be their first senior championship appearance, both have had loads of injuries along the way during their career, so it's nice to see them getting a chance to fight with the best). First senior championships appearance for Rapolas Saulius as well, he was a good junior, but his results were at a stalemate for the last couple of years, but he changed coaches and has been improving pretty decently.

I heard that people were hating hard on the Norwegian representative since KEiiNO didn't qualify, so I listened to Tix's song, had a little bit of a cringe attack from the sparkly wings, but the song is pretty okay. As for KEiiNO, all I can say is 'kay, no... I did not believe they could create a worse song, but here they surprised me yet again. I have no idea how a project like this can even work and have such a huge following. It's a complete disaster all around for me personally.

Finally someone said it

Honestly, it's a complete lottery at this point, one day an athlete looks dead, the other the athlete is looking like the fastest that he/she has ever been. For example, I didn't expect Samuelsson to fly like that today, whilst Ponsi was a bit slow compared to what he showed previously. Same with Hanna Oeberg, you never know if she's going to have the spark or look dead on the skis and Elvira having been one of the fastest in these champs not having the strength to keep up with Herrmann, whom also can't decide when she's going to be slow or fast. Really, the only team that you can expect to always be fast is Norway, whilst France, Sweden, Russia, Italy, Germany and other countries produce skiing statistics like a yoyo. Edit: I'm sorry, RBU

Karol fell somewhere in the 1st kilometre, he came in 40 seconds behind everyone in the first shooting, after he lost contact with everyone the relay was done for us.

This championship is such a shit fest for Lithuania. Karol fell somewhere in the first kilometre, so relay is already ruined Last time we had such disastrous championships was Kontiolahti in 2015.

A. Drukarovas rewrote Lithuanian alpine skiing history by finishing 23rd in the giant slalom. Previous best Lithuanian result was a 30th place by Linas Vaitkus in 1997

Makarainen saved Kontiolahti 2015 by 0.4 seconds

Yeah, I think athletes from bigger nations are more successful in these stressful shooting conditions, because they mostly only have to think about disappointing themselves and not the pressure of disappointing an entire nation and future funding of the sport. The amount of times that Kaukėnas and other Lithuanians have dropped the ball in shooting 4, I can no longer count.

Simon ruined the same amount of relays if not more than Braisaz, so really, they just need to accept the fact that they're a team of absolute wildcards.

I don't know... I know they won the first one this year, but Chevalier-Bouchet is a bit more reliable on the range and pretty quick.

I had this thought, do Norwegian biathletes that are regulars on the World Cup ever retire without getting a single win or a podium? So I did some research Lars Helge Birkeland has announced his retirement this year and he hasn't even been on the podium ever. Don't know if she was much of a regular, but Thekla Brun-Lie retired in 2019/20 season without getting on the podium either. 2017/18 season Hilde Fenne and Kaia Woen Nicolaisen retired with 8th place as their best result Elise Ringen in 2015/16 season with best placement as 10th Rune Brattsveen in 2013/14, had a relay gold from World Championships, but PB is 5th And that's all I got from 2010/11 to 2020/21 So if you acually get on the Norwegian team, it's pretty likely that you'll be able to podium and even win. Some of the recent Norwegian retirements included: Solemdal, Tora and Lars Berger, Flatland, Os, Svendsen, Bjoerndalen, Andresen, Fanny Horn Birkeland, L'Abee Lund.

This is probably going to be the worst prediction contest for me ever Although I love Samuelsson, I could've really used the points from JTB getting second

Camera men sabotaged both Natalija and Gabrielė. Nothing more to say...

@OlympicsFan arguing with you has no absolute point, because you only nitpick one thing from the whole message and then try to drive your point into the ground.

Athletes like Hettich are getting a chance because the depth of the German team is absolutely gone. Right now you have a neverending stream of average athletes. Hettich is nr. 3 German this season, Hammerschmidt is struggling to regain her old form, Hinz was really underperforming the entire season and young talent is at such a bad spot that Hildebrand might fight her way back into the World Cup team. I'd say the men's side is still salvagable at the moment, compared to the huge hole that the Germans need to climb out of on the women's side.

Braunhofer, Bionaz, Giacomel, Trabucchi, Lardschneider, Carrara are going to be wrecking kids soon. They are all so young and fresh, Italy's development is looking extremely good for the near future. I think they're only losing to Norway right now in regards to development of capable junior athletes.

Totally, and the fact is, Italy is looking like an absolute super team in 2-3 years, so unless you're Norway, it's pretty ideal to invest into your talent a bit more. You have 6 spots, save at least 1 for development.

Julia could have actually been a Dahlmeier probably, she absolutely destroyed the juniors if I remember correctly. Kummer, Horchlers as well.

I think it could have something to do with the fact that athletes are stuck in IBU cup until they're 24-26ish. Most recent talented German biathletes got their chances to run in the World Cup team when they were a lot younger - Dahlmeier, Preuss. Norway is one of the hardest teams to get into, but even their athletes come into the World Cup a bit more younger and fresh.

I think Germany this year really undervalued Nawrath and didn't give him a World Cup chance after a pretty stellar season last year.

Did you know that Germany actually participated in today's sprint? Could've fooled me

Lovely 0 points in the prediction contest today

We should just ban Oslo for destroying our fun every year