Werloc

These are the same Lithuanian Championships that I posted about, it's so messy, but Baltics always have them together, but call them differently. They could just call it Baltic Championships then, but no I just don't really get it why it's written that Raenkel was on top in the sprint when he was not even in top 10. Perhaps they didn't want to write that Lithuanians took the first three places and the best performing Estonians were not even popular names with Siimer and Heldna.

Giedrius Titenis 100m Breaststroke qualifying time was approved by FINA, it is the 4th consecutive Olympics for Giedrius, he joins Andrius Šidlauskas and Danas Rapšys as the other two swimmers that have A Olympic standards.

Well, barring a surprise illness, I'm somewhat ready to film in 15 days as I have a document that lets me travel despite the restrictions.

Usually every Lithuanian Championships run a sprint and a mass start, it's very very rare to do a pursuit since the margins after sprint are nearly irreversible, which makes the race useless and rarely do we run an individual, because it's a longer distance and there's not that many participants. As for first time mass-start biathletes, they usually end up in those 20-30 positions, because even if they shoot clear, they fall back down the order during the 2.5km / 2km laps. Nadine Horchler's win was one of the biggest biathlon surprises in recent years.

Mass start results are in: Women's mass start: 1. Tuuli Tomingas 0+0+0+1 2. Regina Oja 2+0+0+0 +45.7 3. Susan Kulm 0+1+0+2 +1:40.8 4. Kadri Lethla 1+2+1+0 +1:52.0 5. Natalija Kočergina 2+0+1+1 +2:11.3 6. Gabrielė Leščinskaitė 1+0+0+1 +2:37.3 7. Johanna Taliharm 2+2+0+2 +2:57.7 8. Grete Gaim 1+1+2+1 +3:04.0 9. Lisbeth Liiv 2+1+1+0 +3:07.8 10. Demi Heinsoo 2+1+1+0 +4:21.3 Men's mass start: 1. Rene Zahkna 0+0+3+0 2. Karol Dombrovski 0+0+3+0 +7.1 3. Tomas Kaukėnas 0+0+2+1 +8.4 4. Kristo Siimer 0+2+1+1 +12.4 5. Mart Všivtsev 0+0+1+0 +14.7 6. Robert Heldna 1+1+0+0 +51.8 7. Vytautas Strolia 3+3+0+0 +1:07.7 8. Linas Banys 2+0+1+1 +1:45.4 9. Maksim Fomin 2+0+2+1 +1:57.8 10. Kalev Ermits 2+2+2+3 +2:22.1 Even a worse day for the Latvians, since they didn't get anyone in the top 10. Besides Rastorgujevs and Bendika all of their A, B teams are present in this competition.

Good thing that Vytautas won then

Rastorgujevs never starts in local champs, I really can't remember any race that I saw him in. As for Bendika, I know she didn't come home for the holidays and was training with Kaukėnas. I guess Bendika also has the Rastorgujevs syndrome and thinks that it would be a waste of time to start here.

First day of the championships in Otepaa, entire Estonian team present, most of Lithuanian team and a few Latvians. Men's sprint: 1. Vytautas Strolia 0+0 2. Tomas Kaukėnas 1+0 +28.9 3. Karol Dombrovski 0+1 +33.4 4. Kristo Siimer 1+1 +44.8 5. Robert Heldna 0+1 +1:10.4 Women's sprint: 1. Tuuli Tomingas 0+0 2. Regina Oja 2+0 +1:00.0 3. Johanna Taliharm 1+2 +1:27.0 4. Lisbeth Liiv 2+0 +1:59.5 5. Kadri Lethla 1+3 +2:04.8 best Lithuanian was Gabrielė Leščinskaitė in 6th place, another 30 seconds off of Kadri as for the Latvians, Matjuhins and Bulina both finished 10th in their respective races Tomorrow it's the mass start

Lithuanian Championships are going to be held on January 2-3rd in Otepaa. I imagine Estonia, Latvia are probably going to be running too, but I don't think many Lithuanians are going to be able to travel, so I don't expect much, perhaps scraps from team A and everyone from team B?

Even if I'm last, it's already a PB if we're not counting second place with Monique, since I was only supporting There's also two other songs written by me in the competition, very interesting to see which performance is going to travel the furthest.

I thought that with the season underway, it would be cool to look at some country stats right before the Christmas break and we'll be looking specifically at the medal table comparing 9 individual races + 2 relays of 2019-2020 and 2020-21 seasons. First of all, in 2019/2020, 10 countries have already medaled, whereas this season there have been only 6 countries on the podium. Norway is as dominant as ever, in 19/20 they already had 24 medals (14 gold) and this year they started with 29 medals (13 gold) out of only 22 races. France is slightly underperforming going from 18 medals (4 gold) in 19/20 to only 10 medals this season (1 gold) Biggest overperformer this season is Sweden with a brilliant amount of 15 medals, whilst they only had 3 in 22 races last year. Surprisingly, it wasn't Germany that took the hit, this season they already have 8 medals whilst last season they only started out with 5. One of the biggest fall can be felt for Russia that still has 0 medals when they had 5 last season by now. Belarus with two medals is the only nation that didn't have medals last year at this point of the season while Italy suffered a small disadvantage going from 4 to 2 medals this season. Finally, Switzerland (3), Czech Republic (2), Finland (1) and Ukraine (1) have not yet been on the podium this season. You can make your guesses which nation is going to become the 7th nation in the medal table. My money's on Austria.

It's pretty tragic being carried away to Sia in the background constantly singing "I'm unstoppable today"

What a top 4 Love all of the guys. Peiffer's win is legendary, Ponsiluoma's PB, Tarjei on the podium without his brother for once and Doll starting to improve.

Nah, Juri completely burned down on the stage from nerves and that vocal performance was one of the worst of the night from what I remember.

In TISC too

Omg, Verona not making it into the final was justice, the song was so awful and outdated I'm just sad that people never appreciated "Siren" by Malcolm Lincoln, which might probably be my all time favourite Estonian entry together with Randajad.

I can't wait for Oberhof. Lithuanians usually look revitalised after Christmas and have had some good success in Oberhof over the years. I'm only worried that they're going home and Lithuania is one of the least safe places right now.

Very underwhelming Lithuanian Swimming Championships. Two Olympic Qualifying results, one of which has to be approved by FINA. A huge handful of Olympic B results A decent handful of junior records, but still a lot left to be desired if we want to be a competitive squad and not only Danas and the cheerleaders.

9 misses?

7 Norwegians in the provisional mass start startlist is probably a record. I remember some nations having 6 athletes, but not more.

Thank you covid for granting Lithuania points in cross-country for probably the first time since I was born? The amount of times that Vaičiulis has quit cc skiing only to come back right before the Olympics and still be the best in Lithuania is like, probably the third time he does this. Not sure though if it's a result that can be highly praised or enjoyed when there's no Norwegians, Finns, Swedes.

Really hoped Ponsiluoma could hang on there. It's a rare occasion for him to shoot a 20/20, if not even his first time.

Let me guess, was it the Russian media? they always liked to find dirt on Rūta.

Well, she resurrected our entire swimming scene with that Olympic gold, so she will always be a legend. Nowadays we have a pretty capable Danas Rapšys, but I really can't support him as much as I did Meilutytė, she was just unique. Would've probably won more medals if people were okay and supportive with her finishing 3rd from time to time. The whole coach drama was another thing that really messed up the trajectory of her career. Her U14 national record was broken twice this year, by two different girls, but it's the leap of form in U16 that is probably impossible to challenge. But if any of her U16 Breaststroke records fall, you'll be the first to know: Smiltė Plytnykaitė has a full year, Karilė Ališauskaitė has two, since she broke that 50m U14 record this afternoon. The 100m U14 is still held by Smiltė Plytnykaitė (2007 birth year) and she swam a 1:12.18 in the final yesterday, whilst Ališauskaitė (2008 birth year) swam a 1:17.15