Werloc

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Omg, Verona not making it into the final was justice, the song was so awful and outdated I'm just sad that people never appreciated "Siren" by Malcolm Lincoln, which might probably be my all time favourite Estonian entry together with Randajad.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

Weirdest thing that I can't really explain happened in the Lithuanian Swimming Championships. In the evening session, there was a 100m Breaststroke Lithuanian Record Swim between Andrius Šidlauskas and Giedrius Titenis. They already had a 100m Breaststroke final yesterday that was normal, but I guess this was an extra race to give Titenis a shot at an Olympic quota? I don't know the legality behind this, but both swimmers finished in 59.83 and 59.92 respectively and that is an Olympic qualifying time. Andrius Šidlauskas already had his quota, as for Giedrius Titenis, I don't know if this sort of things counts, but he did it by 0.01s

Well, this was an interesting development. She had already publicly said that she will end her career, missed those tests on purpose, because she didn't bother to inform the testing agency of her current residency. Then, funnily enough, there were some rumours that she had actually started to train and was thinking about coming back, but she was unavailable for three tests by then and was suspended. I think it's because she was hit with success at a very early age, Lithuanians treated her like an absolute star, but then she stopped winning golds and those same people harrassed her through social media and wrote comments everywhere that she got fat and that's why she's slow and incapable of ever achieving anything again. Every story has multiple sides.

Not even in the top 70 of course times, that's so dreadful. Vytautas posted regular top 30 times, whilst Karol had 40-45ish

We're so unbelievably useless in Hochfilzen every single year. I'm so sad we have two stages here, because somehow all of our athletes are just super slow. Perhaps it has to do something with recovery, but I don't know. 0+1 shooting and 0+0 shooting shouldn't leave you struggling for top 60, they're good enough athletes to be in the top 40 with this shooting.

Finland picked to start late too, Norway didn't want to go too late this time so they placed themselves in the middle and France took that as opportunity to run all of their team through in the first 30. That's definitely going to be a dynamic and somewhat strategic race.

I see what you mean, but it's 4 races, all with abyssmal shooting, not even cracking top 80. Right now he's probably one of the worst performers at World Cup and a nation like Sweden could definitely give another boy a chance. Also, it never stopped them when dealing with Hogberg, so why be nice now?

I'm honestly surprised that Stefansson is still on the team whilst missing 4, 5 and 7 targets in three different sprints, finishing 86th at best. You'd think Sweden has someone better to offer right now. In the Lithuanian camp, Linas Banys has been replaced by Maksim Fomin, I wonder if he's going to run better in Hochfilzen than Kontiolahti.

You know it's a trainwreck when Tomas Kaukėnas and Linas Banys were the best legs in today's relay What a hero that official dude that sabbotaged Johannes, because he saw the future that Samuelsson would have rifle problems, so he made it all even.

If it's a head to head race, we become absolute animals and can't hit for days. All and every best performance is either a sprint or an individual race, despite the Tomas Kaukėnas Olympic miracle from 17 to 13, I'm not certain if we ever gained places in a pursuit race. Yeah, we have gained places from like 56th position to 49, but nobody outside points has ever gotten into a top 40 and no one inside top 30 has probably stayed inside top 40. It also explains why Lithuania can have a 85-90% hitrate the first week in Kontiolahti, but then a relay happens and low and behold, penalty loops and all that good shit.