OlympicsFan

Slovenia is doing really good economically.

I wouldn’t go that far ... the club is very old. 1) If the club really didn’t inform him of their decision before the media broke the story, then you have to feel sorry for him. This is not a good look for the club. 2) I didn’t really see any positive developments under his „rule“, so in my opinion it wasn’t crazy to look for a replacement. Result-wise this Season has been perfect in the champions league, but the games weren’t necessarily convincing and the Bundesliga season has been disappointing so far. Last season overall has been disappointing (getting eliminated by Villareal/Gladbach). 3) I don’t think that this is a Good time to change the Coach, so I am not sure why this happened at this point in time. Tuchel basically won’t have any time with the squad before the matches against Dortmund/City and if he loses those matches, he will be under heavy criticism already. 4) I think that Tuchel is one of the best coaches in the world and probably the best of all those who were available right now. I think that this squad might fight the playing style he had with Chelsea (focusing on defense), but I am not sure if he will get along with the club officials. I am not sure if they will back him if he decides to not play certain players. Maybe they learned that he was close to signing with Tottenham and that they would have to sign him now or let go of him, but even if that was the case, It doesn’t really explain why they couldn’t give Nagelsmann the rest of the season. Maybe we will learn more about the reasons (for doing this right now instead of at the end of the season) later on.

Something i noticed/remembered while looking at the results of the 2022 swimming world championships: Only 7 european women won an individual medal in an olympic event (Compared to 15 european men winning one) and if everyone would have competed (MacNeil, McKeon, Titmus, Schoenmaker) it probably only would have been 4. In the medley and backstroke events european women didn't win a single medal and 3 of the 7 individual medallists won their medal in the 100 breast. Also no european nation has a realistic chance of winning a relay medal on the women's side. Would be interesting to know the reason for this imbalance and of course european nations should try everything they can to fix this. Canada on the other hand is extremely strong on the women's side and almost nonexistant on the men's side.

Germany might have a small chance of reaching the next round. They should lose against Canada and win against Turkey. If they win 2 out of their 3 matches against Norway/USA/Japan, they should be through. They already lost against 2 of their competitors (Italy, South Korea), so if they can‘t win 2 out of 3 against USA/Norway/Japan, they obviously don’t deserve to go through. So far Switzerland and Canada seem to be the clear favorites, but the fight for bronze seems rather open.

I think women's biathlon has less depth than in past year (Which had to be expected given all the developments concerning athletes from Russia/Belarus/Ukraine), but there are a lot of younger athletes coming through and the average age of the top 20 for example is clearly lower than it was 5 years ago. Simon, Vitozzi, E. Öberg, H. Öberg, Tandrevold, Davidova, Braisaz, Jeanmonnot, Voigt, Kebinger, Chevalier, Colombo, Chauveau are all young enough to go at least until 2026 and then you have younger talents like Grotian, Kirkeeide, Richard, Vorobnikova and also Lampic coming through. Would be interesting to hear your prediction for who will finish top 10 in the standings next year (Given that you, if i understood you correctly, don't seem to think that there will be much movement at the top)?

Interesting comparison between Lampic and Herrmann: Lampic finished 48th in the standings this season with 91 points in 7 races (13 points/race). Herrmann also finished 48th in her first world cup season (2016/2017, 115 points in 9 races -> 12.8 points/race). Lampic twice finished 5th in the sprint this season. Herrmann had an 18th place as her best result in her first world cup season. Lampic was roughly half a year younger than Herrmann was during her first season. In her second season Herrmann finished 12th in the world cup standings and had her first two world cup wins.

Roiseland finished 15th with 502 points despite only competing in 11 individual races. If she would have competed in all races while maintaining the same point average, she would have finished second in the standings. Kebinger finished 25th with 249 points despite only competing in 8 individual races. If she would have competed in all races while maintaining the same point average, she would finished 10th (or 11th if Marte would have competed in all races) in the standings.

Good lesson for Grotian today. I think starting that late didn't help her + she probably didn't have great material + all the traveling probably didn't help either, but she saw that she still has ways to go. I think even at her peak she probably would have been 40-50 seconds behind the best. She made a big step forward from last season to this season. If she does that again before the start of the next season, she will hopefully be able to regularly fight for top 10 spots. Kebinger, Schneider, Preuß, Voigt are all unpredictable at this point. Somehow Germany always has the problem of a "youngish" athlete improving one year and then regressing the next year. For example i still didn't hear any explanation for what happened to Voigt this season. Schneider and Kebinger improved this season, but i wouldn't bet on them continuing to improve next season. I fear that Grotian might need to carry the german team already from next season onwards. Grotian and Kirkeeide are probably the most interesting talents going into next season. The progression of Vorobnikova and the young french women will also be interesting to follow.

Another proof that most sport officials are completely braindead. They could have scheduled this race for earlier this day or they could have scheduled both sprints for yesterday, but instead they created a schedule that only would have worked if no race/only men's sprint had to be delayed. I guess just canceling women's pursuit/mass start doesn't matter, because it only hurts the athletes. The same has happened in ski jumping many times before. They schedule a competition as late as possible and then they are shocked when they have to cancel it because they can't postpone it. At the 2018 olympics one of the ski jumping competitions finished after midnight ...

One out of Inter/AC/Benfica/Napoli in the final. Another super lopsided draw. Italy as a whole got incredibly „lucky“ with pretty much all their draws in European competitions this season. The only good winners for me at this point would be Bayern or Benfica. Sadly I fear that it will again be Real or maybe City.

Excited to see what Grotian can do. She probably won't be at her best after all the traveling + focusing on the junior world championships, but let's see.

Wrong. We already see that athletes from poor countries (Kenya, Ethiopia) have access to "modern" drugs, thanks to their managers who hope to earn money with them. The difference would be that nations that don't even bother trying to fight doping wouldn't have an advantage anymore. The following might also work: Athletes are only allowed to compete if they have been tested at least X times in the past year. All athletes that achieve certain marks automatically enter the testing pool. WADA does all the tests and if an athlete misses one test, he is immediately banned. If more than Y athletes from a certain country are caught, then that country will be banned from all international competitions. Athletes that were caught once will never again be allowed to compete (Yes, i know that this will cause legal problems). - Allowing athletes to miss multiple tests before they get banned is crazy. The likelihood that a doped athlete gets tested at a time when it is still possible to find something is already extremely low and by allowing that athlete to avoid getting caught that easily (By just claiming that he wasn't there), you are basically making sure that only extremely unlucky/stupid athletes get caught. - Athletes that are banned for missing tests should be treated the same way as dopers. I find it extremely difficult to believe that an athlete would just "forget" to correctly state his whereabouts (multiple times), when his livelihood depends on being allowed to compete. - Most countries will only seriously start fighting doping once they can't afford to "not care" anymore. So you have to make sure that the costs (Having all their athletes banned from international competitions) outweigh the benefits (Not spending money on catching dopers). The only way to effectively fight doping is to not make it worth it (athletes have to repay all their prize money + dividends, nations with more than X caught athletes are banned). The majority of people won't stop doping because it is "wrong" and WADA will never be able to detect the large majortiy of forbidden substances that are available at a certain time. When i look at most/almost all the recent american doping cases, i have to assume that for most of them doping was "worth it" (given that their bans weren't very long/inconvenient (forcing them to miss the olympics) and that they were allowed back as if nothing had happened). I think there are two main problems with this discussion: 1) Most/All organizations don't really care about doping. They don't want bad publicity, but actually they prefer historic performances by doped athletes over "normal" performances by clean athletes. 2) People always/often think that a new system that is unfair is worse than a system that is objectively more unfair, but already in place. People have gotten used to (stopped seeing) everything that is unfair about the current system and only agree with a new system if it is 100 % fair (which is pretty much impossible). The goal shouldn't/can't be a system that is perfectly fair, but a system that is less unfair than the system that is currently in place.

The norwegian men make biathlon/cross-country skiing incredibly boring. If FIS/IBU would be interested in a good product, they would limit their spots + introduce a rule that everyone has to use the same material.

That is the problem as long as every nation can do whatever they want. As long as that doesn’t change, they might as well allow doping. Allowing doping would lead to more fairness than the current system.

Now that Eckhoff (29 wins, 5th all-time), Roiseland (19 wins, 14th all-time) and Hermann (12 wins, 21st all-time) have retired, the currently active women with the most wins are Wierer (16 wins, 17th all-time), H. Öberg (10 wins, 25th all-time) and Simon (8 wins, 29th all-time). Pretty crazy that there are only 2 women with at least 10 world cup wins. Also for reference: Boe had 16 wins just this season! Forsberg, despite her short career, has the record with "only" 42 wins. Neuner, despite retiring only 1 month after turning 25, is second with 34 wins. There are 4 men with more than 42 wins. If someone like E. Öberg would become more consistent and compete into her thirties, she could completely smash Forsberg's record.

You are probably right. Of course Belarus/Russia could challenge them, but i don't think those nations will be allowed to come back next season. In the women's nations cup the point difference between France in first (7713) and Italy in fifth (7210) is smaller than difference between Italy and Switzerland (6435) in 6th. Czech Republic/Ukraine/Belarus/Russia all used to be very competitive. In 2020/2021 Belarus/Russia/Ukraine were 5th/6th/7th in the nations cup and the Czech Republic was 5th in the nations cup last season. I think only the Czech Republic could break into the top 5, probably by replacing Norway/Germany. Sweden/France/Italy (unless Wierer retires) all have multiple athletes who can make the podium. Norway has a better number 1 option (Tandrevold) than Germany, but Germany probably has better depth/potential. I am not sure if Slovenia could be a surprise challenger, even Lampic breaking through might not be enough.

Will be interesting to see how all the teams look at the start of next season. Germany already lost Hermann and Hinz, maybe Preuß will follow. Kebinger, Voigt, Schneider and Grotian should be pretty safe. The 2 other spots should be between Hettich, Frühwirth, Spark, maybe Preuß and hopefully Tannheimer. Norway: Hopefully Eckhoff, Tandrevold, Kirkeeide, Kalkenberg, ?, ? Sweden: E. Öberg, H. Öberg, Persson, Brorsson, Magnusson, Skottheim? Italy: Wierer, Vitozzi, Auchentaller, Passler, Comola, Carrara France: Simon, Jeanmonnot, Chevalier, Chevalier-Bouchet, Colombo, Chauveau/Richard/Bondoux I think France is the only nation with at least 6 women who could regularly fight for the top 10. It looks as if all nations except France and Sweden might have trouble even finding 4 solid athletes.

Eckhoff and Wierer might follow. Should be difficult for Germany/Norway to challenge France/Sweden in the near future. I think France and Sweden will be tier 1, while Norway, Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic will be tier 2.

They won 6 medals at the world championships this year, twice as many as the second best nation (Germany) and as many as Germany, Norway and France combined. They were also the only nation with more than one individual medalist and they did that all with their (potentially) best athlete (Elvira Öberg) barely contributing anything. Not sure if they were/are the best nation in the world cup, but they were lightyears ahead of every other nation at this season's most important competition. Something else that can't be missed when looking at past results: The "absence" of Russia/Austria on the men's side and Russia/Ukraine on the women's side is clearly hurting the depth/competitiveness.

I believe that Germany set an all-time record by winning 9 gold medals, no nation ever won more than 8 golds at a single edition. The surprising thing is that it could/should have been even more golds for Germany. All of their golds, except for that of Menz in men’s junior individual, were pretty much uncontested + they could/should have won 4 more golds in men’s youth relay/men’s junior relay/mixed youth relay and women’s junior individual (given Grotian‘s overall dominance). 12 golds absolutely would have been achievable. Nevertheless great results for Germany, although the men still seem to be lightyears behind Norway (in terms of skiing speed).

You don’t have a Point. Your „criticism“ has two dimensions and both don’t really have anything to do with what I said. 1) I don’t put any pressure on Tanglander. At this point her never amounting to anything is still the most likely outcome. Whatever I write here will have zero influence on her career. 2) Objectively her skiing performances here have been the most impressive if you take age into consideration. Usually you don’t See junior level athletes having elite cross-country times when they are 3 years younger than their competitors, especially not at youth level (usually age gets less relevant the older you get). Tanglander was already close to Tannheimer in terms of skiing speed and Tannheimer already has IBU Cup level skiing speed. About Repinc: 1) As you Said she had some injury setbacks. 2) I didn’t take into calculation that Slovenia doesn’t really have the track record/infrastructure to develop world class biathletes. Sweden on the other hand already has multiple world class athletes. I am optimistic that Tanglander will have a better career than Repinc and I wouldn’t be surprised if she would make the 2026 Olympics, but all of that doesn’t mean that I am not aware that there are still a ton of things that could prevent her from fulfilling my predictions.

List of athletes (possibly i am missing some names) who would have been young enough to compete but decided against it: Men: Perrot, Marecek, Zeni Women: Kirkeeide, Passler, Auchentaller Italy shouldn't worry, despite "only" winning 3 medals so far. In my opinion Sweden has been the biggest disappointment in terms of medals (only 1 medal), but of course they don't have much pressure (given the amount of talent they already have + 15 year old Elsa Tanglander might be the biggest talent on the women's side).

I think the plan is that she and Spark will compete next week, but i guess first they want to see how she feels after the end of the junior world championships. I don't think that she is on the same talent level as Neuner, but so far her junior career has been more impressive than Dahlmeier's junior career. Dahlmeier first won gold at junior world championships when she was 1 year older than Grotian is now. Just as a reminder: Neuner won junior world championship gold in 2004 as a 16 year old, 40 seconds ahead of 2nd place despite missing 2 shots. This was probably one of the most impressive performances in junior world championships history, although not quite on the same level as Gössner's performances in 2009 (missing gold in the sprint by only 8 seconds despite missing 5 shots + winning gold in the pursuit despite missing 8 shots). Also Neuner, Dahlmeier, Gössner and Grotian all had the same coach!

I found results from 1997 onwards, but i think this was only the second time we ever had a podium at men's junior level without Norway/France/Russia/Germany/Italy/Sweden, first time was in 2003. I think this was also the first ever medal for both Poland and New Zealand at men's junior level. The most surprising thing for me is that this wasn't a fluke result. All 3 guys had very good skiing times, Campbell had the fastest time, Gunka had the 6th fastest time and Germain had the 7th fastest time. Tomorrow in the pursuit Campbell will start 52 seconds before Hedegart who was 4th today, so him not winning another medal would be rather disappointing. It will be interesting to see how those 3 will develope. In the past we had many great talents from "exotic" nations that never did anything at senior level. I remember that i was very high on Repinc for example and now she looks completely lost. I guess talent doesn't matter much when you don't have the infrastructure to build on it. Not sure if any of those guys could train with bigger nations, i imagine that it would be close to impossible for Wright/Germain to do that.

Grotian with the most expected gold of the competition in women's junior sprint, 52 seconds ahead of second place. I think since 2000 there were only 3 women who won by a bigger margin, Wierer won by 61 seconds in 2011, Neuner won by 62 seconds in 2005 and Dahlmeier won by 108 seconds in 2013.