OlympicsFan

Nice debut for Tedesco. Not a huge fan of him, but another german coach doing great internationally wouldn't be a bad thing. Now we only need Löw to land the job ... Not sure if there were ever that many good/great german(-speaking) coaches: Klopp, Tuchel, Nagelsmann, Flick, Schmidt, Glasner, Ten Hag, Tedesco?, Streich?, Rose? Schmidt, Ten Hag, Glasner and Xabi Alonso in my opinion have the potential to coach Bayern in the future. Another interesting coach who is currently flying under the radar is Jan Sierksma, who coaches the AZ Alkmaar Youth League team.

I don't think that there is any team where he wouldn't be the biggest star. He is probably the 3rd biggest star behind only Ronaldo and Messi. I think the problem is that other teams (probably) won't pay him as much and won't be able to pay the transfer fee. Maybe once Messi and Neymar are gone, PSG will be able to finally form a TEAM around him.

For me it is crazy that people think that they can have an opinion on everything, even if they can't even be bothered to inform themselves. In addition to that it is crazy for me that people would rather work until they die instead of reforming the pension system or properly taxing rich people. As long as "normal" people don't understand that politicians don't give a shit about them and that they don't have any true power in this system, nothing will ever change. I guess as long as we can travel, buy a new Iphone every couple of years and watch some Netflix, we have nothing to complain about ... Weird that the level of productivity has skyrocketed over the past decades, yet retirement age goes up and wages/pensions stagnate/go down ... Crazy to say, but Putin in some sense was right that the end of the soviet union was the greatest tragedy of the 20th century. Since communism "ended", there is nothing to "control" capitalism anymore. I guess as long as it is this easy to brainwash people like you, the people who run the system have nothing to fear.

I think you used the wrong flag for Tucker. I fear that she didn't switch nationalities, so would have been the right choice

Nicole Schott Finishing 7th, 2nd best European, better than the best Canadian athlete. Didn’t think that I would live to see the day. I guess all the top American/Canadian women were absent?

Was confused by the results at first. I guess you will post the overall results later.

Kind of a „chicken or the egg“ question. If you look at NCAA swimming, you will see that there are tons of foreign men competing, but far fewer women. Did the weakness of American men allow European men to „blossom“ or did the strength of European men stop American men from „blossoming“? Not too long ago Phelps and Lochte were super dominant. I guess Seto and Hagino „disappearing“ also helped. I think it might change again (at least to some degree) in the near future. Heilmann, Winkler, Williamson and Diehl are all looking very promising, but of course Popovici/Galossi/Milak/Marchand are all also still very young.

Yes, you have produced one world class male swimmer. Kharun didn’t even know that he was Canadian and is 100 % a product of the American system, not much of an accomplishment for Canada.

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.