OlympicsFan

There aren‘t many disciplines were Athletes can Control World records like that. I think Isinbaeva used to do the Same. Seems a Bit unfair that the potential to earn prize money is directly related to that. Maybe it would be better if the prize money would depend on the percentage of world record improvement. What Kipchoge did over the years has been at least as impressive, but of course he never had the chance to do what Duplantis regularly does.

Pretty much the expected order. I think Norway, Germany, Slovenia and Austria all have the Potential to win. Japan winning a medal would be a bit surprising to me. Slovenia being closer to Japan than to Germany is surprising to me. On the other hand Germany and Austria are the only nations with no „weak gender“, Slovenia/Norway/Japan all have a bit of a problem on the men‘s side currently. Poland is missing World-class women and Canada is missing World-class men, a combined Team of those two nations could win gold.

I feel a bit sad for the US. The number of medals they lost to other countries keeps growing. First Vic Wild, then Aileen Gu, AJ Ginnis and now Avital Carroll. Probably there are others i forgot about.

Personally i find it very surprising that the best ukrainian athlete finished higher than any athlete from Japan/Finland/Italy/France/USA. Not surprising that a sport that requires very expansive infrastructure has less competition. Obviously winter sports in general has less competition than summer sports. Still you also have summer sports with not much variety, for example slalom canoeing.

Now we have seen it all. I guess Greece winning a medal is not that crazy, considering that Croatia and Slovakia have won medals before. Even Belgium, GB and Albania have good athletes nowadays. I wonder why Guinness doesn't compete for the US? The american men are really weak right now, so he easily could have made their team.

Surprising results, another proof that parallel slalom (and cross) are unnecessary events. Parallel slalom without Russia is on a much lower level. The fact that even most of the countries that have great training conditions (Canada, USA, Norway, Sweden, France) don't care about parallel slalom, tells you all you need to know.

Great so see Sweden, coached by Johannes Lukas from Germany, winning so many medals. The fact that german officials didn't bother to give him a job in Germany is proof that he is a special coach. Obviously the german officials couldn't allow someone like him to become head coach in Germany, he might have actually changed the system and that of course would have been completely unacceptable. The fact that the german men didn't win a single medal and that Germany wouldn't have won a single medal without Denise Herrmann, a cross-country skier who absolutely wasn't a product of the german system, tells you all you need to know about the quality of the german system.

I think so far Austria and France can't really be happy. Austria with one silver medal and two bronze medals in olympic events, France with only one bronze (Same as Germany). Also Sweden without any medals. USA also used to be more competitive, at the moment Shiffrin is keeping them alive. Apart from the historic overperformance by Canada (3 different individual medalists, same as Germany/Sweden/USA/France combined) the norwegian women's team is the biggest overperformer for me. I never thought that Norway would have two individual medalists on the women's side. I think in the future we will have a big four (Switzerland, Austria, Italy, Norway) and then the rest.

That definitely can't be true. The only event where Italy "lost" a medal is women's downhill. Gold for Bassino was a giant surprise and Brignone winning silver also was pretty much the best case. Maybe you didn't win more medals than expected, but you certainly won more gold medals than expected.

Once in a millenium performance by Canada. Even in my wildest dreams i never would have imagined them winning more than 1 medal (At best). 4 medals and 2 of them in gold is absolutely mindblowing. I could see Crawford regularly winning medals in the future, but the other 3 medals seem like complete flukes.

Italy winning gold (And Germany winning silver) shows how poor the overall level currently is. Italy and Germany combined only have 2 world class athletes (Vitozzi and Hermann). Norway/Sweden/France at 50 % of their best would have sleepwalked to gold in this competition. Italy used their once in a generation chance, don't see them winning another gold any time soon. Wierer should become even worse and Auchentaller is shockingly slow. With Preuß instead of Voigt and Grotian instead of Kebinger, Germany could have done a lot better. Without Denise Hermann, a cross-country skier that absolutely wasn't a product of the german biathlon system, Germany would still have ZERO medals. It will never cease to amaze me to see how little german officials have to do to keep their jobs. If some foreign country would actively try to manipulate the german sports system, they couldn't do it more efficiently than the german coaches. The last two weeks have been mindblowing from an italian perspective, they won at least twice as many medals in alpine skiing/biathlon than anyone could have expected.

1) I think the two Main Reasons why german women Used to dominate Biathlon and speed skating were: a) Some of them still benefiting from the Former GDR system b) Other countries (Norway, Netherlands) Not Realizing their potential 2) I don’t See any reason why Norway should fall off a Cliff. USA and Canada could challenge them, but they don’t care about Biathlon. Russia as well could challenge them, But of Course it is impossible to predict when they will be back. 3) People shouldnt forget that just one year ago Fillon Maillet was on the Same Level as Boe. The french men Overall have Been Weaker this year + Germany Lost Almost all of their Top Guys in just 2 or 3 years (Schempp, Peiffer, Lesser) + Austria has become irrelevant. I could definitely See some Young guys like Giacomel Breaking their dominance soon. 4) We shouldn’t forget that Norwegian women are clearly weaker than they used to be. Norway probably has the most potential going forward thanks to climate change and their tradition, but I don’t think that they will remain as dominant.

Helps when you are one of two countries that Cares about this Sport and actually has enough Snow to Train for it (the other Country being Sweden). Finland, USA, Canada don’t care about this sport and Russia isnt allowed to compete. The norwegian dominance in Sports like Cross-country skiing, biathlon, Nordic combined or alpine skiing will only get bigger thanks to Climate change. I Wonder if they will manage to win 50+ medals at a Single Winter Olympics before the winter olympics will finally be abandoned. It is completely absurd for a Country like Germany to finance Sports like alpine skiing or Cross-Country skiing.

Really hurts to think about what Grotian might have done in this race. German coaches were lucky that a 34 year old cross-country skier has to save their ass once again. If they would have any honor, they would collectively perform seppuku. They can't form a single world-class athlete, while one coach (Bernhard Kröll) in a small bavarian club with horrible training conditions managed to single-handedly form Neuner, Gössner, Dahlmeier and now Grotian. If all german coaches would work at the same level, then german athletes would probably finish 1-6 in every single race.

Everyone knows that Pinturault can't compete in a real Super-G, so you could say that french officials weren't sad about this race turning into a joke.

Some documentaries i found interesting (Not sure if geo-blocked) (Maybe other people will find them interesting as well, they are all in english): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dV0JJQJ-eBE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DKIQpu4hhQ The last two videos are age-restricted.

Objectively Germany has the 4th or 5th best relay (Behind Norway, France, Sweden and maybe Italy), so a medal would be a surprise, but not a shock. Anything worse than 5th would be a bad result. Herrmann seems to be in a good shape. I think not nominating Grotian was a huge error (Assuming that she would have been willing to compete), she might very well have overperformed in front of the home crowd.

Once again a pathetic performance by Voigt. The braindead coaches are one of the biggest problems of german sports. Why nominate your second best athlete (Grotian) when you could instead nominate a bunch of nobodies that will never sniff the podium ...

I don’t remember that, But it would be funny if True. Germany hasnt won a title in Ages and as Soon as they get Peillat they suddenly win a title.

Finally! They had to wait 17 years. Also kind of poetic that 8 of the players won junior world championship gold 10 years ago in India with the same coach!

Gold for Grotian in women's pursuit. She is clearly the best athlete at this competition. Sadly i am sure that german coaches will find a reason not to nominate her for the world championships (too young, too much pressure). Of course it would be a different story if she would decline the invitation, but they should at least ask her.

https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/comments/10cfs82/german_riot_police_defeated_and_humiliated_by/ Context: People in Germany were protesting against the expansion of a coalmine and police tried to clear the area. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jan/14/greta-thunberg-calls-for-protest-against-expansion-of-german-coal-mine-lutzerath

How about „You elect PiS, you get a PiSshow“?

Almost historic result for the german team. Can't even remember the last time Germany had 3 women in the top 10. Especially promising result for Emma Aicher (born in 2003), now she finished top 15 in both slalom and downhill this season already. There can't be many other women who are currently able to do that (probably only Gisin and Shiffrin).

Somewhat related to this: https://www.reddit.com/r/WhitePeopleTwitter/comments/102nqcc/missouri_criminalizing_homelessness/ Hopefully soon we will get a law that will make it illegal to live unless you earn at least 10k/month.