OlympicsFan

This time biathlon is really boring. Usually the lack of predictability makes biathlon interesting, but this time it is easy to predict the outcome: Norway and France combine for 2 medals (including gold), so only 1 medal is open in every race. Their skiing speed is just superior. Sweden could have challenged them, but they seem to have peaked too early again.

What are the odds of Australia finishing ahead of Canada in the medal table?

I dont think that she will win 3 more individual golds, pursuit + maybe one of the other 2 individual races.

Obviously. I think noone doubted that Stadlober likely isn't clean.

Germany also has nordic combined + maybe biathlon/ski jumping. Hopefully the german women will also do well in the team sprint. I think it should be Hennig + Sauerbrey/Carl.

Krehl was rather horrible, the other 3 dragged her to a medal. I hope that she will soon be replaced. With a decent 4th athlete Germany probably would have won gold.

Agreed. Not sure if there is any woman nowadays who can just close a 25 second gap on her own. Johaug, Björgen and Kalla used to be able to do it. Smart move to put your best athlete on the first position and open up a gap. I doubt that Germany would have won a medal without this russian move. Also you have to give weaker athletes the chance to overperform, which is far more likely if they believe that they can win a medal (which is easier to do when they are near the top of the race). I guess part of the russian gold also belongs to Germany (considering that german Markus Cramer is one of their coaches) ...

Russia and the US are also dangerous. Sweden could have won the medal table with normal results in cross-country skiing and biathlon. Also don't count out Norway, they could still win 5 or 6 golds in biathlon alone. Maybe even the Netherlands could win the medal table?

Stepanova (born 2001) seems to be an extraordinary talent, Karlsson might have a challenger. Also if Germany could only find a decent 4th leg (maybe Lohmann) ... Krehl almost lost the medal singlehandedly.

I am really surprised to see that Germany won a medal in women's relay at 5 of the last 6 olympics (2018 being the only exemption). No other nation won more than 3 medals during that period ... (Norway, Sweden and Russia all won 3 medals and Finland won 2)

Only the second surprising medal for Germany after gold for Herrmann, on the other hand tons of disappointments (Hofmeister, Baumeister, Nörl, Karl Geiger, mixed ski jumping, Dürr).

The norwegian/finish/swedish athletes/coaches should instantly retire. Germany has no business beating them. I guess this shows the lack of talent in cross-country skiing. Hennig, Sauerbrey and Carl have potential to be better in 2026 and hopefully U23 world champion Lisa Lohmann will take Krehl's place soon. Maybe this german team can again fight for a medal in 4 years time.

I think she did quite well.

Would be nice, but completely unrealistic. Germany is way too weak in freestyle. I think 5th place might be realistic. It was a nice dream for a while, but it was only a dream ...

You are clearly exaggerating. Germany isn’t super dominant in any of those events, especially if you take Francesco Friedrich out of the equation. Without him the German bob team is very ordinary. In the end Germany seems to have had superior material, but it can look completely different in 4 years. Personally I don’t quite understand how GB can have superior material in track cycling but horrible material in sliding sports. If you want to make the competitions more exciting, you could just give everyone the same material.

1) It is much more difficult to dominate speed skating. 2) People who don’t like sliding sports should be happy about German domination. 3) Not sure if Van der Poel is a good example. Isn’t he a Dutch who switched to Sweden because he couldn’t make the Dutch team?

The number of records on this track is really impressive, i guess a global pandemic helps athletes "training" better than ever before ...

German women back to their usual (snail) self, blowing two medal chances in one race. Still don't understand why biathlon has a medal event that is based on the result of another medal event. Makes zero sense for biathlon to be the only? sport to have this. Why not use the downhill results in alpine skiing as first part of the alpine combined results while we are at it?

Pretty smart of Australia to focus on technical sports (snowboard, freestyle skiing, bob, skeleton), seems like they "stole" GB's strategy. I think at some point Germany will have to adapt the same strategy. Interestingly neither GB nor Australia were/are remotely competitive in luge.

If german women don't win gold and silver/bronze, they should all instantly retire. They clearly had superior material today. Neise would have been in the lead without her big mistakes at the end of run 2, she clearly has the highest ceiling on this track. You really have to thank whoever designed this LONG track, it clearly helps athletes who aren't great at the start.

Not that surprising ... Interestingly Austria won the medal table at 3 of the 5 last olympics and the two other times the medal table was won by Croatia and Germany of all countries ...

Sorry to tell you, but this is a horrible pick. Top 10 would already be a very good result for her (this is not downhill). Why isn’t Goggia an option?

Now that Björgen retired you actually might be right.

Fischnaller in snowboard might also do it.

I don't really see the connection. Crystal globe is just adding up points, it seems pretty fair as long as there is the same amount of races in every discipline while the combined always has favored slalom specialists. Someone who wins 8 out of 10 slaloms has a case to be considered a better athlete than someone who won 6 out of 10 downhills (and to get some kind of recognition for being the best athlete of the season). You could say that the alpine combined, where the best slalom skiers are usually at the top, is a bit like nordic combined where the best cross-country skiers usually always end up at the top. The difference is that noone is specializing in the alpine combined, so basically you are just giving an extra medal chance to athletes who are already medal contenders in the downhill or the slalom. In the nordic combined no ski jumpers/cross-country skiers are competitive. If the alpine combined would be designed in a way that makes it (close to) impossible for slalom/downhill specialists to win medals, then it would make sense to keep it, but i don't see how you could do it. In this century (5 olympics) 60 % of the medalists in the alpine combined won a medal in one of the other events as well. Only 1/6 of the medalists in the combined didn't finish at least top 8 in an other event at the same olympics.