OlympicsFan

I just added up the points of the 4 best athletes of each nation from today's competition*: Slovenia: 1078.4 Germany: 1064.4 Austria: 1062.0 Norway: 1046.5 Japan: 1046.3 Poland: 1038.2 * I multiplied the first round results of Johannson and Tande by 2 (since they didn't qualify for the 2nd round)

Like i said before: Neise clearly has the biggest potential on this track. If she wouldn't contantly make the same mistake, she already would have secured gold. I fear that her inexperience/young age will get to her and that she will maybe even end up without a medal. 2nd place for Neise and 4th place for Hermann (behind Bos) is a very possible scenario.

I don't see how the training results make Germany the clear favorite in those events. Also Friedrich didn't look good so far, so Germany might end up without a gold in men's bob.

At least Germany "finally" got its first bronze medal here ... Still disappoining that the world cup leader only won 1 bronze medal. If Germany could somehow find a decent 4th athlete they would fight for gold in the team.

You already won more than your fair share of golds, leave some for the bigger countries. Also you won already more than enough golds in Tokyo.

I don't think that it will be a fight for gold. Norway doesn't need to win another gold ...

Would be very surprised if the final result wouldn't be: Gold: Kobayashi Silver: Lindvik Bronze: Anyone currently ranked 3rd to 8th

I think 4 golds is the ceiling for Australia, so Australia could do it if Canada wins less than 4 golds.

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 ...