OlympicsFan

Kind of crazy that Shiffrin has "only" one olympic medal in slalom so far and it came at her first olympics when she was still 18 ... Based on her world cup dominance she should (have) end(ed) her career with at least 3 golds in slalom. Kind of reminds me of Viktoria Rebensburg (although she obviously never was this dominant) who won her only olympic gold in giant slalom at her first olympics. At this point you probably wouldn't even bet on Shiffrin winning a medal in 2026. Would be kind of crazy if Shiffrin would end her career with less olympic slalom medals than Wendy Holdener. Edit: The gaps today were really "interesting". Between Nullmeyer in 22nd and Della Mea in 30th there were 2.57 seconds and between Vlhova in 1st and Nullmeyer in 22nd there were "only" 2.98 seconds.

I just looked at who had the fastest training runs: Men: Alexander Tretiakov 1:00.33 Wengang Yan 1:00.36 Christopher Grotheer 1:00.42 Axel Jungk 1:00.49 Zheng Yin 1:00.50 Women: Janine Flock 1:01.75 Hannah Neise 1:01.88 Anna Fernstädt 1:01.94 Dan Zhao 1:01.96 Jacqueline Lölling 1:02.03 (Tina Hermann 1:02.08) Would be quite fitting if Germany would have 4 women in the top 6 but no medal, especially if Fernstädt would win gold.

Who the hell is Meryeta Odine? I guess not only eastern european/chinese athletes come out of nowhere to win olympic medals ... Edit: Her best results this season were 4th and 10th ... Canada is having an insane conversion rates when it comes to medal chances. Even their shitty athletes somehow win medals.

Definitely, Rydzek is the big question mark. If he is remotely close to his best in cross-country skiing, then he should win it.

I think Slovenia actually has some promising talents in nordic combined. Wouldn't be shocked if Slovenia would be a top 5 nation in nordic combined (and biathlon) in 5 years.

Luckily i didn't watch the race, but now i can say that i would have preferred Dürr to miss a gate. Leading at the last intermediate and then not winning any medal ... this has to break you. I would be shocked if she wouldn't end her career after this season. At least Germany already has a replacement in Emma Aicher (who probably should have finished top 10 today if she wouldn't have become too cautious half way through the second run). Vlhova certainly was the most deserving champion, but i still would have liked to see her without a medal.

Insane olympics for Italy indeed. Now even their complete nobodies, who never did anything in their career, are suddenly getting close to the medals. Maybe next their guy in skeleton will challenge for a medal ...

We all know how the second run will end: Gold for Sweden/Slovenia (not sure about the other medalist, maybe Austria, but certainly not Germany) I am not sure whether i prefer Dürr crashing or just being too slow for a medal ...

Epic? Could be interesting, but a) It is women’s team sprint ... and b) It is only two nations fighting for gold (Russia and Norway don’t look like serious contenders). By this standard pretty much every competition would have to be called epic (although I understand that as a Swedish person you feel the need to overstate the importance of this event).

How the hell does Norway keep developing such amazing talents? The Netherlands is understandable (given that this is basically their only winter sport), but in Norway speed skating isn’t really relevant and they have a tiny population. I don’t want to believe that Germany couldn’t be at least as good as Norway.

Biles should be in there, Serena Williams as well, probably Ledecky and i am not sure about the fifth (maybe Johaug/Hassan).

Austria also having pretty insane olympics so far. A lot of surprising medals already (Stadelhuber, Fatner, Ulbing) and none of their gold medalists was close to being a gold medal lock. Austria, Slovenia, China, Canada and Italy are probably the most overperforming countries so far.

She probably is one of the 5 greatest living female athletes. I thought about her 2018 double gold yesterday and it might very well be the greatest performance at a single winter olympics ever and even if you take summer olympics into consideration, there probably were less than 10 other athletes who accomplished something comparable.

Probably your athletes thought after training "If those chokers/mental dwarfs can do it, we can surely do it to" (and they were right).

They already were on a roll last year (Pogacar, Roglic, Doncic, the speed climber). The good thing is that the medals they won at the winter olympics (except the gold in women's ski jumping) were won in a fair/believable way (unlike their cycling medals).

Slovenia and Austria both with 2 medals while Germany didn't win a single medal. The odds for that must have been negative. What's next? Germany wins 2 individual medals in figure skating while Japan and Russia don't win a single one?

Sadly not surprising anymore. Baumeister and the women should have combined for at least 2 medals. The only way i can explain how german favorites constantly shit their pants at the olympics is that Germany is the only nation that still hasn't understood the need for psychologists in sport. At the summer olympics you already had Zeidler, Vetter, Hinze, Hussong, Reitz and probably others. At the winter olympics you already had Geiger, Taubitz, Hofmeister and Baumeister and day 4 isn't even over yet ... Maybe Geisenberger and Berreiter will crash and the german women will somehow end up without a single medal ...

Italy is continuing their miracle rise in sports. It feels as if they have already won medals in a dozen different sports here ...

I am absolutely Shocked that there are People who were surprised by this farce. I already said it during the men’s competition (you can go back and check): The goal obviously was to somehow gift Russia a medal and now that this goal has been accomplished, I hope that we can go back to having the best athletes on the top of the podium. And of course the people who were responsible hopefully won’t ever be allowed to destroy a competition again.

You are asking the wrong question. My assumption was that the slovakian? commentator mixed up the flag of gibraltar with the flag of greenland and thought that she was from Gibraltar. Since i didn't know whether it was an inside joke or the mistake of our slovakian friend, it doesn't make sense to ask whether i get it or not. If you can't be sure whether something is supposed to be a joke (instead of an honest mistake), it doesn't really make sense to ask if you get it or not.

A medal for germany (sadly) isn't standard, might very well be the only one. France and Norway on the other hand should win a lot more medals. Davidova pushing the norwegian off the podium would have been nice to see though.

Denise Herrmann joins a rather short list of athletes who won a medal in two different sports at the olympics. I think 16 athletes have won medals in two different winter sports and apparently only 5 women (Reztsova, ter Mors, Ledecka, Weissensteiner and Erdmann) have done it. Reztsova is the only woman who has done it in biathlon and cross-country skiing before.

Might have been a problem with the material or maybe they just didn't bother anymore after being out of it relatively early. I guess we will see.

The one that always frustrated me the most is Janina Hettich, but you could probably name a dozen women who all weren't remotely competitive thanks to their lack of skiing speed. Skiing speed is the problem that is obviously holding back german biathlon. Even our juniors are lightyears behind the russian/norwegian/french juniors. I think german biathlon focuses too much on shooting. They should try to focus more on skiing speed and maybe develop a system where the best cross-country skiing talents also practice shooting in order to maybe switch to biathlon later on. A former cross-country skier possibly winning germany's only medal isn't a coincidence.

Gibraltar? Inside joke?