OlympicsFan

Italian are very nice people, they want to be welcoming and not take anything away from their guests.

Just say that you don’t have any arguments and have to make up fake reasons for escaping the discussion and then we can all live happily ever after.

Ski jumping: Germany has had extremely successful years and both Althaus and Wellinger are still young. On the men’s side you also have Constantin Schmid and Luca Roth (Silver in the individual competition and gold in the team at 2019 junior worlds). The women’s team also won silver at 2019 junior worlds. Nordic combined: Geiger is still very young and for example Julian Schmid won 2 golds and 1 silver at 2019 junior worlds. Alpine skiing: It has been like this for at least a decade. In the past decade Germany never had any depth, but this current men’s team might be the best team Germany ever had. Both Weidle and Dreßen are still young (compared to most of the athletes who dominate their events). You seem to forget that for example Germany always used to be nonexistent in speed events on the men’s side. You need to do one of the following 3 things: a) Stop trolling or b) Educate yourself or c) Check you expectations Germany just had fantastic winter Olympic Games, despite not really being a winter sport country. I don’t really know what your expectations are, but clearly they are completely absurd. How do you see the situation of the US? They have 4 times the population but won 8 medals less at the last Winter Olympics. By your standards this must be the biggest failure in the history of human kind. Also what about Russia? A traditional winter sport country with a 50 % bigger population but 14 medals less at the last Olympics ... ?

You clearly have no clue about Hammerschmidt. There was a time when she was world class and in that shape she would currently be number 2 or 3 for every nation except Norway. I also have no idea what people are expecting in terms of depth. Currently there are at best 2 nations with at least 2 athletes who are able to win on any given day (Norway and Sweden). It makes no sense to compare this German team to the days of Henkel/Disl/Glagow/Wilhelm. Germany dominating like that was a complete anomaly and mainly down to Sweden and Norway completely wasting their potential. If all nations would reach their potential, then Germany should be 4th at best behind Norway, Sweden and Russia (maybe also behind Finland, the US and Canada). Biathlon in the end is just a version of cross-country, so it is difficult to have a lot of depth when cross-country is pretty much nonexistent in your country, which is the case in Germany since basically no one gives a shit about cross-country and I don’t remember it ever being much different (even when Germany dominated men’s cross-country)

First of all: Hettich is only one year older than Carrara and 2 years older than Lardschneider and is having far better results, but for you the Italian girls seem to be some sort of generational talents while Hettich is a scrub. Obviously you haven’t really followed German biathlon for the past decade, otherwise you would know that Germany basically always had the problem (remember the 2014 olympics?) and it only got covered up shortly by Dahlmeier and Preuß. I think every nation would have massive problems when two generational talents (Neuner and Dahlmeier) both retire within a couple of years, despite easily being capable of dominating for another 5+ years. At this point I wouldn’t even blame German coaches if they would have given up. What’s the point of developing transcendental talents when they retire as soon as possible? In the end anything but a Swedish and Norwegian dominance for many years would be extremely shocking. It is only logical that the nations that dominate cross-country also dominate biathlon. I think you can for example compare it with Jamaica or the US in athletics 400 m/400 m hurdles/100 m hurdles. They have an abundance of great athletes in the 100 m (cross-country), so those who aren’t good enough to make the team there will switch to an other event/sport (biathlon). I think only Russia could break/out-dope their dominance. The solution seems really simple and maybe some day the other nations will realize it: You can’t beat Norway/Sweden at their own game (cross-country), so put all your best talents into biathlon. Herrmann has shown that a decent cross-country athlete with minimal talent for shooting can dominate biathlon pretty quickly. Even Gössner used to be almost unbeatable when she had a good day. Sadly Germany seems to prefer producing snails who are good at shooting and then the coaches are surprised when the Norwegian and Swedish girls completely dominate them.

Cool ... junior results don’t mean anything. Right now Italy has one world class athlete in Wierer and she will soon be gone. Germany also produced tons of promising juniors who never turned into anything. Until someone proves himself at World Cup level it is absolutely pointless to make predictions. Of all the female athletes you mentioned none seems remotely special. Öberg is younger than Lardschneider and Carrara and only 1 year older than Trabucchi and is already World class. At that age Neuner and Dahlmeier were already close to retirement.

I hope that you are wrong for Germany, but I fear that your prediction won’t be far off.

I don’t think so. They would get to be part of the World Cup team if they would be talented enough. Even Hettich got a chance and she is slow like a snail.

What? I think Wierer will be gone by then.

Sorry, but are you even aware of what „talented“ means? Winning a medal at U23 worlds is pretty much the definition of being talented. By that definition Notz, Brugger and Moch were/are all very talented. Obviously they haven’t reached anything at senior level (so far), but results at senior level have almost nothing to do with talent. The most important factor for being good at senior level is nationality = having access to a superior doping program.

You are probably the only person who sees it that way.

Not necessarily, but Kyrgios definitely is entertaining. I can’t judge whether he is an idiot or not, since I haven’t performed an IQ test on him.

No, that is not the case. Germany has at least half a dozen guys who could easily be among the best skiers in biathlon. I think you are massively underestimating how weak the top guys in biathlon are compared to the top guys in cross-country. Also Germany has at least 2 very promising athletes in Janosch Brugger and Friedrich Moch. Actually Germany almost always has very talented athletes in cross-country. Denise Herrmann was the fastest skier after she switched to biathlon and she wasn’t exactly a world-beater in cross-country (sprint excluded). I have no doubt that Henning or Carl would easily be among the fastest athletes in biathlon.

The ISU president obviously tries his best not to promote this sport. Who thought that it would be a good idea to have this event at the same time as the biathlon/alpine skiing world championships? That’s like having the field hockey World Cup at the same time as the football World Cup. The only ones who will probably watch it are the Dutch.

Thanks, what a surprising result. Never heard of Brown before and tought that Desthieux already retired. How old is that guy?

At least he is decent in cross-country. I prefer that to someone like Hettich who couldn’t even medal if everyone else would miss 2 more targets than her. I think the best strategy for Germany would be to completely stop funding cross-country and to redirect all the best talents to biathlon. The last world-class skier that Germany produced in women’s Biathlon is probably Dahlmeier almost a decade ago. Herrmann has shown that all you need in Biathlon to be successful is good skiing and a minimal amount of talent for shooting, then you can become world class even if you only start practicing shooting in your late 20s.

Who won the medals? Also Peiffer and Lesser should retire on the spot. I can’t believe how far behind German athletes are in skiing. They only chance for them to win a medal would be if at least 8 out of the top 10 guys miss at least 2 more targets than them.

You can’t judge whether Australia got „lucky“ or not, but it certainly is true that they had it way easier than many European countries.

Really sad to see the hate towards Kyrgios. Tennis needs entertainers like him and not boring guys like Thiem or Djokovic.

What a surprise ... 1) Are there any German sledding athletes you like? 2) How do you become a fan of a skeleton athlete? They basically have zero TV time ...

Baumann is on the Podium, so the Race Must have been fair (unless he ends up outside the podium, then it will have been unfair). Would be funny if they would cancel the race now ... I want to thank the Austrian federation and congrats to the German federation for developing such a great talent. Imagine the scenes in Austria if Baumann would have taken the gold from Kriechmayer ...

Funny list. Too bad they went through all this work just to come up with something like that.

Very surprising result. Funny that silver and bronze went to nations with German coaches while the German team flopped again. Absolutely shocking performance by Lesser, if I wouldn’t know better, I would say that he tried to ski as slowly as possible. He made absolute scrubs look like prime Lars Berger. I think it would be best for him if he would just travel back home.

They should cancel this race. Thanks to the Italian coach mistaking this for a giant slalom and the conditions, the result has already become irrelevant.

So don’t give the championships to countries with too little snow/countries that can’t handle hosting it (like Italy obviously).