FancyFenchel

Whoah. Guys, I promise you, tonight you'll see a little surprise when Brazil enters and I guarantee you'll cheer for Lucas Braathen afterwards if you know it was his idea!

Why is there a giant floating tube of toothpaste above the floor? 

Who said hockey players are dumb ? 
 
Our guys solved the main issue of the lack of tables in the Olympic village by this splendid invention of covering a clothes dryer  Ingenious isn´t ?
 

Now that we're only a few hours out from Milano-Cortina starting with curling, just wanted to wish everyone the very best of luck at the Olympics!  

 
May you all have a memorable Olympics, whether it's a record setting medal haul, a medal, good finishes, a podium for your favourite athlete, participation, or the live experience of an Olympics for those of you that will be watching at the venues live. 

A little over 30,000 people watching the  vs.  curling match on YouTube on a Thursday afternoon  
 
 

Switzerland scored the 1st point, already had to be measured out 
 

HBO Max finally launched the Milano-Cortina main page on their platform. Was about time, I sterted to worry a bit 
 

Pro of being in America and having Sunday be the first day of the week...Olympics are this week!  

And on the topic of design elements. Let me, perhaps, introduce you all to a new frontier in Olympic branding: the Venuegram! 

As far as I remember, although other games have had basic graphics of their venues this is the first time the venues are presented in the same design style as the pictograms and the rest of the design marks for the games. I hope this can be a new part of Olympic design canon because there's a lot more fun that could be add portraying venues stylistically and not just with photos and text. 

High res versions can be found at the official venue page. 
 

Pictograms for old school maniacs like me 
 

 

Finally, it's ok. At least not an AI-slop like RAI promo.
 
 

Milano Cortina official tv intro

That's just the usual pre-Tour de Ski break that we see every winter. Quite normal to have three World Cups weekends, then an off-week and then continue the World Cup with the Tour de Ski  
 
Awesome to see the Tour de Ski going back to being a little bit more of an actual Tour de Ski now with three countries  Hopefully we'll also get some of the cool stages back like we used to have (like a long A to B race between towns and such).

All the Olympic Qualifying Events which have released the official qualification systems have been added to our calendars here:
 
2026 Qualification Calendar
 
2027 Qualification Calendar
 
2028 Qualification Calendar
 
You can easily access these calendars from this menu everywhere:
 

 
 
 
If you spot any missing qualification event please report it to me here!

Not OBS but BBC....perhaps it will appease some  
 

Less than 15 days out, nada 

Today at the Ski Flying World Champs 
 
 

Well the whole principle of re-testing after 10 years is to check the samples with advanced techniques that was not available 10 years ago. Sad that dopers getting glorified....

One worrying rumour to start your year off is that the organisation that controls the big Italian races - Giro, Strade Bianche, Milan-San Remo etc - is currently out of contract with Discovery/Eurosport etc and is looking to make a deal with a completely different provider so that is certain to be more expense for fans.  

Olympedia update.
The IOC did pull out of the deal because of "budget reasons" but we compromised by accepting less money and just updating 2024 and not Milan-Cortina for the time being.
The result is that the contract was signed this week and we just need to transfer our private data to Olympedia and then it will be back up to date.
Unfortunately not all our members were happy with the IOC's behavior and some may leave us because of this.

Maybe an unpopular opinion, but I feel all the bobsleds should be the same. They did it with the women's monobob in 2022 and from a spectator point of view it looked as if the best drivers performed the best.

Just look at women's magazines - fashion, diets, makeup, interior design, gossip but never any articles about sport.

Major changes coming to the Curling calendar! Amongst the changes is the expansion of the men's and women's worlds to 18 teams each.
 
https://worldcurling.org/2025/10/competition-structure-changes/

Apologies if this was already known, but in case it wasn't: there won't be 1 'opening ceremony'
 
There will be 4 (or 5) separate ones on the venues, which on TV will be made to look like one. So not really a Parade of Nations and such, just 4-5 shows which are merged into one. Not really a big deal for the average viewer, but very sad for many athletes who this way won't really get to experience the real Olympic opening ceremony vibes
 

Hi all,
 
I'm happy to have found others who love the Olympics as much as I do.
 
Random facts about me:
1) I'm an almost 40-yr-old dad from the States (South Carolina).  I'm teaching my girls to watch international sport/the Olympics...they know that when it's Olympics time, the TV doesn't tune in to anything else.    And now that I've discovered the international federations and the competitions in the 'off years', my wife/kids know there's no telling what sport I'll be watching...currently watching the table tennis for today's finals at the Europe Smash.
 
2) I grew up loving geography, maps, cultures, languages, etc.  (I'm a Spanish teacher now.)  I always watched the Olympics growing up, and my favorite part has always been the Parade of Nations (which I know makes me an outlier among all of my friends who are there for the sport).  Have always just loved the idea of having people from virtually every nation all together.  And to see the sportsmanship and the Olympic spirit on display between the nations is so inspiring.  I'm a Christian, and one thing we believe is that one day in the afterlife there will be peace among all, and while the Olympics isn't a perfect representation of that, it's a nice glimpse.   
 
3) I had the opportunity to go to a baseball game during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta (just a couple of hours from me)...I think it was Netherlands and Nicaragua.  I got to see one of the bronze medals that the USA won in baseball that year, as one of the players (Matt LeCroy) was previously a student at my high school and he came to talk at our church afterwards.  I also got to see the torch relay before 2002 in Salt Lake as it also came through South Carolina.
 
4) I grew up always liking figure skating and gymnastics, and of course swimming/diving/artistic swimming and track/field (athletics) were always fun to watch.  But now, my sport that I follow most closely is Sport Climbing.  I discovered it at the Tokyo Olympics and have been in love ever since.  I didn't really think about it much after Tokyo, but leading up to Paris, I caught some of the Olympic Qualifier Series and discovered the IFSC.  After Paris, I started watching all the comps in between.
 
5) Though Sport Climbing is my absolute favorite, when people ask what sports I watch in the Olympics, I have to honestly reply that I watch them all.  I try to catch a little of each sport, trying to learn about sports that I'm less familiar with.  Current secondary favorites are Table Tennis, Weightlifting, and Modern Pentathlon (and Curling in winter, and SkiMo has recently caught my eye).  It also helps that I discovered more about the structure of International Sport, in that each one has their own federation, like the IFSC.  I took some time to follow each of them on YouTube and Facebook, and I'll try to pay attention if there are some major competitions in the sports.
 
6) As I watch the Olympics, I also try to be intentional about watching athletes from as many nations as I can.  Here in the USA, it's of course not surprising that NBC shows primarily stories related to our athletes...but I know other nations are just as proud of their athletes.  So, in looking at other sports, I get to see other nations shine for a bit.  I also try to watch things like the opening heats for the 100m in the pool or on the track to see athletes from all over the world compete.
 
7) I may or may not have purchased the soundtrack to the 2024 Opening Ceremony and listen to it quite frequently.    (I also have gone back and watched the opening ceremony from the Olympics site a couple of times now, where it's ad-free and without NBC commentators checking in on Team USA.  And interestingly enough, in the replay they uploaded, they fixed the error where North/South Korea were introduced as the other nation.)
 
8) Super happy to have found this site because of how it highlights qualification procedures.  Growing up, I always wondered how people made it to the Olympics, and now that the Internet exists, I have found the Qualification docs on the Olympics site, and now there are sites like these that show when these events (and many more!) are taking place.
 
I'm sure I have many other thoughts, but I'll let these suffice for now.    Looking forward to following international sport over the next few years as we prepare for LA!  (I hope to be there!)