Ted

Sofia Goggia will be going to the Olympics after all!

Well said. I totally agree.

I thought you guys were good friends/neighbors. On a more serous note, I think countries like Switzerland, Sweden, Italy, Canada and Germany will most probably fare slightly better than AP anticipates and the US...OK, somewhat worse I guess.

That's good to know. Both competitions in Willingen today (men's and women's individual LH) were nothing but a joke btw. The wind destroyed everything.

After contracting Covid a few WEEKS back AND having SIX negative tests afterwards, he tests positive again??? So weird.

Canadian Rob Koehler, Director General of an organization called Global Athlete (who used to work for WADA btw) is also very skeptical and has voiced misgivings about the Chinese testing methods and results.

Here are my picks in no particular order: 1. Nathan Chen figure skating/men's singles 2. Kamila Valieva figure skating/women's singles 3. Nils van der Poel speed skating (10k) 4. Sweden XC skiing/women's team sprint C 5. Francesco Friedrich bobsleigh/men's two-man

According to insidethegames.biz, German officials are concerned about the validity of Chinese PCR tests. Michael Hölz (President of the German snowboarding association) has stated that PCR test results -much like anti-doping ones- may easily be manipulated (implying that the Chinese have a long history of tampering with anti-doping tests...). For instance, they may announce a positive PCR test, not allow an athlete to compete in an event and then simply apologize by saying it was actually a false positive. As expected, the Chinese have already refuted this claim. What's your take on this?

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So beautiful! Do you happen to know which well-known ice rink it is similar to (at least in terms of altitude)? Can @heywoodu perhaps provide some info?

I just did... However, I still predict that Italy will have a good Olympics. No worries, friend.

Any doctors on our forum to tell us what this type of injury usually means?

Yes. And -according to the journalist- the doctors and physiotherapists will be trying their best to get Sofia ready for the women's downhill race on Feb 15 (which is very hard and not that likely...)

Last-minute addition to the Norwegian Alpine skiing team for Beijing...none other than...Kjetil Jansrud! Shocker.

Is it official? Are you sure?

My prediction is that you'll win 10+ medals, including 3-4 golds.

My thoughts exactly.

Give us some details on the Chinese piste.

A certain Mr Doll just won the biathlon mass start race in Italy.

Add to these 1 more medal in nordic combined, 1 in ski jumping, 2-3 medals in biathlon, 1-2 in alpine skiing, 1-2 surprise medals (XC skiing? speed skating?) and there you have it. OK, maybe not exactly 29 medals BUT somewhere in the mid-twenties.

If he qualifies in the 1st place, that is.

Haha. No way are they going to win fewer than 20 medals. They have lots of really good medal prospects in many sports/disciplines.

MY PREDICTIONS FOR THE TOP TEN NATIONS(IN TERMS OF TOTAL NUMBER OF MEDALS WON): Russia 34 Norway 30 USA 29 Germany 29 Canada 29 Sweden 25 France 23 Switzerland 21 China 19 Honorable mentions: Austria, the Netherlands or even both may well find themselves in the top ten. They're poised to fare (very) well in any case and win 15+ medals each. Japan will also have a great Games by my calculations. What do you think, guys? Feel free to comment.

No, I don't think so. In my opinion, this is way too hard to achieve. But who knows?

I don't think you'll get fewer than 15. I predict 15-20 medals for France.