Noorderling29

Eenzame Kerst - André Hazes (not my cup of tea)

Also a first: never before has a Dutch pair participated in the games, according to media rapports.

The Technical director of the Dutch Olympic Committee has, using his discretionary powers, decided to include them in the team. He cites “extra-ordinary circumstances”, but has not stated what they are. The use of these powers is quite rare. They were used in 2022 to nominate an alpine-skier.

Not just Erin Jackson, but several others like for instance Joep Wennemars. Think of it what you may, it’s all down to the way the rules are written up. The rationale is probably to prevent that a rider that falls is automatically relegated to the B group.

Matrix: women /

Matrix: men

Stolz participated in the mass start in Heerenveen, but fell. I don’t know whether he started in the earlier two world cups, but have a vague memory of him participating in the past (but may well suffer from valse recall).

With the exception of 🇧🇷 instead 🇸🇪, rather predictable.

Agreed. But OTOH, the chances of a Male Team pursuit medal also seem rather slim at the moment, so why the hassle of dropping someone.

4 years ago the third Male 500 metres qualifier was dropped for a Team pursuit rider.

RTBF (The Walloon public broadcaster) are up this year, and they have decided to participate. VRT (their Flemish counterpart) seem to take the opposite position, but have no say. A Dutch poll apparently shows that 61% support the decision to boycot. Our Media minister said yesterday that he had tried for some time to get another Dutch broadcaster to deliver a Dutch entrance, but this was not taken up.

But they are wrong.

Belgian media claim otherwise.

The Dutch tv commentator just talked about rumours about Schulting, and according to a newspaper article Schulting is training with the Dutch ST team. No decisions have been made yet: she will probably want to see how the OKT goes.