dcro

Second listen done and dusted. Still feels like a very weird Annual. Up-beat songs are far less represented than usual. Lots of beautiful entries, though. Since there was a lot of movement on my scoreboard, I decided to keep all 30 remaining entries at this stage...

Mongolia - table tennis Also basketball, since 3x3 is counted under the same sport.

Who knows, maybe if they find another 50 exotic nations, the IOC will give them a break and assign them two extra spots or something.

And just to clarify, I had no favorites here. Like most fans, I was merely interested to see how these Finals will play out, but as it goes, we have been robbed of that in an anticlimactic fashion.

It is a very similar point... While risky, missing a height in high jump saves you both energy and focus for later attempts. By the same token, skipping the slalom tour most definitely helped Gut to hold the apex in her main events. It's basically the same thing you've been saying about Vlhova all season - racing speed events affected her usual SL/GS form. But in the end, none of it matters... It is all about who collects most points, and it is up to FIS to make the distribution of events as fair as possible, and sadly (but not surprisingly) that was not the case here...

That's like saying: "If that high jumper wanted to win, why did she skip earlier heights?". Because there are different approaches to it. Wasting energy and focus on slaloms would not make sense for someone like Gut. It's as simple as that.

Great. So this leads to systemic discrimination of speedsters, since their events are far more likely to get cancelled given the one day window. Thanks.

Can't they just change the order of events? Weather reports are available days in advance...

Apparently Nepal plans to compete in athletics, swimming, karate, judo, shooting, boxing, weightlifting and archery. Obviously, they will not compete in all of these, but perhaps this gives us an indication for possible Tripartite invitations... https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1105492/nepal-olympic-committee-covid-19

First listen completed. Four entries received a hard pass and are eliminated. Upon "further consideration", two more got axed as well, leaving 30 entries. VERY unusual Annual, I'd say...

Men, Stage 2 (semifinals) Gionis - Pitchford Lambiet - Skachkov Women, Stage 2 (final) Xiao - Sawettabut

Well, some justice compared to the last time, when Asian B nations were grabbing European spots left and right due to a certain loophole...

Presumably, they will allocate the Oceanian spots via rankings. Men - ( to gain reallocation) Women -

Excellent morning for the Visegrad Group.

https://www.lanzarotewinterseries.com/international/preinscripciones.php

Monaco - table tennis Only their 3rd ever female athlete.

First quota for Monaco.

Interesting to see Igor Marenić making the switch to Nacra 17. Of course you expect a lot from the Olympic champion (470), but this is his first (bigger) regatta in this class, so a qualification would be astonishing...

Have seen 4/8 Best Picture nominees so far. My rankings are as follows... Sound of Metal Promising Young Woman Mank The Trial of the Chicago 7 PYW notably went above my expectations, while the bottom two are just not worth it...

It's official. A fake Eurovision song, entered for TISC, is now also nominated for the Oscars.

Given how unusual it is and that it involves two different federations, it seems like a fair assumption...

This is quickly turning into a dumpster fire... Just for some perspective, we were already at a point where our NOC simply stopped (!) sending athletes to qualification events (table tennis, wrestling). And now, after losing a seemingly safe qualification, I can't even imagine what will the consequences be.

Vd Poel had no energy to celebrate.

I secretly hoped for Io Si.

Pinturault lol