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Kocergina did the magic

And we finally have an entry list for the World Cup Finals in dressage. Jumping should follow in a few days. In this selected field of 18 athletes, we actually have two nations that haven't even qualified for Rio 2016: TITLE DEFENDER Hans Peter MINDERHOUD WESTERN EUROPEAN LEAGUE Isabell WERTH Jessica VON BREDOW-WERNDL Judy REYNOLDS Kristy OATLEY Carl HESTER Marcela KRINKE-SUSMELJ Madeleine WITTE-VREES Edward GAL Mai TOFTE OLESEN CENTRAL EUROPEAN LEAGUE Inessa MERKULOVA Hanna KARASIOVA NORTH AMERICAN LEAGUE Laura GRAVES Kasey PERRY-GLASS PACIFIC LEAGUE Wendi WILLIAMSON NON-LEAGUE Maria Florencia MANFREDI EXTRA STARTERS Joao Victor MARCARI OLIVA Steffen PETERS

There's no such rule which says that internet contests shall not be taken seriously.

North Korea suddenly has a bunch of alpine and cross-country skiers registered on FIS (some of them competing already). Looks like they really want to be in South Korea for some reason.

Good news, fresh team manager can often make a difference.

What a hype for Dutch elections?

Pretty much the same for me too^ Plus, I feel like giving as many chance as possible to non-English songs... As they are less likely to impress me in just one listening.

That moment when you count up to 15 songs that MUST get points from Croatian jury.

5th place in combined for Popović. Two more top 10 results. Not a single DNF. Talk about turning your fortunes upside down.

Mai Tofte Olesen is apparently going to Omaha on reallocation, after Fabienne Lutkemeier elected to withdraw. This is so great. After this, literally all of my personal favorites who had any chance of qualifying are indeed going to the Finals. P.S. It feels like following all those weird Olympic qualifications/invitations that occurred just before Rio... Official entries are yet to be published so I have to rely on some alternative ways to find out who's going and who's not.

@heywoodu Can you explain in short what this nonsense about Turkey-Netherlands is? For someone who doesn't care too much about politics. Lately, there's too much politics in this thread anyway.

Lol, OlympicIRL

I cheered for that in both 2010 and 2014. And it didn't happen... But I guess 2018 might finally be the year. (not like I thought that before Sochi too )

The minimum standards are not particularly high so that wouldn't be much of a problem. Montoya probably has them, seeing that he was 17th at the Europeans in 2016.

Exactly, it's ridiculous all the way. Especially the part that a nation with one good skater gets to have 3 quotas if their best finishes 1st or 2nd...

Nothing he can do about that, since Raya is apparently on the entry list. It's a weird qualification system. If Fernandez was the only Spaniard competing, then he would have to finish 1st or 2nd to qualify 3 athletes. But since Raya is competing, the sum of their finishing places has to be 13 or less for 3 athletes. That's impossible for Raya.

Italy quite bad against Puerto Rico. Conceived points in all of first 5 innings.

Paulo Matteo Santana finishes 4th at Live Oak World Cup. Kochetova loses her place at Omaha at the very last second. What a shame.

"Not applicable." I think @heywoodu has nightmares from that sentence.

Latvia should be capable too, though it would require something very big from Rastorgujevs... Saying that, he was 7th in Kontiolahti sprint with one miss.

So looks like the last battles for Olympic quotas will be between and for 20th place in men's rankings, and between and for 22nd place in women's rankings. Latvia will need some magic from Rastorgujevs (like he did in Kontiolahti). It's similar really for Lithuania, however magic from Kocergina will be top 50 and not top 10 like with Rastorgujevs.

Only one relay got lapped.

Looks like Lithuanians will avoid getting lapped and will put as much as two relays between themselves and the Estonians.

So Estonia is almost lapped and 35 secs behind LTU after 7 shootings. Let's see if they once again manage to finish in front.

Still ahead of Estonia.