Federer91

Bump for the Luge World Cup starting this weekend, starting at Winterberg rather than Igls for technical reasons (lazy Austrians ).   Since we are now going to Winterberg twice this season, this particular weekend will not count towards Olympic Quals, as discussed already,
 
There has been some changes for us oldsters, so maybe a guide for beginners as well.
 
Broadcasting 
Good and perhaps not so good news. There is a new deal with Discovery/Eurosport. All three days of the weekend are now being covered including the Friday races which usually are not shown.    Unfortunately, not clear whether the FTA option via YouTube and/or the FIL Page will still exist, or will be geo-blocked.  Hopefully also they will stick with the excellent commentary format of one pro comms person on-site paired with a willing volunteer from the non-competing athletes.  
 
Race formats
There are four sets of races now.
 
Nations Cup on Friday - the Qualifying races for the Saturday / Sunday World Cup.  Top sleds are pre-qualified so don't take part here.  
 
Mixed Races on Friday - These races are for the smaller nations who don't have large enough teams to participate in the Team Relays.  Nations can either compete as a pair or as single nation partnerships along the lines of old historic friendships like /, /, /, / etc.
World Cup Races on Saturday and Sunday - The standard four formats of Men's Singles, Women's Singles, Men's Doubles, Women's Doubles
 
Team Relay on Sunday - Always exciting relays races in which the big nations run one team from each of the WC formats.  Unlike every other form of Winter Sports team event, this is the one in which it is quite normal for even the biggest and best teams to seriously mess up & either disqualify themselves or have some kind of significant time delay.  
 
Sprint races - Everyone hates them so hopefully they have been killed. 
 
Beer
The race track at Winterberg is sponsored by a brewery and in the past winners have been given very large glasses of the product!  Unfortunately, this is the alcohol-free version of the beer. 

Bumping the thread so people are reminded. By the looks of the voting i think an extension would be required. Maybe till Sunday, or even next week. 

They unveiled the route for the 2026 Giro and it's way softer, than what we have seen in recent times. But it's going to finish in my home town, so that's fine by me. 

Cancelling a round in Kuusamo.. so what else is new   Zografski with a 4th and a new PB, but it's a real bummer that he doesn't have the chance to jump for a podium. This jury has really become quite pathetic the last few years. 

Good start of the season for  Zografski, though the rare occasion there is a Normal hill on the schedule is always to his benefit. Will see if he can stabilize a top 15-20 placing in the coming starts.
 
Also a nice surprise to see  Tomasiak doing well. I don't know what is the general feeling in Poland about their current state in ski-jumping, but i'm seeing a big problem for them. The time of the seemingly eternal old dogs Stoch, Kubacki, Zyla and Kot is coming to an end (for some even at the end of this season) and there is practically no one coming up to replace them. 
 
I don't think they will become the next Finland and drop out completely from the scene, but so many years without a breakthrough young guy has to be very concerning. Zniszczol, Wolny, Stekala were all failed prospects. While Wasek had a very good last season, his consistency is still a question mark.

Getting close to the Games, so I think some updates here will be welcomed 

I don't know why they didn't have these ECH a week early and have practically the whole TV time to themselves. Next week the schedule is much more crowded with the other winter sports kicking the season. Sometime i think if we made the calendar it would be much more beneficial to over a dozen sports.

Barely any snow even in Lillehammer  It's again looking bleak for a nice white winter, especially in my region..

I don't know why they didn't have these ECH a week early and have practically the whole TV time to themselves. Next week the schedule is much more crowded with the other winter sports kicking the season. Sometime i think if we made the calendar it would be much more beneficial to over a dozen sports.

I don't know why they didn't have these ECH a week early and have practically the whole TV time to themselves. Next week the schedule is much more crowded with the other winter sports kicking the season. Sometime i think if we made the calendar it would be much more beneficial to over a dozen sports.

BULGARIA  
 
DIA - "Грехове" (Sins)
 

 

 
 
English Lyrics:
 
 

Im still listening Veno Neveno, even i show the videoclip to my family for your tradicional music and clothing.
           

The return of DIA in the contest, to the joy of one @konig if i remember correctly  

I'm here, just haven't decided yet  Will probably submit it tomorrow evening. 

I see they could have made a whole group of people named Mol 
 
I think they should have expanded the WCH to 2 full weeks and not fudge so many matches in a day.

I just checked, it’s actually the third time in women’s slalom (the first two were both in 1976)

Every time I see any kind of suspension, in all sports / countries, they always have "perfect" timing for the athlete to barely have a hurdle in their schedule / career 

At this rate Karlos will be setting world records like Duplantis or even Bubka.. They can reset them every year..
 
What was the point of IWF making all those changes, when the IOC will do whatever they want. Wasn't this communicated early? So many years, so many reason why this sport is seen as a joke and has it's World Championships in front of 50 people.

is in the party 

I second having the Annual contest now (songs from 2024 right?), so we don't skip a year. Happy to have you on board 

Ok so I have given it some thought this week and I am willing to try to organise a contest. It is getting quite late in the year so the Grand Final might have to wait until after Christmas and New Year but let’s see how things go.
 
I will probably make it a more stripped down version to make it more manageable to organise but I think having the contest at all is more important.
 
Also I think I’d rather make this the Annual edition since we did not have an Annual contest this year and I think it would be nice to keep that tradition alive. The Open Contest allows us to pick songs from almost any period so there will always be a chance to showcase those songs any year. But for Annuals, it has to be songs released in the last 12 months and those songs haven’t had a contest since the 2024 Annual so I think it’s better to host the 2025 Annual now and then figure out where things go from there.

My pessimistic side takes this as a two-edged sword. Now they hypothetically could go ahead and add them to the real Olympics 

My pessimistic side takes this as a two-edged sword. Now they hypothetically could go ahead and add them to the real Olympics 

And they should be. With all the mentally absurd retirements in Norway, I'm having both Germany and USA being above Norge in the medal table. Heck with subpar performances they could even be of the podium when it comes to gold medals.