4 minutes ago, intoronto said:

Wouldn't put it past Canada to sweep either the men's slopestyle or big air in snowboarding either...

nor the US to sweep the HP events in Snowboard (even if the Asian competitors may have different ideas)...

you know...those X-Games "owned by judges" events...

Just now, SalamAkhi said:

Moioli seemed very strong in last races (home effect ?) and Jacobellis is not to be underestimated ... but I will not lie, that would be my preference 

well, I was a bit supertitious there...actually, I think Moioli and Jacobellis are by far the 2 best SBX specialists, but they also have a long history of "Olympic epic fails"...so, as I wrote, I really think that a French sweep is possible (the other 2 girls with some potential to stop them are Gulini and maybe Samkova, even if in this season she hasn't shown her best shape yet...the rest of the field is well behind those girls and I don't think they have a shot at the podium places)...

2 hours ago, heywoodu said:

Which makes me think of another question: which events do you think are the most likely to see a one-country podium? To be clear, mentioning an event doesn't mean you actually expect this to happen, just that in your opinion it's a bigger possibility than other events (for example I don't think men's 5000m will be swept by the Netherlands, but it's still 100% more likely than the women's 500m  ).

 

Women's luge - Germany

Men's ski jumping (normal and large hill) - Germany/Norway

Nordic combined (both individual events) - Germany/Norway

Cross-country (several events) - Norway

 

This came to mind real quick  

 

France in women's snowboardcross (and this is more than likely...actually, there are just 3/4 girls who could avoid it)...

Germany in men's Bobsleigh (mainly in 4-man, but I don't exclude the 2-man neither, if they can enter 3 sleds -I'm not 100% aware of qualifications criteria in Bobsleigh)

Russia (pardon, OAR) in women's single (Figure Skating)

South Korea in all 1000m and, even more, in all 1500m races in Short Track Speedskating (those last 2 being the most likely of the entire Games program)...

21 minutes ago, Gianlu33 said:

On the Hungarian TV? You will see the European championship on RAI, whit 1-2 week of delay

I don't watch rai channels even if they pay me to do it...

by the way, today we are lucky..they're broadcasting the Short Track Europeans right now...tomorrow instead it's gonna be just somethinmg more usual by them...I think they will show them after midnight...

1 hour ago, OlympicsFan said:

That is one way to look at it ... the other would be:

If a sport with 10 events gets 8 questions, a sport with 5 events should get 4 questions, otherwise the contest isnt really "balanced", a third way to look at it would be:

All sports should get the same amount of questions, so that someone who is a biathlon expert doesnt have an advantage over someone who is a skeleton expert (if there even is someone like that, just an example).

sure...

and in fact I agree on the general principle you expressed (which, as @LDOG wrote, would be in place for the contest)...

but I also think that it shouldn't be ignored the fact that 1 or 2 sports have so much more following than the average (and in fact @LDOG confirmed that they would take also this thing into consideration)...

to me, that's perfect...they have my full support...

by the way, here another couple of questions...

Snowboarding (but the first one could be used also for Freestyle)

will Halfpipe and Slopestyle be won by the same snowboarder (freestyler)? (question including both men and women's competition)

in Snowboardcross, will both Qualification winners (m and w) fail to medal?

will we have a full podium with -18 years young medallists in any of the sports disciplines?

Nordic Combined

will all 3 Gold medals go to the same Country?

will we have a German clean sweep of the podium in 1 of the Individual events?

will someone ranked outside the top 25 after the Jumping phase get a medal at the end of the day in an Individual event?

will we have at least 5 teams finishing within 45 seconds behind the winners (and included the winners) in the Team Relay?

Curling

will Italy win 2 or more games?

will at least 2 different Nations get a medal in all 3 events of the program?

will we have at least 1 team (all 3 events included) winning all of their games, from first preliminary match to the final?

Overall

will the Germany+Netherlands duo win more Gold medals than the USA+Canada duo?

will we have at least 5 Gold Medal winners being less than 18 years young on that given day?

1 hour ago, OlympicsFan said:

You seem upset ...

Surprised to see that someone can get that emotional for short track european championships ...

More importantly: Anna Seidl is completely stalling, what a shame, i had such high hopes for her ...

no, not upset...

but a bit disappointed, yes...

you know, short track is one of my favourite winter sports and I always hope that our skaters can do well...

and since I was watching the races (on the Hungarian TV ), I was surprised by that bad mistake by our girls, who, as I wrote, didn't need to make anything extravagant to keep their position and skate through to the final race...

just that...

p.s. however, short track is a wonderful sport...and it's difficult not to get involved when watching it (and it doesn't matter if it's the Europeans or the Olympics or even a small caliber race)...

2 minutes ago, dcro said:

 

Don't you mean something like 25?

naaa...this time they won't sweep the field in speedskating like 4 years ago...

after a day like today, I must be very optimistic...

10/12 Podium finish, with at least 3 Gold Medals

and it looked too good to be true...something stupid had to happen for us...

and here we go with our girls throwing away an easy Gold in the Relay competition after falling down in the semifinals when we were comfortably on the way of tomorrow's big final...

so, Germany get the benefit of our mistake and skate through to the final act together with Hungary...

17 hours ago, LDOG said:

Fantastic job guys, we may be able to open the contest sooner than expected. Keep them coming anyway, the more and more creative, the better.

 

 

The only problem is that I have 100 suggestions for Ice Hockey and I think I can only pick 3 at most

naaa...I think you should put a bit more than just 3 questions about Ice Hockey in the contest...

if a sport has more followers in such a big way, it can't be ignored and put on the same level of the others...I mean, not that there should be 10 times Hockey questions more than the other sports, but even if there are some more it's still OK, imho...

p.s. however in the next hours I'm sure you'll get some more inputs also for the other disciplines...

Women's 1500m, Final Results

Gold: Martina Valcepina (ITA)

Silver: Yara Van Kerkhof (NED)

Bronze: Sara Luca Bacskai (HUN)

Men's 1500m, Final Results

Gold: Sjinkie Knegt (NED)

Silver: Semen Elistratov (RUS)

Bronze: Vladislav Bykanov (ISR)

Women's 500m, Final Results

Gold: Martina Valcepina (ITA)

Silver: Arianna Fontana (ITA)

Bronze: Sofia Prosvirnova (RUS)

Men's 500m, Final Results

Gold: Sjinkie Knegt (NED)

Silver: Victor An (RUS)

Bronze: Sebastien Lepape (FRA)

Provisional Overall Classification (after 2/4 events)

1st, Martina Valcepina (ITA) 68 Pts

2nd, Arianna Fontana (ITA) 29 Pts

3rd, Yara Van Kerkhof (NED) 24 Pts

Provisional Overall Classification (after 2/4 events)

1st, Sjinkie Knegt (NED) 68 Pts

2nd, Semen Elistratov (RUS) 21 Pts

3rd, Victor An (RUS) 21 Pts

Italian party in Dresden...

Valcepina dominating both 1500m and 500m, this last distance ahead of our Pyeongchang flagbearer Arianna Fontana...

not so good the things are going for the men's team...but this is well expected...

wow! I didn't expect Pellegrino to beat Klaebo today...

great job, man!

and exciting final overall...

p.s. but now I'm a bit worried, as the French guys look pretty good (and pretty dangerous) for the team sprint competition looking at Pyeongchang...

I thought it was a NOR vs ITA question, but those Frenchmen make me think about something different, possibly...

10 hours ago, thiago_simoes said:

 

Oh. My. God. This only proves my point: like I said before, it is the Olympic Games for the Northern hemisphere with Australia and New Zealand as glorified guests.

no, not at all (at least for what's up to me)...

it's the Games for those Countries with enough willingness of developing sports practiced on snow and/or ice...nothing more, nothing less, nothing different...

and, meanwhile I perfectly know the fact that snow sports are not realistic in most Countries of the Southern Emisphere, frankly Ice sports are not just for those Nations with long and cold Winter, they can be played at any latitude (and infrastructure costs for all of them -except for long track speedskating- are not so much more expensive than running a basketball arena or a rugby stadium, just to name a couple)...

moreover, and it's just my opinion (which isn't necessarily to be the most popular and/or a "truth"), I still think that words and ideas mean something according to how they're written...if it's the "Winter (sports) Games", it doesn't make any sense to fill the schedule with sports almost everywhere associated to the Summer season/Summer sports "family"...

and finally the unexpected happened...

our teenagers flying to Korea...

what can we say? at least we can say that Armin Zoeggeler is not afraid to take not so popular decisions, also as a technical director of our team...

but, to be honest, I don't like the fact that they left Oberstolz/Gruber out of the team from now on...considering their career, they deserved at least to end their season with the team...

2 hours ago, hckosice said:

Ice Hockey

• Will at least one match during the mens tournament finish scoreless in regular time, meaning a match finished 0-0 after 60 minutes of regular time ?
• Will the mens or womens Gold medal match had to be decided in Overtime or after penalty shoot-outs session, meaning the final game will still be tied after 60 minutes of regular time ?
• Will be one of the referees be injured during a game, meaning he will not be able to continue in the match ?
• Will Sweden finish ahead of Finland in the mens tournament final ranking ?
• Will Canada face USA in the Knock-out phase of the mens tournament ?
• Will the Czech Republic face Slovakia in the knock-out phase of the mens tournament ?
• Will at least 2 same countries won medals in both mens and womens tournament ?
• Will Russia finish the mens tournament group stage unbeaten ?
• Will at least one team score two shorthanded goals in one mens or womens tournament match ?
• Will Slovenia finish ahead of Norway in the mens tournament final standing ?
• Will a match in the mes tournament finish by at least 50 minutes cumulative penalties, (counting also the misconduct penalties and match penalties) ?
• Will at least one player be able to score at least 1 point (goal or goal assist) in every his teams match ?
• Will at least one goal in the knock-out round of mens or womens tournament be scored by a player just returning from the penalty box back on the ice ?
• Will at least one quarterfinal of the mens tournament finish by a win of a team qualified from the Round of 16 ?
• Will we have a 100% European semifinals in the mens tournament ?
• Will South Korea win in Regular Time at least one match during the mens or womens tournament ?

 

 

 men only or also the girls counting?

another couple of question for Ice Hockey...

will the men's tournament Gold Medal winners win all their single games from 1st to the final in the 60-min regulation time?

will the men's tournament top scorer (goals + assists) come from a team not being one of the so-called "big six" (CAN, USA, SWE, FIN, RUS, CZE)?

will the women's tournament Gold Medal game be played by at least 1 European team?

will Korea's teams (both men and women, it doesn't make any difference) lose at least 1 game by 10 or more goals deficit?

Snowboarding...

will both Snowboardcross events (m+f) be won by European athletes?

will at least 1 freestyler (meaning Halfpipe and/or Slopestyle specialist, both genders included) who won Gold in Sochi 2014 repeat him/herself in Pyeongchang?

will Shaun White win another (undeserved) Gold Medal in the men's Halfpipe?

Overall

will Italy win exactly 2 Gold Medals?

will we see at least 1 new Country (for the Winter Olympics only, of course) among the Gold Medal winners?

will there be at least 5 athletes (all sports, all genders, relays and team events included) winning 3 or more Gold Medals?

will Kim Un Jong and/or Donald Trump show up at the Opening Ceremony?

1 hour ago, OlympicsFan said:

Did anyone follow snowboarding parallel slalom today? The results look pretty weird and apparently many big names were missing.

well, actually 99% of "big names" were there (unfortunately I couldn't watch the race, but I read the detailed final results on the FIS website)...

it's just that many of them didn't make it through to the top 16...

results are not so weird...it was parallel slalom, not PGS...so most specialists are different, especially this season, where we only have PGS at the Olympics (having therefore the top PGS specialists left aside for a while the PSL specific workout)...

moreover, PSL is always so close that's difficult to predict the outcome...sometimes it's just a question of luck in the qualification round...

for sure PGS has a lot more established "elite", so to say, who are always in the top part of the final standings than PSL...

definitely Federica Pellegrini's triumph over "the monster" Katie Ledecky in the 200m Freestyle at the Swimming Worlds...the only flash of light in the darkest and most difficult and depressing days of my life...

https://video-it.eurosport.com/nuoto/mondiali-di-nuoto/2017/video-il-video-dell-impresa-di-federica-pellegrini-oro-mondiale-nei-200-sl_vid993471/video.shtml

@hckosice

you know that your choice's hurting me so, soooo much!!!???

4 minutes ago, Gianlu33 said:

I think that the 90% of the people of the mine region (Campania) never watched a winter event.. I live in the south of Italy and here the people doesn't know that this year will have the Winter Olympic...

I guess it's more or less the same for all Regions from Emilia-Romagna going South, unfortunately...

my 2 cents...

Alpine Skiing [10]

• Slalom (m/w)
• Giant Slalom (m/w)
• Super-G (m/w)
• Downhill (m/w)
• Combined (m/w)
• Team Event (mixed)
• Parallel Slalom (m/w)

Biathlon [10]

• Sprint (m/w)
• Pursuit (m/w)
• Individual (m/w)
• Mass Start (m/w)
• Team Relay (m/w/mixed)

Bobsleigh [3]

• Two-man/woman (m/w)
• Four-man (m)

Cross-Country Skiing [12]

• 15/10km Freestyle (m/w)
• 15/10km Skiathlon (m/w)
• 30/15km Skiathlon (m/w)
• 30/15km Freestyle (m/w)...but only with Interval Starts, since those mass start races have become too tactical and are generally exciting only in the last couple of kms...
• 50/30km Classical (m/w)...but, once again, Interval Starts only
• 4x10/5km Relay (m/w)
• Individual Sprint (m/w)...but it should be a real "Sprint"...so, always only 1000m long and always held with Freestyle technique...
• Team Sprint (m/w)...but with different format (4 athletes per team, no more than 2 legs for each athlete, 1000m legs and again Freestyle only and always)...

Curling [2]

• Tournament (m/w)
• Mixed Doubles (mixed)

Figure Skating [3]

• Singles (m/w)
• Pairs (mixed)
• Ice Dancing (mixed)
• Team Event (mixed)

Freestyle Skiing [2]

• Aerials (m/w)
• Moguls (m/w)
• Halfpipe (m/w)
• Slopestyle (m/w)
• Ski Cross (m/w)

Notes: stop trying to make the Olympics the new X-Games...

Ice Hockey [2]

• Tournament (m/w)

Luge [4]

• Singles (m/w)
• Doubles (open, m/w)...provided a decent development of the women's game, of course (but since this is just a fantasy effort, we can take it for "granted", I guess)...
• Team Relay (mixed)

Nordic Combined [6]

• Individual Normal Hill/10km (m/w)
• Individual Large Hill/10km (m)
• Individual Large Hill/15km (m/w)
• Team Large Hill/4x5km Relay (m/w)

Notes: always assuming ideal women's participation...

Short Track Speed Skating [8]

• 500m (m/w)
• 1000m (m/w)
• 1500m (m/w)
• 5000m/3000m Relay (m/w)

Skeleton [2]

• Singles (m/w)

Ski Jumping [5]

• Normal Hill (m/w)
• Large Hill (m/w)
• Large Hill Team (m/w)
• Ski Flying (m)

Snowboarding [6]

• Halfpipe (m/w)*
• Slopestyle (m/w)*
• Big Air (m/w)*
• Parallel Giant Slalom (m/w)
• Giant Slalom (m/w)...like the Alpine Skiing one, Individual Runs, 2 Run-competition...as it was in the early days of the Games...
• Parallel Slalom (m/w)
• Snowboard Cross (m/w)

Notes: * = see the Freestyle considerations...

Speed Skating [14]

• 500m (m/w)
• 1000m (m/w)
• 1500m (m/w)
• 3000m (w)
• 5000m (m/w)
• 10,000m (m/w)...time to make men and women's competitions the same thing...
• Mass Start (m/w)...but only if they make it a serious event, like the Dutch Marathon Cup events (50km race...and no silly and useless intermediate sprints)...
• Team Pursuit (m/w)...with a slight change of format...4 athletes per team and over the 4000m distance..basically the same thing as the Team Pursuit of Track Cycling...

Additional Sport - Ski Orienteering [6]

• Individual Sprint Race (m/w)
• Individual Race, Long Distance (m/w)
• Team Relay (3 x the Sprint Race distance, m/w)

Additional Sport - Natural Track Luge [4]

• Singles (m/w)
• Doubles (m/w)

Total medal events: 99 in 17 sports

Total athletes: surely more than now...

Days of competition: 17 (including Day 0 before the Opening Ceremony)

Just now, heywoodu said:

At least I noticed quite some interest in by far my favourite part of Italy (you know, German-speaking Südtirol)  

yeah...but that's another World if compared to the rest of Italy...

they speak another language, they have a different special statute and some different laws...

things there work a lot better than in the rest of the Country at any level...

I must confess...Bolzano/Bozen is the only other Italian place where I could imagine to live if I had to leave "my beloved Milan"...

23 hours ago, De_Gambassi said:

 

I think preserving the integrity and identity of the Winter Olympics is important. Besides, I don't see how expanding the Winter Games will help with the allready very critical lack of bidding cities,

perfect point

in this part of the World, where the Olympic Games have been thought and created, history and tradition mean Winter = Snow & Ice

so, imho the Winter Olympic Games must only include disciplines played on those 2 "elements"...

13 hours ago, hckosice said:

btw how big is the enthusiasm in your countries, are the populations eagerly awaiting the start of the games or the medias and general attentions are still somewhere around zero. For the majority of slovak "sport fans" the Olympics will start the 14th February at 21:10 so until then I expect a certain calm  thanks god my sport and Olympic appetite is much bigger so I just can not wait the start of the games

can I say: "below 0"?

as usual, here's only about football (it's open market season...our favourite sport...even better than the game played on the pitch itself )...

we were also the last Country to finalize an agreement between Discovery Group and our public TV for the FTA part of the Games (which will be just a disaster, as for the schedule released by RAI...by the way, not that the Eurosport coverage will be better...basically you have to subscribe their awful player to watch most of the things going on beside the main "Italian interest stuff" on Eusp1 and the Ice Hockey tournament on Eusp2)...

there's nothing to do...Winter Sports only interest a small part of the Country...and unfortunately it's also the side that doesn't count anything when it comes down to any "political" decision, public TV schedule included (because yes, here in Italy the public TV schedule is a political affair )...

6 hours ago, Nate River said:

So, is it still early to start putting Shifrin in the conversation for greatest ever or do we need to wait her to win fiftieth world cup race and her fourth Olympic gold medal?

it's a bit early, but definitely soon it 's gonna be the time to start talking about it...

however, she must get 62 world cup wins (and at least 113 podium finish), at least 6 overall world cup trophies, at least 10 discipline world cups and more than 12 medals (at least 6 of them being Gold) between World Champs and/or Olympic Games just to sit down at the same table of Annemarie Moser-Proll...

The PyeongChang 2018 Organising Committee Olympic Winter Games recently published the women’s and men’s curling teams' schedule for the upcoming Games in February 2018.

The women’s and men’s teams’ competition will run from Wednesday 14 February until Sunday 25 February and comes after the newly introduced mixed doubles tournament, which begins on 8 February

Ten teams will compete in the women’s and men’s events. They are:

Women: Canada, China, Denmark, Great Britain, Japan, Korea, Olympic Athletes from Russia, Sweden, Switzerland and United States

Men: Canada, Denmark, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Korea, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and United States

The tournament format will be a round-robin – three draws per day – followed by a session of tie-breakers if required, then semi-finals and finals. The round-robin will be played between 14 and 21 February. The tie-breakers will follow at 09:05 on Thursday 22 February. Also, that day will be the men’s semi-finals at 20:04.

On Friday 23 February, the men’s bronze medal game is at 15:35 and the women’s semi-finals are at 20:04. Saturday 24 February sees the men’s gold medal game take place at 15:35, followed by the women’s bronze medal game at 20:04.

The Olympic curling concludes on Sunday 25 February at 09:05 with the women’s gold medal final. This is the first time the women’s final has come last at the Games, since its debut in Nagano, Japan, in 1998.

At the end of the round-robin the teams will be ranked one to ten, with the first ranked team playing the fourth ranked team (1v4) and the second ranked team playing the third ranked team in the semi-finals (2v3).

The men’s defending champion nation, Canada will open their round-robin campaign in the first session of play on Wednesday 14 February against Italy, who recently qualified out of the Olympic Qualification Event in Pilsen, Czech Republic.

Also, in that session, the hosts Korea will meet United States.

Canada’s women’s team – again the defending champion nation and the current world champions – open their campaign at 09:05 on Thursday 15 February against the hosts Korea.

Full Schedule:

http://www.worldcurling.org/owg2018/schedule