heywoodu

Yep...I'm actually very much hesitating to tell this news to my girlfriend (Brazilian biathlete), since this might severly impact her chances and even her entire motivation for the next 3,5 years..

Just to clarify: my problem is solely with removing competitive events and/or adding senseless events (either mixed team stuff or events that are way too 'young' yet and should be added after having had time to grow up). I'm not against having more women or something

It's not about who wins, it's about having competitive events. Removing competitive men's events or reducing fields there, solely to have more equality, doesn't seem fair at all if they are replaced by events that are not even half as competitive. One example would be bobsleigh: there are quite a large number of men who can win it, while there are realistically speaking maybe 2-3 women's drivers who could do so. Bigger men's field seems fair. On the other hand in skeleton, the women's field is generally more competitive at the moment, so increasing women's quote seems fair there.

The problem is that every mixed event any random person throws at them as suggestion seems to be added, while actual new sports (telemark skiing, natural track luge) don't make it. They are doing rather radical stuff for the Summer Olympics by the way, with 100% judge sports like surfing or skateboarding, or a non-existing climbing event as the only climbing event.

Thanks for 'biting', that's all I wanted

Yes, and not after only a handful of years.

I did not know there was a press conference

I'm more of the "IOC destroys women's sports by adding them to the Olymics while not being competitive yet, so people think they are bad" camp I want to see two women's bobsleigh events, I want to see women's Nordic combined, but they have to be given at least some time to grow up into something that is at least somewhat competitive.

Where do you guys see removed quotas?

Another option would be to remove ice hockey, that would save a true boatload of quotas.

Why reduce them that strongly in speed skating, but not in, say, alpine skiing or cross-country skiing?

Agreed, which is why in my opinion the better option would have been just to get rid of the whole thing I don't know how the qualify of women's freestyle skiing big air is compared to the snowboarding version, but the level of the women's snowboarding big air in Pyeongchang was....awful. In 90% of the jumps just nothing happened apart from a small twist or something.

Just by thinking and talking about this I'm already getting all worked up again I love the 50km man, I freaking love it

You only want to see Evan Dunfee finish?

Assuming you meant 2022, I'd say that is very good news. Women's nordic combined should be in the Olympics one day, but not when there is barely even a World Cup yet (it's 3,5 years before the Olympics and last season's Continental Cup barely seemed to have any interest). It really, really needs to grow and get at least somewhat competitive before being added to the Olympics, and going from 'first ever Continental Cup season' to 'Olympic sport' in 4 years is at least 4-8 years too short.

If the reduction actually comes from the top nations, I would be positively surprised. I know there's been a lot of lobbying to try and get their 6-athlete quota down to open up some chances for smaller nations.

Wait, what...? Another major hit against the smaller nations after making it almost impossible for them to qualify for 2018 already?

Oh well, it's cute that they added an event created for the Youth Olympics, to at least give 'something'.

Meh. At least better than adding the utterly competitionless women's 4. What the fuck, that's not even a thing...at all. Meh. At least better than adding the women's team event with maybe 1-2 nations having a chance. And down goes the hope that the whole Big Air was just one mistake in 2018 and we won't see it again. Why? Why?

Wow, rumour has it people on the last climb were laughing in Cavendish' face. He got mad, a fight started (which he won) and someone threw his bike down the road/raving/cliff/whatever, after which Cavendish got in that last car and DNF'ed.

Anyway, it's not like it actually matters for the sprints that Kittel and Cavendish are out.

Just saw the video, Zabel missed the limit by 5 seconds...still, a limit is a limit. What if he was 6 seconds outside? Or 15? Or 23? Or 35? This tweet made me think Kittel missed it by 12 seconds instead of minutes, annoying TdF people using stuff like 12' instead of simply minutes and seconds

Apparently the time limit was changed (no idea when), because I just read that with the original time limit only 90 riders would have made it today.

Why on earth would one be pardoned and another one not?

Cavendish was outside the time limit too by the way.