heywoodu

Even more so, I was such a fan of Oystein Grodum's technique/arm in the turns

I'm a fan of Kramer's technique? I'm a fan of Yuskov's technique

I haven't seen a lot of interviews with her, so I don't really know, although her style is......let's just say, not something I'd be a fan of, arms waving around everywhere

Exactly. The positive thing is he seems to have made some real steps again this season, so who knows. I honestly don't really care which non-Bergsma wins, as long as it's a great fight

12:43.04 for Ted-Jan Bloemen in Calgary yesterday, the 4th fastest 10k ever. Now it's time to see how he'll turn up in Pyeongchang, since nearly all of his fantastic races have been at altitude, whereas especially Kramer has shown to have that kind of level at low altitude (like the Olympic oval in Korea).

Defending champion Glen Durrant made a statement about the future: If he reaches the semi-finals at Lakeside, he'll stay at the BDO for the rest of his career. If he loses to Fitton in the 2nd round or loses the quarter-final, he'll try the PDC Q-School.

But then again, that would make it depend on one race, whereas the others have shown they are better this season. Well, personally I don't care so much, but if I was a Norwegian and also someone who desperately wanted to see my own country win as much as possible, I would hope they don't choose Bjoerndalen

But why would they do that? The others have shown that they are better now than Bjoerndalen, they wouldn't need trials to see that.

Not as bad as that, but still: Petter Northug for silver.

Both Bjoentegard and Gjesbakk are (significantly) faster than Bjoerndalen. There's actually 7 Norwegians in the World Cup top-30 when looking purely at the speed rankings, Bjoerndalen is way, way down in 71st (!) place.

Bad accident for 2016 Olympic silver medalist Jelle van Gorkom (NED) at the training track in Papendal today. He suffered several fractures and is being held in an artificial coma. http://frontpage.fok.nl/nieuws/784655/1/1/50/bmx-er-van-gorkom-in-coma-na-trainingsongeval.html

Wow Roman, what a race

Come on Norwegian selection committee, get real and don't choose OEB for Pyeongchang.

Cyclo-cross is the only sport that comes to mind. There's the eisstocksport, but I guess that's considered even more a game instead of a sport in most places, apart from being too similar to curling.. Personally I'd have no problem with something like handball or volleyball at the Winter Olympics. World championships (at least in handball) are in the (northern) winter anyway, why not the Olympics as well?

So far it's a hugely impressive performance from Bjoerndalen, right when his Olympic participation is hanging by a thread

Or invest in moving more main competitions to Chile and Argentina (for example). It's hard to really find a winter sport that can be practiced in tropical nations during winter...

Yet ski jumping is one of the oldest winter sports I get your point though, but I don't think it's Winter Olympics specific. For most people sports just have absolutely no meaning or excitement when they don't know the sport, and in the case of winter sports, a larger part of the world doesn't know them. But since the world knows two major seasons (summer and winter, of course with notable differences in different parts of the world), I do think an Olympics for 'warm sports' and one for 'cold sports' is more than justified

Dutch Orion will compete in the 1/8 finals of the Challenge Cup after all. After beating Sofia last month, a big problem came up: the next opponent would be Surgut. In Siberia. That travel would cost them €25.000, money they just don't have, but not playing would mean CEV would fine them with 20k and ban them from European competition for three years. Now after crowdfunding, they managed to get the money to go to Siberia

There is not and will not be 1 'best ever' It's as good as imposible to compare skiers (or athletes in general) in totally different time periods. Who knows, maybe without us actually seeing it, the general slalom talent at this moment is just absolutely awful, leading to someone with a decent level being able to dominate

I had expected such a thing

The Winter Olympics are much more exciting to watch.

The first of many announced retirements this season I guess.

Being nitpicky here, but I'd go for small chance Especially in a parallel, short event like that there's always crazy stuff just waiting around the corner. A bit of luck and a good day and almost anyone has at least a bit of a medal chance.

It's possible to win three of them, yes, but even in those three events it's more likely that she will win less than 3 gold medals Just like in theory it's possible she wins 6 gold medals, but it's more likely she will win less than 6 medals.

5 gold medals is not literally impossible (if she starts in enough events), but not very realistic neither.