heywoodu

Exactly

Just noticed it now by the way, but there is no 'men's doubles' in luge.

Nine darter for Trina Gulliver!

I don't think aerials/big air are more dangerous than for example the alpine downhill (a lot more boring though..) Not sure if you know, but the 100m in speed skating has been a World Cup event for a few years (10 years ago I think), and that was......absolutely a joke

Ah yeah, how could I forget the country of Stybar and Simunek (the guy who was usually nowhere, but when the course was full of snow suddenly came and fought for the win, fantastic specialist)

Exactly, which is why I'd say the 50k mass start should always be classic (well in fact it should change, but if it doesn't change, it should stay classic )

NEW USER ALERT @Jesús Welcome! And @toulousain, you too!

Straight from a 1970's/1980's British band comes Scott Baker, playing Belgian Andy Baetens at the moment.

I know, but that it's more popular doesn't mean it's automatically better. Anyone can easily learn freestyle, learning classic requires much more dedication, which makes it harder, but definitely increases the 'epicness' of the event (just like the marathon vs the 50km race walk).

This! On another site I chose 3 highlights earlier: 1. Lowell Bailey winning individual gold at the biathlon world champs, after having decided to continue until the Olympics instead of retire and go bison farming (this plus Bailey being a total outsider instead of someone who often wins and being one of the most well-liked and friendly guys on the circuit) 2. Trinidad & Tobago beating out dominant USA in the men's 4x400m at the athletics world champs 3. Takuma Sato winning the Indy 500, Fernando Alonso having an epic debut As worst moment and definitely a memorable one, I chose Usain Bolt's injury in his very last race. Like Bolt, don't like Bolt, but seeing a legend end his career in that way was most certainly....memorable. At least in my memory it dominated that race so much that I only last month realized I had already completely forgotten GBR won a historic gold in that 4x100 seconds later.

That would be so disappointing In my opinion, 50km classic mass start is the single 'highlight event' of the winter sports calendar

Although then for monobob I'd say there should be the same kind of criteria as for women's Nordic combined: first a good number of years with full World Cup competition so it's not still a new event/sport when added to the Olympics.

No way, sports at the Winter Olympics should at least potentially be held on snowy/icy conditions, otherwise we might just as well add basketball, handball and water polo as well because indoor

Or outside Belgium (and a little bit the Netherlands) even, to be honest

Oh and cyclo-cross is cycling (duh) in the field (hence 'veldrijden' = 'field cycling') in Dutch. Sort of a mix between mountainbike and road cycling, which is especially fantastic when the weather is or has been utterly awful and the course turns into one hell of mud

Yeah, ski ballet looked awesome on the old videos And I have nothing against halfpipe or slopestyle, but I like it as an X-Games event, like all events where the athletes seem more concerned with just having fun than actually fighting for the win. And as for big air: especially in the women's competitions....basically nothing happens (in my eyes), except for maybe one athlete who does more than a turn or two. I like the monobobs, but personally I'd keep that for the Winter Paralympics, and apart from Paralympic sport, keep it as sort of a 'development thing' for youth.

Just a little note about social media and potential new users: I think spamming 'regular' threads around doesn't help very much (not saying anyone does that), but what I do think is very useful is linking to something unique and awesome where new users could actually 'participate' in something you don't really find anywhere else. This came to mind when I saw these two 'create your own program' posts opened by @Quasit today First thing I thought after posting my creation for the Winter Olympics was sharing it on Twitter, who knows, maybe someone comes in and gives it a shot, then hangs around here

I forgot cyclo-cross, completely agree!

Alpine Skiing [12] Slalom (m/w) Giant Slalom (m/w) Super-G (m/w) Downhill (m/w) Combined (m/w) Parallel slalom (m/w) Biathlon [9] Sprint + Pursuit as one 'combined' medal event (m/w) Individual (m/w) Mass Start (m/w) Relay (m/w/mixed) Bobsleigh [3] Two-man/woman (m/w) Four-man (m) Cross-Country Skiing [12] 15/10km interval start (m/w) 30/15km skiathlon (m/w) 50/30km mass start (m/w) Relay (m/w) Individual sprint (m/w) Cross (m/w) Curling [2] Tournament (m/w) Mixed doubles Figure Skating [4] Singles (m/w) Pairs (mixed) Ice Dancing (mixed) Team event (mixed) Freestyle Skiing [6] Aerials (m/w) Moguls (m/w) Halfpipe (m/w) Slopestyle (m/w) Ski Cross (m/w) Ski Ballet (m/w) Ice Hockey [2] Tournament (m/w) Luge (artificial track) [4] Singles (m/w) Doubles (m) Team Relay (mixed) Luge (natural track) [3] Singles (m/w) Doubles (m) Nordic Combined [3/4] Individual Normal Hill/10km (m) Individual Large Hill/10km (m) Team Large Hill/4x5km (m) Individual Normal Hill/10km (w) - Not yet, but after at least one full Olympic cycle of World Cup competition with 40+ competitors per average World Cup 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 [4] Normal Hill (m/w) Large Hill (m) Large Hill Team (m) Ski Flying (m) Ski Flying team (m) Snowboarding [4] Halfpipe (m/w) Slopestyle (m/w) Big Air (m/w) Parallel Giant Slalom (m/w) Snowboard Cross (m/w) Speed Skating [14] 500m (m/w) 1000m (m/w) 1500m (m/w) 3000m (w) 5000m (m/w) 10,000m (m) Mass Start (m/w) Team Pursuit (m/w) Natural ice marathon (100-200km) (m/w) Ice Climbing [2] Competition (m/w) Cyclocross [2] Race (m/w) Total medal events: 96/97 in 18 sports

Fantastic bit of trust from Michael Unterbuchner in the double 20 today All 9 of his first attempts at that double were missed, but he kept doing everything he could to get himself to 40. And I meant that literally: when he was at 83, he could have gone for a treble and then two shots at a double, but he went for single bull + 18 to leave tops (and missed it). The first time he finally hit double 20 was when he had 60 left and was aiming for the single (though props to him, because after a million misses on the doubles he suddenly finished 60 with D20 and D10 there) In the final set it finally paid out, as Unterbuchner hit double 20 at a deciding moment. His opponent, Canadian David Cameron, had his own problems by the way: all of his gear got lost somewhere on the travel to England, so he was playing with a set of darts borrowed from Mark McGeeney and playing in a BDO-jersey that was at least 5 sizes too big.

Damn...I remember last year he battled with Harald Strøm for the win in the 10k at the allround championships. Such a memorable race, both managed to get under 18 minutes

I'd still select Hofer over Robatscher

Yeah nothing interesting in that German team, logically. I've been F5'ing the Südtiroler news sites for the selection of Italy's team all morning, way too curious

If I'm not mistaken, Italy's team will be announced today and Austria's team next week. As for the Germans, it looks like Loch, Ludwig and Langenhan are going to be the men's choices, don't know about the doubles yet but I suppose that should be Geisenberger, Hüfner (if recovered from injury) and Eitberger. What's left is the doubles, which will normally be Wendl/Arlt and Eggert/Benecken. Too bad Geueke/Gamm's impressive run is just a tiny bit too late to really have a shot to clinch one of the two places in Pyeongchang. As for Italy, I'm really curious about the team, especially the choices for the two doubles sleds. Oberstolz/Gruber and Rieder/Rastner have the experience, but teenagers Nagler/Malleier simply deserve the place more than anyone this season.

Well in that case, welcome @Jesús (and in any other case: welcome as well, of course!)