heywoodu

Lewis wins

121-finish to take the 4th set when Wright was on double 8 to make it 2-2

Jamie Lewis is on freaking fire

I doubt it Although one might wonder if Denmark is what you think of when talking about small/exotic nations

Yes

Michel Mulder is the reigning Olympic champion, he had all kinds of problems ever since Sochi and never got close to that form anymore. His brother Ronald Mulder kept his level and improved, and now destroyed the field.

It's already a surprise he came this close.

Holy crap, Ronald Mulder destroys the field

Olympic champion Michel Mulder is out, unsurprisingly.

Ntab disqualified, two false starts

You mean with analysts and everything? Yeah, welcome to speed skating in the Netherlands

Nope

Nah, she had a chance for 3rd place but Wüst and De Jong were to be expected in the top-2

Not in the 3km, she'll be in the mass start unless something extremely weird happens. That chance is maybe 0,1%, so no worries.

Women's 3000m: 1. Antoinette de Jong 4:02.07 2. Ireen Wüst 4:03.39 3. Carlijn Achtereekte 4:05.76 All three going to the Olympics.

Live stream: https://nos.nl/livestream/2208774-okt-schaatsen-3-km-v-en-500-m-m.html As the URL suggests, it's the women's 3k and men's 500m today. Didn't check the 500m draw yet, but I'm curious to see who will have the unfair advantage this time (due to it being only a one-race event).

You mean Whitlock

That guy with the flag-hat was at this year's weightlifting world champs again, one of the best sports fans ever

Correct, and the second places will be chosen after the OQT apparently. By the way, the team pursuit teams are as follows, in case they all qualify: Leenstra, De Jong, Wüst and Kramer, Verweij, Blokhuijsen.

Obviously I'm not going to let Brazil be stolen away from me, so I've added myself to the list already (I think the reasons are obvious and you're rather blind if you didn't expect me to take Brazil)

As many of you know, we've had this thread during the 2016 Olympics and it turned out to be rather interesting. The rules are basically the same now, although of course in the winter you'll see a bit different nations being eligible to be chosen. For those who are new to this, a little intro. What's this all about? As the thread name suggests, here we're going to support small and exotic nations at the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. Basically, you choose a nation, and then you'll keep us updated about how they're doing, you'll introduce the athlete(s) to us, all in a way of your own choosing. Some might look for personal contact with them so add a nice extra touch, others might search down obscure websites to find some information about the hobbies of that one Bhutanese skier and others might be satisfied just letting us know what their results are. Why do we do this? Because it's fun! And let's face it, the likes of the big Norwegian, American, Dutch, German and Canadian teams don't really need any extra support, do they? They've got millions of people watching their events and debating amongst themselves whether it will be gold, silver, bronze or nothing, what's the fun in adding to that? The small and exotic nations on the other hand barely even get attention in their own country - maybe a little during the Olympics - and they end up anonymously somewhere at the bottom of the rankings. Sure, for many of them the main goal was to qualify for the Olympics, so they'll be happy to be there, but wouldn't it be nice for them to have some extra support and nice for us to learn a bit more about athletes you'd otherwise never hear anything about? What are the rules? That's a little bit hard to say, I don't think there's one specific set of rules. Let's start of by saying a country can't have more than 25 athletes at the Olympics, that's just too big for a small nation at the Winter Olympics. I'm sure discussion will start at some point and there'll be people not agreeing with others and stuff like that, but I think most of the countries are pretty obvious. For example: yeah, Australia is a mostly warm country, but it's got a big Winter Olympic team plus it's a country that would not be strange at all to have a place on the medal table. Not an option. I've got some doubts about countries that are rather small, but do have a serious medal contender, think of Tina Weirather's Liechtenstein or Peter Michael's New Zealand. I guess if someone really, really wants it, it's alright, but a true fan would probably prefer a country without a big name like those. PS: During the Rio Olympics we let everyone choose more than one country, but since this is the Winter Olympics and the number of available countries is much smaller, let's just start off by choosing one, alright? If we end up in a situation where everyone who likes to participate has chosen, and there are still countries left, we could then go for a round two, but for starters: one country each. Nation's List Brazil - @heywoodu Cyprus - @rybak Georgia - @dcro Jamaica - @Nate River Lebanon - @Pavlo Mexico - @mrv86 Monaco - @Vojthas Morocco - @thepharoah San Marino - @Dunadan Thailand - @Gianlu33

Koen Verweij and Irene Schouten have already been (more or less) selected, I'm not exactly sure how the 2nd place is going to be chosen but I think it'll come from the athletes who qualified in the individual events. Another reason for me to hope Bergsma won't qualify, because an Olympic mass start with Bergsma and someone from a different team than him (which Verweij is) is not gonna work.

Let's hope so. That would be really, really bad for the sport. If I'd have to say an event where a sweep is the most likely, I'd say it's definitely in the men's distances of course, maybe the 1000m. With no Kulizhnikov, and possibly Verbij, Verweij and Nuis on a good day, who knows. Not saying it's likely, just saying it's more likely in my opinion than on the other distances And on the 500m there are easily 10-15 athletes who could take the gold (especially when it's a one run event), including all Dutch participants, so who knows.

I don't know why not. Especially Blokhuijsen has shown more than once to be a very, very capable world-class 5k skater. A lot of trouble in the past years, but he's back. And with a race like today, it'd be hard for anyone to beat De Vries (the question of course is whether he will repeat this performance, but hey, it's still better than Jorrit 'if I'm selected as a reserve for the team pursuit, I'd rather not go at all!!' Bergsma. Plus, the Netherlands not being a lock-in for 2-3 medals in the 5k increases the chances for a Peter Michael stunt