heywoodu

I already find it cool we saw the Mongolian who had a complete bear-skin for a hat in Martell Exactly why I hoped Bruna would have a bib in the first 10 or something, because they show all starters as long as nobody is at the shooting range, but too bad she has 40

Yes, it's on the official streaming page http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/ibu/ And on the Eurosport Player if you happen to have that (since I'm guessing you can't receive Eurosport 2 over there).

Hopefully the new owners can eliminate some of the bad things from Ecclestone, but mostly keep a lot of Ecclestone's things that saved Formula 1 from being dead a long time ago.

Meanwhile, a Russian bookmaker has odds for today I've got some money on Loginov finishing in front of Volkov and on Starykh beating Zhuravok, for what it's worth

Well, weren't Vitkova and Charvatova supposed to be there as well? I'm sure I saw them listed somewhere, but maybe only for the other competitions and not the individual?

Definitely makes for some interesting reading

The Hirscher vs Kristoffersen 'rivalry'

Just heard Bruna (Moura) will be Brazil's only participant in Almaty, meaning she'll carry the Brazilian flag at the opening ceremony and I'm already as proud as can be just by the thought of it

True

Start lists for the Open European individuals are out, starting with the men: http://ibu.blob.core.windows.net/docs/1617/BT/SCEU/CH__/SMIN/BT_C51A_1.0.pdf Followed in the afternoon by the women: http://ibu.blob.core.windows.net/docs/1617/BT/SCEU/CH__/SWIN/BT_C51A_1.0.pdf Bib 40, vamos A quick count got me to 11 women she can beat under normal circumstances, so let's see how that's going to go tomorrow. The focus should be almost completely on shooting for her

But GBR has two ice hockey teams, something we of course can't expect from a small Central European country without any sort of an ice hockey tradition

Also called 'Netherlands B'

But Segecova was almost 2 minutes faster than Mika Picin in Strbske Pleso in December (7,5km F). In top shape I would say Bruna can be over a minute faster than Mika on a distance like that, but with her current injury I'm afraid beating someone who was so much faster than Mika is going to be hard

Smerciakova might be beatable for if her injury is gone + she has a great day + Smerciakova has a not so good day, Segecova is as good as unbeatable for her

Two more additions to my list, thank you Sir

Awesome Now it's hoping Bruna either has a very early or a very late start number to increase the chances of seeing her

That's even more than just awesome

I don't know how it works for every country, but it looks like Eurosport is going to show a lot of cross-country, biathlon and alpine skiing live

Well, it may help organize something, who knows. At least the few officials who are going there will get some hands-on experience with some of the winter sports and I wouldn't be surprised if the Universiade has some things like lectures and stuff about organizing sports in a nation. A start has to be made somewhere for these nations, and if you don't have athletes, this is better than nothing

Nope, when I saw her name my first thought was "Cool, if Bruna doesn't do anything weird, she definitely won't finish last" By the way: If I didn't actually see that this was Abdykadyrova, I would absolutely swear this is Gabi's rifle! (not Koukalova, but Almeira Neres) Interesting to see this pattern on someone else's rifle

Yep The American and Canadian women's cross-country teams for Almaty are just....weak as well. I mean, some of them don't even have any FIS results ever, or one of them only has three results during a week in 2015 in New Zealand..Others are many minutes behind in national FIS races and barely get under 250 FIS points. Same thing for the South Korean team by the way, some of them finished 5+ minutes behind the winner in a national 5-10km race. At least one of the Chinese women has had a somewhat decent finish in a national event, but again, most of them barely even compete and definitely not outside China (unless it's the one who did compete outside China in her career....at the previous Universiade). The names I got so far for the women's cross-country btw (I'm collecting them for obvious reasons, so why not share them ): Bruna Moura BRA Emma Camicioli CAN Shelby Dickey CAN Christel Pichard-Jolicoeur CAN Andrée-Anne Théberge CAN Kyla Vanderzwet CAN Kunduz Abdykadyrova KGZ Jogscha Abderhalden SUI Anja Ilic SRB Bae Min-ju KOR Kim Bo-ra KOR Kim Eun-ji KOR Lee Ji-yun KOR Yoo Dan-bi KOR Helen Cutting USA Sierra Foster USA Sierra Jech USA Meghan Kent USA Emma Malmquist USA Adrienne Sulser USA Yara Thomas USA Zhang Xue CHN Wu Aiting CHN Li Lei CHN Zhao Yuan CHN

The Americans and Canadians are always a little bit weird in Universiades. I mean, they've probably got the best students in the world in some sports, yet in smaller sports like cross-country they don't even come close to dreaming of a podium (while their senior athletes are at least 'good'). I remember a few years ago they sent a Division III college volleyball team to represent them...they got absolutely hammered in basically every match (which the bookmakers were to late to realize, which is why I remember it ).

Maybe something like what Madagascar was planning, but probably has to forget now.

Wow, that's a huge amount of funding (relatively) for the Paralympic skiers and for example the boccia teams! I didn't expect teams like that to be so high up the ranking..

Wikipedia lists Madagascar in the nation list. They told me they wanted to go as 'observer nation', but they have basically no money at all and FISU and the Organizing Committee are outright ignoring them and their requests for some sort of help. South Africa is on the list on Wikipedia as well, but they've also answered my email today by saying they won't be there. Bruna Moura will represent Brazil in cross-country (sadly not in biathlon, but alright). She told me there's one other Brazilian athlete who will be there and she was convinced that it was a speed skater, but I really have no idea who that could be...the guy in Japan and the German/Brazilian guy seem to be too young?