heywoodu

QFM what a show

Apparently Nove Mesto is cancelled. The coach has doubts about Serbia and Croatia "because snow can disappear quickly there", but it's nearly a month to go, so...bit too early to draw conclusions on that Anyway, if there are no more races for them, the tickets - according to Brazilian federation's own rules - are for Jaque and Bruna

And nice little party with Hanna in 3rd and diving right on top of her sister

I have no doubt that would be SUCH a huge morale boost, and it is also going to be the absolutely last and deciding event for the Brazilian selection, so there is serious stuff at stake!

How's it going in your countries? Here we went into a sort of mild lockdown a week ago and probably tonight they'll announce a tightening of that, with all non-essential shops and services having to close and all schools as well.

Bruna 285.80 Duda 288.05 Mika 290.48 In other words, instead of trying to control the damage, she managed to actually gain a couple of points Which brings the total points in the ranking at the moment to the following, with everyone now being 100% certain of having 6 valid races. With Nove Mesto, Sjenica and Ravna Gora to go (depending on whether or not things are cancelled) in January. A few main points in this list: - Jaque will stay ahead of everyone, we can take that as a certainty - Mika has a bit of room to improve in the classic races and some room in the sprint races, depending on the points and such in January - Duda has a bit of room to improve in the classic races and two good chances to improve in the sprints - Bruna needs only one of the three classic races to be decent in order to drop 300-350 points in one go, and has decent room to improve in the sprints So far, so good.

Finish! Now we wait and see who comes up to destroy the points, but if nothing crazy happens at the very least she should stay ahead of Duda in the Brazilian internal ranking.

Mika passed her on the track, but that's ok. On to the finish now.

Caught up with Mika before the first split (2.3km) and after one lap she is still roughly 40 seconds ahead of her (meaning around 10 seconds in front of Mika on the track). Just keeping this up or even losing a bit would be perfectly fine.

And I just saw they're on Eurovision where you can rewatch everything (because live is no option for me, definitely during the work week)

Start lists for the classic distance races in St Ulrich today: https://winter.racetime.pro/storage/pdfs/startlists/286/503/Startlist individual_{Startlist}.pdf @brunamoura's goal today is damage control considering she's been sick, so let's see how it goes on a pretty hard 5k lap there. Live timing: http://timing.pflanzl.info/CrossCountry.Web/20211218 https://www.fis-ski.com/DB/general/event-details.html?sectorcode=CC&eventid=50376&seasoncode=2022

Can these races be seen anywhere? I don't see any regular live stream and the finals videos on YouTube are swiftly deleted all the time.

And no, there is no chance the Netherlands will refuse speed skating quota

Wow. William Big Willie Borland beats Bradley Brooks in the final leg of the final set....finishing it off with a nine-darter

And the main thing in Dutch speed skating is back, the quadrennial 'Matrix' This decides who goes to the Olympics and is filled with results during the OQT. For example, if you're 3rd in the men's 1500m, you need to hope someone has doubled up in the first nine spots (which is of course likely). Second place in the 5000m and 10.000m are both definitely not sure, which is a bit of a unique situation in Dutch male speed skating. As for the women: it's an Irene Schouten matrix all the way in the top-3

The Netherlands can send 9 different men and 9 different women to the Olympics in speed skating.

His defence is basically "Yeah she was 13 but I didn't feel like I forced her so it's alright." Dude.

Not in every single season, no, but that's the same for Hamilton. It might be a matter of 'he had it in more seasons' or something, but both have had quite a few seasons in which their car was vastly superior (Schumacher's Ferrari at some point was even so dominant him and Barrichello could just toy around with the win). They're both easily on the list of greatest drivers in history, I don't think there really can be much doubt about that.

So you've got a situation where everyone has done their first three throws, top-3 is through....and the top-3 could then just say "let's go back to the hotel" and that's that Love it

We will hear them anyway. Let's be fair, the dude won 7 championships no matter how you look at it Anyway, every single 'This one person is the best ever' claim is nonsense, whether it's about Hamilton or Schumacher or Senna or whatever.

About time. One wonders what the big bosses at Daimler have had to say about this in the past few days, it's easy to imagine they wanted to put an end to this and not get a reputation as sore losers.

Meanwhile, this is the current situation for the Brazilian women. The factor in case of fewer than 6 total races still counts for three of them, but of course one more classic result will eliminate that, we can assume that'll be 1.0 for everyone eventually. Also keeping in mind that, as of right now and according to the Brazilian federation's rules, it's only between Jaque, Duda and Bruna since they are the ones who have the B criteria in both sprint and distance. Jaque will end up in 1st anyway. Duda has good room for improvement in one sprint and decent in another, Bruna has decent room for improvement in one sprint and good room in one classic result (the horror race in Engadin last season).

Bendika isn't going for the relay in cross-country, as far as I know the plan is the mass start only.

And Brazil. They only realized it a bit later, but getting into the top-30 of the nations ranking is the single reason why Bruna and Jaque both went to Engadin and started + finished both races there and why Jaque started and finished every single race she was allowed to at the world championships before that. I mean, it certainly wasn't for fun or performance, since Bruna was incredibly physically unwell, two 12+ hour train trips didn't help and there was no coach to really help with anything from waxing to providing any sort of warm clothes after the finish (luckily one of the Norwegian women came to the rescue in that regards) Several countries just dropped the ball big time there, they could have easily gotten in simply by finishing a few races (especially the relay, there was a country - I think Croatia actually - which actually had four women at the world championships, but simply didn't start in the relay and then missed out on the top-30).

According to the rules of the Brazilian federation, these are the selection criteria: 1. Athletes with the B criteria (under 300 points) in both sprint and distance have the priority, in case the number of athletes in this category is bigger than the number of available tickets (and it is), we go to; 2. A ranking is made, counting the three best sprint freestyle and three best classic distance results from July 2020 to 16 January 2022. There was a bit of a question about which athletes would count in this 2nd one, but (as logic dictates), we have had confirmation that this ranking will decide the tickets only among athletes who have the B criteria in both sprint and distance. Right now, that's Duda, Bruna (and Gabi, who sadly wasn't able to go to Europe) and from the next FIS points list Jaque, and those three will have so in January as well. Mika needs to have a few personal bests on sprints to get there, and then she'd be in the fight as well.