heywoodu

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.

And in the early 2000's, people said the real F1 was with Senna and Mansell and Prost and so on. And in their days the real F1 was with Jim Clark and in his days the real F1 was with Fangio and Ascari....recency bias Most of Schumacher's wins were not much less boring than Hamilton's wins, I remember young me often just ended up going back to my room because nothing happened anyway And my point was: yeah, Latifi's accident was lucky for Verstappen. Which he could use because Red Bull had been smarter and used the moments that came up better than Mercedes. And mostly, it was a bit of luck for Verstappen....finally, after a year in which Hamilton lucked his way straight to even being tied in the first place, finally it fell a different way this time. Sucks for Hamilton that it happened in the last moment of the year, but tough luck, it was bound to finally go the other way for once.

@dcro You are good with rules, help us out please This quite clearly states that an athlete who does NOT have under 100 distance points and also does NOT have under 300 sprint points, can not complete in the individual sprint, correct?

Wow, the Dutch team choked that win - and with it, the title - away quite well.

An incredibly fortunate (for Hamilton) red flag right after he made a mistake which would have taken him out of any significant points contention. Due to the red flag, he got basically a free fresh start with an all fixed car and could cruise to 2nd. Not unlike Silverstone, where he sent Verstappen straight into the barriers with a way too enthousiastic move, damaged his front wing in the process...but could have the whole thing fixed due to the red flag. It truly has been a season where Hamilton got lucky every single time. Now, for once, it didn't fall his way, and (English) social media is full with stuff about how Hamilton was robbed....like all those people watched literally one race and nothing else this year

Or even better: abandon the pursuits, which are incredibly 'fake' races to begin with and shouldn't even really exist other than in show events. It already sucks that cross-country barely has any relay at all, biathlon definitely should stay above that and keep team events as an integral part of the sport.

And Bitterling is right. Having pursuit + relay and the opposite genders the next day is an excellent solution. The other would be to make the relays significantly shorter, but that would be worse.

With one stop more than Hamilton, but yeah, on pace Hamilton was better yesterday. Luckily the championship isn't about one day, because looking at the year as a whole, Verstappen has quite simply been better. The simple fact that they were tied in points before the last race even with things like Hamilton's unbelievable luck in Imola, Verstappen's exploding tyre in Baku, Hamilton's move in Silverstone and Bottas' torpedo in Hungary says enough about that already.

No other sportsman this year has had a result that comes even close to what he has done now in terms of overall impact and general historic value in the history of Dutch sports. Without meaning anything bad towards Lavreysen and Kimmann, because they are absolutely worthy contenders.

Rather unsurpsiringly, the nominations in the Netherlands were made only after the Formula 1 decider Man: Max Verstappen, Niek Kimmann, Harrie Lavreysen Woman: Sifan Hassan, Suzanne Schulting en Annemiek van Vleuten Paralympic athlete: Diede de Groot, Jetze Plat en rolstoelbasketballers Team: Track cyclists (sprint, I assume), hockey women, rowing fours Coach: Hugo Haak, Laurent Meuwly en Eelke vd Wal Man and woman should really be no-breaners in favour of obviously Verstappen and Hassan, probably the team and coach (Haak, the track sprinters coach) as well.

Protests dismissed, rightfully Quite clearly the best two drivers all year considering how far ahead of everyone else they are in terms of sheer racing quality, great that it wasn't decided in some office after all

I don't often stop watching sports I like Plus watching this together with my dad has been a tradition since I was 8 or 9

I live in a small town where Sunday is.....quiet (which I love!!), but even here I heard fireworks outside Must be way more in the cities though