heywoodu

It's 5 days, with 2 distances per day, and today was day 1! Full program can be found here: https://www.schaatsen.nl/kalender/2021/12/olympisch-kwalificatietoernooi/ Actual Dutch championships were close to two months ago by the way, but that's a detail

Yeah, she needs to contact FIS, the Argentinian NOC (and their ethics or athletes commission or whatever they have, since the one in FASA will surely be controlled by the people who want her out no matter what) and possibly the IOC asap. This is not even moving the goalposts during the game, it's simply cutting them down and removing them altogether.

You say that as an exaggeration, but it really isn't Although he did win the 5k instead of the 50k (which really would be a way better mass start distance, but that's besides the point)

Just saw this now, sorry, but.....she's not on the NOC's list of qualified athletes so far https://teamnl.org/gekwalificeerde-sporters-olympische-winterspelen-beijing-2022 Then again, neither is Kimberley Bos (skeleton), who is absolutely certainly qualified, so I wonder how much it means.

The Netherlands really only has two world class 5k riders at this moment (as in, serious medal contenders). I know one should never count out Kramer entirely, but putting a third 5k spot high on the list...it's tricky. I'm actually not really against Ntab going to the Olympics instead of Kramer, if it would come to that. Ntab has dominated the Dutch 500m for years, the problem is his billion false starts in deciding moments. Which....doesn't help. Not that I really do care that much, the 500m at the Olympics is a lottery shitshow anyway now that it's about only one race instead of the usual and fair two.

De Jong was giving her interview with fairly mixed feelings. She was 2nd and that way basically had a big hand in making sure her sister Michelle (4th) didn't qualify. I can imagine she's happy she qualified, but also that it just sucks to push your sister out that way. Of course that's part of the sport when you both compete in the same kind of races, but that doesn't make it more fun

Yeah, it's Kramer. Kramer put on his skates: switch to Kramer. Kramer tightened his shirt: switch to Kramer. Kramer coming back up the stairs: switch to Kramer including an analysis of what it means. "Could something be wrong?" "Well there's no bathroom in the center area, so you'd have to go down to get to one." NOS sees Kramer... They had been talking about Kramer since the very first pair. I even heard a "He knows this track well!" for fuck's sake. It's not usual though, it has only been like this for the past 15 years or so

And that's a wrap for the 5k and Kramer possibly made it Bergsma was....mediocre. Enough to most likely qualify, but nothing special. Roest was a class of his own Men Women Selection order Distance Rank at OQT Athlete Selection order Distance Rank at OQT Athlete 1 1.000 1 1 5.000 1 2 5.000 1 Patrick Roest 2 MS 1 3 1.500 1 3 3.000 1 4 1.000 2 4 3.000 2 5 10.000 1 5 500 1 6 MS 1 6 1.000 1 Jutta Leerdam 7 1.500 2 7 1.500 1 8 500 1 8 5.000 2 9 1.000 3 9 1.500 2 10 1.500 3 10 1.000 2 Antoinette de Jong 11 5.000 2 Jorrit Bergsma 11 3.000 3 12 10.000 2 12 1.500 3 13 500 2 13 1.000 3 Ireen Wüst 14 5.000 3 Sven Kramer 14 500 2 15 500 3 15 500 3

Oh, or here: https://www.schaatsen.nl/kalender/2021/12/olympisch-kwalificatietoernooi/ The 'S' links to a PDF of the start list, the 'U' is for the result.

Should be here, but penguins are attacking it at the moment I think https://liveresults.schaatsen.nl/home Then as backup there's always good old Teletekst, where page 856 is for the live speed skating results and order https://teletekst-data.nos.nl/webplus?p=856 Sweeping the ice now.

Wow, Sven Kramer raced in a way I haven't seen him do for a few years, 6:12.29 with a 28.9 at the end

The winner of the mass start will be placed in here, but if things work out 'normal', those will already qualify in a regular distance (Bergsma and Schouten mostly). In that case, the federation can select who they want as second place and put that skater in the table.

Maria Cecilia Dominguez of Argentina got an amazing 110 points in Turkey today. Argentina has one female ticket and the deciding criteria was easy: the one with the best FIS points - all races count, including rollerskiing and 'obscure' races - goes to the Olympics. Alright, clear enough and with a second or so to spare in the last rollerskiing race in Brazil, Dominguez moved up to first: So today's 110 improved her points to 124 or so. Hooooooowever.....now all of a sudden, criteria have changed: Dominguez has been told she will need to get the A criteria (under 100 points, near-impossible) in order to be sent by the Argentinian federation (FASA). If she doesn't, whoever is in second place will be sent to the Olympics (A criteria or not). It's basically like saying "runner A, you need to run the marathon in 2:10 to qualify, but runner B, you can go as long as runner A doesn't get that time and you have a time of 3:00 or so". It's...insane.

There we go. Ter Mors is out, Wüst will have to wait and see. Leerdam wins in 1:14.09, De Jong second in 1:14.61 and Wüst third in 1:14.80 Men Women Selection order Distance Rank at OQT Athlete Selection order Distance Rank at OQT Athlete 1 1.000 1 1 5.000 1 2 5.000 1 2 MS 1 3 1.500 1 3 3.000 1 4 1.000 2 4 3.000 2 5 10.000 1 5 500 1 6 MS 1 6 1.000 1 Jutta Leerdam 7 1.500 2 7 1.500 1 8 500 1 8 5.000 2 9 1.000 3 9 1.500 2 10 1.500 3 10 1.000 2 Antoinette de Jong 11 5.000 2 11 3.000 3 12 10.000 2 12 1.500 3 13 500 2 13 1.000 3 Ireen Wüst 14 5.000 3 14 500 2 15 500 3 15 500 3

Reigning Olympic 1000m champion Jorien ter Mors is the first victim, she's out (not at all surprisingly, but still).

To be fair, Schouten and Groenewoud together are an insanely hard to beat duo, the women's mass start really should be very high up on the matrix. Different for the men though.

Basically it's going to be a matter of simply filling in the 'matrix' and at the end picking the first 9 names (including the team pursuit names and the second one in the mass starts). Shouldn't be too complicated, but it's Dutch speed skating qualifiers, there's gonna be a lawsuit here or there Men Women Selection order Distance Rank at OQT Athlete Selection order Distance Rank at OQT Athlete 1 1.000 1 1 5.000 1 2 5.000 1 2 MS 1 3 1.500 1 3 3.000 1 4 1.000 2 4 3.000 2 5 10.000 1 5 500 1 6 MS 1 6 1.000 1 7 1.500 2 7 1.500 1 8 500 1 8 5.000 2 9 1.000 3 9 1.500 2 10 1.500 3 10 1.000 2 11 5.000 2 11 3.000 3 12 10.000 2 12 1.500 3 13 500 2 13 1.000 3 14 5.000 3 14 500 2 15 500 3 15 500 3

If there is, it'll be on the NOS website https://nos.nl/uitzendingen

Today is the day, day one of arguably the world's strongest speed skating championships: the Dutch Olympic qualifiers At 14:00 it's the women's 1000m, followed by the men's 5000m at 14.45. First chance for some, make or break for others. Some are going to have their worst day of Christmas ever

Wow, I had totally forgotten about Padial Hernandez for the past years Whatever did happen to her? She wasn't a World Cup podium contender or anything, but she surely wasn't half bad!

I do believe I thanked you And yeah, that was very helpful...the language seems clear in their document, but you never know At least this is a confirmation we (including you!) were right, which is excellent news for us!

I would assume several reasons. Both just not at all living in the Netherlands anymore, but also increasing her Olympic chances. That would sound odd, since Sweden is strong*, but presumably getting into the top-5 of Sweden (or so) was more realistic than getting in the top-8 of the World Cup, which the Dutch would surely require. *remember this was still before the Swedish women exploded all of a sudden, that happened a little later

Brazilian snow sports federation CBDN posted their first mid-season ranking, which confirms two things: 1. The points and tables I've been posting are 100% correct, so that's good 2. As we suddenly realized a few weeks ago and tried to have 100% confirmed: athletes who DON'T have the B criteria (under 300 points) in both sprint and distance, are out of the fight if at least two athletes do have it (as is and will remain the case). This means Mika needs to get her sprint average under 300 points, otherwise her position in the ranking doesn't matter and she's out anyway. It also means that, as of now, the two female tickets are for Jaque and Bruna. Of course there's still races to go, both for Mika to get her sprint average under 300 and for everyone to improve their points. https://cbdn.org.br/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2021/12/ListaCBDN-OWG-CC-20211223.pdf

The Netherlands only accepts them if they get actively involved in improving the national program and athletes and such. Michael Rösch was first planning to compete for the Netherlands actually, but this is what made him change to Belgium. Good thing for Belgium, because even though he might not have been constantly training in Belgium, it would simply be an outright lie to say he didn't influence Belgian biathlon in a really good way in a matter of a few years. They're of course not front runners, but just the fact that they could realistically compete in World Cup relays with Belgian-born athletes only (so not counting Claude) was unimaginable not very long ago. Although like said before, of course Lotte Lie's situation is not at all comparable with Michael Rösch, who already had had a great career and fell off in his later years, so wanted another option, whereas Lie has had the Belgian nationality literally her entire life.

Happy Christmas and such, the first tasty dinner is done, two more to go I believe