heywoodu

Never heard of that, but it sounds pretty interesting. I'm going to check if there is a version with full English subtitles, alternate history movies and series always get my interest

My schedule is roughly the same as the full official schedule... Possibly with a bit of a delay for the night events. Free from work for the whole thing, so that's good, but you know...probably gotta provide some care, so not sure if waking up at 02:00 and going to sleep at 19:00 every day is going to be such a good idea

The ones which are at least possible are also the only ones that would probably make me literally jump out of my chair Baiba Bendika and Anna Weidel , both in biathlon. Baiba because she has been so kind and super involved in training Bruna for almost a year, instead of just giving some tips (which was the original question), she took over the entire training and wrote full and detailed plans based on actual feedback and such, truly wonderful. Plus her sometimes torturous strength trainings gave Bruna a set of nearly iron abs which prevented a whole lot of internal damage in the accident, so that's good. Anna simply because she is too kind. We already knew that, but even more so now: despite being focused on the Olympics, in a team where it really is about actual medals, she is offering whatever help she can and...yeah, generally just a super kind person. Something Brazilian would be cool, but I doubt that'll happen in cross-country skiing (cool as it would be) And the tiny, existing, but very tiny mega outside chance in skeleton would be awesome of course, but I'm not really 'personally invested' in that, unlike the two biathlon ones.

Oh, no I completely agree with you! I just reacted to the "so this is proof it doesn't work!" thing

Ah, excellent, you must have seen the research that indicated the positive cases were in fact infected in that moment, I assume?

Yep. And even if this didn't come from organization, countries were definitely free to send their athletes that early... I truly don't understand for example snowboard cross or ski jumping still having a World Cup not even one week before the opening ceremony.

I barely heard any other story in the first days It did go down quickly at some point, yes. Hopefully that'll be the case here, but the thing is this variant is way, way, way easier to spread. Which doesn't necessarily make it dangerous from a health perspective, but makes it a disaster from a sports perspective when we're still all in "positive = out" mode.

"Speed merchant!"

No Tim Singer for the luge Damn. I love Olympics, but I hate this broadcasting thing meaning right at the most important moment, we often can't enjoy the commentators we enjoy throughout the season. I want luge with Tim Singer and nobody else. I want bobsleigh and skeleton with Martin Haven and John Morgan and nobody else. During the summer, I want the mountainbiking with Bart Brentjens and the other guy who's name I forget but who's voice I strongly have in my mind. And so on.

Deneriaz' gold was amazing, but yeah, largely due to the surprise factor (although I later realized he wasn't that obscure of a winner, not like a total no-name, but I didn't follow it that well yet at the time) Luckily I slept through the Sochi downhill !

So, bit of an update: Bruna had surgery on both her left arm and left foot today, which took roughly 2,5 hours. Apart from a minor complication regarding her CO2 levels, which they got under control, it seems as though it all went well. Most likely she will be allowed to leave on Wednesday, which probably means she'll be transported home and arrive here on Thursday somewhere at the end of the day. Someone from the Brazilian federation will be with her from tomorrow on and probably travel in the ambulance transport with her as well, something we are very grateful for (due to a quarantaine situation at home, we simply can't go there at the moment). Once she is here, the long, long road to recovery will start. That's probably going to be a matter of months, at least, but yeah...we've got time.

Wait, ice hockey mask, right. That makes a lot more sense than what I was thinking, sorry

Ah damn. Semyenov is the other skeleton athlete, I guess? Wow.

Thank you!

@Vektor Where did you hear about Sara Ponya, if I may ask? I checked her social media and tried to find something online, but nothing. Not that I doubt you, but my opportunities of searching in Hungarian aren't great

Any word on his chances to make it?

Huh what, athletes under 18 need to wear a face mask while playing and older athletes don't or what?

There is hope yet for Bruna!

Ah no, we had been following that process here on the forum the past month or so

This is something I heard from the temporary chef de mission (the real one tested positive and travels later) of the Dutch team as well, I must say! He said the overall feeling in terms of the bubble is very safe and tight, which considering the circumstances is excellent.

Political things about China, I would guess You know, just be smart and don't go around the Olympic village and journalists saying anything about Uyghurs and Hong Kong and Taiwan Chinese Taipei and whatnot.

Have athletes in your countries said anything about the organization and such in China? Yesterday I saw an interview with Dutch skier Adriana Jelinkova, who said she had never been so lost in her life as she was on the way to some place to train "The organization is.....not so great, to be honest. It's all super confusing and every direction you're pointed in and every thing you are supposed to do conflicts with other things the next person says. You have to go there, but when you're 'there', you have to go somewhere else, and so on. And also, basically nobody related to the organization or something speaks any English at all, so that doesn't help. At least they seem friendly.."

Since there's quite a lot of positive COVID-19 cases these days, and it's not at all slowing down, I thought it might be useful to keep track of them and the news about them in one place (while of course still mentioning them in their respective sports topics). Some athletes have been mentioned, but might be alright after all, while new ones are appearing every day. I am absolutely going to miss quite a few, but a quick run through my mind brings me to Austrian ski jumper Marita Kramer who tested positive on Saturday (29 January) and is likely out. Also Norwegian cross-country skiers Simen Hegstad Krüger (out of defending his skiathlon title, might still join later), Heidi Weng and Anne Kjersti Kalvå (who has been replaced). Hungarian short track star Shaoang Liu, a bunch of Polish skaters (both short and long track). Leo Johansson (cross-country) of Sweden, a bunch of skeleton athletes I believe, etc.

There goes the Dutch ski jumping gold Greetings, Dutch NOS

Except for Gao with his 33.83 monster 500m