heywoodu

Team sprint selection was already made in January based on a complicated ranking, which the federation themselves got wrong...and literally only I got right Bruna and Jaque should do it

That's absolutely the plan! Four minutes or so going all out. As she told the medic: "Maybe see you tomorrow, because I'm definitely going to give everything..."

Regina was impressive today! Also fun to see quite a lot of Mexicans on the grandstand

Actually skis weren't the problem...she basically blacked out and had to be taken to the medical center (it took us quite a while to find her). She's better now, full of anger for tomorrow at least.

They did that yesterday! It's online?

Those are the FIS points I think, that's separate from the nations ranking points

Bruna is the thumbnail on HBO

Does anyone have a clue where the races might be shown? I know it'll be on HBO Max and most people around us at home have it, but not everyone Edit: found 1, Austrian ÖRF, but any other option is welcome.

Plus the penalty, which depends on which athletes are in the top-5. Not relevant today, because the men's penalty has already been set at 90, the women's at 120.

Not directly. They do count towards the standings in the 10k though. Say there are 70 athletes directly entering the 10k, plus 10 from the 7.5k today. Then whoever finishes 11th today, gets position 81 in the 10k result, and so on. At least that's how it worked 4 years ago.

Oh yeah, and we can be recognized by a big banner with "Nunspeet" (our hometown) on it, and I'm carrying a Dutch-Brazilian flag, which I'll hold in a certain way to let Bruna know how she's doing when she is halfway

Probably the most important day of Bruna's career tomorrow. The nerves here are off the charts, vamos

Not to get too far off topic, but let's not pretend the Netherlands has more medal chances than Italy in Cortina

Moving Oberhof to the third trimester is hilarious And come on, no Asia at all (I know, nobody comes and watch when it is there, so ok), as good as no North America? Meh.

Zero Dutch NOC would for sure ask for top-8 in a World Cup and that's just not realistic..

Too bad I'm awful at recognizing people, but at least I recognized Klæbo and Niskanen on the track and thanks to the fact that the top athletes have bibs with their names, I've also recognized Golberg, Jenssen and Schumacher Track is SO icy, it is unbelievable. Even walking on it was a major challenge yesterday. Gonna be super difficult to keep straight and everything Wednesday and Thursday.

Lebanese Olympian Samer Tawk was making his Instagram story while I was waiting for Bruna's training, the sharp eye can spot me https://www.instagram.com/stories/samertawk.oly/3573746699199849871?utm_source=ig_story_item_share&igsh=MW1nZGI0eGp3NWdmdQ==

Finish is looking nice here in Trondheim, despite the relatively warm weather

Zero golds at all in biathlon, Nordic combined and alpine skiing? I mean, it is of course possible, but the chance is under 1% I'd say

Finally there's a Wikipedia page for the qualifying, but it's not entirely up-to-date yet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-country_skiing_at_the_2026_Winter_Olympics_–_Qualification Brazil does have a male quota, due to Manex's 159 or so points in the sprint in Schilpario, but isn't mentioned in the list. It also has this line, which I haven't seen before: Is that like a safety net in case a country didn't get into the top-30 of the ranking and didn't get a basic quota? Hard one, because in that case it will be rather difficult to get under 300 points in a World Cup (assuming FIS would even allow them in with a wildcard), but interesting.

As per usual, the quotas can already be counted as quotas that will be reallocated

Which would be worth the try, I'd say. There isn't that much of a difference between silver and bronze, but between silver and gold....oh yeah (or bronze and 4th, of course)

Which case? Because the whole Julia Pieper thing was very public around Sochi 2014, and as a world class biathlete, Preuss' injuries and illness were all the time mentioned in biathlon commentary and news and stuff

Yep. Not sure if it was the NOC or the biathlon federation (I assume the latter) that put him in the Livigno training 'world' with a former Italian biathlete as coach, but they can definitely also be blamed: almost everyone involved in that shitshow got the motivation just sucked out of them by the methods and shitty atmosphere until they either retired or changed country

Lots of injuries, including often just pure bad-luck stuff like a fall from a set of stairs, illness, and of course the Sochi tragedy in 2014: one of her biathlon friends, young Julia Pieper, killed herself with a biathlon rifle early during the Olympics (she wasn't on the team, but was a training partner of both Preuss and Dahlmeier). Obviously a hard hit, which led to terrible Olympics for Preuss, with a DNF, awful results in her other individual races and a relay where she was the first runner for Germany, but fell early on, got snow in her rifle and broke a pole and ended up losing almost 3 minutes, which in turn resulted in Germany being off the podium for the first time ever. After that came all the injuries and illness and everything. So glad to finally see her have her big individual global gold, that is so well deserved.