rafalgorka

team for Men's ind normal hill announced Piotr Żyła, Kamil Stoch, Dawid Kubacki, Stefan Hula Paweł Wąsek will sit this one out

Natalia Maliszewska with yet another positive test today. Polish media say she's definitely out of 500 race.

Thanks for your votes! Anyone else interested?

And to give us some pause from Beijing 2022 here's another series of polls - kind of buiding up to Paris 2024. It is similar to the poll #25 in Road to Beijing series - I know it may be found stupid or crazy or too complicated. But let's try it, let's do some kind of "imaginary olympics". These are NOCs who had olympic champions in certain event. Imagine that all these champions are on the top of their game at the very same moment in time. Who would have won gold? If any NOC has more than one olympic champion in an event... well, I'd like to count all the gold medals together, so in this series we vote for NOCs really - whenever you think any of these olympic champions would win the whole thing, you just vote for a certain NOC and you can leave a comment pointing out who you choose. I will try to prepare around 10-15 polls like that, one per day, we will see if you are interested in it, and then we will know if I shall continue or I should not waste your time...

Polecam, nie ukrywam, że Radek Leniarski to mój ulubiony polski dziennikarz sportowy.

BEIJING OLYMPICS POLL #1 - Day 1 - Who will win women's 3000m speed skating event? After finishing the series of Road to Beijing polls, I'd like to bring new polls, one per day. Every day I will choose one event and the question will be simple - who's the winner? Some events are excluded (e.g. men's downhill, women's giant slalom in alpine skiing, men's ski jumping team event etc.) because there have already been polls about them in previous series. You can vote until the competition starts. Voters' names are public, so we can add results and see who predicts the most winners correctly. Have fun. Greetings to everyone, LET THE GAMES BEGIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! RG

Podcast with Kingsbury

Traditional olympic vacation has just started!!! 😀 I'm so excited. Let the Games begin! 😀 This weekend I'm waiting for the men's downhill the most. Need to wake up before 4 a.m. on Sunday to watch it, hope they won't need to reschedule it due to weather or sth.

Natalia Maliszewska has been tested positive today again 😐 So i don't think she will start in 500 because heats are on Saturday. But maybe she will make a miracle in 1000 later on.

We're all losers... ;-)

ONE HOUR TO GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Alesandra Król (snowboard) will replace Natalia Czerwonka (speed skating) who is out due to covid quarantine and she will be there with Sochi 2014 olympic champion Zbigniew Bródka (speed skating - the one who has beaten Koen Verweij by 0,00000000000000000001 sec in 1500m)

Last Poll before the start of the games - Poll #33. You wanted a poll about biathlon, so here it is. This is a multiple choice question, because more than one athlete can have the same number of medals.

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/olympics/article-norways-radically-different-approach-to-sports-helped-it-climb-to-the/

Wednesday is my last day in the Court before the vacation. So i will only watch some curling replays in the evening. But from Thursday on it will be a totally different thing...

At the beginning of every olympics I read again the best text about olympics written in Polish by a great Polish volleyball player, an olympian and then a journalist, who sadly passed away in 2004. Amazing person, wonderful guy. ZDZISŁAW AMBROZIAK. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zdzisław_Ambroziak Here it is in English translation (which isn't great cause Google translate did it). He wrote it before Sydney 2000. On the one hand, it was raised by the liturgy and Olympic spells. Kalos k'agathos; beautiful and good. Harmony of the advantages of soul and body. Pure and noble sport, unspoiled by politics and money, a medicine and an antidote to the civilization of violence. On the other - corruption and bureaucracy. Gigantism and commercialization have gone beyond all limits. A doping gang that causes the sport to devour its own children. Rational people have no illusions - in sport it is much too late to call evil evil, because it is the norm. Better to be dead than the other. In the middle there are crowds, millions who want the Games. People who disagree that it is all a big lie. Who gather strength, take holidays, repair TV installations and wait for real emotions. The fan doesn't want to hear about the bastard. A fan goes to the stadium or stares at the TV set to see himself. The one he did not become. (...) The pre-Olympic fever is similar every time. Everyone wants to unmask the Olympics: in the newspaper, on TV, in the yard, in the shop. The less someone knows about sports, the louder he screams. Although he cannot accurately give the distance of a marathon run, he effectively strips us of the Olympic myths: "Deception, bribery, fraud, blood, wounded, killed - this was really the case with the Olympics in antiquity". Meanwhile, I plan to defend the Olympics. Not only because of his innate defiance, but also because of his aversion to intruders. I feel a bit as if a stranger is throwing mud on my loved ones. Like some jerk is shredding his face that my sister or niece are slutty. At first reflex, it doesn't matter how it really is. Samaranch and his empire have nothing to do with it. Before a person thinks, he reacts instinctively - wara! I know it's rude, but I have a right to write like that. I have been an Olympian twice, I have participated in the opening ceremony twice, and I cannot describe the sources of the most sincere emotion that squeezes a man by the throat during the words of the Olympic oath. I still remember this emotion. And I will probably not forget it anymore. Of course, the greatest fear and general reluctance of those who are concerned about Olympic madness are doping. I have always replied that doping has always existed, and that it is not athletes, but primarily the media and sponsors, that are responsible for its contemporary, spooky dimension. It has been journalists who have been repeating for decades over and over again that human possibilities are endless. It was in newspapers and on television that the image of a borderless creature was created, mocking gravity, physiology and chronology. Meanwhile, a man, no matter how much he trained, will not grow wings so that he can fly like a bird. This is the front page of doping. The second is a sponsor who understands that winning the war on doping is losing the war for new records. The sponsor also knows that people won't turn on their televisions to watch athletes swim slower, jump lower, and lift less. The circle is closed because the sponsor does not want to do good to the TV viewers or sportsmen, but to do good to himself. It is certain. The modern pharmacological industry launches a mass of money comparable only to space research. Fashion for eternal youth, slim figure and fitness until old age is becoming the madness of our times. Doctors know this, but it is athletes who are supposed to affect the imagination of millions. A better occasion than the Olympic Games has not yet been invented, after all, not the fault of the athletes. If you put a little effort into it, you can approach nepotism, corruption, aborigines, politics, ecology, hypocrisy and the rest of the Olympic lie in the same way. A really difficult choice between caring for the salvation of sport and hope for the salvation of the world. If we were to wait for all people to become brothers, the Olympic Games would never begin. On the other hand, on the hell, let's not be so demanding of sports. Let's just think: brutality, deception, dirtyness are tolerated everywhere, except in the ring. We can wander in the dirt, but boxers are expected to have clean punches and a noble fight. Outrage (a hundred times right!) Is caused by corruption and bureaucracy in the IOC, but for the sake of hygiene, I would advise you to look around. I know it's clichéd, but the last Olympics in the century have special rights, so I will repeat it again. The colorful five Olympic rings are one of the most recognizable logos of our time. An icon everyone knows. It is a strange twinkling gem of our civilization, reflecting the splendors and miseries of the modern world. If the image reflected in this mirror also has disturbing and ominous colors, the mirror cannot be blamed for it. In Polish: Z jednej strony podniosła liturgia i olimpijskie zaklęcia. Kalos k'agathos; piękni i dobrzy. Harmonia zalet duszy i ciała. Sport czysty i szlachetny, nieskażony polityką i pieniędzmi, lek i antidotum na cywilizację przemocy. Z drugiej - korupcja i biurokracja. Gigantyzm i komercjalizacja posunięte poza wszelkie granice. Gangrena dopingu sprawiająca, że sport pożera własne dzieci. Ludzie rozumni nie mają złudzeń - w sporcie jest już stanowczo za późno, by zło nazwać złem, bo jest ono normą. Lepiej być martwym niż drugim. Pośrodku zaś tłumy, miliony, które pragną igrzysk. Ludzie, którzy nie zgadzają się, że to wszystko jest wielkim kłamstwem. Którzy gromadzą siły, biorą urlopy, naprawiają instalacje TV i czekają na prawdziwe wzruszenia. Kibic nie chce słyszeć o draństwie. Kibic idzie na stadion albo gapi się w telewizor, aby zobaczyć siebie. Tego, którym się nie stał. (...) Przedolimpijska gorączka za każdym razem jest podobna. Każdy chce zdemaskować igrzyska: w gazecie, w telewizorze, na podwórku, w sklepie. Im kto ma mniejsze pojęcie o sporcie, tym głośniej krzyczy. Nie potrafi wprawdzie porządnie podać dystansu biegu maratońskiego, ale za to skutecznie odziera nas z olimpijskich mitów: "Podstęp, przekupstwo, oszustwa, krew, ranni, zabici - tak było naprawdę z igrzyskami w starożytności". Tymczasem ja planuję bronić igrzysk olimpijskich. Nie tylko z wrodzonej przekory, ale i z niechęci do intruzów. Czuję się trochę tak, jakby ktoś obcy obrzucał błotem moich najbliższych. Jakby jakiś palant strzępił sobie gębę, że moja siostra albo siostrzenica są puszczalskie. W pierwszym odruchu nie ma znaczenia, jak jest naprawdę. Samaranch i jego imperium nie mają tu nic do rzeczy. Człowiek, zanim pomyśli, instynktownie reaguje - wara! Wiem, że to niegrzeczne, ale mam prawo tak pisać. Dwukrotnie byłem olimpijczykiem, dwukrotnie uczestniczyłem w ceremonii otwarcia i nie potrafię opisać źródeł najszczerszego wzruszenia, jakie ściska człowieka za gardło podczas słów olimpijskiej przysięgi. Ja to wzruszenie wciąż pamiętam. I pewnie już nie zapomnę. Największą trwogę i powszechną niechęć zatroskanych olimpijskim szaleństwem budzi oczywiście doping. Odpowiadam niezmiennie, że doping istniał od zawsze, a za jego współczesny, upiorny wymiar odpowiedzialni są nie sportowcy, lecz przede wszystkim media i sponsorzy. To dziennikarze od dziesięcioleci powtarzają w kółko, że możliwości człowieka są nieograniczone. To w gazetach i w telewizji powstał wizerunek istoty bez granic, która drwi z grawitacji, fizjologii i chronologii. Tymczasem człowiekowi, choćby nie wiem ile trenował, nie wyrosną skrzydła, żeby mógł fruwać jak ptak. To pierwsza strona dopingu. Drugą jest sponsor, który rozumie, że wygranie wojny z dopingiem oznacza przegranie wojny o nowe rekordy. Sponsor wie także, że ludzie nie włączą telewizorów, żeby oglądać atletów pływających wolniej, skaczących niżej i dźwigających mniej. Koło się zamyka, bo sponsor nie chce zrobić dobrze telewidzom ani sportowcom, tylko chce zrobić dobrze sobie. To jest pewne. Współczesny przemysł farmakologiczny uruchamia masy pieniędzy porównywalne jedynie do badań kosmosu. Moda na wieczną młodość, smukłą sylwetkę i fitness do późnej starości staje się obłędem naszych czasów. Lekarze o tym wiedzą, ale to przecież sportowcy mają działać na wyobraźnię milionów. Lepszej okazji niż igrzyska olimpijskie jeszcze nie wymyślono, przecież nie z winy sportowców. Jakby się trochę przyłożyć, podobnie można podejść do nepotyzmu, korupcji, aborygenów, polityki, ekologii, hipokryzji i całej reszty olimpijskiego kłamstwa. Doprawdy trudny wybór pomiędzy troską o zbawienie sportu i nadzieją na zbawienie świata. Jeżeli mielibyśmy czekać, aż wszyscy ludzie staną się braćmi - to igrzyska olimpijskie nie rozpoczęłyby się nigdy. Z drugiej strony, u licha, nie bądźmy tacy strasznie wymagający wobec sportu. Pomyślmy tylko: brutalność, podstęp, świństwo toleruje się wszędzie, tylko nie na ringu. My możemy taplać się w brudzie, ale od bokserów wymaga się czystych ciosów i szlachetnej walki. Oburzenie (po stokroć słuszne!) budzi korupcja i biurokracja w MKOl, ale dla higieny radziłbym rozejrzeć się dookoła. Wiem, że to banalne, ale ostatnie igrzyska olimpijskie w stuleciu mają szczególne prawa, więc powtórzę raz jeszcze. Kolorowe pięć kółek olimpijskich to jedno z najlepiej rozpoznawalnych logo naszych czasów. Ikona, którą znają wszyscy. To przedziwny migotliwy klejnot naszej cywilizacji, w którym odbijają się blaski i nędze współczesnego świata. Jeżeli obraz, odbity w tym zwierciadle, posiada również barwy niepokojące i złowrogie - nie można o to winić lustra.

Early thoughts: Sofia Goggia - another gold in DH after this Cortina crash Lara Gut-Behrami - gold in SG Ester Ledecka - any medal in alpine skiing Petra Vlhova - gold in slalom in men's alpine skiing I like (almost) all of them - so I just want to see great, close rivalry and entertaining races with high level of drama, and let the better man win. The same with men's cross-country skiing and biathlon. And both in men and women speed skating, but here I'd like to see a medal for or Jessie Diggins - at least one individual medal Frida Karlsson - at least one gold at least one surprising gold for from someone other than their bigger chances, meaning other than Ivo Niskanen or men's hockey team Ryoyu Kobayashi - Polish jumpers are so weak this season, so if they can't do it, I would like to see ind gold for him Dorothea Wierer - ind gold Marketa Davidova - ind gold a gold for and many great performences in ladies and pairs figure skating - let the better ones win EDIT: Kelly Sildaru, how could i have forgotten her??? ;-)

Maryna Gąsienica - Daniel in giant slalom. never had an olympic medal in Alpine skiing yet.

@Vektor a very nice idea. btw, do we have any leaks who will lit the cauldron in Beijing? @Vic Liu any speculations?

@Belle you want it, you have it!

Obviously yes!

that could be fun! btw, we have users from Egypt here, but Egypt will not participate. I don't know if we have any users from 5 participating African nations:

Tomorrow I plan to make the last poll before the start of the Beijing games. Need some advice :-))) I know I promised polls about men's and women's mass start races in biathlon, but I think these polls will be more interesting when we do them after all the other biathlon events are done and dusted.

vs

vs