rafalgorka

And i am even more disappointed that our W handball team won't be there in Paris because i really thought there was real chance for that And W handball POL team in Paris would be much more entertaining to me than W rugby 7s (and they still have a chance to get in)

The worst part is that we both think POL is not even close to Olympic qualification this time. And we were 4th in Rio, beating CRO in QF, losing to DEN AET in SF and losing to GER in a bronze medal game... Ehhh... the superfast decline of M handball team is one of the worst things that happened to Polish sport in the last years...

If you are right, OQTs would be like that (assuming that EGY qualifes via African tournament): ESP SLO BRN BRA SWE CRO Afr2-TUN? NED GER HUN POR Afr3-ALG? Then i think q for: ESP SLO SWE CRO GER HUN

Wengen Time!!! Today is first downhill. I must say Wengen is my favourite World Cup Stage for the whole season. I am definitely Team Wengen / not Team Kitzbuehel... :-) C'mon guys, entertain us!!!

It is a pity Adrian Moryto got injured. Without him POL chances do sth good in this tournament are very slim

5. NOR 6. ESP

My predictions: advancing to phase 2 FRA GER ESP CRO HUN ISL NOR SLO SWE NED DEN CZE Sf FRA-SWE DEN-GER finals 1. DEN 2. FRA 3. GER 4. SWE olympic quota GER

Summary of our January choices so far: Who will win 2024 M Handball ECH: canadafan24, heywoodu, Gianlu33, rafalgorka, Wumo, Ogreman, OlympicsFan, hckosice Josh phelps

I am not convinced whether POL will have "many" medals in Paris lol Anyway, all the hype on Iga Świątek (and Hubert Hurkacz playing mixed doubles with her) will be enormous, i hope they can live with it. No wonder POL Olymp. Committee chose to do their house near Roland Garros... PS1. It is a pity Pilsner Urquell withdrew but i understand very well what they stand for here. I say it is a pity because this is by far my fav Czech beer if we talk about this big companies' beers... PS2. Going through the Olympic houses in Paris will be great way to spend your time between sessions you have tickets for. It's like visiting EXPO pavillons. When you are there you just want to see them all and compare... Btw, my wife said Czech EXPO pavillon in Dubai was one of the best, and obviously everyone was having a glass of beer there... :-) so it looks like you just know how to do these pavillons/houses heh.

Summary of our January choices so far: Who will win 2024 M Handball ECH: canadafan24, heywoodu, Gianlu33, rafalgorka, Wumo, Ogreman, OlympicsFan Josh phelps Hopefully i haven't forgotten anyone here. And you can still join us obviously. This is a small thing, nothing close to great prediction contests Wumo does here, but still... We need to find sth to do in this waiting for Paris olympics, i just can't wait for the games to get started...

Quick question: do you want me to add 12 more questions to our 2024 contest (that would be 2 questions per month, not 1 question per month), maybe that would be more interesting this way but i am not sure. Or we leave it as it is...

And what are you waiting for in a non-olympic year of 2025??? A series of WCH of course: Athletics, Aquatics, Cycling, Alpine Skiing, Nordic Skiing... Annual events like Tour de France, Tennis Grand Slams, NBA play-offs, F1 season... But what else? The things is - as for now - I don't plan to go to Paris olympics this year, I have plans to go to Milan for 2026 olympics but i am also looking for an event or two to go in 2025 and i want to go swh close to me, swh in Europe. First idea is a F1 race, probably in Hungary. This is the least expensive choice for me and it's a few hours drive from where i live. But maybe i find sth else to go, sth even better... For 2027 i plan to go to swimming wch in Budapest. But i am sure the tickets will be much more expensive than 2023 athletics wch there, much kess seats un the stands... And the final sessions will be quickly sold out. But maybe we go for 2-3 days.

Fun fact: Polish Olympic Commitee said that they look at Czech Olympic Houses as a good example and a model, they want to do sth similar because they find Czech Houses very successful. I think they mentioned Pyeongchang. So POL wants to do at least sth as good in Paris as a Czech House. But we need to find some other ways to promote ourselves than selling out a good beer, there's no way we'll beat the Czechs in a beer competition... :-)

For the first time in history, there will be a Polish House in the olympics. It will be situated swh close to Roland Garros. I let you know all the details as soon as i find it. Enjoy your trip to Paris.

Yeah, I forgot it I like m basketball a lot but I actually never watched NCAA march madness I am not sure it is available to watch in Poland actually

My flu/covid turned out to be sth else but i am at home for another week so i will write here again in the usual working hours... Anyway, first i want to check my boxing predictions again using Ogreman stats as a really really good advice... stay tuned

This is not a problem at all. Handball ECH hasn't started yet so we will cast your votes, no problem. Maybe someone else wants to join us as well??? Handball starts on Jan 10 Btw, i am really interested how do you find chances for German Men's Handball Team in ECH and then in Paris? Also other German teams in teams sports (basketball, volleyball, hockey...).

In figure skating i really like men, women and - the most - pairs. But i don't watch ice dance, it's boring to me. And i think i follow figure skating because in the 1980s there was not much sports in our National TV but they were always showing European Champs and World Champs in figure skating (you remember Grzegorz Filipowski, anyone, heh?). So i watched it because there was nothing else. They didn't show alpine skiing world cup but they showed this. PS. I don't know if i mentioned to you why i started to watch olympics so much. In 1988 in winter i went skiing and i broke my leg awfully... really awful... and i was at home grounded exactly at the time when Calgary olympics started. And i could watch it all day long and in the evening/night hours when normally i couldn't because i would have to go to sleep to be ready to school next day. And i got this "olympic fever" . There was no internet so i asked my grandma to buy our Polish daily sports newspapers like Sport or Tempo and i had no computer so i had large workbooks with lists of all the athletes and results and so on... hah, those were the days... I remember when Seoul came i was so disappointed because I was 100% healthy and i had to go to school (it wasn't during our summer holidays unfortunately), But i watched it all the weekend and in the mornings before school and i bought tons of these newspapers, still have some of them...

Yes, sure. Funny thing is that almost EVERY olympics i watch a sport or an event which i haven't planned to watch it because i don't follow it much usually and then i watch it quite randomly (because there's nothing more interesting at the time) and this sport/event turns out to be really entertaining that was rugby 7s in Rio for example i think i will find sth like this in Paris as well (i even start to think what it can be: badminton, field hockey, table tennis???). Breaking or artistic swimming rather not i'm afraid... ;-)

Sure. Maybe I will try to watch it one more time . We will see

Hurkacz playing really well against Zverev now. But it is still unclear how this match ends. As Leo Beenhakker once famously said: you can never underestimate your German opponent until he leaves the courts in his limo.😎

Looking at the quali draws these are some players i would like to see advancing to the main draw because i am really interested how their career goes, i would like to be able to watch them play more against top opponents: W - E Andreeva, E Lys, B Fruhvirtova, A Korneeva, O Danilovic, M Timofeeva, S Bejlek M - F Cobolli, A Kovacevic, B Nakashima, Z Svajda

Shiffrin chose to avoid injury today. Very wise Popovic still T2. I wonder if she races 2nd run

Hope noone gets injured today

What a horrible clash by Popovic. Have you ever seen anything like that? This fresh snow in Kranjska Gora may be really dangerous