SalamAkhi

Wiklund knows Groenewoud will be coming for her later on. We could have a finish down to the wire in the last pair.

Tu ne confondrais pas la team Poney et Poneeey Club ? Le deuxième nommé est en plateau en plus d'être un pundit rugby, le premier c'est le nom de l'équipe de France de sprint en ski de fond (je ne sais pas si c'est toujours le cas avec le changement progressif d'effectif).

I've looked at Beijing's training runs. You couldn't have guessed Ludwig would win handily - apart from Kindl but he did win 3 races out of 4 and only conceded 1 hundredth of a second in the 4th. Let's hope we will witness some turnarounds.

Perso je pense regarder sur Eurosport sauf éventuellement le patinage de vitesse. Côté FTV j'ai plutôt confiance en Benoît Durand et ils ont un consultant (Benjamin Macé) qui était véritablement un patineur de vitesse olympique. Sur ES je ne sais pas qui sera le/la journaliste, sachant qu'ils avaient les droits des CDM mais il n'y avait jamais de commentateurs, et la consultante est Véronique Pierron, donc une short-trackeuse ...

Good summary Styrka. Loubineaud is an unknown factor as we don't know how the Games will affect him, but his results this year are very promising, especially in the 5000. There is also a slight chance in the team pursuit. I would add short-track as an unlikely but still possible medal conveyor, because we have a women's relay starting. With only 8 teams and straight semis you're one contact away from a final, and then short-track happens.

But that's simply not true. There is no recent evidence that she's more a threat that a treat for us, if not totally the opposite. Women's relay Östersund : from +4,8 to the lead (0+0 0+0) Mixed relay Östersund : from +6,0 to +0,2 (0+0 0+1) Women's relay Hochfilzen : from +1"20,2 to +1"55,0 (0+2 0+1) Women's relay Oberhof: leads all the way, closest opponent from +30,2 to +1"30,4 (0+2 0+1) Women's relay Ruhpolding : from +15,5 to +8,4 (0+0 0+3) Mixed relay Nove Mesto : from +1,3 to the lead (0+1 0+0) 6 relays, no penalty lap, one "bad" leg (team was already lagging behind). Putting her aside based on biased feelings would be one of the most suicidal choice in biathlon history.

But her shooting surely never was horrendous, or even bad for her standards.

Bart Swings too and a decent chance in men's ski-moutaineering. I don't fancy Maliszewska at all given what we've seen this season and more recently at the EC.

also

Due Schmidt reached an Olympic Q time in SLC at the end of the qualifying window. 6'29''76 for 6'30 in the 5000. This means he can honor his place in the MS. Denmark will have 2 skaters.

Actually she's never been so precise than this year 82.3% vs 82.1% in 23/24 and 80.2% back in 16/17. Les hommes mentent mais pas les chiffres as we say here

Definitely not. She's been great in 4 of the 5 relays she raced this year (4 women's and 1 mixed). I don't see any reason, let alone a strong one, to leave out our fastest skier given what we've seen from the others. Michelon is unstable, Simon is out of shape (now there is an argument about letting her take the anchor), then the potential subs : Bened looks reliable but she's shown mixed signals in her only relay leg, Richard hasn't produced anything special this year. And out of all of these girls you would bench the fastest woman of the entire field ? I would not be sad at all to see Simon out of the squad actually. Bened - Michelon - JBB - Jeanmonnot could do the trick.

Actually it's over anyway. All of these girls have raced more than 7 times already and all are over 492 points (Johansen 493 the only one under 500).

The two-woman quota is based upon the "combined" ranking. The 6 best monobob + 6 best 2-woman results are taken into account at the moment (7 once this week's WC race has been raced). Weiszewski competed in Europe Cup yesterday in the monobob, finishing 2nd, which gave her 110 points. This was her 7th monobob race, so this result replaced her worst (80 points), helping her leapfrog Cernanska by 8 points. At this point I guess she's in a better spot, as she's got the same room for improvement in the two-woman today, while Cernanska probably won't compete that well in the WC.

Overall yes, but a clear lack of golds. Good success nonetheless without over-focusing on some big ROI sports.

Protestant Ethic, that's all.

Erlacher missed the opportunity to secure a second Olympic quota for Austria (and for her), fading from 2nd to 15th in St-Moritz. She still gets closer to Channell with one race to go (28 points).

That would be harsh of them to deprive her of a right to start at home, even if her chances are slim (and she wouldn't be of much help for Lollobrigida). But yeah 9 or 10 skaters to expect.

Are you sure of that ? She could be fielded as starter for the mass-start and Lollobrigida would then receive an additional starting spot, as Italy/Rossi is in the reserve list. On the other hand maybe there's a chance Pergher will start both 500 and 1000 and Vigl wouldn't get a spot, though the latter has a slight edge this year over 1km. On the men's side 6 is indeed likely. I guess Rosanelli or Bosa (500), Di Stefano (1000, 1500, MS, TP), Ghiotto (5000, 10000, TP), Malfatti (5000, TP), Lorello (5000, 10000, TP), Giovannini (MS, TP).

This could have implications towards the "164 entered athletes" limit. If this standard is not reached then quotas will be de-allocated, starting with the 500m and upwards. Austria 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 10 (4-6) Belgium 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 X 13 6 Canada 3 2 2 1 1 2 3 3 3 3 2 2 X 15 15 China 3 2 3 1 2 X 3 3 3 1 1 2 X 15 (15) Czech Republic 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 8 (3) Denmark 2 1 1 1 5 (1-2) Estonia 1 1 2 (1) France 1 1 1 2 X 1 7 6 Germany 3 3 3 2 X 1 1 1 1 1 2 X 15 (12-15) Great Britain 1 1 2 (1) Hungary 1 1 2 (1) Individual Neutral Athletes 2 1 1 3 (3) Italy 1 1 1 3 2 1 X 1 1 1 1 1 1 14 (10-14) Japan 3 3 3 1 1 X 3 3 3 1 2 X 14 14 Kazakhstan 1 2 2 2 2 1 1 X 9 5 Netherlands 3 3 3 3 2 2 X 3 3 3 3 2 2 X 18 18 Norway 3 1 3 3 2 1 X 1 1 1 1 1 13 (8-11) Poland 3 3 1 1 3 2 1 11 9 Portugal 1 1 (0-1) South Korea 3 2 2 3 2 1 2 9 (9) Spain 1 1 2 (1) Switzerland 1 1 1 1 2 6 (4) Chinese Taipei 1 1 (1) United States 3 3 3 1 1 2 X 2 2 2 2 X 14 13 Second to last column is the maximum number of athletes NOC can enter, last column is the actual number they entered or (will enter) in my opinion. So if I'm correct in my assumptions and in the best case scenario 160 skaters will get a spot. No deallocation needed. This includes rejecting their wMS quota as Jessica Rodrigues doesn't meet the time criterion, same for Due Schmidt in the mMS. With Portugal out the last MS quota would be reallocated to opening the door for a second French women quota. In the "worst case" it would amount to 174, which would be problematic.

Yes that was my point. Deltrap could start both these races (while there's also a decent chance they don't even qualify for the A final) and not hurt Dutch chances at all. The Olympic program is much lighter than any World Cup so competing in the heats would even work as a good warmup towards the final. Then appoint Schulting for 1000/1500, she's definitely stronger than any other pretender.

Schulting could also be selected without relay duties if that really is an issue, but she's definitely more likely to perform individually than Van Oorschot who, let's be honest, is not needed to start either of the two relay races of the Olympics.

We'll see in the 1500 but it looks like she'll get a ticket and probably start the 1000/1500 or both (+ relay I guess).

Don't know how much she trained for it lately but the squad besides those prequalified is rather weak. She's got a fair chance of making the team. Now for the medals ...

I'm not really worried for the USA actually I know the Dutch men won't be favorite either way but they could at least play a role in there, which from my point of view is one too much. So let's just stay opponents and focus on individual events shall we