SalamAkhi

His wife is pregnant and seems to have some sort of stomach pain (courtesy of French TV).

Herrmann is below her par and Hammerschmidt has not recovered the form she got before her injury. We will probably see either Weidel or Juliane Frühwirth soon I guess, but what to expect from them in the short term ?

I guess the TV production has some problem with France, or ? Though they didn't show Alimbekava either, so I'd say they're just shit ...

So American Samoa have got more athlete (well men) than France in the Skeleton WC in the last 10 years or more. One is not much but at least they don't have any track down under

I think everybody here was around when they were competing, unless we have some newborn lurking

Yes it is

Actually her best was 63.12 before this year So +6m in 10 months and +10 in 18 months To be fair she's not that old but that's a hell of a progression.

Absolutely, the COJO would have tried for pétanque to draw host attention (and get some more medals)

Ahem, don't know which audiences you refer to but certainly not on television. Also I've barely seen any news about breakdancing and very few about BMX freestyle, though surfing do get way more interest.

French Team for Hochfilzen : Anais BESCOND – ARMÉES Morbier Bellefontaine (Massif Jurassien) Justine BRAISAZ–BOUCHET – DOUANES Les Saisies (Savoie) Chloé CHEVALIER – Les 7 Laux (Sports de Neige du Dauphiné) Anaïs CHEVALIER-BOUCHET – DOUANES Les 7 Laux (Sports de Neige du Dauphiné Caroline COLOMBO – Mouthe (Massif Jurassien) Julia SIMON – DOUANES Les Saisies (Savoie) Fabien CLAUDE – ARMEES Basse sur le Rupt (Massif des Vosges) Simon DESTHIEUX – ARMÉES Lompnes (Lyonnais et pays de l’Ain) Quentin FILLON MAILLET – DOUANES Grandvaux (Massif Jurassien) Antonin GUIGONNAT – ARMÉES Morzine – Avoriaz (Mont-Blanc) Emilien JACQUELIN – DOUANES Villard de Lans (Sports de Neige du Dauphiné) Oscar LOMBARDOT – Entente sportive saugette (Massif Jurassien)

Alpha Bien Claude

FINALLY a podium

Lithuanian names don't sound utterly difficult to pronounce for me, Polish on the other side could prove to be VERY hard

I was kind of expecting Simon to be the leader of the team since she's shown good consistency throughout last season (even catching a win in the end) and considering Braisaz lack of precision ... also she's not that slow, of course not as fast as Braisaz and others but nevertheless 11th mean speed last season (on par with H.Oeberg and before Tandrevold, Fialkova ...) But her performances so far are quite disappointing, even her shooting fell apart today, which is not what you want to do when your speed is that disastrous. As for A.Chevalier, I was very eager to see whether she could produce Marie Dorinesque performances post-pregnancy. It seems she's in shape and her ability to shoot well is not the most concerning, so maybe the best surprise of the season on the French side

Thanks to the brand new Blue Bib, we can look at the ages of the athletes a bit more closely ... So for the women : 54 point scorers, 14 U25 (96+) within which only one U23 (98+) For the men : 48 point scorers, 5 U25, 1 U23 (Tuomas Harjula )

Welcome to the Machyniakova

You can only fall, I've watched too many Scorsese

I'm a bit of a gambler you know But how can you climb up the rankings in the pursuit if you're always first after the sprint ?

Has everyone put Laegreid in his Fantasy Team ? Because I did

So ... which one of these will eventually win ? Face masks or condoms ?

[hide] Nation Captains GER A.Peiffer SWE H.Öberg Nation Women GER F.Preuss POL M.Hojnisz-S ITA L.Vittozzi FRA A.Chevalier-B Nation Men RUS M.Eliseev AUT F.Leitner SLO J.Fak NOR S.Laegreid [/hide]

Benoit Paire for me Feels there's a recurrence here but I can't put my finger on it

Looking forward to it too, though I doubt she will appear anywhere near the top spots (even the points), arguably since there will be no individual. Newt week in the Norwegian Cup also.

Don't know what you mean by "yet" but she's actually due to start her WC career in Hochfilzen (source : an answer to her last IG post)

Bulgaria with more medals than Germany, France and the Netherlands combined