Olympian1010

As far I’m aware, he helped a that Gambian skeleton athlete set up his national federation. He also held a few combines/tryouts for his own NF, with a skeleton athlete attending an IBSF training camp earlier this season. In many respects, he’s limited in what he can do. From my understanding, his sponsorships are just enough to cover his training, travel, competitions. He needs support from elsewhere to really get something serious off the ground. Of course, it’s also hard to get other African nations interested in a sport when there’s no guarantee they’ll stand a real shot at the Olympics. Why would any sprinters, throwers, cyclists, lifters, etc. transition to bobsleigh/skeleton when there’s even less of a chance they’ll find some success there?

I think there is something to be said about in inequity in the universality and continental representation process. Summer sports are now mandated to guarantee both those things, while winter sports are ambitiously recommended to do so. I would agree that it shouldn’t be changed now, but I think it’s something that should considered when the IOC constructs the qualification system principles for 2026.

Desmond seems to have confirmed that as well.

I’d also put a question mark on Delka for now. In the past, Puerto Rico have rejected some quotas for the Winter Olympics, but I think the policy that guided those rejections has been amended.

I think losing out on a chance to qualify in this manner after years and years of work is a tough pill to swallow. Pyeongchang was kind of an unimagined opportunity for him, as where he had always intended to target Beijing.

Plus, Akwasi and Simidele have both made a legitimate effort to improve their level and develop the sport in their respective countries. Both and had additional sliders attend IBSF camps earlier this season. How does the IBSF or IOC expect to expand the Winter Olympics/winter sports to Africa when they’re actively killing the opportunities of those making good faith efforts to do just that? I 100% agree with the idea of floating universality or tripartite quotas.

Some athletes could also have lost a quota from failure to satisfy the additional eligibility requirements, but I don’t have the time to check that for each athlete.

They weren’t even supposed to “inform NOCs/NFs of their allocated quota places” until Jan. 11 (tomorrow). Also, if got a second men’s quota, can it be assumed that either accepted or passed on a quota?

They could also just cut out the gendered team events in short track and ski jumping to save a few quotas. Could bring max athletes down to 4 per gender for country.

Women’s Doubles in Luge (+30-38 quotas)

Brown is more established, but leaving Malinin off the team after that performance is certainly questionable. They represent two very different styles, Malinin is more of spinning top, while Brown is more technically proficient/maturely choreographed skater. In my opinion, Brown is more representative of the past generation of figure skating, while Malinin is more representative of the present/future generation of figure skating.

Bowe has also implied that the 500m isn’t really her focus at the moment. She’s more focused on the 1000m/1500m.

I’m not really impressed by any of the IBSF’s qualification systems. The change I’d suggest would be to switch to to ranking based allocations for multiple sleds. For example, if you have 3 sleds in the top 15 of the world ranking, then you can have three sleds. If you have two sleds in the top 25, then you can have two sleds. Otherwise, you get one sled.

She would have had to establish a national federation though, as isn’t associated with the ISU.

Bahamas Prime Minister announced that all flags will be flown at half-mast in his honor.