Bad Wigins wrote:
Coyote Montane wrote:
Anyway, female all time medalist?
No way is that enough for the manliest female of all time. She must beat Dahlie.
Not even close. The winner is (not including Semenya here) by quite some distance:
http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-jarmila-kratochvilova-cze-competing-in-the-1983-world-athletics-championships-61927753.htmlnot even close wrote:
Bad Wigins wrote:
No way is that enough for the manliest female of all time. She must beat Dahlie.
Not even close. The winner is (not including Semenya here) by quite some distance:
http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-jarmila-kratochvilova-cze-competing-in-the-1983-world-athletics-championships-61927753.html
Why are you posting a pic of Roger Daltrey?
Wigins calls it! wrote:
Bad Wigins wrote:
The greatest skier used to be Northug but not anymore. Dario Cologna is gonna win, unless Legkov gets back in.
Cologna gets his gold in the 15k -- continuing a string of Olympic victories started in Vancouver. He is the man at 15k!
Klaebo didn't race; no doubt Norway is saving him for the relay.
Scott Patterson is again the best of the US men at 21st, following his 18th place in the Skiathlon. He is having a good Olympics.
That was for the 30K however, so wigins goes home (mom's basement) with his ego decimated! But three in a row for Cologna is quite a feat, especially considering it's skate, classic, skate over the three Olympiads.
Norway was smart to hold Klaebo out, and it's looking like US blew it by having Diggins do the sprint earlier this week (while still recovering from a hard race last weekend). She almost certainly would have medaled in the 10K if she'd had fresh legs. And that's a big deal, no American (USA) women have won and individual medal, not to mention at 26 and at her peak these Olympics might be her best chance at an individual medal. If she skis flat in the relay tomorrow, then you know that they really blew it.
Patterson's finishes are best USA distance results since Freeman went 15th for 15K in 2002.
I wonder if Cologna eats bologna sandwiches
Women's relay is up. If you're up and want to follow, live splits are here:
https://data.fis-ski.com/cross-country/live-timing.html
Live Eurosport 1 stream (adblock suggested):
Ouch! Sophie Caldwell lost 1:01.5 in the first 5k leg.
Haag sucked. Thank goodness we have Kalla.
After Caldwell's leg, the other Americans skied well. Sadie Bjornsen moved up from 11th (of 14) to 8th, and was 1:05 off the lead at the exchange. Kikkan Randall moved up to 6th, still only 1:05 off the lead. Then Diggins passed a fading Switzerland, but lost ground on the top two, finishing 1:20.5 back in 5th.
It's hard to second guess the Caldwell start. Sometimes someone just doesn't have it. With hindsight, I think Caitlin Patterson would done better, but probably not enough to move the team into the medals.
zzzz wrote:
After Caldwell's leg, the other Americans skied well. Sadie Bjornsen moved up from 11th (of 14) to 8th, and was 1:05 off the lead at the exchange. Kikkan Randall moved up to 6th, still only 1:05 off the lead. Then Diggins passed a fading Switzerland, but lost ground on the top two, finishing 1:20.5 back in 5th.
It's hard to second guess the Caldwell start. Sometimes someone just doesn't have it. With hindsight, I think Caitlin Patterson would done better, but probably not enough to move the team into the medals.
Impressions: It was worth getting up at 4:30 am to watch, even though the US didn't make cross country history today. Tough race for Caldwell. Nepryaeva maintained the form she demonstrated a couple days ago when she finished 4th in the sprint for Russia -- she and Oestberg set a very fast pace, and I suspect that Caldwell maybe blew up trying to keep up. Kalla looked like a beast on her leg, making up the 30 seconds or so Sweden was down, but her classic leg time was actually slower than Nepryaeva's.
Jacobsen also blew up on her second lap, dropping a bunch of time, but Haga rescued Norway, putting in the fastest leg of the day, and putting Bjoergen in position to "be Marit" one more time, pulling away from Nilsson at the end. 13 medals, and counting!
Nechaevskaya skied smart for Russia in the final leg, staying within herself and not getting sucked into the Nilsson/Bjoergen duel, comfortably securing the bronze.
So, one more chance for Diggins to medal -- and she and Bjornsen at least have a few days to recover before the team sprint on the 21st. Pressure is on...
Hup hup wrote:
So, one more chance for Diggins to medal -- and she and Bjornsen at least have a few days to recover before the team sprint on the 21st. Pressure is on...
Might be Randall and Diggins for the team sprint. Only 3 women were more than 1.5 seconds faster than Randall (6th fastest skate leg) on the skate legs of the relay. Bjornsen was 11th fastest classic leg in the relay.
I think Randall over Bjornsen would be a very bold choice for Grover. It would definitely raise quite a few eyebrows -- Bjornsen has been so solid and tough and reliable this year for the US team. You would basically be choosing Randall based on the one race. But Randall and Ida Sargent did get a podium in team sprint last month in Dresdin. Kind of an "off race" since most of the heavy hitters were away preparing for the Olympics, but something I guess Grover could look at? Interesting possibility.
Concerning "classic" and "freestyle" one should also mention that Nordic Skiing and Biathlon are governed by different bodies. The Nordics were pretty much like your Gentlemen's Country Club, resenting change and opposing any innovation.
Nordic skiing had their Greg LeMond moment when Gunde Svan had this ridiculous long single pole that he used in some kind of half-skating in diagonal (I still like that term better) tracks.
Biathlon on the other hand were pretty good at marketing, being early to adopt to TV needs. They pretty much blew the Nordics wiseguys out of the frozen water. Like triathlon is doing many things right nowadays (names on the suits to make the athlete recognizable from both sides, for example -we still insist to stick numbers on nonrecognizable Africans).
Biathlon was a prime example of sports marketing, and relevant until today. Well done!
But what still baffles me is how the sledding association got away with so blatantly adding funding by inventing stupid variations of the same theme, even if they were hard pressed to dig out athletes to fill the spots.
This inflation of medal table opportunities for only about a dozen countries with facilities is frivolous and I pity the "athletes" who are the cannon fodder for the hugher-ups.
Hup hup wrote:
I think Randall over Bjornsen would be a very bold choice for Grover. It would definitely raise quite a few eyebrows -- Bjornsen has been so solid and tough and reliable this year for the US team. You would basically be choosing Randall based on the one race. But Randall and Ida Sargent did get a podium in team sprint last month in Dresdin. Kind of an "off race" since most of the heavy hitters were away preparing for the Olympics, but something I guess Grover could look at? Interesting possibility.
It wouldn't be at all controversial, and the coaches have shown that they don't care about controversies anyway. They just want to pick who they think will do better on the particular day.
Randall is US GOAT skate sprinter, and I think she'd beat Bjornsen now in a skate sprint because she's on form. Bjornsen is better known for classic, and though her skating has been improved, if they are in similar shape, I'd pick Randall any day over Bjornsen for a skate sprint. Besides having a better performance in the relay (less than 1.5 seconds behind Diggins), they were only one place apart in the 10K skate a few days. Randall is building form again. In December, Randall was 3rd at the last World Cup freestyle sprint for the Tour de Ski, behind Nilsson and Falla, and ahead of Diggins, Oestberg, with Bjornsen back in 13th. Before not having it in the TDS stages that she started. And of course, she was 3rd at the World Championships just last year. Going back, Randall and Diggins were World Champions in this event in 2013, so you know can do 3xsprint.
https://data.fis-ski.com/dynamic/results.html?sector=CC&competitorid=49824&raceid=29795zzzz wrote:
In December, Randall was 3rd at the last World Cup freestyle sprint BEFORE the Tour de Ski, behind Nilsson and Falla, and ahead of Diggins, Oestberg, with Bjornsen back in 13th.
Correction for my typo above
Men's relay is on. Same links as the ones for the women's race if you want to follow.
Had to switch to this free stream, channel 2 (adblocker advised):
Not that it matters to the main race, but I'm glad they gave Reese Hanneman a start. He's doing the second leg.
zzzz wrote:
Not that it matters to the main race, but I'm glad they gave Reese Hanneman a start. He's doing the second leg.
Nice. I've known Reese since he was in high school and he's worked really hard to get to the Olympics and should have been named to the 2014 team when they left three spots open and gave those to other countries.
Yup, Reese was royally screwed by the team picks in 2014. That's why I was rooting for him especially this year.
The men's relay was great drama, with Kruger and Klaebo really breaking the massive lead the OAR had put up.
Is the U.S. really as weak as their performance here suggests? Over nine minutes behind the top Euros??