Someone please break down cross country skiing, biathlon and nordic combined for running fans?

Correction: Hamilton & Bjornson didn't race -- Patterson was third leg. The fasterskier article gives some further information about how the race developed -- Hoffman trying not to get lapped by Klaebo.

http://fasterskier.com/fsarticle/canadians-men-9th-second-best-olympic-relay-result-u-s-14th-pyeongchang/

cpr wrote:

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.

Are you talking doubles luge and skeleton?

They need more XC events. How about a 100 km race? They're adding more freestyle ski or snowboard Xgames stuff. Big air competition? Pointless.

It's also dumb that the women's long distance is 30 km and the men's 50 km. The women's sprint relay is 4 x 5 km and the men's 4 x 10 km. I thought we were getting away from that kind of thinking. It's pretty sexist to have shorter distances for the women.

Yes, skeleton certainly comes to my mind.

They are harvesting second-class sprinters from.track clubs here in Germany, it helps that we have several facilities north of the Alps.

(competitive sprinters certainly would not tolerate such disruptions.)

Some bigwigs decides to scale out and pump a few more disciplines through the system. The sport itself certainly did not need skeleton.

But as federal money is aligned to the (potential) medal table scores...

YMMV wrote:

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??

As indicated some of the better skiers didn't race--especially Hamilton and Bjornsen. Newell (1st leg) and Patterson (3rd) skied about where you'd expect. Maybe Patterson (with a top 20 in the skiathlon) might have been up 30 seconds but he's a distance guy not a speed guy). Hanneman was way off what he's capable of. But he focused on the sprint racing exclusively this year at the expense of distance racing. So it's like a mid-d guy focusing on the 800, jumping into a 4X 8-10K running relay. And I think Hoffman just tempoed the effort enough to stay ahead of the group. Maybe he had to sprint out the first part to so hard the he blew up. He's probably pretty close to Patterson's fitness now and was a full 2 minutes slower.

Not a good day for Team USA.

I'm partial to Bjornsen, having met him and Sadie a few times, but objectively it would seem that in general you want your most seasoned guys on the relay. I know Sadie is definitely a workhorse on relays, and I assume Erik would be too.

The were 10th at World Championships last year and you'd expect them to be in that range this time, maybe 9th to 12th. Perhaps saving Bjornsen and Hamilton for the team sprint.That'd be some redemption if they can get into the final for that. And hopefully Sadie and Diggins can vie for a medal, but that's going to be tough. Things haven't clicked yet for the US team, although the women had a good sprint and 10K day.

The men’s team sprint really is the US Men’s only hope for a medal, and being fairly close in the schedule, the 4x10 makes sense to “sacrifice” and hold Erik and Simi out of it. Make no mistake, those guys are absolute work horses and would bury themselves for a few days if called up for the 4x10.

figureouter of things wrote:

The were 10th at World Championships last year and you'd expect them to be in that range this time, maybe 9th to 12th. Perhaps saving Bjornsen and Hamilton for the team sprint.That'd be some redemption if they can get into the final for that. And hopefully Sadie and Diggins can vie for a medal, but that's going to be tough. Things haven't clicked yet for the US team, although the women had a good sprint and 10K day.

Looks like it'll be Diggins and Randall in the team sprint -- no doubt for the reasons zzzz articulated above. I'm a little surprised, just because if you look at the FIS leaderboard going into the Olympics, Bjornsen is ranked 7 overall/11 distance/7 sprint as compared to Randall (28/25/21). But Randall is peaking well and had a strong showing in her last two races at the Olympics; this decision will also allow Bjornsen to be fresher for the 30k. And it would be great to see Randall on an Olympic podium...

Skating may be more fun cause it’s faster but unless you have access to groomed trails Classic is the way to go. Enjoy being able to slap some glidewax on my waxless touring skis and hit up the backcountry without worrying too much if conditions are just right for my wax. Of course if I were competing it would be different

I think Randall would be the smart decision over Bjornsen for a few reasons, although that's not a jab at Sadie. Sadie is just about as safe a choice as could be and I am sure a Sadie-Jessie team would be there in the fight for a medal. Except, Sadie's best results (and reason for better ranking) were mostly early season and classic technique races. If just judging by recent trend and skate sprinting, it's a tough call, and it probably points to Kikkan. And there's the Kikkan-Jessie connection and successful history of the duo (prior world champs in this event) and it's a pretty exciting match. The kind of potential that I am sure the US Head Coaches see as a magical hail-mary for a miracle that they usually attracted to anyways.

Interesting insight and this might make some sense. Going to be tough to break into the medals with Sweden-Norway going at it again, maybe nod to Sweden this time with Kalla and Nilsson (but Weng and Bjorgen would be pretty formidable), and Finland with Pärmäkoski (and Niskanen?) will be tough to beat. Russia's skaters aren't as strong but they'll probably be in the mix, or pull something out of their hat and have an unknown 21 year old make the erstwhile world's best look silly. So 4th or 5th for USA, with slim chance at bronze. USA men, make the final and that would be a miracle.

All Scando wrote:

Interesting insight and this might make some sense. Going to be tough to break into the medals with Sweden-Norway going at it again, maybe nod to Sweden this time with Kalla and Nilsson (but Weng and Bjorgen would be pretty formidable), and Finland with Pärmäkoski (and Niskanen?) will be tough to beat. Russia's skaters aren't as strong but they'll probably be in the mix, or pull something out of their hat and have an unknown 21 year old make the erstwhile world's best look silly. So 4th or 5th for USA, with slim chance at bronze. USA men, make the final and that would be a miracle.

Team Norway is starting Bjoergen and Falla (2nd in sprint). Finland is starting Pärmäkoski and Laukkanen. Olympic Athletes from Russia will be strong with Belorukova and Nepryaeva (#3 and #4 in the sprint).

All Scando wrote:

Interesting insight and this might make some sense. Going to be tough to break into the medals with Sweden-Norway going at it again, maybe nod to Sweden this time with Kalla and Nilsson (but Weng and Bjorgen would be pretty formidable), and Finland with Pärmäkoski (and Niskanen?) will be tough to beat. Russia's skaters aren't as strong but they'll probably be in the mix, or pull something out of their hat and have an unknown 21 year old make the erstwhile world's best look silly. So 4th or 5th for USA, with slim chance at bronze. USA men, make the final and that would be a miracle.

Gonna be Bjorgen & Falla for Norway & of course Kalla/Nilsson for Sweden.

According to the Olympic website, Finland is pairing Parmakoski with Mari Laukkanen, a biathlete. I don't have a good take on that. Any insights?

Russia has Neprayeva teaming up again with Belorukova, who are both skiing very well.

The US is in the second semi-final with Sweden, Finland & Russia, so we may see how Diggins & Randall stack up pretty quickly.

Some usual suspects wrote:

According to the Olympic website, Finland is pairing Parmakoski with Mari Laukkanen, a biathlete. I don't have a good take on that. Any insights?

She be speedy:

Here is the start list. Anyone have a readable FIS points list? The spreadsheets are alphabetic and includes 10000 racers.

https://www.olympic.org/pyeongchang-2018/results/en/cross-country-skiing/results-ladies-team-sprint-free-sfnl-000200-.htm

Kikkan and Jessie coasted to victory in semi #2. On to the final!

Erik Bjornsen and Simi Hamilton move on to the team sprint final for the US men. Erik looked good taking the lead going up the hill on the second to last leg.

Gold F-ing medal for Kikkan and Jessie!

GOLD!!!