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Winter Olympics, where small countries can win big!


BigFatCoward

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I can't remember how this was done last time round, was it one big thread for all in discussion, or is there a sub forum created where individual sports can be discussed?

As someone from a no hoper country i live vicariously through my BIL, sister and nephews who live in Norway.  The events i'm most interested in are the Biathlon, XC skiing and Nordic combined, also curling just because it is so f'ing mental.

My no brainer prediction for the star of the games, possibly the man with the stupidest sounding name in sports, Johannes Hosflot Klaebo.  The new god of XC Skiing who has pretty much won everything he as entered this year and who should get at least 3 golds, even if he has a terrible games (classic sprint, team sprint and relay are almost gimme's). 

The other great events hopefully will be in mens biathlon where there are 2 men so far ahead of the rest of the pack that they might as well just compete amongst themselves, Martin Fourcade and Johannes Thinges Boe, i expect both to come home with at least 5 medals a piece having pretty much won everything this season. 

Womens biathlon is a lot more interesting with at least 7 or 8 women capable of winning on any day, except last year at the world championships when Dahlmeier won everything, hasn't looked that good for most of the year but is coming back to form.

Thankfully i have paternity leave for the full event so my baby girl will get good early exposure to the sort of sports she will never be able to play. 

 

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In the Winter Olympics, it's all about ice hockey and ski-jumping for me.

Also, I like alpine skiing and snowboarding, in descending order. ;) 

Cross-country skiing, speed skating etc. are just not my thing.

To point out, Serbian Winter Olympics team is four athletes strong, and if any of them wins a medal it would be the story of the Olympics. Wish them all the best, hope for their great results, but medal would be a surprise.

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Not sure how much I’ll watch this year. My wife does not really like sport... 

However, I’ll watch as much as I can. XC skiing tends to be fun from a Norwegian perspective, even if the ladies are looking more shaky than they have for years (however, that just means they won’t grab every available medal, so shaky is a loose term here..). Klæbo seems a certain bet, hoping he can live up to the expectations. And the biathlon is always exciting.

Other sports with Norwegian chances include (but are probably not limited to) Nordic combined, alpine skiing, speed skating... we tend to do all right in Winter Olympics (well, since 1992, that is). 

 

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16 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

As someone from a no hoper country i live vicariously through my BIL, sister and nephews who live in Norway.  The events i'm most interested in are the Biathlon, XC skiing and Nordic combined, also curling just because it is so f'ing mental.

Three members of the British curling teams went to my high school so I feel I should watch that to support them.

The craziness of the snowboard cross or ski cross events is always fun to watch.

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The second round of mixed doubles curling is being played right now.  Anyone else watching?

Curling is one of my favorite winter events.  Yet, for me the mixed doubles variation (5 stones and 8 frames) is slightly better as the regular team events (8 stones and 10 frames) tend to drag on sometimes. 

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6 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

There should be a sub forum, otherwise the threads will move too quick and be super random. That said,

:commie:Time :commie: to :commie:show :commie:you:commie:all:commie:that:commie:our:commie:athletes:commie:are:commie:better:commie:than:commie:yours:commie:at:commie:random:commie:sports:commie:we:commie:don't:commie:even:commie:care:commie:about!:commie:
'Murika TIme! 

There has only been 10 posts in 4 days, i think we might be able to keep up!

There is a decent chance that 3 athletes from Norway win more than your 300 million population. Stick to your playing sports nobody else cares about. 

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Dutch women speed skaters surpassed expectations, getting al three medals on 3000 m on the full oval. The person with the least amount of expectations weighing them down won that one. 

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11 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I do like the speed skating, probably because they crash so often.

It is fun to watch, although the wait after every race to see who is going to get penalised can be a bit tedious and sometimes the penalties seem a bit random - I remember Elise Christie being disqualified from all three events in Sochi and not really being able to tell why the disqualifications happened. She seems to be taking the safer approach this time and try to spend the entire race ahead of her competitors.

I also saw a bit of the snowboard slopestyle event where the commentators may as well be speaking a different language - at one point they had this conversation:

"Was that a bloody Dracula just there?"

"I think it was, not something we see very often."

ETA - also is anyone else already sick of the phrase 'Olympic Athlete From Russia'?

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