Relay Preview
I truly cannot believe that we are in the final countdown to the Olympics. So much has happened both on a global scale but also personally since Pyeongchang. A part of me feels like the 2018 Winter Olympics were just last year and another part of me feels like it was a decade ago. Not to get too philosophical but I think that part of that is just how life is. While we’re focused on the details of every day life like your first child being born, learning how to swaddle, watching them learn to roll and crawl and stand and start to walk an entire year passes in the blink of an eye. A couple of those together and suddenly its time for the Olympics again. As the years go by I actually find myself more and more excited for the Olympic Games. This year is even more special because for the first time I get to watch with my son. He’s far too young to be able to absorb anything but it is going to be an amazing experience for me regardless.
I wanted to take the next few days (and they are rapidly running out!) to do some previews of the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympics. I’m going to do it in three extra long articles focusing on: Relays, the Women’s competition, and finishing up with the Men. The format will quickly become apparent but for each discipline I’m going to name a handful of favorites with a brief discussion of a few from each discipline. I’m going to try not to double dip so for example if I talk about Røiseland under the Pursuit category I will try not to go deep on her chances for any other discipline. This is already going to be a long article so without further ado…
Continue reading Olympic Preview: Relays
Women’s Preview:
We’re one step into this mega Olympic preview so you should know the general outline by now. We’ll look at each discipline, break down the favorites, the next tier, and then the under the radar selections. For this bunch I’m going to try to only focus on 3-4 per discipline and not discuss the same athlete twice. This should tighten things up a bit. You’ll notice a lot of names showing up again and again. Well that’s the truth isn’t it? It would be completely disingenuous to try to pretend that Røiseland is not going to be in contention for every single medal.
These athletes are also ordered in a very rough outline. Please don’t take these as my “predictions” as those will come the day of the race! (If these end up being more accurate than my day of predictions please feel free to use these as my predictions!). Really what I’m trying to do here is identify the top 2 tiers of contenders for each race and then look at somebody maybe a bit off the map. The off the radar is just that. They aren’t my true #11 but somebody that isn’t being discussed much at all. Also we’re going through in order of the events as they will be competed throughout the games. Okay let’s dive in!
Continue reading Olympic Preview: Women
Men’s Preview:
Before we get started I realized as I was going through the men vs. the women that I have a much better feel for the women’s biathlon this season than the men’s. I think that’s because outside of a select few there has seemingly been much greater variability in the top 10’s from week to week. Even more than just variability there have been significant changes in form for certain athletes throughout the season, much more so than on the women’s side. Finally since the season restarted we’ve seen so male athletes missing weeks either for training or for COVID. We haven’t seen all of the top athletes together since before the holiday break. All of that means I have a LOT less confidence in my previews for the men than the women. Doesn’t mean I didn’t try hard but it just felt very hard to select a solid 10 + 1 off the radar for each discipline. With that enormous caveat lets get to it!
Continue reading Olympic Preview: Men
Penalty Loop 