Shows what I know: "Surprises don't often happen" at Davos.
Pffft.
Try, "surprises will account for 5/6ths of the podiums in the distance races." Everyone on the men's podium was a surprise, with the possible, slight exception of Hellner, who can be sort of expected to do well in a skate race. I love to see Heikkinen do well and start to help round out a Finnish men's team that might form a medal-ready relay squad at Vancouver. But on the topic of a good relay team - five Frenchmen in the top 8, with Magnificat in third? Qui est cet homme?
More satisfyingly, I did pick Kalla to make the women's podium, but I sure as hell did not see Khazova (née Artemova) ahead of her by a colossal margin (the winner's gap of 27 seconds was equivalent to 170 meters) or Smigun barely behind her.
For the other places, I did pick Renner, Freeman, Kershaw, and Babikov correctly, though I underestimated Kershaw's speed and overestimated both Randall's and Harvey's. Next time!
If I had a ten-sided D&D die, I would label each side with one of the top ten sprinters, and then roll it to guess the podims for the freestyle sprints. But I don't, so I'll just see who's done well in freestyle sprints this season. The Davos sprints are microcosms of the distance races: out and back, and up and down.
women's freestyle sprint
1. Korosteleva
2. Falk
3. Bjorgen
Randall: finals; Crawford: top 10
men's freestyle sprint
1. Gløersen
2. Petukhov
3. Morilov
Newell: finals; Koos: top 15. (No Canadians are racing.)
3 comments:
Ahh, why thank you for the heads up.
Women
1. Falk
2. Majdic
3. Brun-Lie
North Ams: Kikkan top 20, Chuck B final, except it doesn't exist anymore. Jones qualifies.
Men
1. Hattestad
2. Petukhov
3. Bryntesson
Newell: 7th - I bet he loves the new no B-Final business - so many more WC points. Koos top 50. Not sure about the Cans not racing, my brief tour of Fasterskier, Skifaster and Twitter reveal no such bombshell. So I'll pick 'em all to make the heats.
In my time zone heats mean 9.00am to 10.30 am. That's a sleep in and then pulling up one of the 5 live feeds of Davos that exist on the web. Brilliant.
My "extracurricular" activities prevent me from making accurate picks this time.
Thanks a lot, FIS start sheets, for not listing the Canadians, who did quite well thankyouverymucheh. If I can't trust the FIS, whom can I trust? I might start listing Bjorn Daehlie at my top pick each week.
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