Olympic team selections

The technical chat in the "request for someone with Scandinavian
Broadband connection--TODAY" thread evolved quickly into a discussion
of the Norwegian and Finnish Olympic team selections, which is
especially good reading for Americans given the Justin Freeman
controversy in the States. (And I do hope someone can make available
some footage of the Norwegian national championships!)

I'm sure many of you have already seen this, but today Fasterskier.com
has an article (http://www.fasterskier.com/racing2989.html) on the
exclusion of Petter Northug, the world junior champion, from the
Norwegian team. As Anders says in the broadband thread, "Petter does
look like he has all the makings - including the ego." See the article
for proof.

With this backdrop, it'll be fun to see how the men's Olympic relay
turns out. The underdog-supporting part of me resists rooting for the
Germans and the Norwegians, but then again I don't really care for the
Italians and the Finns don't have a chance. Russia, maybe? Austria?
America?

Also interesting to note that according to that site, the US are taking more
women to the Oly's than the Norwegians are. Not sure if this is correct
since I would think they would want more than 5 but who knows.

Dave

"tassava" wrote in message
oups.com...
The technical chat in the "request for someone with Scandinavian
Broadband connection--TODAY" thread evolved quickly into a discussion
of the Norwegian and Finnish Olympic team selections, which is
especially good reading for Americans given the Justin Freeman
controversy in the States. (And I do hope someone can make available
some footage of the Norwegian national championships!)

I'm sure many of you have already seen this, but today Fasterskier.com
has an article (http://www.fasterskier.com/racing2989.html) on the
exclusion of Petter Northug, the world junior champion, from the
Norwegian team. As Anders says in the broadband thread, "Petter does
look like he has all the makings - including the ego." See the article
for proof.

With this backdrop, it'll be fun to see how the men's Olympic relay
turns out. The underdog-supporting part of me resists rooting for the
Germans and the Norwegians, but then again I don't really care for the
Italians and the Finns don't have a chance. Russia, maybe? Austria?
America?

DMK wrote:

Also interesting to note that according to that site, the US are taking more
women to the Oly's than the Norwegians are. Not sure if this is correct
since I would think they would want more than 5 but who knows.

We had a total team limit of 17, originally split 11 men/6 women, but
only 5 women were classified as potential medal candidates, vs 12+ men.

Terje

--
-
"almost all programming can be viewed as an exercise in caching"

Terje Mathisen wrote:

We had a total team limit of 17, originally split 11 men/6 women, but
only 5 women were classified as potential medal candidates, vs 12+ men.

For Finnish skiers the bar obviously wasn't set as high: a "realistic
chance" of finishing in Top 16 was sufficient -.and that chance was
deemed realistic if the skier had (a) several placings in Top 20 in
World Cup races during the current season, and (b) good performance in
the World Cup and Championships in the previous season, and in the case
of a skier who doesn't quite fulfill (a), (b) can be used to tip the
scales in favour of the skier. For teams it was Top 8 and Top 10,
respectively.

The coach and the federation boss boldly put forward a team with no
less than 16 skiers, but the Olympic Committee dropped four from the
list:Olli Ohtonen (who did get to stay home as a "reserve for the relay
team"), Juha Lallukka, Jari Isomets=E4 (who despite his poor showing in
individual races was planned for the 2nd leg - for which I have to
agree we have no better man) and Kaisa Varis (who had one 9th and the
anchorship of the winning relay team from this season as her merits).

Considering the two last names, I'm sure we can hear a big
international collective sigh of relief or a joyous or gleeful shout of
"Serves the *******s right!":-)

FWIW here the OC was immediately accused both by thoise who opposed and
those who supported the decision (a) of pushing aside the rules of law
and forgetting fairness and equality in their anti-doping zeal or being
too concerned about what the foreigners might say and/or (b) of
purporting to justify their decision with their objective
interpretation of the above criteria and not having the balls to openly
declare that the two were dropped because of their doping sins and
Varis especially so.=20


Anders