Things are liable to be a bit messed about all this weekend because there have been cancellations, changes of venue and changes of event across several of the sports. These seem to be the fixed points. More to come.
Biathlon at Pokljuka
Friday
13:30 Men's sprint
Saturday
10:00 Women's pursuit
12:30 Men's pursuit
Sunday
10:15 Women's mass start
12:30 Men's mass start
Snowboarding - Two different events
Friday
09:45 Mixed Parallel Slalom from Montafon
Saturday
17:00 Big Air event from Istanbul (presumably an artificial hill!)
Ski Jumping from Engelberg Austria
Saturday
13:15 Men's big hill
Sunday
13:15 Men's big hill
Alpine
Friday
11:00 Men's Super G from Val Gardena
Saturday
09:15 Women's downhill from Val d'Isere
11.00 Men's downhill from Val Gardena
Sunday
08:15:& 11:15 Men's GS from Alta Badia
09:15 Women's Super-G from Val d'Isere
Monday
16:30 & 19:30
Men's slalom from Madonna di Campiglio
Cross country from Davos
Saturday
11:30 Men's 15K Free
15:30 Women's 10K Free
Sunday
11:30 Classic Sprint
Nordic Combined - Eurosport going back to their bad old habit of showing the skijumping live but scheduling the race at odd times.
There is also a Freestyle Aerials World Cup in Beijing, and the Short Track World Cup from Seoul.
Some good results for GB athletes over the weekend. In the women's skeleton Laura Deas got her first silver medal in only her second race. Rose McGrandle was 6th. In the men's Dom Parsons was third after the first run, but didn't improve and finished in 7th. Lamin Deen also got a PB, 5th equal in the 4 man bob.
Elise Christie got her first medals of the season, 2 bronze medals in the 500m and 1000m short track in South Korea. In the Cross Country freestyle sprint in Davos Andrew Young got his first World Cup points of the season, 26th place. Not quite sure if that was a PB for him, he has qualified before.
Just a reminder that Dave Ryding will be going in the last event before Xmas, the floodlight slalom in Madonna di Campiglio tomorrow at 16:30 and 19:30.
Something that I've wondered about for a while. Do many of the commentators actually attend the events, or do they spend all their time sitting in little studios in Paris?
Something that I've wondered about for a while. Do many of the commentators actually attend the events, or do they spend all their time sitting in little studios in Paris?
Bit of both. Mostly they are in the studio, especially for the Nordic crew who have to cover several events per weekend but the policy seems to be that they get out at least a few times in the season to meet the athletes. Certainly for World Champs etc they are on site.
Not a full programme, but a few things on this weekend
Biathlon
Saturday 16:45 - The World Team Challenge. An annual special invitational race held at the Schalke football stadium in Gelsenkirchen, Germany
Ski Jumping
First Round of the Four Hills Tournament which run until the 6th January from Obertsdorf, Germany
Saturday 15:15 - Qualifying
Sunday 15:15 - Main event
Alpine Skiing
Sunday 08:45 & 12:00 Women's GS from Innsbruck
Sunday 10:15 Men's Downhill from Santa Caterina
Monday 08:45 & 11:45 Women's Slalom from Innsbruck
Not a full programme, but a few things on this weekend
Biathlon
Saturday 16:45 - The World Team Challenge. An annual special invitational race held at the Schalke football stadium in Gelsenkirchen, Germany
That's worth watching even if you aren's a fan of biathlon!
Hopefully some links to free (legal) streams can be found - I don't think this is covered on Eurosport??
That's worth watching even if you aren's a fan of biathlon!
Hopefully some links to free (legal) streams can be found - I don't think this is covered on Eurosport??
It is on - never used to be, but it has been for the last couple of years.
What does anyone reckon of the suggestion of adding cross country running to the Winter Olympics?
It's not going to happen - the IOC have made it clear that they are not going to increase the number of medals or of competitors, so unless some other sport drops out there won't be a place for it.
After many hours of predictably useless messing about, the Four Hills Ski Jumping from Obertsdorf has been rescheduled for Monday, 15:30 UK time. Let's hope the jury have the courage to make sensible decisions quickly in future.
Not a full programme this weekend, but quite a lot on. The main thing is the return of winter sports to the BBC - Ski Sunday at 16:45 and live Red Button coverage of the Zagreb Women's slalom.
Cross Country
It's the Tour de Ski - a series of races lasting until next Sunday, conducted in Tour de France format, with individual stages and a single overall winner.
Saturday 09:30 & 11:45 - Short prologue time trials
Sunday 10:00 & 11:00 - Pursuit races based on time gaps from the prologue
Tuesday 12:00 - Sprints
Wednesday 11:45 & 14:45 - Classic time trials
Thursday 11:45 & 14:45 - Long distance freestyle point-to-point races
Ski Jumping
The Four Hills Tournament continues and concludes
Sunday 12:45 - Innsbruck
Tuesday 15:00 Bishofshofen
Nordic Combined
From Schonach
Saturday 10:45 & 14:15 Team Relay
Sunday 08:45 & 11:45 Individual
Alpine
Sunday 08:45 & 12:00 Women's slalom from Zagreb
Luge
Four events from Konigsee, lots of times over the weekend
Biathlon starts again on Wednesday and Thursday, with women's and men's relays from Oberhof at 13:15
It is really irritating that all the interviews which are done in German, and simultaneously "translated" by David into English.
I feel sure that he does speak German, as the translations open up fairly accurate, but as he is speaking simultaneously, by the time the interview ends, from the snatches of German that you can pick up the translated answers bear little relation to what is actually being said.
As for the translations from Kamil Stoch from Polish, I haven'y got the foggiest what is being said, but I bet Polish viewers, if they watch the Eurosport UK feed, find the same issues.
Surely there can be some way in which we are allowed to hear the interviews in their original language, thus giving David a chance to appraise and paraphrase the responses.
As I have the opportunity to do so, I actually prefer to watch the jumping, and also the biathlon on the ARD or ZDF as the analysis and interviews are much more comprehensive. To achieve this a second LNB and satellite receiver are all that is needed, and for a wintersports fan, well worth the small investment (my box cost less than € 50.00 from a German retailer).
Two more good results for our Cross-Country skiers in the Tour de Ski yesterday - Andrew Young finished 15th, Andrew Musgrave 18th in the Sprints in Val de Moustair. Both beat lots of big names. Musgrave now 26th in the overall Tour de Ski, Young is 60th.
Lizzy Yarnold returns to the Skeleton World Cup on Friday - races will be live on the BBC Connected Stream as well as highlights on BBC Red Button on Sunday 18:00
And a bad crash for Simon Amman in the Four Hills yesterday - he was knocked unconscious and had to be taken to hospital. He has regained consciousness, is fully mobile but will stay in hospital for tests. Sadly, probably a career ender - I'm sure his wife and little boy will want it to be.
And a bad crash for Simon Amman in the Four Hills yesterday - he was knocked unconscious and had to be taken to hospital. He has regained consciousness, is fully mobile but will stay in hospital for tests. Sadly, probably a career ender - I'm sure his wife and little boy will want it to be.
Potentially a worse injury for Nick Fairall in the Bischofhofen quali on Monday; he had an emergency operation to relieve pressure on his back but thankfully seems to be coming through it OK.
As for Simon Amman, his landings have been iffy all season, and perhaps this accident underlines just why the rules and style marks reward a safe telemark landing - often people ask why jumps aren't just rewarded by distance and I think this makes the case strongly.
That said, Simmi wasn't the only jumper yesterday to experience stability problems landing in the 130m+ zone, and I thought there may actually have been some imperfection in the landing zone around that area, but nobody seems to have mentioned that in commentary / analysis.
Another good day for Andrew Musgrave, 20th in the 10K Classic, his weaker technique so up to 21st overall now, which is bound to improve as others drop out before the killer events tomorrow and on Saturday.
Sunday - If you only watch one Cross-country event all year make it these two, an insanely extreme race where the runner have to finish an uphill slalom course.
11:00 Men's race
12:15 Women's Race
Women in Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria, Men in Adelboden, Germany
Saturday
09:15 Men's GS 1
10:15 Women'd DH
12:30 Men's GS 2 - Both the men's runs are also on BBC Red Button
Sunday
08:45 Men's Slalom 1
10:00 Women's Super G
11:45 Men's Slalom 2
Ski Jumping from Tauplitz, Austria
13:30 on both Saturday and Sunday
And even after that lot there are a lot more things dotted around the Eurosport Schedules
Nordic Combined from Chaux-Neuve, France
Two Ski Cross World Cup races from Val Thorens, France
Freestyle Ski Moguls and Aerials from Deer Valley, USA
Two Snowboard slalom events from Bad Gastein
Women's Ski Jumping from Sapporo
European Speed Skating Champs from Chelyabinsk http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/isu/index.html
Absolutely unbelievable result for Andrew Musgrave today in the 25k Race in the Tour de Ski. Although it was a staggered start pursuit race, and he crossed the line 11th, he was the single fastest runner on the day, and so is credited as the race winner!!! 50 World Cup Points!
There are a whole lot of winter sports World Championships this season - first up is the Ski and Snowboard Worlds, starting on 15 January. It's not quite as prestigious as the others, lots of people prefer to do the X-Games instead. Still, Britain are sending a strong team, full of familiar names from Sochi.
Maria Orlova pips Yarnold for the win in Altenberg by four hundredths to claim her first victory in the Skeleton World Cup; Elena Nikitina had a medicore first run, but her second run was the day's fastest and enough to get her on the podium. First and third for Russia, and surprisingly, not a single German on the podium!
McGrandle and Deas finished in 8th and 10th place respectively.
Today was also the first time that Nikitina, Marina Gilardoni (SUI) and Deas competed in the same World Cup event - so the fact that Deas finished this meet as the fastest pusher (all three beat the preceding Start Record) is an achievement in itself. Whether she can produce consistently good runs to the end is another thing altogether.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkr7c8lwpup_LfDV7hOQWsg
Friday
19:00 Women's skeleton 1
20:00 Men's skeleton 1
21:15 Women's skeleton 2
22:15 Men's skeleton 2
Saturday AM
00:30 2-Man bob 1
02:00 2-Man bob 2
Saturday PM
18:00 Women's bob 1
19:30 Women's bob 2
21:00 4-Man 1
22:30 4-Man 2
And a reminder two other events are on Thursday this week
12:15 Snowboarding Parallel GS from Montafon, Austria
13:15 Biathlon women's sprint from Pokljuka
Biathlon at Pokljuka
Friday
13:30 Men's sprint
Saturday
10:00 Women's pursuit
12:30 Men's pursuit
Sunday
10:15 Women's mass start
12:30 Men's mass start
Snowboarding - Two different events
Friday
09:45 Mixed Parallel Slalom from Montafon
Saturday
17:00 Big Air event from Istanbul (presumably an artificial hill!)
Ski Jumping from Engelberg Austria
Saturday
13:15 Men's big hill
Sunday
13:15 Men's big hill
Friday
11:00 Men's Super G from Val Gardena
Saturday
09:15 Women's downhill from Val d'Isere
11.00 Men's downhill from Val Gardena
Sunday
08:15:& 11:15 Men's GS from Alta Badia
09:15 Women's Super-G from Val d'Isere
Monday
16:30 & 19:30
Men's slalom from Madonna di Campiglio
Cross country from Davos
Saturday
11:30 Men's 15K Free
15:30 Women's 10K Free
Sunday
11:30 Classic Sprint
Nordic Combined - Eurosport going back to their bad old habit of showing the skijumping live but scheduling the race at odd times.
There is also a Freestyle Aerials World Cup in Beijing, and the Short Track World Cup from Seoul.
http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/isu/index.html
Elise Christie got her first medals of the season, 2 bronze medals in the 500m and 1000m short track in South Korea. In the Cross Country freestyle sprint in Davos Andrew Young got his first World Cup points of the season, 26th place. Not quite sure if that was a PB for him, he has qualified before.
Just a reminder that Dave Ryding will be going in the last event before Xmas, the floodlight slalom in Madonna di Campiglio tomorrow at 16:30 and 19:30.
Bit of both. Mostly they are in the studio, especially for the Nordic crew who have to cover several events per weekend but the policy seems to be that they get out at least a few times in the season to meet the athletes. Certainly for World Champs etc they are on site.
Biathlon
Saturday 16:45 - The World Team Challenge. An annual special invitational race held at the Schalke football stadium in Gelsenkirchen, Germany
Ski Jumping
First Round of the Four Hills Tournament which run until the 6th January from Obertsdorf, Germany
Saturday 15:15 - Qualifying
Sunday 15:15 - Main event
Alpine Skiing
Sunday 08:45 & 12:00 Women's GS from Innsbruck
Sunday 10:15 Men's Downhill from Santa Caterina
Monday 08:45 & 11:45 Women's Slalom from Innsbruck
That's worth watching even if you aren's a fan of biathlon!
Hopefully some links to free (legal) streams can be found - I don't think this is covered on Eurosport??
It is on - never used to be, but it has been for the last couple of years.
It's not going to happen - the IOC have made it clear that they are not going to increase the number of medals or of competitors, so unless some other sport drops out there won't be a place for it.
Cross Country
It's the Tour de Ski - a series of races lasting until next Sunday, conducted in Tour de France format, with individual stages and a single overall winner.
Saturday 09:30 & 11:45 - Short prologue time trials
Sunday 10:00 & 11:00 - Pursuit races based on time gaps from the prologue
Tuesday 12:00 - Sprints
Wednesday 11:45 & 14:45 - Classic time trials
Thursday 11:45 & 14:45 - Long distance freestyle point-to-point races
Ski Jumping
The Four Hills Tournament continues and concludes
Sunday 12:45 - Innsbruck
Tuesday 15:00 Bishofshofen
Nordic Combined
From Schonach
Saturday 10:45 & 14:15 Team Relay
Sunday 08:45 & 11:45 Individual
Alpine
Sunday 08:45 & 12:00 Women's slalom from Zagreb
Luge
Four events from Konigsee, lots of times over the weekend
Biathlon starts again on Wednesday and Thursday, with women's and men's relays from Oberhof at 13:15
I feel sure that he does speak German, as the translations open up fairly accurate, but as he is speaking simultaneously, by the time the interview ends, from the snatches of German that you can pick up the translated answers bear little relation to what is actually being said.
As for the translations from Kamil Stoch from Polish, I haven'y got the foggiest what is being said, but I bet Polish viewers, if they watch the Eurosport UK feed, find the same issues.
Surely there can be some way in which we are allowed to hear the interviews in their original language, thus giving David a chance to appraise and paraphrase the responses.
As I have the opportunity to do so, I actually prefer to watch the jumping, and also the biathlon on the ARD or ZDF as the analysis and interviews are much more comprehensive. To achieve this a second LNB and satellite receiver are all that is needed, and for a wintersports fan, well worth the small investment (my box cost less than € 50.00 from a German retailer).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-30690358
Sadly, it looks like they ignored good advice.
Lizzy Yarnold returns to the Skeleton World Cup on Friday - races will be live on the BBC Connected Stream as well as highlights on BBC Red Button on Sunday 18:00
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/winter-sports/30698404
And a bad crash for Simon Amman in the Four Hills yesterday - he was knocked unconscious and had to be taken to hospital. He has regained consciousness, is fully mobile but will stay in hospital for tests. Sadly, probably a career ender - I'm sure his wife and little boy will want it to be.
http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/WinterSports/2015/01/06/22166771.html
Potentially a worse injury for Nick Fairall in the Bischofhofen quali on Monday; he had an emergency operation to relieve pressure on his back but thankfully seems to be coming through it OK.
As for Simon Amman, his landings have been iffy all season, and perhaps this accident underlines just why the rules and style marks reward a safe telemark landing - often people ask why jumps aren't just rewarded by distance and I think this makes the case strongly.
That said, Simmi wasn't the only jumper yesterday to experience stability problems landing in the 130m+ zone, and I thought there may actually have been some imperfection in the landing zone around that area, but nobody seems to have mentioned that in commentary / analysis.
Bob and skeleton from Altenberg, Germany
Everything live on YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/user/bobskeletv/videos?sort=dd&view=2&shelf_id=0&live_view=502
Skeleton live on BBC Red Button.
Friday
08:00 Women skeleton 1
09:30 Women skeleton 2
11:30 Women's bob 1
13:00 Women's bob 2
Saturday
08:00 Men's skeleton 1
09:30 Men's skeleton 2
11:30 2-Man bob 1
13:00 2-Man bob 2
Sunday
09:00 4-man bob 1
10:30 4- man bob 2
Live events on Eurosport
Biathlon from Obertsdorf
Friday
13:00 Women's Sprint
Saturday
10:45 Men's Sprint
Sunday
10:00 Women's Mass start
13:15 Men's mass start - Live stream on web, shown delayed on Eurosport 15:00
http://www.eurovisionsports.tv/ibu/index.html
Cross Country Tour de Ski
Saturday
12:00 Men's 15k classic
17:00 Women's 10k classic
Sunday - If you only watch one Cross-country event all year make it these two, an insanely extreme race where the runner have to finish an uphill slalom course.
11:00 Men's race
12:15 Women's Race
More to come...
Women in Bad Kleinkirchheim, Austria, Men in Adelboden, Germany
Saturday
09:15 Men's GS 1
10:15 Women'd DH
12:30 Men's GS 2 - Both the men's runs are also on BBC Red Button
Sunday
08:45 Men's Slalom 1
10:00 Women's Super G
11:45 Men's Slalom 2
Ski Jumping from Tauplitz, Austria
13:30 on both Saturday and Sunday
And even after that lot there are a lot more things dotted around the Eurosport Schedules
Nordic Combined from Chaux-Neuve, France
Two Ski Cross World Cup races from Val Thorens, France
Freestyle Ski Moguls and Aerials from Deer Valley, USA
Two Snowboard slalom events from Bad Gastein
Women's Ski Jumping from Sapporo
European Speed Skating Champs from Chelyabinsk
http://livemanager.eurovision.edgesuite.net/isu/index.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/winter-sports/30726077
Snowboard Slopestyle : Aimee Fuller, Jamie Nicholls, Billy Morgan, Sam Turnbull
Snowboard Big Air: Aimee Fuller, Jamie Nicholls, Billy Morgan, Sam Turnbull
Ski Slopestyle: Katie Summerhayes, Anna Vincenti, Isabel Atkin
Ski Halfpipe: Murray Buchan, James Machon, Rowan Cheshire, Molly Summerhayes
Moguls: Ellie Koyander, Andrew Longley
Aerials: Elodie Wallace, Lloyd Wallace
Ski Cross: Ed Drake, Liz Stevenson, Emily Sarsfield, Pam Thorburn
Snowboard Cross: Zoe Gillings-Brier, Stephanie Gehrig, Thomas Bankes
McGrandle and Deas finished in 8th and 10th place respectively.
Today was also the first time that Nikitina, Marina Gilardoni (SUI) and Deas competed in the same World Cup event - so the fact that Deas finished this meet as the fastest pusher (all three beat the preceding Start Record) is an achievement in itself. Whether she can produce consistently good runs to the end is another thing altogether.