Also starting this weekend, the Women's Ice Hockey World Championships. Team GB are in Division IIA - effectively Division 4, world ranking 21. They will be playing in a tournament in Bled, Slovenia up against Slovenia, both Koreas, Poland and Croatia. We were second in the last two competitions in this level, and still have faint hopes of Olympic qualifying.

The Men's World Champs is mid-April.

Still close enough after the short so all to play for in the free. Should be a great competition whatever happens

Hi yellowlabbie.

Agree Papadakis & Cizeron are beautiful to watch. They're so young still & they are surely destined to be one of the greatest Ice dance partnerships of all time. Great performance by Penny & Nick, their best ever performance at Worlds to finish 7th & 3rd best of the European couples beating the Russians.

Watched the final few pairs. Chinese were fantastic & deserve their lead after the short but still a few couples in it going into the Free. Have to say while the Canadians are technically very good I'm not a big fan of them overall.

Javier Fernandez won the Mens last night with a fantastic performance. Yuzuru Hanyu had what can only be described as a amare but did enough still to win Silver but he'll be disappointed having gone onto the Free with a big lead.

Pairs Free starting now with the Ladies Free later tonight

Hi Tiger Rose

I am so happy for Aliona, what a great bronze for her and Bruno. I too am not a fan of the Canadians but they absolutely slaughtered everyone else and deserved the win. I quite like the Chinese couple, they are ones for a future gold. I felt sad for Volososhar and Trankov but I feel they will come good again.

Well done to Javier, if Hanyu couldn't win then I am more than happy for him to win.

Great result in their 1st season for Aliona & Bruno. Canadians deserved the win but meh. Poor Maxim was apologising in the Kiss & Cry - I do hope they can get back to their best

Just the ladies to go now, I am hoping for a Russian win, I am not keen on the 2 American girls but Gracie has a good lead and I think she will hold on.

I haven't really watched figure skating for years (having been a huge fan in the late eighties to early 2000s) but bloody hell, that performance by the Spanish guy was amazing. He totally rocked in every aspect. Technically, elegantly, classically, choreographically - jumps, tricks, audience pleasing - you name it, he got it.

I adored every moment. It was the best ice skating routine I've ever seen.

Javier is brilliant, you don't know what you have been missing. You should watch the ice-dancing, now that was truly amazing.

Happy the Russian girls came through to take the gold and silver.

It's worth keeping up with the sport again, I think it's going through a bit of a golden era - people trying absolutely insane technical content, and unlike a couple of seasons ago they are landing everything and combining it with really artistic programs. If you liked Javi here, I'd recommend also catching up on the men's grand prix final event from this season; I was lucky enough to be there and it's the best event in terms of great performances across the board I've ever seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgb7Z0cMBW0

Ladies event yesterday was great as well. I don't adore Evgenia, but she really delivered and deserved to lead, nice to see Ashley be the one to break the no medal streak for the US, and I'm thrilled that Anna won her medal - she has the most potential and basic quality of all the senior Russians, but she's let herself down with inconsistency in the past. Hopefully this will kick start her to fight Evgenia for the no. 1 spot in Russia!

Sorry the Russian girls won gold and bronze, Ashley Wagner getting the silver.

Enjoyed the ladies Free Skating. Other than Gracie Gold, all of the top ladies performed really well. Well done to Medvedeva. The Russians have such crazy depth amongst the women that it's difficult to predict who will be competing each year at the major Champs

I really enjoyed it too but I feel that Ashley was overmarked.

Ole Einar Bjørndalen announced today that he will continue his career till Pyeongchang 2018! He and Darya Domracheva are expecting a baby in October.

https://www.facebook.com/biathlonworld1/?fref=nf

Forgot to mention at the weekend that GB Ice Hockey are involved in the World Championships again this year. You may remember that Team GB are currently in what is effectively World Division Three - ie about the mid 20s - and are trying to raise ourselves into a steady place in Division Two and from there to the top 16 Elite League which contests the main World Championship tournament and the Beijing Olympics.

So this week the Team are in a round-robin in Zagreb, and are off to a good start - 4-1 win over Croatia on Sunday, 4-3 win over Estonia yesterday. Next up is Lithuania on Wednesday, then Romania on Saturday and Ukraine on Sunday. Group winner only is promoted, so effectively we must win all our games.

All games on Premier Sports.

Very comfortable 8-0 win for Team GB over Lithuania yesterday - next up is winless bottom of the table Romania, followed by the decisive showdown against Ukraine on Sunday.

With the Ukraine slipping up against Lithuania yesterday, GB just need a point for gold and promotion... I've got a meeting in Newcastle today, so heading out now, so will miss the game. My teams tend to win when I've got to miss because of work, so here's hoping GB can do the same.

Showdown against Ukraine is at 12:00 today. A win would be our best World Champs finish since 1993.

AARGHH! Another bad beat for team GB - UKR 2 GBR 1. We dominated the first 40 minutes, were 1-0 going into the third period, but gave up two goals and that is the end of it for another year.

Kept up to date via the live score app, couldn't contain the joy when we went 1-0 up, thankfully those in the meeting were aware I was checking the scores and others were interested in the result as well. Gutted to see the final score, it's hurting knowing we were so close. Maybe next year, which might be a better move, as the following year, teams would have come off the Olympics and so might be weaker, and give us a chance of survival.

Some Winter sports action this weekend, as the Summer Ski Jumping Grand Prix gets underway at Courecheval, France. There's a women's and men's competition. Live on Eurosport International, but not British Eurosport on Saturday evening - highlights on British Eurosport at various times early next week.

http://www.fis-ski.com/news-multimed...ourchevel.html

Here's the schedule for the summer, right through to early October.

http://data.fis-ski.com/global-links...earch&limit=50

There's a summer biathlon world champs in late August in Otepaa, Estonia, usually there is at least streaming coverage, although Eurosport used to cover it.

And there are usually some actual snow events from New Zealand.

In case anyone is wondering, the Russian doping scandal extends way beyond athletics to many winter sports as well. The World Anti-Doping Agency report gives the following figures for concealed positive tests, although it doesn't name names

24 Skaters
14 Ice Hockey players
13 Skiers (doesn't specify Alpine or Nordic, but there aren't many Russians in top Alpine)
10 Biathlon
8 Bobsleigh
2 Curling
1 Snowboard

And some better news! Ole-Einar and Darya make it official.

http://www4.biathlonworld.com/en/pre...il?presse=2881

Sadly Swedish freeskier Matilda Rapaport has died after an avalanche in the Andes (she had just recently married alpine slalom skier Mattias Hargin).

I'm trying to grasp the curlers. Male/female? Certainly the females have been much more successful than the men, but either way sadly it won't improve on GB's silver (M) or bronze (W) at the last Olympics.