2026 Olympics Team Event - Strategy, Predictions & Discussion

[Vagabond]

Russia certainly went all in in winning the TE gold 4 years ago

They did indeed, and look how that worked out for them.

 

[kwanfan1818]

And they'd still be gold medalists if they had split the women between Scherbakova and Trusova, and left the individual gold to Valieva, not knowing the test results then. There would have been enough time after the the test results came out for her to be "injured" before the individual event and the whole drug test results remaining private. Then people would have lamented how her chance for gold was taken away from her because she wasn't in the TE, until a formal suspension made it all public.

 

[tangerine dream]

And they'd still be gold medalists if they had split the women between Scherbakova and Trusova, and left the individual gold to Valieva, not knowing the test results then. There would have been enough time after the the test results came out for her to be "injured" before the individual event and the whole drug test results remaining private. Then people would have lamented how her chance for gold was taken away from her because she wasn't in the TE, until a formal suspension made it all public.

They didn't even need to take Valieva out to get the gold, just splitting it would have been enough, assuming Scherbakova/Trusova won their segment (and we all know they would have).

 

[kwanfan1818]

They didn't even need to take Valieva out to get the gold, just splitting it would have been enough, assuming Scherbakova/Trusova won their segment (and we all know they would have).

That's true in retrospect, because we've seen how they "resolved" it -- not that there was a chance they'd disqualify the whole team -- but it would have meant a post medal ceremony explosion, even bigger than the disaster that happened. Splitting between Scherbakova and Trusova would have been a legit win with no adjustments, and the ensuing skandal when a ban was announced later would have been avoided during the Olympics.