All those grandiose & expensive Winter Games that made it impossible for smaller countries to bid I'd say.

But yeah, this was fun. Too bad we got a safety car at the end when the rain restarted, because the immense chaos right after both McLaren's went off for a bit was just hilarious  

So did Hadjar and Doohan...kind of  

Lots of chaos in Australia today to start the season. As usual, i lost the count of safety cars, that were in the race. The unpredictability and position changes were more frequent, though that was always going to happen in a wet race, but i'll take it as a promising start for 2025.    Antonelli made a memorable debut after all the hype around him. This kid could actually be the real deal.

Just out of curiousity and besides personal preferences for this or that sport or event: what exactly, concretely, did Bach do that 'almost destroyed the Olympics'?

I know the Anglo-World never liked Juan Antonio Samaranch and they're going to be the same with his son, but they should only be grateful to him, because if it wasn't for Don Juan and South Korea, we wouldn't get any Olympic Games nowadays   he did really save the Olympics from the delusions of omnipotence of the politicians ruling the World at that time and from the crazy race to extreme doping of the late Eighties...and if he did something that might be considered "controversial", those who followed him on the sport's more important armchair have been way worse (especially the 1976 Olympic Champion himself, who almost destroyed the Olympics)

I think this is the first time this winter that I agree with you

a bunch of unfair morons that don't even know the rules     from the ISU Technical Rulebook:   Rule 254.8   The following situations will not lead to a disqualification in accordance with paragraph 3 above:   a) If a Competitor does not keep within the inner lane in the curve or when exiting the curve towards the finishing straight and therefore crosses the line to the outer lane, the Competitor will not be disqualified if returning immediately to the inner lane. When exiting the curve, the return to the inner lane must in any case have taken place before the first of the lines defining the 1000m finish on a standard 400m track.   (...)   so, unless there's some kind of impeding of the opposing skater, if someone just skate the inner curve wide and gets back within the 1000m lines, there's no room for any kind of punishment   neither Eitrem Yesterday nor Ghiotto Today did anything wrong (otherwise almost every 500m skater should be DQed when skating the final stint in the inner lane, as they just can't stay in because of the G force)

I'm guessing that INTERPOL-Searched Diack's BFF is losinbg badly, cause they dont have no choice but to resort to biased headlines.   Oh, what a pitty.      

Steam still ruled the railways, there was one TV channel & Elvis was still working as a delivery boy.