Brilliant, we get something new to follow right after the Winter Olympics, and in such a great way too, with footbal.

It was mentioned on Reddit with people saying Dutch media have mentioned it. 

Unlikely because the BBC doesn’t earn extra money if something gets good ratings and budget was a big issue.    Also Birmingham 2022 didn’t do great in the ratings which I suspect influenced things as well.  

Biggest changes in the number of top 8 if compared to 2022.   Positive: +29 +28 +13 +12 +10 +10 +8 +8   Negative: -8 -6 -5 -5      

Final table:     NOC   points gold silver bronze 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th total 1 NOR Norway 446 18 12 11 11 9 15 5 6 87 2 USA United States 414 12 12 9 12 15 9 10 13 92 3 ITA Italy 361 10 6 14 9 14 10 9 6 78 4 GER Germany 310 8 10 8 14 3 6 10 8 67 5 FRA France 291 8 9 6 9 10 7 7 8 64 6 CAN Canada 265 5 7 9 3 14 9 9 6 62 7 SUI Switzerland 265 6 9 8 8 5 9 8 3 56 8 AUT Austria 233 5 8 5 5 9 4 12 10 58 9 JPN Japan 232 5 7 12 6 1 8 4 5 48 10 NED Netherlands 210 10 7 3 6 5 1 3 4 39 11 CHN China 197 5 4 6 5 7 5 8 9 49 12 SWE Sweden 178 8 6 4 4 4 1 4 1 32 13 KOR South Korea 103 3 4 3 2 2 2 2 5 23 14 GBR Great Britain 88 3 1 1 5 2 4 3 0 19 15 FIN Finland 86 0 1 5 3 3 4 4 2 22 16 AUS Australia 77 3 2 1 2 3 1 2 4 18 17 CZE Czechia 67 2 2 1 0 4 2 2 5 18 18 POL Poland 55 0 3 1 2 0 3 2 5 16 19 SLO Slovenia 42 2 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 8 20 LAT Latvia 37 0 1 1 3 2 0 0 1 8 21 NZL New Zealand 32 0 2 1 0 0 2 1 4 10 22 BEL Belgium 27 0 0 1 1 1 3 1 1 8 23 AIN   26 0 1 0 1 1 3 0 1 7 24 ESP Spain 24 1 0 2 0 1 0 0 0 4 25 KAZ Kazakhstan 20 1 0 0 0 0 1 3 3 8 26 BUL Bulgaria 19 0 0 2 1 0 0 1 0 4 27 EST Estonia 14 0 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 4 28 GEO Georgia 12 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 2 29 DEN Denmark 9 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 2 30 UKR Ukraine 9 0 0 0 0 0 2 1 1 4 31 BRA Brazil 8 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 32 HUN Hungary 8 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 3 33 SVK Slovakia 5 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 34 ROU Romania 4 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 1 35 LTU Lithuania 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 36 HKG Hong Kong 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 37 IRL Ireland 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1

There was a lot of good stuff with the BBC coverage - although some of the presenter did go a bit over the top, and the fillers that they used were pretty cringeworthy.    If there's one thing they need to figure out is how to show events like this without having the constant switching - from the channel to IPlayer and back to channel.  

I mean if we start talking about the impacts of sliding tracks, then the discussion needs to go to speed skating venues (btw, French Alps, don't you have fairground halls hanging round, I mean EVEN Italy could do that) and ski jumping hills for that matter as well.

Thanks everyone for their words. Situation has improved, at least in the last few hours.   Still, classes were suspended in the states of Jalisco and Nayarit, and most employers told office and service workers to remain home, with some of us doing home office.   No major casualties among civilians, but hard to tell as I said, federal government put a chokehold on major and local news and social media, in part to avoid major panic, in part to enforce their corrupt narrative in which they insist “everything is calm”.   Hard to believe when yesterday a 6 million people metro area, along many other localities and rural areas, emptied business, malls, restaurants and stop all activities for 15 hours or so just of pure fear of becoming another number of cartel and allies casualty list.    This morning you can hear some cars, and even people down the street again, compared to yesterday which had an eerie silence.    

So if 7-8 indoor sports go from Summer Olympics to Winter Olympics it's not wrong. However I don't want sports repeated.   Indoor sports will be played indoor whether in summer or winter.    Yes it might dilute the winter sports a bit, but then both games may get good revenue and can keep a larger global audience interested. I can't follow all the sports at summer games it's a lot but comparatively winter games have the space to add sports.    If I have to choose Indoor sports into winter games: - Judo - Taekwondo or Karate  - Handball - 3x3 Basketball  - TT or Badminton  - Squash - Volleyball - Chess   I think this would make the programme more balanced and will deliver blockbuster Olympics every 2 years   I know this might be an unpopular opinion here in the forum, which is fine.

It's weird to talk about attendance in %. Whats better 97% of a smaller stands or 90% of a bigger one?