Mirra Andreeva wins back-to-back 1000 titles in Dubai & Indian Wells so the real hype should come soon. The days of her liking IG post with Putin birthday wishes are forgotten already

I can't tell about Sweden but with Norway Oslo/Holmenkollen would be the obvious choice but I've read many years ago already they won't bid for Winter OG no matter what. I can't really say what's the deal here. I know locals are fed up with the drunken parties around the area during World Cup events for a long time.

Even Norway & Sweden did not want to bid with all the nonsense, so we ended up with Sochi & Beijing.

What smaller countries ever hosted the Olympics though? Sarajevo 1984 is probably the last I can imagine and they would never host one in XXI century. The "grandiose" switch definitely happened in Winter Games, I'd never predict China hosting WOG even in early 00s. But the costs have driven many Summer OG candidates away, the bidding process is dead and IOC basically has to beg anyone to even come forward or else we'd have every Summer OG in the Middle East for a very long time.

team   MOGULS Cali Carr* Makayla Gerken-Schofield Mateo Jeannesson FREESKI PARK & PIPE Zoe Atkin (Halfpipe) Tom Greenway* (Slopestyle & Big Air) Chris McCormick (Slopestyle & Big Air) Kirsty Muir (Slopestyle & Big Air) James Pouch* (Slopestyle & Big Air) Liam Richards* (Halfpipe) SNOWBOARD PARK & PIPE Mia Brookes (Slopestyle & Big Air) Maisie Hill* (Slopestyle & Big Air) Txema Mazet-Brown* (Slopestyle & Big Air) Katie Ormerod (Slopestyle & Big Air) Siddhartha Ullah* (Halfpipe) SNOWBOARD CROSS Charlotte Bankes Huw Nightingale SKI CROSS Ollie Davies Scott Johns*  

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'?