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Just a few updates. I accepted @OlympicIRL suggestion and now we will have the Best Doubles/Pair or Mixed Team category. If we have more mixed events in the future, perhaps we can create a separate category. We'll be also moving forward with the Comeback of the Year category, and I would deeply appreciate any suggestions for this award.

Was robbed of her career by the overwhelming presence of intersex athletes in her event. And of course when she complained about it she was bullied into silence by the Twitter mob. Let's hope she's the last woman to be treated that way.

Well, that is...something Kinda sucks that you may be the best team in the world, but not even have a chance to play at the YOG because the other gender's team is also the best in the world and your NOC picked that one...

Both Brits bow out in the semi-finals but have done enough to qualify for the Champion Series Final.

Technically, Norway can qualify here, their European quota will get reallocated to Denmark

Even with some small surprises, this must be the most predictable women's handball championship I've ever watched.

NON-Olympic action in the forelast day of the Grand Prix II in Doha and man, Today's events were really modest. in the women's -87kg class, Hripsime Khurshudyan won Gold with a 106-126-232kg line, which wouldn't have been enough for a medal in the -59kg class Anamjan Rustamova won Silver lifting just 1 kilo less in Total than the Armenian, while a further kilo down the score of the girl from , Tatem Hakobyan earned Bronze. obviously, no score is good enough to be taken into consideration for the OQR. in the men's -109kg class, Dadash Dadashbayli won Gold with a Total of 388kg. But the biggest achievement of the day, though, was Taniela Rainibogi’s show of strength in the men’s 109kg. In making six-from-six for a huge career best of 170-210-380kg, Rainibogi became the first male lifter from to win a medal at a global competition. There have been medals in Oceania and Commonwealth events, but none in a competition open to the world. Rainibogi improved his best snatch by 5kg, C&J by 18kg and total by 23kg and finished 3rd behind Dadashbayli and Bekdoolot Rasulbekov, who won C&J gold with a career-best lift of 219kg and Silver on Total with 381kg. Also in this case, however, no score is even close to climb in the top 25 of the OQR. Tomorrow the GP II ends with the Superheavyweights, both in the women and men's categories.

Christmas Cup 2023 Slovakia - Norway 9-0 Highlights Cehlárik bombastic

Schade da ist der kleine Traum einer Direktqualifikation der Handballerinnen ausgeträumt. Aber leider konnten sie den verpassten Start in die Partie nur noch hinterherlaufen... Jetzt muss es ein Qualiturnier richten!

2nd QUALIFYING ROUND DAY 1 SCHEDULE Round-Robin December 14th - December 17th, 2023 12 Nations, 3 Groups, the 1st Nation from each Group will qualify for the 3rd Qualifying Round Group K Greenwich Mean Time (GMT ) Bulgaria vs Estonia Period-by-Period: December 14th 2023, h. 15:30, Laugardalur Arena, Reykjavik Iceland vs South Africa Period-by-Period: December 14th 2023, h. 19:00, Laugardalur Arena, Reykjavik Group M Central European Time (GMT +1) Croatia vs Chinese Taipei Period-by-Period: December 14th 2023, h. 15:30, Pionir Ice Rink, Belgrade Serbia vs Turkiye Period-by-Period: December 14th 2023, h. 19:00, Pionir Ice Rink, Belgrade

So the 2025 men's and women's world championships will have 32 teams: the defending champions, the top 3 teams from the 5 continental championships held in 2023, and the 15 next teams in the world rankings. As I've mentioned many times, I think that world rankings should be used for seeding, never for qualifying. But the big problem is that most teams won't play a single match next year, so they can't climb up...

December 2023 International Break Wednesday 13th December, 2023 --------------------------------- CHRISTMAS CUP 2023 in Bratislava (SVK) Day 1 - 9-0 Provisional Standing After Day 1: 1. SVK 3, 2. NOR 0, -. LAT Not Played Yet

This, the 6th athlete in the World Ranking will grab the quota

Unlike 1984, they don't have as much influence on other nations to follow suit.

The head of the Russian Olympic Committee, Stanislav Pozdnyakov, said that the issue of ensuring the safety of Russian athletes at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris is critically important, which was also noted by the Russian Foreign Ministry. “The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in its comments always says that the issue of security is critical in this situation. The same was discussed at the board of the Ministry of Sports. Neither the national federation, nor government services, nor the national Olympic committee, which is cut off from the process by these recommendations, will deal with this,” TASS quotes Pozdnyakov as saying. This sounds a lot like what the USSR said before the 1984 Games. Using athlete safety concerns to justify pulling out of the Games

in case you didn't see it already http://www.worldtaekwondo.org/competition/view.html?nid=140815&mcd=K14&sc=re

WOW,clear shooting and a 41 place from a Lithuanian junior ?,i think that's unheard of ,I hope he's able to keep this form up.

Bobsleigh WC La Plagne, France Two-Woman Gold- Laura Nolte/Neele Schuten (2:02.24) Silver- Kim Kalicki/Leonie Fiebig (2:02.36) Bronze- Elana Meyers Taylor/Emily Renna (2:02.46) Full Results 4-Man Gold- Team Francesco Friedrich (1:56.14) Silver- Team Johannes Lochner (1:56.58) Bronze- Team Adam Ammour (1:56.69) Full Results Not a great start to the WC season for Canada (in pretty much all sports, although a bunch of our top athletes haven’t started their season yet). Ribi and Appiah are expected to be contending for medals. Men are capable of contending for medals when they’re at their best, but for some reason they haven’t competed at the last few WCs, unsure why though.

Powell's great form continues as she too makes it into the semi-finals after a tight match against 12th seed Ozoda Sobirjonova

Williams through to the semi-finals with arguably her best match so far, taking out 3rd seed Milena Titoneli.

In a repeat of her round of 32 result, Williams progresses to the quarter finals when her opponent picks up her 5th Gam-Jeom. Not sure about Powell yet - she was leading her match when the video feed cut out

Yes, it was also like that four years ago. It actually created some interesting dynamics (in terms of entries). was the only NOC ranked in the top five to field a women’s team. Meanwhile, had to field a men’s team after the NOCs ranked 6-10 all choose women’s teams to avoid the top nations and increase their medal chances.

Very cagey and low scoring first fight from Powell but she overcomes Castro Burgos to make it to the round of 16. Williams also makes it through - but it was messy and resembled wrestling towards the end. She only won the second round when her opponent picked up her 5th Gam-Jeom. Based on their first bouts, Powell looks to have strongest chance to get through to the Series Final. Now I might try and catch some sleep before the afternoon session.

Yep - both in the -67Kg division

4 (!!) medal day at the ski cross WC in Arosa! Jared Schmidt and Hannah Schmidt win gold (they’re siblings for anyone wondering), and Reece Howden and Marielle Thompson win silver (in Thompson’s case along with two other athletes, as all three registered a DNF in the big final)!

in the women's -81kg class, the only remarkable score came from the eventual winner, Liang Xiaomei, who consolidated her position at the top of the OQR thanks to her Total of 284kg, increasing her margin over the strongest contender, her teammate Wang Zhouyu (who got Today's Silver). Today's Bronze medal winner, Eileen Chikamatana, improved her score in the OQR by 1 kilo (up to 261kg), but kept her position (7th overall, 5th "useful"). Unfortunately, no other remarkable lift was recorded Today, therefore there are no further changes at the top positions of the OQR.

2nd QUALIFYING ROUND Round-Robin December 15th - December 17th, 2023 12 Nations, 3 Groups, the 1st Nation from each Group will qualify for the 3rd Qualifying Round Group L Central European Time (GMT +1) Spain 15 - 2 Thailand Period-by-Period: 6-0, 6-2, 3-0 December 15th 2023, h. 16:30, Ijssportscentrum, Tilburg Netherlands 8 - 2 Georgia Period-by-Period: 2-1, 2-1, 4-0 December 15th 2023, h. 20:00, Ijssportscentrum, Tilburg Thailand 1 - 23 Netherlands Period-by-Period: 1-6, 0-7, 0-10 December 16th 2023, h. 16:30, Ijssportscentrum, Tilburg Spain 5 - 1 Georgia Period-by-Period: 1-0, 3-1, 1-0 December 16th 2023, h. 20:00, Ijssportscentrum, Tilburg Netherlands 3 - 4 Spain Period-by-Period: 1-0, 2-3, 0-1 December 17th 2023, h. 16:30, Ijssportscentrum, Tilburg Georgia 10 - 0 Thailand Period-by-Period: 3-0, 4-0, 3-0 December 17th 2023, h. 20:00, Ijssportscentrum, Tilburg Group L Final Standing Nation P W(OTW) L(OTL) GF GA +/- Pt. Spain 3 3(0) 0(0) 24 6 +18 9 Netherlands 3 2(0) 1(0) 34 7 +27 6 Georgia 3 1(0) 2(0) 13 13 0 3 Thailand 3 0(0) 3(0) 3 48 -45 0

2nd QUALIFYING ROUND Round-Robin December 14th - December 17th, 2023 12 Nations, 3 Groups, the 1st Nation from each Group will qualify for the 3rd Qualifying Round Group K Greenwich Mean Time (GMT ) Bulgaria 0 - 21 Estonia Period-by-Period: 0-3, 0-8, 0-10 December 14th 2023, h. 15:30, Laugardalur Arena, Reykjavik Iceland 9 - 0 South Africa Period-by-Period: 3-0, 3-0, 3-0 December 14th 2023, h. 19:00, Laugardalur Arena, Reykjavik Estonia 9 - 2 South Africa Period-by-Period: 1-1, 5-1, 3-0 December 15th 2023, h. 15:30, Laugardalur Arena, Reykjavik Iceland 4 - 3 Bulgaria Period-by-Period: 1-0, 1-2, 2-1 December 15th 2023, h. 19:00, Laugardalur Arena, Reykjavik South Africa 4 - 1 Bulgaria Period-by-Period: 0-0, 1-0, 3-1 December 17th 2023, h. 13:30, Laugardalur Arena, Reykjavik Estonia 6 - 0 Iceland Period-by-Period: 3-0, 2-0, 1-0 December 17th 2023, h. 17:00, Laugardalur Arena, Reykjavik Group K Final Standing Nation P W(OTW) L(OTL) GF GA +/- Pt. Estonia 3 3(0) 0(0) 36 2 +34 9 Iceland 3 2(0) 1(0) 13 9 +4 6 South Africa 3 1(0) 2(0) 6 19 -13 3 Bulgaria 3 0(0) 3(0) 4 29 -25 0

Just one of those days on the range for Fak today.

Isn't that what makes things like this fun though? Like TISC, it's fun to realize tons of people actually experience music (or sports, in this case) in many entirely different ways than we do ourselves.

Good list, I’d add Markus Rehm (athletics- men’s T64 long jump), Morteza Mehrzadselakjani (men’s sitting volleyball), and Veronika Aigner (women’s visually impaired alpine skiing)

Probably, although I might be a bit biased because I always find comebacks cool and inspiring and in some cases the essence of sports

If I remember correctly, we set our alarms to watch Aline's races in those championships Irrelevant yet fun fact: next month we'll be keeping some of her equipment safe in our garage while they're off to compete in Slovenia, so they don't need to haul everything everywhere

There are so many worthy candidates for men's and women's teams that I don't think any mixed team would have enough votes to compete if we had a single category, making the merge kind of pointless. So, if we can't have a "mixed" category (not enough contenders), perhaps it would be better to include them in another category as suggested.

I know para winter sports are often not exactly the most competitive, because of the often rather small fields of participants, but...Aline Rocha really should be on the list of suggestions as well, I'd say. World champion in para-cross-country skiing plus two bronze medals...for Brazil, of all places. I'd have said the same if she was Chilean by the way A truly 'exotic' athlete (it's not like she actually lives and trains in North America or Europe or something) winning several winter sports world championships medals, including a first-ever gold....that is something special.

And thanks for the annual reminder that next year I am REALLY going to write down the cool and inspiring and impressive things and performances I see in sports.....just like in the previous 10 years I forgot it entirely, which will make it insanely hard to remember...well, basically just what actually happened

I'd throw in Ezra Frech as well. He broke the T63 High Jump WR and won the world title this year. He has the potential to become one of the para athletes whose fame transcends the Paralympic Movement. Definitely a name to keep track of heading into Paris 2024.

How about combining the mixed category with the pairs and doubles to make it “Best Doubles / Pairs / Mixed Team Award”? Not sure if it fits but it is a way to capture all of the other non-individual events in one grouping.

But they accept what is hapenning in Palestine ....so Russian are allowed to participate

Prince Andrew?

He really missed his opportunity with the 2026 Commonwealth Games which might actually be cancelled

Apparently the Tokyo Olympics never happened either. Or else your predictions were completely and utterly trash …..

OMG,THE UK IS BOYCOTTING,THE WORLD IS ENDING,i don't think you realize how many people will not care.

My point exactly,i don't know what he thinks he's proving here,wow Ukrainians aren't happy with this, never would have guessed

No, it isn't. I'm curious what your Ctrl + V thing is going to be for Cortina 2026 by the way

Lol. Pity the same cannot be said of Belgium. The stats between England and Scotland a team who had only beaten them once ever: possession 64-36%, shots at goal 22-9. Meanwhile in the Netherlands game against Belgium who had beaten them in their previous match in this tournament: possession 71-29%, shots at goal 32-6. To cap it all they played eight minutes of overtime to make sure the Netherlands got the goal they needed. If there was a questionable game tonight it wasn't between Scotland and England.

Scotland isn't even hiding that they're giving it away, most of the time they're barely even trying by the looks of it

Grand Prix II ( Doha) women's -49kg Gold: Jiang Huihua (216kg Total) Silver: Ri Song Gum (213kg Total) Bronze: Hou Zhihui (209kg Total)

Only a few Totallympics members follow Paralympic sports, I think less than half of participants voted in this category last year, so if we do gendered awards it could lead to people being nominated with just 1 or 2 votes, which isn't great. So while I support the idea, I don't know if it would work here...