Wumo

The new provisional calendar for the 2020 Diamond League season: In August: 14 Monaco 16 Gateshead 23 Stockholm In September: 2 Lausanne 4 Brussels 6 Paris (tbc) 17 Rome/Naples 19 Shanghai In October: 4 Eugene 9 Doha 17 second meeting in China (venue tba) Also, no Diamond League points will be awarded at the events as there will not be a Diamond League Final. https://www.worldathletics.org/news/news/2020-diamond-league-amended-calendar

Guys, I'm just here to say that the 2021 Superleague Team European championship is not an event that has been postponed. It is held every other year. Last time was in 2019 in Bydgoszcz. It's just that they first have announced the host of the event by now. I guess this also reflects how important this event really is. Even though I quite like it.

Nice! I hope you will enjoy playing the game yourself. I also have a question for you as a musician and as yourself. Do you enjoy/like the soundtrack of the game? The composer of the game, Nobuo Uematsu, is probably my favourite game composer. His scores are amazing in my opinion. And they are even better now because technology have been improved since the 90's when this game first came out. IPersonally I think FF6 and FF7's soundtracks are some of the best in gaming history.

Oh that part. I loosely follow his playthrough of the game too. I discovered Cox through The Completionist. I do enjoy his and the rest of SGS's horror playthroughs. Haha, loot whore! I smile and laugh everytime he says, "Cloud, you dog/dawg!" I think this game is going to be a great first experience to FF.

Marathon runners, Abdi Hakin Ulad and Thijs Nijhuis, have officially been nominated for Tokyo next year. https://www.dif.dk/da/elite/nyheder/viaritzauelite/presse/2020/5/20200508_todanskemaratonlbereudtagettilol For some reason his first name is spelled wrong on his WA profile. https://www.worldathletics.org/athletes/denmark/abdi-hakin-ulad-276696 ( Despite of the text in this link got it right )

There will come some specific guidelines for restaurants and cafés soon. The Danish Prime Minister did state that social distancing (at least two meter) will still be in effect and only groups of maximum 10 people both inside and outside are still allowed.

I have played the game. It was truly incredible. It made laugh, it made cry. A couple of chapters made me very emotional. I was truly amazed how much extra story they put in a segment that was only about 5 hours in the original. I can't wait to play the next part. I don't know how far you are in the playthrough you watch? I don't want to spoil anything. By the way, which youtuber's playthrough are you watching? Also, have you played the original or watched a playthorugh of it?

I do agree with LDOG that those who want to make some early predictions can do it in this thread or in @bmo's prediciton poll. Next year we are hopefully going to have the Olympics and me and my prediction contest group will prepare a good amount of prediction contests to participate in for you all. Also let me know if anyone is interested in hosting some of the prediction contests, as me, Vojthas and Wanderer would like to actually have some time to watch some events from the Olympics live. We will probably present the different prediction contests (format and so on) around May or early June next year, or when it's confirmed that the Olympics will get the green light to go ahead.

The difficult part of having a poll where users choose gold, silver and bronze medallists (complete podium) is that the poll would have to have around 8-10 athletes/teams/nations for the gold medal then 8-10 for silver and 8-10 fro bronze. Of course some of the athletes/teams/nations would be the an option for every medal. I see some would like to have a projected medal table for Tokyo 2020. If that is the case then every event poll would have to have three "questions" each. So question number 1 would be, "Pick your gold medallist for X-event". Question number 2 would be "Pick your silver medallist for X-event" and bronze likewise. For athletics we would have a big ass amount of polls, questions and medal candidates. I think It would actually just be eaiser to create prediction templates for every event like in the prediction contest and then users can just show their predictions. A thread with prediction templates for Olympic events could be created in each Olympic sports thread. Users could then choose their medallists for each event. Of course people could just write their predictions here or in a separate thread in the different Olympics sports thread. Also, a suggestion to @rafalgorka. Instead of giving 3, 2 and 1 point for gold, silver and bronze, the athlete/team/nation which gets most 1st places will be projected to win gold. The athlete/team/nation with most 2nd places gets silver and bronze likewise. An example of what I mean: For archery mixed team it would look like this: KOR 3rg 3fl 3gi 3be 3wu NED 2rg ITA 1rg 1gg 2gi TPE 2fl 2wu JPN 1fl 1be CHN 1gi 2be 1wu Gold - Silver - Bronze - or In case two or more athletes/teams/nations have an equal amount of 1st or 2nd or 3rd places, the amount of top 3 places will be the tie-breaker. Example: Japan has two 3rd places. China and Italy both have two 3rd places and one 2nd place. Therefore China and Italy beat Japan in a tiebreaker. I don't know how to solve the tie-breaker between China and Italy as both team have the exact same amount of places? Maybe someone has a suggestion for such a case.

Day 1 predictions:

I do recognise this song. I did listen to Chvrches quite frequently some years ago. I do like this song and a couple of other songs from their debut album " The Bones Of What You Believe". Haven't really heard much about them in the recent years. The only thing I have noticed about them lately is that they made a song for the video game "Death Stranding".

Look who popped up as an ad when I checked the Politics Thread. Does he deserve a second term, @Olympian1010?

I stumble upon this interesting article on playthegame by Jens Weinreich about how dependent many IFs are on the revenues from the Olympics: https://playthegame.org/news/news-articles/2020/0644_how-federations-share-the-revenues-from-the-olympic-games/ Some paragraphs from the articles: "...In 15 of 28 federations, the share of IOC revenues is between 35 and 96 percent. Some of these international federations are therefore in a situation that threatens their very existence: Gymnastics, Boxing (already almost insolvent and banned), Rowing, Shooting, Weightlifting, Archery, Fencing, Hockey, Canoeing, Triathlon, Wrestling, Sailing, Taekwondo, Golf and Modern Pentathlon. (Golf is an exception. Because the IGF was basically founded only to supervise the sport at the Olympic Games.)" "The best insurance comes from Russian billionaires At least half of the 28 federations can draw on large reserves in an emergency. It is often around 20 to 30 million francs in Swiss accounts. These reserves can help them survive the crisis, even if the IOC will not pay anything in advance but only at the end of 2021. However, some federations such as Weightlifting have been living on these reserves for years because they cannot cover their expenses from ongoing operations. The situation seems to be most dramatic in the ICF (Canoeing) and UIPM (Modern Pentathlon) with over 90 percent dependency on the IOC. According to annual reports, two federations, Shooting (ISSF) and Fencing (FIE) have hardly any substantial marketing revenues apart from the IOC royalties. The ISSF also receives more than 90 percent from the IOC. But in times of need, Russian billionaire Vladimir Lisin will stand up for the ISSF. "Shooting and fencing have the best insurance of all federations," said one IOC member. In Fencing (FIE) the president, Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, already donates an amount almost big as the IOC shares (on average over a four year period). There is not that much audited information provided by FIE. But there is an interesting and telling part in a report from the congress in 2018, held in Paris and financed by Usmanov. The FIE delegates discussed the 2017 revenues: 11,582 million CHF overall with 5,764 million CHF from IOC - and 4,950 million as a donation from Alisher Usmanov, of course. "I think our federation deserves it," said the billionaire. "Applause" followed, according to the congress minutes. Usmanov then continued: "In any case, for the future we need to understand that at present the financing of our federation is primarily supported by the President’s donations." It's astonishing to see how dependent some IFs are. I kind of knew for some IFs the revenues from IOC and the Olympics contributed to a large part of their overall economy, but to see IF's like ICF and UIPM who's entire revenue almost comes from the IOC alone is baffling. Also no suprise to see how a few billionaires basically keep some IFs single-handedly alive with their contributions beside the revenues they get from IOC. I'm also going to link this article by Liam Morgan from ITG: https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1093690/federations-coronavirus-opportunity

I have checked his Instagram and he hasn't posted anything about his retirement. I have no idea why his Wiki says something about retirement? https://www.instagram.com/torsteinstenersen/?hl=da

I can only find this about him. https://www.svt.se/sport/skidskytte/torstein-stenersen-petadurlandslaget Nothing about him retiring from biathlon. Also, was this the article you found @Werloc?

Reading about prisoners, death penalty and more are really what cheers you up on a Wednesday evening.

A bit of news from F1 CEO Chase Carey: https://www.formula1.com/en/latest/article.statement-from-f1-ceo-chase-carey-target-is-to-begin-season-in-austria.5zn2chyMjrqC8n0BkEt9e.html "We’re targeting a start to racing in Europe through July, August and beginning of September, with the first race taking place in Austria on 3-5 July weekend. September, October and November, would see us race in Eurasia, Asia and the Americas, finishing the season in the Gulf in December with Bahrain before the traditional finale in Abu Dhabi, having completed between 15-18 races. We will publish our finalised calendar as soon as we possibly can. We expect the early races to be without fans but hope fans will be part of our events as we move further into the schedule. We still have to work out many issues like the procedures for the teams and our other partners to enter and operate in each country", says Carey.

According to NRK, the Norwegian national men's team is going to be cut from 15 to 12 men for the upcoming season. The official announcement of the national team is expected to be announced this Tuesday. As usual for Norway the national team will be split into two teams, All-around and Sprint. All-around: Emil Iversen Didrik Toenseth Sjur Roethe Hans Christer Holund Simen Hegstad Krueger Martin Loewstroem Nyenget Sprint: Johannes Hoesflot Klaebo Sindre Bjoernestad Skar Finn-Haagen Krogh Paal Golberg Erik Valnes Haavard Solaas Taugboel Nyenget and Taugboel will both be new on the national team. However, the top story in Norwegian media about the selection is more about a name that is missing from the list which is Martin Johnsrud Sundby. It had been speculated that Sundby would no longer be part of the national team for the upcmong season and today's news confirmed it. NRK has made an interview with Sundby about his thoughts about his current situation: https://www.nrk.no/sport/nrk-erfarer__sundby-ryker-ut-av-landslaget-i-vm-sesongen-1.14995927

Statement from EHF about the rest of the 2019/20-season: http://www.eurohandball.com/article/34423 EHF Executive Committee decisions on some of their competitions: - VELUX EHF Champions League The possibility was checked to have the remaining knock-out rounds played in autumn 2020. However, in the light of the dense calendar in men’s handball and the EHF’s new media and marketing agreement from next season onwards with potentially different media and marketing partners, this was not deemed feasible. Therefore, the remaining matches in the Last 16 and quarter-finals are cancelled. As already announced, the VELUX EHF FINAL4 2020 will take place on 28 and 29 December in Cologne. Based on the final group phase ranking, qualified for the VELUX EHF FINAL4 are the best two teams of groups A and B: Barça, Paris Saint-Germain HB, THW Kiel, Telekom Veszprém HC. - DELO WOMEN’S EHF Champions League The quarter-finals' playing dates in June are cancelled. The DELO WOMEN’S EHF FINAL4 is scheduled to take place on 5 and 6 September in Budapest. Currently EHF and EHF Marketing are checking the possibilities of playing the quarter-finals together with the EHF FINAL4 (Thursday and Saturday/Sunday on 3, 5 and 6 September). Should it not be possible to stage the EHF FINAL4 in September, an alternative date, together with the Hungarian Handball Federation as organisers, will be sought for the month of October. In this case, quarter-finals are not feasible anymore due to the already ongoing season and new media and marketing contracts. If the quarter-finals cannot be played, qualified for the DELO WOMEN’S EHF FINAL4 are the best two teams of the two main round groups: Metz Handball, Team Esbjerg, Györi Audi ETO KC, Brest Bretagne Handball. - MEN’S EHF Cup The remaining group phase matches as well as the quarter-finals are cancelled. In agreement with the organisers, Füchse Berlin, the MEN’S EHF Cup Finals scheduled for 29 and 30 August are cancelled. The tournament will not be carried out. Women’s EHF Cup, Challenge Cup The remaining matches in the Women’s EHF Cup as well as in the Men’s and Women’s Challenge Cup are cancelled. - Women’s EHF EURO 2020 The remaining four rounds of Women’s EHF EURO 2020 Qualifiers are cancelled. Based on the ranking of the Women’s EHF EURO 2018 the following teams have reached the final tournament: France, Russia, Netherlands, Romania, Sweden, Hungary, Montenegro, Germany, Serbia, Spain, Slovenia, Poland, Czech Republic, Croatia. Norway and Denmark are qualified as hosts. The draw for the Women’s EHF EURO 2020 takes place on 18 June in Vienna. - Men’s World Championship 2021 Play-offs Europe The remaining European play-offs en route to the Men’s World Championship 2021, part 1 as well as part 2, are cancelled. Based on the final ranking of the Men’s EHF EURO 2020 the following teams are qualified for the World Championship in Egypt: Slovenia, Germany, Portugal, Sweden, Austria, Hungary, Belarus, Iceland, Czech Republic, France. Spain, Croatia and Norway are already qualified as the three best-ranked teams at EHF EURO 2020; Denmark are qualified as defending champions. - Younger age category tournaments In close coordination with the International Handball Federation, and their approach to the Women's 18 and Women's 20 World Championships, the EHF will postpone this summer's Younger Age Category events. For the Men’s 20 EHF EURO in Austria / Italy and the EHF Championships in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Latvia staging the event in January 2021 prior/during the Men’s World Championship will be analysed. A final decision is planned for the June meeting of the Executive Committee. For the Men’s 18 EHF EURO in Slovenia and the EHF Championships in Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Montenegro staging the event in January 2021 prior/during the Men’s World Championship will be analysed. A final decision is planned for the June meeting of the Executive Committee. In close cooperation with the organisers, the Women’s 16 European Open in Gothenburg, Sweden, scheduled for June/July 2020 has been cancelled.

It's going to be wild in Florida!

Okay, after spending some time in my ivory tower, drinking cognac, smoking high quality Cuban cigars and looking down at the lazy peasants, I can now present a new idea for a system for the next season. I have thought about introducing a grading system of the biathletes. A grading scale that will go from 2-30. 2 will be the lowest possible grade and 30 will be the highest. The grading of the biathletes will be based on three criteria: Shooting percentage from last season, skiing speed which will be based on skiing times from last season (more specific details will be explained later) and placement in last season's overall World Cup. Biathletes can score from 1-10 in every category, except placement in the overall WC where most biathletes will score 0. Again, more on that later on. I will do my best include and grade every biathlete who participated in a WC last season and many of the biathletes from the IBU-Cup who could get a start in a WC next season. Breakdown of the grading for every category: Shooting: This will be based on a biathlete's shooting percentage from last season's WC and/or IBU-Cup (Data will be from IBU's datacenter) Grading scale: ≥ 90% = 10 89.9% - 88.0% = 9 87.9% - 86.0% = 8 85.9% - 84.0% = 7 83.9% - 82.0% = 6 81.9% - 80.0% = 5 79.9% - 77.5% = 4 77.4% - 75.0% = 3 74.9% - 72.5% = 2 < 72.5% = 1 Skiing speed: This will be a bit more complex. In short, it will be based on the average time gap per kilometer from the average time of the five best results in SPRINT races (measured in seconds) from last season. The data are from this site https://www.biathlon.com.ua/en/speed.php (Bear mind, Danil Beletskiy is somehow the best skiier among the men. This is of course a mistake. Otherwise, everything else seems to look reasonable.) Also keep in mind, not every biathlete, as those who only competed in the IBU-Cup, are not listed. Those biathletes who are not listed will automatically get 1 as grade. It has to be said, the list contains more than 300 biathletes. Those biathletes who have only participated in one or two WCs are also on the list. Grading scale: 0 - 0.99 = 10 1 - 1.99 = 9 2 - 2.99 = 8 3 - 3.99 = 7 4 - 4.99 = 6 5 - 5.99 = 5 6 - 6.99 = 4 7 - 7.99 = 3 8 - 8.99 = 2 ≥ 9 = 1 Placement in last year's Overall WC season: Fairly straight forward, every biathlete, male and female, in last year's top 20 Overall WC will get 1-10. The rest will get 0. Grading scale: 1st = 10 2nd - 4th = 9 5th - 6th = 8 7th - 8th = 7 9th - 10th = 6 11th - 12th = 5 13th - 14th = 4 15th - 16th = 3 17th - 18th = 2 19th - 20th = 1 21st and downwards = 0 Example: Johannes Thingnes Boe grade would be 29 Shooting = 89.7% = 9 Skiing Speed = 0.10 = 10 Placement = 1st = 10 9+10+10 = 29 The grade a biathlete will be scored will be used to determine the price of that biathlete. Managers would still have 10 biathletes on their team. 2 or 3 (haven't decided yet) biathletes from the same nation would be allowed. All 2 or 3 biathletes could be men or women, so managers don't have to split them as last season. Managers will be giving a certain amount of points in the beginning of the season. I'm not sure about the exact number of points at the moment but it will most likely be between 100-120 points, depending on how evil I will be to the managers, muhaha! ?. I have had some thoughts about how to implent some new additions to the transfer system. Could be something like, after every trimester, usually 3-4 WCs, managers could without losing any points sell one poor performing biathlete and buy one "better" perfoming biathlete. This way we don't end up having some managers losing 300-400 points in a transfer window. Decrease the amount of transfers from 12-10 in a season. Set a max cap on how many points a managers can earn in one transfer window. Also known better as Lex Federer91 . Some thoughts about the point system I have had. I was never really a fan of giving points for the fastest course times in mass starts, so I would suggest to drop it and only keep for sprints and individuals. Mass starts could instead increase the amount of placement points to the top 20. Something like, 1st = 50 points, 2nd = 40 points, 3rd = 35 points etc... Or multiply the usual placement points with 1.5. 1st = 60 points, 2nd = 52.5 point etc... I have to think about what to do about points in Super Sprints. I will come with a suggestion later this year. Lastly, the grades of every biathlete will be available in a excel document before the new season starts. I will post it here or in the thread for the BMG 2020/21-season. I would really to like to hear some of you thoughts about this new grading system and some of my other suggestions. I'm aware not everybody who participated last season is that much online before the winter season begins again, so I will post more about this when we come closer to the start of the WC-season. Hopefully as scheduled. If you have some questions about any of this or would like to come with some suggestions, feel free to post them here. I will now go back inside my ivory tower to drink and smoke some more. Good day to you all, mortals, muhahaha! ? africaboy, @toulousain, @heywoodu, @brunamoura, @Dunadan, @Federer91, @Vojthas, @Monzanator @hckosice, @IoNuTzZ, @Henry_Leon, @Agger, @RobtheAggie, @Kirkpatrick, @Olympian1010, @Ufilov

The A-National Team for the 2020/2021-season has been announced. https://svensktskidskytte.com/nyheter/landslagstrupper?fbclid=IwAR3KYG6x9Dni1fXvplEyroDWwvnmts5HRfxPCb8C-MzGRNTAAKLqY0YQeX8 Women: Hanna Oeberg Anna Magnusson Elvira Oeberg Mona Brorsson Johanna Skottheim Linn Persson Stina Nilsson Men: Peppe Femling Jesper Nelin Martin Ponsiluoma Sebastian Samuelsson Malte Stefansson I would presume Hanna Oeberg, Elvira Oeberg, Mona Brorsson, Linn Persson are safe for most of the WCs. Anna Magnusson, Johanna Skottheim, Stina Nilsson will most likely fight for the last two WC-spots. I think Skottheim will get the chance in most of the WCs this season. Nilsson is still a wildcard, but she will most likely get her WC-debut this season. Magnusson will probably have more races in the IBU-Cup this season. A bit of a suprise to see Torstein Stenersen is no longer part of the A-National Team. Not that he produced any great results in the WC last season. But leaving him out of the team entirely, comes as a suprise to me. Stefansson is still young and did not show the best results in the IBU-Cup last season. However, I have read the Swedish coaches see great potential in him hence why he has been included in the A-National Team already. Sweden has five WC-spots next season. I think they will only use four spots in most of the WCs in the upcoming season. Stefansson will get his chance. I'm not sure if Stenersen will get a few WCs despite being left out the team.

Speaking of quizzes, sport scientist Ross Tucker (some of you might now him from The Real Science of Sport Podcast) did a sports quiz on youtube last Friday. He says he will probably do another one again soon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNu6Ruaf77k&t=15s