Monzanator

Geez, finally common sense prevails instead of TV fuelled drama. The actually needed "consultations" to realize that?  Not gonna praise these idiots anyway. Field events remain a pariah for TV exposure.

I have to say Christie's tactics were all wrong all the time. She always tried to storm from the back of the pack with two laps to go and these DQ almost always happen when people barge into each other for 2nd/3rd/4th place. She never tried to win from the front and that cost her all those OG medal chances.

Have you ever??? @heywoodu

Hamilton didn't pit under VSC and Verstappen has one last chance to make this interesting on fresh tires.

Sola 13/15 and 36 secs ahead of Alimbekava after three shoots.

Vittozzi blows up at the first shooting again. 1/5.

18th place for Muzaferija

Top 5 with badly decreasing conditions. Zubcic DNF.

29th place for the Polish caterpillar

Well, Goggia came within 0,18 secs. Shiffrin a further second behind.

Gut-Behrami has probably killed this Super G

28th place for Grzegorz Guzik is a major surprise indeed.

Hojnisz-Starega finally getting the Polish women off the mark with 35th place. Great to see Hanna Sola win.

Vikings almost blew 29-0 lead vs Steelers but held on to win 36-28 on Thursday Night Football.

3 hours ago, NearPup said:

I'm 30 and I'd be too young to have heard of the Goodwill Games if I wasn't a huge Olympics nerd.

Then you probably didn't hear about Friendship Games either?

Jussie Smollett found guilty of faking a racist & homophobic attack

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-59599142

14 minutes ago, NearPup said:

I mean the US is trying to get the Winter Olympics *right now* and they still did the diplomatic boycott thing.

 

I honestly don't think the IOC cares that much.

Yeah, "panem et circenses" is the way to go. Global politics tends to change after a while anyway and outright sporting boycotts had no lasting effects for the IOC. I mean, nobody even remembers which cities hosted the Goodwill Games Hell, many of these skateboarder Next Gen kids probably never even heard about Goodwill Games to begin with.

7 hours ago, Quaker2001 said:

Only 92 countries competed in Korea in 2018, so less than half the countries that normally show up at a Summer Olympics will likely be in China.  So far, the list of diplomatic boycotts are largely confined to the Anglosphere.. USA, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand.  Only European country that has committed to a boycott is Lithuania.  We'll see if other dominoes fall there.

Emmanuel Macron said the political boycott is "insignificant" and he will attend WOG

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-59599063

2 hours ago, Orangehair43 said:

They know athletes would not support it. In 1980 many athletes didn’t support it when their countries boycotted. 

From the other side of the fence, then-active Polish athletes are still bitter over the 1984 boycott as well. In fact to mask the obvious displeasure some aged athletes were allowed to leave the country just to silence the backlash (like '76 pentathlon champion Pyciak-Peciak).

7 hours ago, RobtheAggie said:

Apparently the Italians are not the only team on the women's side with lots of challenges between their top starts.  It appears that Hannah Sola and Dzinara Alimbekava are not on good terms at all.  Sola was married this summer with Alimbekava the only member of the team not invited.  It appears that COVID had a role in this as well.  Alimbekava was seriously dating Russian biathlete Stretslov, but COVID prevented the two from seeing each other.  Alimbekava started training with the Belarus men's team and grew close to Anton Smolski, who was married to a former Junior Biathlete.  He eventually left his former wife to be with Alimbekava.   Sola is a former teammate and friend of the now former wife of Smolski.

Yeah, Polish commentators said during the Ostersund races that Alimbekava & Sola don't speak to each other but I didn't catch why

Serena Williams will not play in Australian Open 2022 as she still recovers from injury. Obviously old age is a factor too

Kristyna Pliskova is pregnant. I assume @hckošicegot the news since David Hancko is the father. Back to Made in Czechoslovakia we go!

Daria Gavrilova married long-time BF Luke Saville