Monzanator

Joao Almeida has won Tour de Pologne. Matej Mohoric and Michal Kwiatkowski round out the podium.

Guess things are moving fast, Kabul has fallen basically two days after my last post. Politico was right, all that US money spend (ultimately wasted) for 20 years and Taliban needed 20 days to take over the country. Well done! Another spectacular failure of US warfare politics. The ghosts of Vietnam are alive and doing just fine!

Don't look now but Camila Giorgi is into the Montreal final! She beats Jessica Pegula in three sets and books the biggest final of her career vs Karolina Pliskova. What a week this has been!

Out of nowhere Anna Kielbasinska becomes the 2nd fastest woman at 400m in Polish history. She run 50,38 in La Chaux-de-Fonds today

That's 0,03 faster than Swiety-Ersetic's PB. Only Irena Szewinska's old WR 49,28 is better.

Camila Giorgi beats Cori Gauff and advances into Montreal SF!

And she even smiled on court!

Brentford - back in English top division for the first time since 1947 - beat Arsenal 2-0 on opening day of the 21/22 season!

Politico has written a piece that 20 years of American "gains" in Afghanistan will be (are being) wasted in 20 days Makes you wonder what all those billions were spend on in the end? The Afghan Army looks completely useless and it seems like Kabul will fall way sooner than even I expected. I don't even give them 2 months if Taliban keep going with this.

33 minutes ago, Orangehair43 said:

Surely UAE team are even richer being they state funded by an oil rich state. And Arab nations like to get sporting success by spend spend spend. 

Ineos has a budget of 50 million GBP. I doubt Team UAE has a bigger one especially that the emirates seem more invested in football and Formula 1 than cycling (which is way more expensive). The Arsenal sponsorship money would buy Ineos five times over. Yeah, the oil sheiks have the money but also know how to spend them. And cycling will never be their priority.

2 minutes ago, Orangehair43 said:

True but Surely every team in cycling is suspect. 

Ineos are not popular in the UK anymore at all - the main elite sporting press hate them (and the tabloid readers don’t like cyclists full stop)

Obviously cycling is the most doped sport outside of weightlifting but IOC seems to be fine with it for whatever reason. Plus Sky/Ineos is the best funded team in sport so they have more money for "jiffy bags" than others. Let's see if Geoghegan Hart becomes the next Wiggins/Froome.

Just now, OlympicsFan said:

It is shocking how you can get almost everything wrong in such a short comment ...

 

1) Klosterhalfen turned 24 this year and won a world championship bronze less than two years ago. She also just finished 8th at the olympics, which made her the best european runner in this event. What was the best finish of a polish woman in a track event?

2) So you are saying Germany isn't relevant in women's javelin (number 2 in the world this year), women's discus throw (olympic silver medalist) and men's decathlon (defending world champion who turns 23 this year and 99 % would have won at least bronze at the olympics without the injury). I believe that Germany had more top 8 finishes at the olympics than the Netherlands/Italy and as many as Poland (thanks to their gold in the joke mixed relay). Those countries had generational fluke performances, but their actual level in athletics is much lower than the medals make it seem.

3) You are correct that Germany got much worse in doping sports over the last decades. Not too long ago Germany was still great in speed skating, rowing, biathlon, (men's) cross-country and women's canoeing sprint. 

Ad 2: The Olympic silver in women's discus was a surprise. Plus you used to have 3 discus/javelin throwers vying for Top 8 places. So now that you have ONE athlete capable of such results is a sign you're going down. No way one Hussong means more quality than Obergfoell/Nerius/Stahl trio

1 minute ago, Orangehair43 said:

Funding must be at least partly to blame. France has suffered a similar fate. 

I don't see where that funding goes though? They're still good in equestrian and that's it, lol. They have fallen off in swimming too, I mean Steffen and Biedermann were kinda one-offs 12-13 years ago already and it's gotten worse in 2021. It's not like Germany isn't the biggest economy in EU. So where does the money go? I don't see them suddenly rising to power in other sports?

2 minutes ago, OlympicsFan said:

Yes, espcially swimming ... also we ignore the miracle rise of british cycling because ... ? I feel sorry for you if you actually think that GB achieved this ridiculous improvement without systematic doping.

Thankfully not many cycling fans seem to support Team Sky/Ineos evil empire. Their "jiffy bags" are suspicious as hell indeed.

Klosterhalfen is literally irrelevant on the grand scheme of things. Germany has completely tailed off in athletics, 400m and middle distance running is gone and most field events have sunked too. Only javelin remains at relatively good level. Discus, shot and hammer are nowhere. If we assume the DDR doping system was behind the sprinting success, Germany still competed at solid international level for the next 20 years. And now they have Mihambo, men's javelin and nothing else.

38 minutes ago, Orangehair43 said:

Is he that low key ? Even Michael Johnson is only on British TV.

 

 

Mihambo is working with him which is suspicious as well. 

Does US TV - ESPN or whatever - actually show much athletics anyway? These European meetings ain't held in US prime time so Idk if athletics ever gets a big spot on US TV these days?

Kvitova always struggled in the US summer heat even though it's Montreal. Giorgi keeps the good form from Olympics, it seems like not having her father around really helps her game (like everyone suspected for years).

18 minutes ago, Orangehair43 said:

Mine and your countries would be banned for sure. Christie and Chambers for GB and numerous for Greece. 

BALCO scandal unearthed the facts that USA is as dirty as East Germany & co. And federal law was immune to Nike & Big Tech money plus Marion Jones lied to the FBI. It was a spectacular collapse in the end. It's no wonder Carl Lewis keeps it relatively low-key these days, he knows he got away with major doping issues and USTF knows that too. It's better to keep him in the basement while Michael Johnson remains the most visible former US athlete out there.

52 minutes ago, Orangehair43 said:

That entire USA team were probably all doping. The other two big names well Jackie was related to her and Carl has been accused many times. 

Carl Lewis failed three doping tests during 1988 US Olympic Trials. He admitted it back in 2003 already. It's common knowledge he was a cheater too.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2003/apr/24/athletics.duncanmackay

12 minutes ago, Gianlu33 said:

Yes, I have seen that the Accord is losing several Members. It is a pity that the media law has passed to the Sejm, but will the government also have the votes in the Senate?

Law & Justice doesn't have a majority in Senate   At the end of the day Americans will still own TVN so this is much ado about nothing.

21 minutes ago, Gianlu33 said:

Apparently Polish gouvernment could collapse

Neah, Law & Justice kicked out some satellite party members from the government but can still rely on support from the rock singer Kukiz & his buddies. So the Parliament majority is still there to upset out liberal opposition

The Americans haven't left Afghanistan yet and Talibans are making heavy gains. 20 years of war and things will return to pre-2001 reality in a matter of months. Kabul should fall sometime in 2022 unless the government completely caves in and strikes a deal with Taliban.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58184202

Actually the exact number of posts is gone too (you have to scroll over the rounded value), so are the medals and the reaction score

1 hour ago, NearPup said:

I’m really not seeing any knowledgeable neutral observers call this result into question. The most I’ve seen is people criticizing the rhythmic code of points.

People don't really care about rhytmic gymnastics at all outside of the former Soviet Union/Eastern bloc countries. This is a far cry from the figure skating 2002 OG fiasco. Yeah, there are some Americans competing here but they are merely also-runs. I'm pretty sure Russia will bounce back to win more golds in Paris since they have most depth overall. It's only a matter of time. Remember how that won table tennis gold in Athens? That was supposed to be the end of dominance. It was anything but

4 hours ago, hckošice said:

Rumors saying the format will be a 35 km race walk M & W mass start event at the same time, but after the race the times for the 2 best males and 2 best females of each country will be counted.

 

source: Alfons Juck.

This is some serious bullshit alright

1 hour ago, thiago_simoes said:

Oh, right, it's Shatilov who  lives in Uzbekistan. My bad here. Dolgopyat is from Ukraine. It makes things even more absurd because Ukraine didn't win any medals in gymnastics for the first time in history.

I remember when Maksyuta also competed representing Israel. It's crazy how they just handle free passes to gymnasts from Ukraine.

They only give away free passports to Jews, you live in Brazil so might not be aware there are a lot of Russian/Ukrainian Jews out there. This also applies to figure skating - effectively every sport where Russia/former USSR has been a historical powerhouse. They also have a mixture of American Jews competing for Israel in figure skating but most are Russian/Ukrainian. Galit Chait was the only ethnic Israeli Jew that achieved international success in figure skating IIRC.

14 minutes ago, thiago_simoes said:

Don't forget Dolgopyat, who is actually Uzbek and even lives in Uzbekistan according to information from one website I read.

Poor Uzbekistan was robbed of an Olympic gold medal here, if you ask me. The same happened when Chusovitina represented Germany in 2008, in my opinion.

3 minutes ago, Maxim Fastovsky said:

He lives in Israel, in Rishon Le Zion, according to multiple interviews with him i saw

Dolgopyat is from Ukraine? I also read he lives in Israel but he isn't even a Jew by the law since his mother wasn't Jewish. And he is dating a Belarussian girl so I assume he stays in the Russian-speaking language world anyway. But he can't get married in Israel since he isn't actually Jewish by the religion law