Monzanator

In winter sports there is no growing of the sport. On the contrary even, fewer nations are relevant there year after year. Finland has completely fallen off the cliff, first in ski jumping then in cross country. Germany in alpine skiing and not looking all that great in biathlon either. Canada is gone in alpine skiing too. Czech Republic is gone from ski jumping and we're like one Olympic cycle away from Poland being gone too. The ski jumping struggles to even field 50 jumpers at World Cup level these days if the event is held outside of Europe in Russia for instance. Even if the reason is the growth of freestyle skiing it doesn't explain how former powerhouses are completely irrevelant in certain events. It's been 20 years since the Lahti WC doping fiasco derailed Finnish cross country. That's like two full generations and their answer is a 42 year old RL Roponen? Putting on mixed relays solves nothing. Cross country goes down with inbreeding and will become more irrelevant year by year. Only Norway, Sweden and Russia seem to care about this sport these days and everyone seems to be fine with it. FIS can sell these new ideas but nobody is buying that.

Rules can alwas be changed on the fly. Who will stop Norway from boosting the team count anyway especially since Russia and Sweden would also be for adding a second or third team if neccessary. Cross country has about three relevant countries left running the show so of course they will get their wish. Anything to further extend Norway's dominance of the sport will be fine.

Like which smaller nations? If they allow Norway B, Russia B and Sweden B to compete (duh) then these smaller nations would end up where they are now - without adding another event Norway can dominate The biggest competition is in individual sprints. Relays are basically a wash with the same 5-6 big nations always finishing in Top 5-6 places all the time.

Woo! More cheap gold medals for Norway? How exciting

Well, Bach probably won't be in charge of IOC by the time some of these "interested parties" fall off the list. He risks nothing by sending out a list like that. IOC has been long ridiculed as corrupt organization so every bit of positive PR helps. And Australia is one country that will heap praise for IOC after being awarded the SOG in Brisbane. I can understand where you come from.

Thomas Bach is a butt of jokes for a long while already - on this board as well. I wouldn't pay much attention to all this scripted PR talk whatsoever.

It's a fine PR talk but everyone knows Olympics are there to make money in the end. The "new" norm will become "old" one way or another. And Qatar & China will still be there to host all the events they can because they don't care about losing money - unlike the Western countries. It doesn't take much to have another 2008 economical collapse before people start bailing out over the lost money and view hosting process as expendable. The biggest economy in Europe hasn't hosted Olympic Games in 49 years & counting and they want nothing to do with it

#9 in the line-up Chris Taylor hits a walk-off HR as the Dodgers beat Cardinals 3-1 and win the NL wild card game. ALDS: Rays vs Red Sox, Astros vs White Sox NLDS: Giants vs Dodgers, Brewers vs Braves

Please, the same happened in Beijing. I know fully well big TV sports in USA get the favorable time slot in US TV. Same happened with figure skating in Pyeongchang and will probably happen in Beijing in few months time. At the end of the day this is all about entertainment and hardly about sport anymore so talking about this bidding process is quite frankly a waste of time. Besides, with Brisbane IOC actually stopped even pretending a bidding process matters and awarded it right away. This is life. These bidding contests will soon be totally over. Obviously Gulf sheiks will still have money and will keep throwing that at whatever event they can host so maybe even IOC caves in when suddenly there will be no bidders outside of USA, China and Australia and there will actually be some uproar why the same three countries host the OG over and over again. I still remember when Sydney OG was held in September. Obviously Brisbane had to cave in to NBC demands too since that will be held in July/August. No chance NBC approves any Games being held in September with the NFL season starting there.

It doesn't matter Super G is exciting. The schedule has favored the technical skiers for years. Super G is back to pariah status? They need to get rid of this to put more of these parallel city events IMO. I feel like I might not watch alpine skiing in 5-10 years time if the schedule will be 50% parallel slaloms and three downhills per season. Not to mention parallel events where one course is clearly better than the other and you can guess the winner before the start already.

Well, if NBC is more important than IOC then all this discussion we have here is obviously pointless A Muslim country will never host SOG either IMO. Sorry, I forgot NBC is the one making the final choice when it comes to hosting the Olympics. I rest my case in this thread.

New England Patriots released CB Stephon Gilmore (2019 Defensive Player of the Year) which is quite shocking indeed.

Red Sox beat Yankees 6-2 and advance to ALDS. Gerrit Cole gave up two early HR and was pulled in the top of the third inning already. Yankees never recovered from there.

Nothing is set in stone let alone rules about not hosting the Games in November. Let's get real. Most of the wealthy Western Europe bids probably won't happen due to local population objections. Hosting SOG only loses money and most people prefer the money to be spend on them rather than a two week sporting event. Montreal paid off the 1976 debt for like 40 years? I don't see them hosting another Games anytime soon. The Winter Games became so exclusive they had to give it to China who isn't exactly well known as a winter nation. If IOC stays true to their diversification & inclusive nonsense they will have to pick an Asian vernue sooner or later. This probably means a return to China or Qatar as the obvious Middle East candidate. London will not get another SOG after only 24 years again, Budapest, Istanbul and Russia don't sit well with the liberal values of the Wester world, Germany already rejected the WOG bid for Munich/Ga-Pa due to local protests, I don't see them hosting SOG either. Indonesia is the biggest Muslim country in the world and a complete unknown when it comes to hosting global events of any kind (unlike Doha). They went ahead with the Games in Rio de Janeiro despite objections about humidity & corruption. When there is so much money involved things can change fast. And nothing devalues faster than a word "game-changer". These rules you cite could become irrelevant anytime between today and Brisbane OG.

Money always talks and Qatar doesn't have to host the SOG in November or December. Besides IOC rules can always change - and Qatar will keep bidding for those SOG. You can't host them in USA, Australia or Western Europe all the time to deny Qatar their wish. IOC has buckled down to Chinese money already, they will do so to Qatar as well. It's only a matter of time.

Starting pichers for wild card games: Red Sox (Eovaldi) vs Yankees (G. Cole) and Dodgers (Scherzer) vs Cardinals (Wainwright).

UEFA is raising the stakes. They pulled the gender equality card to stop the biennial World Cup idea Yeah, so much for them being outvoted by CAF or AFC members like @Orangehair43 believes. https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/58794784

Indian Wells MD is out. If Simona Halep & Emma Raducanu win their first match they will meet in R3 for the ultimate Romanian supremacy

Handing the Olympics to Brisbane won't stop the Gulf sheiks from chasing that Doha ticket. Unless IOC openly says Qatar is banned from hosting the SOG in the future, that one won't be denied.

Arizona Cardinals beat LA Rams 37-20 to suggest they are maybe the team to watch in NFC (4-0 start). Tom Brady's homecoming game vs New England starts in ca. 60 minutes.

All over. Red Sox vs Yankees in the AL wild card. Blue Jays will rue those late two losses vs Twins in particular.

Red Sox hit a two-run HR in top of the 9th to lead Nationals 7-5! Blue Jays will be sick if this is the decider.

Aryna Sabalenka tested positived for covid and won't take part in Indian Wells where she was supposed to be #1 seed.

I assume Scherzer gets the wild card start then? I haven't paid too much attention to Rays this season, after letting Snell walk and trading Adames at the deadline I thought they won't be a viable WS contender anymore. Guess they are still doing something right

Clayton Kershaw left the game last night with an arm issue but given his post-season struggles over the years it's perhaps not bad for the Dodgers he might be limited in October? He wasn't supposed to pitch in the probable wild card game anyway.