Monzanator

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

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.

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).

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.

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

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.

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

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

This is some serious bullshit alright

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.

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

Well, it won't stop Israel from handing out nationality to Russian Jews though. I feel like 90% of Israeli gymnasts and figure skaters are basically Russian or Ukrainian Jews to begin with

Geraghty-Moats only hit 3/15 in the standing in both races? I suppose she won't return to biathlon full-time anytime soon.

Marcus Ericsson won the Nashville street race despite going airborne on lap 5 The race was a total shitfest overall.

Likewise Trampoline gymnastics. The goal for Paris: get over 30 comments In athletics the Barshim/Tamberi/Jacobs gold combo got like 30+ comments in less than 10 minutes

I bet 5 to 1 it will be Marie-Jose Perec

Even if the posts are negative (see my sport climbing format comments) it actually shows interest (i.e. how to make things better). It's rather clear women's 3x3 basketball was the least followed sport on TO Men's 3x3 escaped that fate due to a) lack of USA b) bitching about Poland's failure