Monzanator

Welcome to Polish school of pro boxing. We have a line of these undefeated guys who never got tested on mere EBU level! Jezewski was supposed to fight past-prime Youri Kalenga yesterday. Obviously he was not ready for Okolie. This was worse than Glazewski vs Brahmer back in the day.

7 hours ago, intoronto said:

lol Aiba has elected a Russian as president. Never change AIBA 

North & Central America controls WBC, WBA and IBF though. When will that change?   AIBA is for Asians & former Soviet Union. Everyone has its own cake.

On 09/12/2020 at 12:39, dcro said:

When even FIS can live without snowboarding.

Americans have the X Games so I believe FIS World Cup is second rate for them? Not to mention the money, Ester Ledecka earned more money after one Lake Louise weekend than in the entire snowboard season. This discipline is really kinda going nowhere. It looked like it might be a blast 20 years ago but Europe rallies around the classic alpine skiing & cross country events. Snowboard has fizzled out like the Segway

4 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

I guess I missed this news a while back, but when was the 50km changed to the 35km?

March 2019.

Changes were supposed to come into effect on January 1, 2021 and of course they will go ahead.

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1076641/iaaf-council-approves-in-principle-reduction-of-50km-distance-in-race-walking-after-tokyo-2020

@Olympian1010I used the word "can" not "will"

Latvia seized the opportunity, Japan & Norway obviously don't care about luge whatsoever

1 hour ago, dcro said:

And yet Norway, France and Japan have their tracks and yet virtually no teams.

Norway has always been about cross country skiing. They even hardly had a presence in alpine skiing before the 1990s. They ain't gonna bother with luge or bobsleigh!

Just because a country is forced to build a sliding track for Olympic Games it doesn't mean anything. These tracks are easily abandoned once the Games are over and done with. Just look at the Italians and the Cesena 2006 track. It run into economical issues literally within five years and that's despite Italy actually having a strong presence in luge.

Has France done anything in luge or bobsleigh since Bruno Mingeon retired? Probably not France doesn't even have a proper women's alpine skiing team other than veterans Worley or Noens and that's despite being located in the middle of the Alps of all places And you want them to make a run at luge? Not gonna happen.

Latvia on the other hand can make a run at the low-hanging fruit because they have ZERO winter sport presence elsewhere (other than hockey). Since they don't have any cross country, ski jumping or alpine skiing relevance, they build the Sigulda track and are cashing in with style.

Style marks got Geiger ahead - plus distance being worth less on ski flying hills.

1 hour ago, Grassmarket said:

Think this is true of lots of sports now.  The modern model for funding Olympic Sports is that money follows medals.  So Finnish money, for example, now goes to freestyle, Swedish money goes to CC & Biathlon, Latvian money goes to Bob/Skeleton/Luge etc etc, and so lots of traditional historic sports just get left with only 9-10 nations seriously competing.

Luge/bobsleigh/skeleton is a low-hanging fruit. Build an ice track and suddenly you can become a force as evident by Latvians and Sigulda.

Ski jumping is a low-hanging fruit too but Finland has like several ski jumping hills and they've completely gone off the boil. Czech Republic has Liberec and the Harrachov zombie and they barely hang on.

USA were a power house in nordic combined not that long ago and God know what happened to Steamboat Springs that used to be the North American staple. Canada demolished the hills in Thunder Bay, Calgary is done too. They simply don't care about ski jumping anymore, they have more interest in moguls where they continue to be a power house for almost 30 years. It's sure a lot easier to build a moguls track than maintain a ski jumping complex

Under the post-1993 scoring system Marie-Therese Nadig scored 445 points in first five races of the 1981 season - and 545 points in first six races so that's the "eternal" record that still stands.

26 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

Ah, there is the expected dose of cynicism I was waiting for before enjoying the world championships. Took you long enough.

I'm shocked someone from Netherlands even pays attention to ski jumping. I've watched this sport on & off since Toni Nieminen's flash in the pan. There was a time when Finland had the most Olympic medals in ski jumping and now they're completely irrelevant. It's like Netherlands suddenly struggling to get a Top 10 in speed skating. This is how far ski jumping has regressed. Most winter sports actually begins to attract some "new" nations, in ski jumping the former power houses are going belly up and the whole sport goes backwards. Finland relegated to third tier, Czech Republic to second tier, France and Sweden don't bother to enter jumpers anymore. Canada is like a one-man team (no offense to Soukup) and USA is somehow staying afloat with bunch of no-names. It's been over 15 years since Alan Alborn was doing the one-man US show Boyd-Clowes now does for Canada

Enough cynicism for you or do you want MORE?

Ski jumping basically cycles around the same names over and over again. Zajc is 20 yo and that's like the future of Slovenian ski jumping. If they kick him out and have to rely on Peter Prevc who is on a down spiral then it means there is no real choice. Ski jumping basically has 8-9 nations competing, if such a power house like Slovenia has issues it speaks volumes how irrelevant ski jumping really is these days.

These stats are as useless, the same as these overtaking probability numbers shown in F1. Must be some crazy Americans working on the TV graphics.

Maryna Gasienica-Daniel finished 21st which is a great result after a big mistake in the 2nd run. We are light years behind everyone in alpine skiing, even our neighbours Czech Republic & Slovakia

1 hour ago, Werloc said:

I'll edit her in when I see it  

Don't count her out yet! Two days ago we "celebrated" 25 years since Gwizdon's World Cup debut. 76th place in 1995 Ostersund sprint

https://www.biathlon.com.ua/en/results/id-2646-ostersund-1995-1996-sprint-7.5-km-zhenshtini

6 minutes ago, heywoodu said:

To be fair, everyone who has been following racing for a couple of years knows Russell is a huge talent and there's not even a single discussion about it. No way I'll ever say Hamilton is the greatest, but annoyingly one simply can't deny he is at the very least up there among the best, it's not just Mercedes.

Russell being talented has nothing to do with it. It's about how he matches to Bottas and potentially Hamilton. It's not like Bottas was hired from the street. He had some good results at Williams himself. F1 unemployment line is littered with talented guys who were ousted through things out of their control.

If Russell labored to 5th or 6th place last week and couldn't beat Perez or Stroll on pace then Hamilton would have never be so quick to return IMO.

No surprise, George Russell showed enough speed last weekend to diminish Hamilton's status. It turns out it might not be that Hamilton is that great but rather Bottas that bad! If Russell struggled then Hamilton could have sat on his hands and tell everyone "Mercedes can't dominate without me!". That narrative is out of the window based on Russell's small sample size.

Hey, the American Nazi Party hasn't been dissolved yet so what's the big problem? Americans value the freedom of speech more than the national sociallism's issues Anne Frank wasn't even an US citizen to begin with. Americans usually don't care about WWII European legacy either. Forthem the War started with Pearl Harbor and that's the end of it.

Rich kids acting like they own the world? What else is new? And people wonder why nobody likes Lance Stroll either. These are people who didn't have to earn a single dollar in their entire life. What would make them change their characters now? Nothing.

3 minutes ago, thepharoah said:

 

PSG players also supported them and walked off the pitch 

PSG would win if a replay is ordered anyway. Let's don't overstate the fact it's a David vs Goliath game and Goliath will be the winner

23 minutes ago, thepharoah said:

Istanbul basaksehir walked off pitch during PSG match after 4th referee referred to a player by saying this black guy 

Hmm... after a red card in 14th minute? How convenient

Hojnisz is out due to a throat infection

8 minutes ago, rybak said:

Not that difficult group for us  

I wonder if Brzeczek survives the Euro 2021 though? This is a weird situation where the qualifying is on either side of a big tournament. That has never happened before.

And we get again

At least is someone new

gets . We haven't played them since 2011 and only twice in Euro quals before (1988, 2004). 26 friendly matches between us

and . More 1973 stories coming up