Monzanator

Linette takes first set vs Kovinic 6-1. Let's see if she can avoid the drama in the second

Miguel Oliveira got engaged to his step-sister Apparently they were in a relationship for 11 years already (no prize for guessing to whom they lost virginity to?)

This feels like 19th century, you're dating the girl the closest to home but Oliveira has taken this to another level indeed.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8686231/MotoGP-star-Miguel-Oliveira-24-engaged-step-sister.html

She was supposed to retire at the end of the season anyway. Obviously a tough break.

Germans say Navalny was poisoned by old buddy Novichok.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54002880

This only underlines how much Russia is playing their own game while EU & everyone can bugger off (since this happened during the Belarus protests which for once shifted the focus from Putin to Lukashenko).

7 hours ago, Olympian1010 said:

Capitalizing on the opportunity presented by Covid. It also gives them a long time to develop a solid brand. Plus, like I said, this presents a lot of merchandising opportunities. 

I suppose in two years time people will "discover" that SOG 2028 actually has a logo already. Let's be honest, these logos are pretty forgettable once it's all said and done. I remember them best from when I was a kid and had these T-shirts with logos. But I don't remember any single logo from a period when I was an adult already

Has Biden actually done anything in the last two months? Even at the convention they had some speeches by random people from home. Trump is all over the news as usual - good or bad - but Biden has gone invisible. That will be a curious way to win an election - by literally hiding away God knows where. I've come across more Nancy Pelosi news in the last two months I can understand Biden is afraid of COVID given his age but will he actually show up before November?

Nuggets beat Jazz 80-78 in Game 7 of West 1st Round. Nuggets only scored 30 pts in the second half. That's a points score straight from the 90s right there

Nancy Pelosi exposed as a total hypocrite. Hair salloons are closed but political bozos can always have a blow dry at any point they want to   And of course she doesn't wear a mask despite accusing Trump of doing the same Pathetic.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53994209

Trust me, I can do without Billie Eilish and Reese Witherspoon when it comes to Olympics

This isn't exactly unique. I lost count how many times the Wallons and Flemish were at odds over political reasons in Belgium in the last decade alone. No wonder democracy is a hard sell these days if the backbone country of European Union can't find an agreement

Ten years ago Belgium wasted "only" 541 days without a government

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007–2011_Belgian_political_crisis

8 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

That’s only part of the reason. It’s honestly a little hard to pinpoint one reason, since we’ve seen such dynamic demographic shifts over the last few election cycles.

 

Two big things are:

 

One: People aren’t enthusiastic for Biden. We eliminated the candidates most people were enthusiastic about, so that the moderates could have party control and Biden as a candidate. People are mainly only voting for Biden because they don’t want Trump. That’s not the greatest selling point for a candidate to have. People have made the analogy that this election is like being asked to choose between spoiled milk and arsenic, that’s not great.

 

Two: Trump has gained support amongst African Americans. Trump won a laughable 8% of the African American vote in 2016. Right now, he polls at 19%. I don’t know why that support has gone up, especially since Biden was basically elected as a candidate by the African American vote, but it has.

I presume a lot of African Americans classify as the blue collars though and here's the Trump mystery addition. Democrats have lost the Deep South in last few elections anyway and I guess that's not entirely down to African-Americans moving to other states compared to 60s or 70s.

Democrats are fielding an old white guy to compete vs another old white guy. And Biden is actually older than Trump. Post WWII Democrats have done well when they fielded a younger hansdome guy like Kennedy, Clinton or Obama.

10 minutes ago, George_D said:

there is another explanation. Maybe there arent so many Blue-collar workers today.. as it was in the past..

Over in the UK Labour started losing stonewall seats in the North East and even the Brexit shitshow couldn't let them back to power. Blue collars are conservative people by nature who will never vote for cheap labour seekers who are coming for their jobs. These people historically voted for the left-wing parties only because of the working rights' support not because of gav rights or stuff like that.

Democrats have abandoned these people and focused on liberal ideology plus allowing more immigrants into States. Blue collars will never vote for a party that would happily hire thousands of Mexican immigrants in their place (for less salary).

1 minute ago, rybak said:

@Monzanator Linette finally wins  It was so painful to watch... I think that with this game she will lost to Kovinic.

I suppose she can beat Kovinic tbh.

As for Gauff, Sevastova was as tough R1 as it gets. I know the Americans and Anglo-Saxons don't give a damn about Latvia and it's all Gauff hype there but this result isn't a surprise by any means

1 hour ago, Olympian1010 said:

Whelp, the newest national poll by Emerson confirmed my worst fears. Support for Trump is up, though marginally, and he now sits only 2 points off Biden. 
 

Biden 49%

Trump 47%

 

We’re going to give that NAZI a second term. We’re so fucked.

Democrats have lost the blue collar workers. It's as simple as that  It's very unfashionable to look after those people in modern politics and social media trends and guess even four years of Trump hasn't learned them anything.

Linette vs Inglis about to start. 

Even considering Linette's habits this should be a straight-forward match. I haven't seen Inglis play b4. I thought she's younger than 22yo tbh.

Schwarztman was the highest seed in Hurkacz's quarter so R4 suddenly becomes very possible

8 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

It’s about athletes being mature enough both physically and mentally. Figure Skating has one of the harshest athlete cultures out there. Some of the girls aren’t even in secondary/high school before competing at a high level internationally. I can’t imagine that honestly.

 

It’s one thing for a coach to be harsh and push an adult athlete, but a completely different thing for them to do it to a 12, 13, 14, 15 year old athlete. 
 

Plus, it’s not just Alexandrovskaya we’ve seen struggle with her mental either post career, or even during. I could list off multiple skaters who have had serious mental health conditions because of what they went through in figure skating. We’re taking suicide attempts, purposeful harm, anorexia, depression, etc. 

That's the price of taking up a sport which starts at such a young age. Everyone knows teenagers thrive for group approval among their peers, it's a case of psychology and ISU raising the minimum age ain't gonna solve any issues here.

Alexandrovskaya was mentioned specifically here so so other "multiple skaters" don't really count at this stage.

Speaking of suicides, what's up with the John Coughlin sexual harrassement case? Was anything done to make it clear whether he was guilty or not or was the case swept under the carpet after he killed himself?

Maturity counts for little when it comes to soloists, it's obvious teenagers have a bigger chance of better results before they grow up into adult shape. What next? You will forbid skaters from doing quads before a certain age? What if someone commits suicide out of frustration of not being able to compete? Becoming a stripper at age 21 rather than 19 will solve the fake issue ISU is trying to create here (as related to Alexandrovskaya's "second life")? Like really?

1 minute ago, dcro said:

It would. If nothing else, it would add two more years before they are eligible for championships.

 

Though it's unlikely to pass because it goes against Russia and their overtraining methods. Their influence is so big that there is not even a chance of this passing, actually.

Yeah, Russia is one country that still reigns supreme in figure skating. Just look at all the naturalized Russians competing for other nations. USA has sure given up on the Cold War in figure skating in the last decade or so.

Once Simone Biles retires the same probably happens in gymnastics especially in wake of the Nassar scandal.

7 minutes ago, Olympian1010 said:

From what I’ve read, it’s about athlete health.

I read this on a Polish website. Now I found an explanation and it's linked to Ekaterina Alexandrovskaya's death. A total overreaction indeed. Like people at age 25 can't commit suicides because they only participated in senior champs two years later than they could have.

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1097741/isu-to-discuss-figure-skating-age-limit

I read some news that ISU considers upping the minimal age for international senior championships from 15 to 17. Sigh. Like that will make all these female soloists extend their careers all of the sudden. No offense but ladies is the only category that provides international competitors at age 15-16 so I wonder what's up other than trying to hamper the Russian teenagers. It feels like even USA doesn't bring up prodigies like Kwan or Lipinski anymore (dare I say the US teens discovered they can break through in other disciplines and figure skating isn't considered truly elite in USA anymore)?

One week later and Johnson loses a playoff to Jon Rahm at the BMW Championships. Apparently Rahm was given a one stroke penalty for picking up the ball in R3? I only watched the last round so I'm unsure what exactly happened?

1 minute ago, Wumo said:

That is also my biggest worry about this. There are so many matches that it can be difficult for me to keep track of them. Especially when users are allowed to edit them. 

I'm able to see when and what users have changed visually. But of course it would still take a lot of my time to check. That is also why I suggested edits would only be allowed after I have published the provisional standing. 

This might help but that's still a lot of extra work for you and I'm pretty sure someone will try to edit the results to gain extra points by simply picking the right set score at the very least. I'd leave it as it is - without the edits allowed - since this is opening a can of worms for no valid reason. The Paire/Granollers change was addressed early enough.

29 minutes ago, Federer91 said:

Cofidis was a Pro-Conti for a looooong time. Was given WC for the Tour almost every year though, but not many other races.

@hckosiceThese wild cards can be given to non-Elite teams though?

I believe even CCC was given once a wild card to Giro d'Italia IIRC (that was pre-BMC merger when CCC was still a truly Polish team by the roots) but former Giro winner Tonkov was a member of the team which probably made the whole thing easier.

Sounds like a terrible idea tbh. Someone can edit completed matches from any day half-way through the order of play and claim her picked the right winner straight away. Does @Wumo really want to compare when edits were made to when matches were finished to expose the fraud?

I picked Kerber to beat Tomljanovic 2-1 in sets. What stops me from editing the result to 2-0 and claiming the extra point for the game?