Monzanator

I told you before I'm a cynical realist. Take it or leave it. As for this thread I said before, it's gonna be late May at earliest when Japan makes some kind of decision. Yeah, Japan, not US Track & Field or whomever else. If you wanna waste two months on dabbling what the decision will be, it's your choice. Shinzo Abe has said the preparations for the Games will continue despite the virus outbreak. That kills any sort of discussion for now. Everything else is pure speculation and unneccessary drama I prefer to ignore.

Overdramatic? Then why is SoFi Stadium scheduled to host opening, closing ceremonies & the soccer games at the OG? How much PUBLIC money was spend on purchasing the land and building the stadium? NCAA revenue is north of 1 billion dollars, Stan Kroenke's net worth is 10 times as much. No wonder Los Angeles made the Olympics hosting bid. When was the last time NCAA and Kroenke LOST money? If you believe Kroenke won't strike business deals with official Olympic sponsors then you have no idea what's going on.

Yes, having facilities in place gives certain countries a clear advantage over some others but Los Angeles will make money from hosting the Games because: a) Memorial Coliseum is tied to USC & NCAA which makes a ton of money and probably has a bigger budget than 75% of the world. NCAA is the most dysfunctional organization in sports which pays absolutely nothing to the student athletes. Therefore they have money to spend on the Olympics. b) Stan Kroenke and his SoFi Stadium will combine the Games with private business. So it's no longer a public event where people make a choice. Kroenke will probably sign billionaire deals with Olympic sponsors and get back all that money he invested in building the stadium. This goes beyond the country's budget, outside of China and Qatar which other country could afford to basically leave the hosting process in private hands? Probably none. Rio, Athens, Barcelona, Cortina whatever, they had to pour public money into the Games, USA/LA basically leaves the lion's share of this process to NCAA and Stan Kroenke.

Hosting Olympics loses you money, it has nothing to do with social media. Garmisch-Partenkirchen struck down the idea of WOG bid in public vote because they don't really need to host them and lose a ton of money. They have the Four Hills on New Year and the alpine skiing World Cup. They are very fine with that plus it's a skiing resort for tourists. Winter Olympics in particular are no longer held in traditional winter resorts, there are a few countries willing to host the Games regardless how much money it will cost them China is obviously one, I bet in 20 years time Doha will be awarded Summer Games too. Qatar has hosted every damn World Championships there is, football, athletics, handball, cycling, you name it. They've got the money and they don't care about anything else. Hosting the Games is more about prestige, there are only a handful of countries that pick prestige over money loss, China, Qatar, USA, Italy and France being probably on that short-list.

Twitter is the LAST thing that will decide whether the Olympics are postponed or not. I'm surprised that people still believe in the social media after the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal

This is a bit shocking though she lasted a lot longer than her sisters.

Yeah, I noticed the Huawei hashtag on her IG account at the end of February so it's obvious with this and Red Bull sponsorship she's not gonna retire anytime soon

People are losing their mind over the whole qualification system like I don't know what? Hell, every fed uses their rankings and it's all fine. It's not like March or April is a MUST deadline for qualifying. You could have taken care of that, like sooner? Japan has two months to get the official word out. Save the drama for late May when we should have a much better picture what's going on. Right now it's all drama & click-baiting.

The virus could well be contained come November. The spread has shrunk in China already. Meanwhile Biden has pantsed Sanders in Florida and is set to run away with Illinois too, Sanders should just run for governor of California, he's getting massacred everywhere else now

Tom Brady is set to join the Tampa Bay Buccaneers

Roland Garros has been postponed to the last week of September. Dare I say the entire clay season will be scraped soon and quite frankly so will the grass season IMO.

WTA confirms all events through May 2nd are postponed. So they want to ride out until the Rome & Madrid Premier Mandatory schedule in the run-up for the RG.

Sandra Drabik beats Tetyana Kob on points and is one win away from Olympic qualification (she was one win away from Rio too but lost in the 2016 World Champs QF 1-2 to a Thai boxer in rather controversial circumstances).

Magdalena Gwizdon must have missed that memo. She will outlast them all

Just get rid of this crap anyway. The old Intercontinental Cup one & done was sufficient enough. However FIFA & UEFA want to milk as much money as possible. The football calendar is ridiculously overloaded anyway. It's going up to the FIVB levels of nonsense.

Obviously my biggest mistake was choosing Guigonnat over Jacquelin as this season's sleeper breakthrough Samuelsson/Schempp/Kuehn also underperformed so I was always handicapped on the men's side. Can't complain about my female choices, Wierer/Herrmann did as good as I hoped for but guess going with two Top 10 on the men's side (JTB/MF) would have been better. Lena Haecki was very frustrating to watch in the second half of the season.

Here's my rundown for the women (I'll spare the men because the only chance for a points finish for any of them is 10/10 in Oberhof like Grzegorz Guzik has done a couple of times). On a normal day 9/10 barely gives the men a chance to crack Top 60. Monika Hojnisz - 12th in the overall with ten Top 10 finishes (but no podium). If only she didn't fell in Hochfilzen sprint which broke the rifle and ruled her out of pursuit (and the Annecy mass start) she would have been comfortable inside the Top 10. She's the highest ranked athlete this season without a single podium. Kamila Zuk - 38th in the overall. The fastest skier of our girls but still too unreliable in 4-shoot races. Obvious comparison to Marketa Davidova whom she battled in the juniors. Has a huge potential which remains unfulfilled but she can easily finish Top 10 in the overall if she gets the shooting woes out of her way. Kinga Zbylut - 56th in the overall. Good enough for a random Top 20 result on her best day. Doesn't have the ski speed of Zuk & Hojnisz but should be around 30-40th place on a regular basis if she improves her shooting. Magdalena Gwizdon - unranked this season. What can I say? Turns 41 in August. Started in World Cup in December 1995. Should be out of the 'A' team by now but that depends on... Joanna Jakiela - turned 21 two weeks ago. We should put her on a full-time World Cup duty next season. No trolling around with grandma Gwizdon or eternal IBU Cup also-run Anna Maka. Krystyna Guzik is basically semi-retired so we might as well invest in Jakiela as the fourth member for the relay squad going forward. Michael Greis as the head coach of the women's team has done a great job, he's doing more with less than Nadia Belova for years before him (not to mention Adam Kolodziejczyk who caused all the controversy within the group - and Nowakowska in particular). The Belova/Kolodziejczyk best quarter (Nowakowska/Palka-Guzik/Hojnisz/Giwzdon) was better than what we have now.

'The Athletic' claims UEFA will announce on Tuesday the Euro 2020 will be postponed to 2021. This will allow to finish the national leagues & European cups in the summer. Obviously the Club World Cup which is one of the most unneccessary football competitions around will probably be scraped alltogether in 2021.

So, literally eveyone gets a globe to take home except for Hanna Oeberg? Have to say poor Hanna is the biggest loser of the season (outside of Vittozzi who started the season really bad though). Okay, Oeberg gets the individual globe too. So Vittozzi is the real loser of the season

IBU has a Rookie of the Year Award? Congrats, Elvira Oeberg

Italians are probably more outgoing in public than Scandinavians (even those from South Tyrol). I mean Finland is like the last country I'd expect people to show emotions (unless you count Kimi Raikkonen trolling the FIA gala on stage while clearly being drunk ).

Then again, Wallin/Forsberg was the big choker at the Olympics so it wasn't all that boring back then

Well this confidence comes from physical presence too. These girls know they're very easy on the eye and don't shade away from the attention. You'd probably hate the Polish ES coverage when they mention Wierer's make-up or eyelashes 150 times during the season With Tomasz Sikora replacing the older guy from last season they've toned down the beauty remarks though as Sikora has some strictly biathlon trivia to share.

Well, Dorothea Wierer is the first female biathlete who defends the overall WC globe since Magdalena Forsberg in 2002 (that was her sixth in a row).