Monzanator

Not surprising Europeans dominated this Open. Most Americans have problems with the links anyway and this was a new course for like most of them. JB Holmes shot +16 on the final day? Talk about going down the gutter. Everyone hyped McIlroy before the start and it's the old man Lowry who carried the flag in the end. I wonder how popular Eire victory is in Ulster?

3 minutes ago, dareza said:

Do all people in Italy always have objections and everything is always negative? 

 

 

Nobody:

 

Italian guys on site: THIS IS DISASTER REALLLY! Yes we won, but hey it is still not good.

 

 

Calm down people, just without tension, your team won, you have chance for medal and it is only important.

You probably don't realize how successful Italian fencing is Getting "a medal" is simply not good enough.

13 minutes ago, MHSN said:

 

Iran and it was always Iran (and not Persia) the official name was always Iran while in other countries they enjoyed to use "Persia" before 1935, at the time the Iranian government asked all countries to use Iran because Persia was actually wrong. Persian is a race and it's not all people in this country are Persian.

 

btw, you may find it interesting that we call your country "Lahestan" !!

Thx for the explanation

Yeah, we were called "Lachs" or "Lachy" by the East Slavics, Turks & other Middle East people since like forever But I was unware this still exists in Iran or maybe other Arabic countries. It comes from this:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lendians

Most of the countries use the modern name versions of Poland or Polonia now. In Europe I'm fairly sure Lithuania & Hungary still use the "Lachs" version (Lengyel in Hungarian means Polish) but Hungary still uses the vintage version Magyarorszag as country name so it makes sense

So how do people in Iran call their own country? Because I'm completely lost now

Anita Wlodarczyk has undergone a knee surgery and is done for the season. There goes our safest gold pick for Doha

Speaking of botched plane flights from 2011 Bojana Jovanovski once flown to the wrong city for a WTA event. And the distance was far greater than between Krakow & Kosice. It's not like San Diego was a new event back then even it if was played on the suburbs aka Carlsbad. But she somehow confused California with New Mexico. Stange flights too --> since she flew from Dallas to Albuquerque she must have gotten it all wrong from the start.

https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/14369086

3 minutes ago, Shravan Kumar said:

I don't agree with you about the popularity of cricket from British period. Only a handful of people like Kings and elites were very much into cricket before independence. For your information hockey was the most popular game in India. As India won the world cup in1983 as an underdog the popularity of cricket boosted, in retrospect as hockey shifted to turfs India lost its strong hold and the fans shifted to cricket.

National team success usually boosts any sport's popularity. And cricket wasn't part of the Olympics while the World Cup only started in the 70s so they were very late to the party. But I don't think the British rule over India, Bangladesh & Pakistan has nothing to do with cricket being popular in this very specific region of Asia. It has everything to do with this. Likewise cricket being popular in South Africa, Zimbabwe & even Namibia over in Africa - the three countries on the continent with a relatively significant white presence in society over the years.

Kevin Na has pulled out of The Open with injury and guess who replaced him in the field?   @hckosice

3 minutes ago, Fly_like_a_don said:

Bullshit!! Can you please stop bothering of those tiny details? The meaning is clear very less nations play most of the sports competitively and that's there in quite a lot of sports. 

I realize cricket is the most popular sport in India but c'mon! It's just a relict from the British Empire days. If France occupied India for all those centuries instead you wouldn't even sniffed this game at all

13 hours ago, Shravan Kumar said:

Sorry but most populous countries?

I can agree with India , Pakistan and maybe Bangladesh. I don't see any other populous countries.

In that case badminton is popular in many most populous countries than cricket. China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Korea, &Even India.

As a Indian I can say most people like badminton. It is may be the second or third biggest sport in viewership.

South East Asia is the most populous region in the world (if I can say India belongs to this region). Yes, badminton is so popular because it has a big following in China & India - two of the most populous countries in the world. But just because such big countries have a history in this sport it doesn't make it global or popular in the world. USA plays football but it's not a global sport. Likewise baseball which extends to Carribean & Japan but it's not a global sport. Cricket is the Commonwealth version of baseball. Very big in isolated parts of the world but only a big fish in a very small pond. And it just so happens 33% of the countries which participate in Cricket World Cup have like zero team success in every other sport in the world (Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh).

There are only 10 teams in the World Cup, you mentioned three countries and guess you can add West Indies which takes talent from all of the Carribean so that's quite a pool of talent available allthough it rivals baseball over there.

8 hours ago, Dolby said:

Same way Ice Hockey, Water Polo or Handball are Olympic sports even though nobody outside of Europe and USA/Canada play it. 

Nobody plays handball in USA/Canada, mind you. And nobody claims these events are global sports either (unlike cricket) so your arguments are dead wrong on arrival. The only true Commonwealth sport that has gained global following to a degree is rugby. But then again, South East Asia doesn't play rugby much opposite to cricket.

4 hours ago, LDOG said:

It is what it is guys. This is the era of "wall tennis", Djoko and Nadal will keep winning everything until they are 40. At least Murray retired thanks god.

Yeah, I don't really follow men's tennis anymore. The courts are so slow it's hilarious. The likes of Edberg and Becker would blow Djokovic & Nadal off the court in less than 60 mins back on the old carpet

9 minutes ago, NearPup said:

...except it's actually one of the most popular sport in the world.

Again, British Empire is no longer the world. Hell, badminton is more popular than cricket but the numbers are skewed since these sports are popular in some of the most populous countries in the world. Cricket isn't a global sport, it's a big fish in a very, very small pond. Why would they reduce the number of teams taking part in World Cup in first place if it's so popular?

Don't the native Algerians actually hate France?

3 minutes ago, phelps said:

 

it's a world cup because there are teams from all around the world...Europe, Asia, Africa, Americas, Oceania...

 

actually, Cricket is one of the few team sports where you can find at least 1 top team from each of the 5 Continents...

 

p.s. maybe the level is not so good as it is in the main Countries of the sport, but Cricket is played regularly also outside the Commonwealth Nations...

This should be called British Empire Games at best   The last true relict of the colonial era. Irrelevant sport nobody pays attention to IMO.

Why is it called a World Cup anyway? There's nobody from outside the Commonwealth even playing this sport?

Well, Vettel has completely lost it again. This guy is total headcase at this point. Meanwhile SC screws Bottas and Hamilton wins again. It was actually the best race of the season anyway.

10 hours ago, heywoodu said:

Wow, dude, you can not criticize Williams, ever. You'll get accused of everything  

Serena is not a sacred cow though