Grassmarket

Hmm standards not high in the first event. Women’s Shot was famously dominated by back in the early days, but here only one athlete over 17m, and that only good enough for 6th or 7th in Paris.

You will remember, we were threatened with a duathlon instead of a triathlon in Paris. Of course, the Duathlon is an event in its own right & this weekend sees the World Championships, taking place during the brutal winter, where everyone is at least safe from sharks & crocs, but not from snakes & spiders.

This weekend we have the (incorporating ) Championships from Yekatarinburg (where the Commies murdered the Tsar & his family.). Just like in the old Cold War days, will be interesting to compare times & distances. But unlike the old days, there will be no Zurich for both sides to finally meet.

Apparently baseball in Japan was popular as early as the 20s.

Just a bump for this: provisional entry lists now being populated. Qualification for Tokyo Worlds 2025 started before Paris, so a first chance to those who weren’t in fast races in Paris to get a mark set in a paced race.

After the great triumph of Breakdancing at the Olympics, proper, civilised ballroom dancing this weekend! 2024 WDSF DanceSport GrandSlam Standard & Latin - Stuttgart, Germany (olympics.com)

If your thirst for 3x3 is not slaked, we have a tournament at Lausanne this weekend. 2024 FIBA 3x3 Basketball World Tour - Lausanne, Switzerland (olympics.com)

We are getting back to normal! First up, an eastern German throws meet tomorrow. https://www.mdr.de/tv/programm/mdrplus-sendung-9036.html

Bit of thread archaelogy for next week in Lausanne, here’s the timetable. https://lausanne.diamondleague.com/en/programme-results-lausanne/

You’ll be needed a race walk.

Was looking for this, eventually found it. We also missed the annual Blink Festival of roller-skiing from Norway! Michel Henschel / Biathlon Channel - YouTube

Another win for a young rider - Thomas Gloag gets a medium hilly win on Stage 3 of the Tour!

Pretty sure it will be on the World Athletics website as a default, and some nations might have their own versions.

Yeah, but do you think Jeremiah Azu feels better about his solo 100m performance than one of the other Olympians who came fourth? I don’t really buy into this whole “elite sport as a self-esteem” exercise. There are far cheaper & less public ways to feeling good about yourself.

Summer Biathlon season is underway. World Championships from Otepaa are next weekend. Already had the AIN Belarus races!

Coming out of our Olympics haze.....Eurosport has a whole lot of Summer Ski Jumping from Courcheval this weekend.

GB also fourth on the Top 8 Finishes table. NOC points total top8 USA 1193 226 CHN 846 155 FRA 699 150 GBR 681 136 ITA 556 120 AUS 541 109 JPN 532 115 GER 491 117 NED 382 76 CAN 341 79 KOR 333 66 ESP 296 69 BRA 247 57 HUN 238 51 NZL 232 53

Certainly illustrates the importance of having corrupt & violent mafiosi controlling the judging pool.

Well, here in Britain we have Diving Clubs and even an annual national regional cup series. So there is a grassroots scene.

Thanks for doing this btw, I found it very interesting & actually useful because it demonstrates which nations compete in a broad range of sports & which are specialising in a small number.

I’d say she deserves everything she gets. According to Twitter - I’m not a member so can’t link directly - Professor Gunn herself & her husband created the Australian Breaking Association. When the IOC (at third hand) asked her, as a “neutral”expert, who the official representatives of Australian Breaking were, she named her own self-created Association. And then this Association held a qualifying tournament which Professor Gunn won, and her husband was appointed national Team Coach. Presumably all financed by the Australian Government. Which seems to have a pretty good case for fraud. (We had a similar case in London 2012 when a guy & his Ukrainian wife {who tbf did have some wrestling experience} created a UK Wrestling Association & got away with large sums.) Full story on a crazed right-wing website. https://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=411013

Catching up with the long ago and faraway world of about two weeks ago Young rider FDJ Sam Watson got his maiden pro wing on Stage 5 of the Tour de Wallonie - classic Belgian cobbled climb finish as well!

Seems to be that way here in also - however, willing to bet that it is a lot easier to use a VPN to bypass this national IP-based copyright protection system than it would be to crack into a paid service.

Team, as announced about three weeks ago. https://www.britishathletics.org.uk/news-and-features/gb-ni-squad-announced-for-the-world-athletics-u20-championships-lima-2024/

Pretty sure it has been that way in the last few games.