Grassmarket

Van der Poel crashes with 6k to go, will lose about a minute.

You've got to go back to the 70s to find a time when we had multiple contenders.

It's complicated, but there definitely was a time not so long ago when we had a whole pack of useless makeweights whose only ambitions were to get to a Major, go out in the first round and maybe scrape the odd Commonwealth medal. And they kept on doing it year after year. My compromise proposal would be that we are generous to young athletes just making the transition from age group to senior, but if you've already been to an event, didn't do much, and don't have a realistic hope of making a final, then you can watch on TV. Lots of other countries have far harsher rules - New Zealand and the Netherlands to name but two. And they've been doing pretty well.

Sorry I jinxed you by watching the last three minutes of the game.

Pretty amazing when you consider that the old record belonged to Armin Hary who set a then world record of 10:00 as far back as 1960!

Big controversy in as 400m Hurdler Alastair Chalmers gets DQed for a false start in the final, runs under protest and.....hits the Olympic Standard with 48.53! Latest is that the Meet Jury have reinstated him, so his time stands and he'll go to Paris.

Over at Athletics Weekly they’re saying the Jury have reinstated Chalmers so unless the French appeal (not ruling it out ) he’s in!

Vingegaard needs a bit of a slap, he contributed nothing to the break.

GPS timing in disgrace!

Pog time! Gonna take time on everyone but Vingegaard.

Looks like the peloton have learnt from yesterday & have started the catch early. No, they are not bothering, so there’s attacks off the front that nobody’s bothering about. Murderous climb to come….

YES!!!

Damn, if it was a twisty medieval Italian town the break might survive, but long straight roads mean last 200m heartbreak.

Well, if I were planning to move to I’d definitely buy a house in the flat bit. This late acceleration is going to make things a bit hairy for the Cavendish gruppetto at 30 minutes already. Can’t see the breakaway making it now with 12k of flatness.

Wow, AND in the same Tour!

40k to go. Breakaway has 90 secs, so looks like a sprint from the very diminished peloton. Think Abrahamsen has bought himself a good stint in the KoM jersey.

UAE go to the front & start grating the peloton down like parmesan cheese.

Anyway, the good news for him is that he’s now in a bit of a group with some other sprinters falling off the back. Can look forward to a night on glucose drips though.

Has been vomiting apparently - not shown. Eurosport reckon the time cut for today will be around 40 mins so barring catastrophe……

Uh oh Cavendish in trouble on the first climb. Is already 2’30 down on the peloton, so we’re looking at timeout territory.

We are off with the actual start. Jan Hirt in a crash even before the depart fictif! As usual spectators watching their cameras, not the race.

Another couple of FTA National Champs FPAtletismo TV - YouTube Hungarian Athletics - YouTube

So I think it's fair to say that President Biden must have been a bit disappointed with his performance last night.

Wonderful article here about the single greatest moment in the history of the old unlamented Communist . Antonin Panenka: The Euro 1976 penalty that killed a career and birthed a feud - BBC Sport

Championships / Trials start tomorrow evening, on FTA.