Grassmarket

It's rational for a small country to concentrate a limited budget on a few sports. Cycling, sailing, rowing, equestrian, canoeing,....they get a lot of medals for a 5m population country. Apart from Alice Robinson, their main hopes are in the freestyle events, so....biathlon is not like athletics or swimming where you can chuck a few people in and hope for the best, it's an expensive commitment. Similar situation years back with Jakov Fak & .

NZ have very strict criteria in all sports though - everyone knows them.

I’m sure the IBSF will tweak whatever rules are needed to get an athlete from the African continent into the Games.

Have made up the timetable into a single Excel Spreadsheet, but in the old format which should be compatible with any other spreadsheet software. I've added a little bit of trickery at the front so that it can be used as a Universal - or at any rate, global - time calculator, which allows you to calculate the time of all events in Beijing according to your own location. Couple of things missing only - the times of the Opening & Closing Ceremonies does not seem to be confirmed on the official website. And the Curling draws don't seem to be made yet. Otherwise complete, subject to last minute changes. Beijing time calculator Version one.xls

Just cannot understand how jumpers from nations with huge support teams can keep getting DQFs.

He does it!

New Year lockdowns are strengthening friendship between peoples! Scots & Welsh escaping stupid lockdown laws are heading en masse to the English Border, Dutch heading for the Belgian border for the same reason!

Will be tough. Unfortunately the ultra fast are sitting this one out.

records are a bugbear of mine because it was proven in a court of law that they WERE doping - we know who doped, what they took, when they took it etc etc. All the evidence needed to remove them. The other cases are supposition & speculation, so unfortunately they should stand, but you will never ever get more proof than with the DDR ones. And it’s not just theoretical harm either - all the European U-20 & U-23 athletes are still being penalised because all those old DDR records still stand at that level.

We’re off in Ruhpolding - it’s raining.

In fact there are six races. Men + Women’s Individual - гонка - then 2 Sprints - спринт - each for m & w, so plenty to watch!

You’ll need this…. https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/learn-cyrillic-alphabet-two-days/

Guess we will find out. If in 2025 times set in 2020-2024 are suddenly unattainable, we will know why.

John, Robert & Edward Kennedy's father Joseph was America's most prominent pro-Nazi, of course.

Again, the pretense that Communists are “just part of a coalition” pretty much always precedes the full-scale Communist takeover of a country. All the post-1945 east European countries were coalition governments, at least for the short time before the other members of the coalition died in mysterious accidents.

I suppose it’s possible that there really are both millionaire Nigerian princesses & moderate Communists out there somewhere, but I don’t expect to see any in my lifetime.

People still fooled by that old line, eh? Mao, Ho Chi Minh, Castro, Pol Pot, Chavez, all described by western “experts” as pragmatic moderate leftists at one time or another.

Emma Raducanu unsurprisingly wins in https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/sports-personality/59687576

Doing well enough in the ladies - got the top three just now.

Will be nice if there is one fan.

Breezy Johnson, again! Gets close, going to be second.

Sofia Goggia once again dominates. Starter 7 & will take something great to beat her.

Do we have a theological thread here? Anyway, Mariah Carey graciously concedes that the Virgin Mary, and not she, is indeed Queen of Christmas. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10321715/Mariah-Carey-humbly-confesses-not-Queen-Christmas.html

Am starting to wonder if I had omicron. About two weeks ago had a sore throat, sneezing fits & runny nose, which people now say are classic symptoms. Probably infected dozens, like Typhoid Mary.

Let justice be done though the heavens fall! Take away the trophy & confiscate the Swiss francs, even if they have to send in the Commandos!