Grassmarket

Not the organisers’ fault - they’d picked a nice wide road to finish. But all the big TdF sprinters & their lead-out men were present so…..

Multiple sprint crashes in the rain in Italy. Multiple sprint crashes in the dry in Hungary. Haven’t watched the Women’s Navarra Classic yet.

Secondly - this Singapore site looks very good, has 3 live streams & lots of highlights you need 1. VPN set to Singapore 2. Username / password registration. Seemingly neither are very strictly policed. Highlights are a bit stir-fried ie chopped up into small bits. So you get one dish of 400m heats, one side order of shot put final, extra plate of 3000m steeplechase final etc etc. https://www.mewatch.sg/seagames

Two options for streams. 1. This Vietnamese site has lots. https://www.youtube.com/WEBTHETHAOVN/streams

Global media attention! Cambodia's Bou Samnang finishes 5,000m in torrential rain six minutes behind winner - BBC Sport

& have had these laws since the EPO era, but this is a first for . A Texas man faces up to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to supplying performance-enhancing drugs to Olympic athletes. Eric Lira, 43, is the first defendant to be charged under a new US law introduced in the wake of Russia's state-backed Olympic doping scandals. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/65531036

8 from 2022 & Top 8 in the World Ranking. And then after that heading to Paris. https://worldathletics.org/competitions/world-athletics-relays/bahamas24/news/press-releases/qualification-system-relays-nassau-24

Women’s cycling often a bit lacking in drama, but two great stages to round off the Vuelta yesterday & today. Even down to the bit where riders emerge suddenly from the clouds at the top of mounrains to save or lose their jerseys! Not quite oxygen tanks, but pretty near.

Sadly track cycling got exactly zero media coverage in those days.

Good quality road races from Atlanta tonight.

British Track World Champion Tony Doyle dead from cancer. Was an ES Commentator as well. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/65500821

Pre-match entertainment not really fully thought through. Catalans Dragons rugby league players had to run for cover after a bull broke free in a bizarre incident. French side Catalans Dragons hosted English team St Helens at the Stade Gilbert Brutus in Perpignan, southern France, in a Super League clash on Friday evening. Three hefty bulls were paraded around the field in a pre-match lap of honour intended to 'celebrate the quality of beef in the region', an idea cooked up by Catalans owner Bernard Guasch, the head of a local meat processing company . https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/rugbyleague/article-12052539/Raging-BULL-Carnage-erupts-France-rampaging-animal-breaks-loose-players-flee.html

Čeh gets robbed of his win in spite of throwing a WL. Ah no, forgot they had gone back into sensible mode last year.

Yeah, they all are, but most will be shuffled off to online or Red Button. BBC2 is a rare treat nowadays.

We are OK here - - it’s even on poor peoples’ TV this week, so even beggars in rags can watch it.

DL opener Dragons v St Helens RL PTO Triathlon (dipping in and out) End of regular season in NCAA Softball NCAA Beach Volleyball Finals. Feast of cycling - Giro, Women's Vuelta climbing stages, Brittany one dayers And just one more race to go in the Cross Country World U-23s! Still only up to mid-January with Russian biathlon.

That moment when you realize the biggest athletics series of the year is hidden away on some obscure cable channel you don’t get. https://worldathletics.org/news/news/how-follow-watch-diamond-league-2023

Always a member of the Royal Family here in , that’s what they’re for. Apart from shooting partridges.

UCI to reconsider in Glasgow in August. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/65486165

Rowing another sport with the crazy testosterone rule for men in women's boats. attempting to bring some common sense by taking the insane, revolutionary step of asking members what they think. British Rowing ready to defy world governing body over transgender rules (msn.com)

Got some triathlon this weekend on ES/Discovery - the PTO European Open from Ibiza. It’s long distance triathlon so ITT mode for the cycling & running. Sometimes an athletes overlap with Olympic distance, but I should think most people are concentrating on Olympic Qs this season. Race is 100km 2km swim 80km bike ride 18km run.

Just the right time to bring a sport invented by the Russian military into the pathway to the Olympics.

1. It’s not a Mickey Mouse race to the women who entered it. 2. It’s part of the UCI America Tour which brings ranking points. 3. Team & individual ranking points serve as qualification criteria for more prestigious races. Next up, the much-better known ES televised Joe Martin stage race 4. Ranking points eventually give qual places to ->US Trials ->World Camps ->Olympics. So Killips is on track for those races, & an American woman cyclist somewhere will miss out. The process is explained here. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cycling/2023/05/02/trans-cyclists-have-olympics-in-sights-no-one-can-stop-them/

What’s to stop him making the USTeam? They have an open trial.

UCI determined to destroy its own sport. What on earth do they think is going to happen when Killips rides the Tour de France or the Olympics in Paris? How are the public on the roadside going to react, do you think? Are they going to fine other riders or teams for criticizing him? It's a completely predictable disaster just waiting to happen, like ordering your ship to sail full speed through a sea filled with icebergs. The only question is whether they are just deeply stupid, or whether they've been bribed. Cycling-UCI defends transgender policy after Killips victory (msn.com)