Grassmarket

Good stuff this weekend Rugby League Easter here in the Northern Hemisphere, already had a cracking Wigan-Saints game. Paris - Roubaix times two - Women's Race already established as the best women's race of all women's races. World Men's Curling Play-offs & Final College basketball over, so full focus on PAC-12 softball. Also NCAA beach volleyball - as usual, Alaska at the bottom of the table already. Not for me, but the German Darts season continues. Plus catch-ups on Russian biathlon & World Juniors Cross Country.

Hey, if Thailand can have skiers….

Agree. Speeches that no one listens to, books that no-one reads, Professorships with no teaching, management jobs with no decisions, podcasts no-one downloads - that’s the way it’s done now. Sacks full of cash is terribly 1970s.

“My husband told me he was planting new potatoes for the Spring. I had absolutely no idea he was burying £500,000 in small-denomination bills.” https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11942651/Police-seen-holding-shovels-search-Nicola-Sturgeons-garden.html#comments

That’s how it is now in the international nomenklatura - every job is just a dress rehearsal for the next job. Only the private jets get bigger.

Freestyle National Champs took place last weekend - amazingly in ! Don’t know if that’s the first ever, but it’s a pretty damn rare thing to have enough snow in in April, considering that we are supposed to be in the front line of global warming. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/winter-sports/65173944

Men’s Team To boycott the IBA Worlds over corruption & BLR/RUS presence - full team to Malopolska European Games instead. Just confirming what the women did a few weeks back. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/65180151

Yeah, Joe Davis had a few runs at World level, but did well in the NCAAs - won the freestyle, fourth in classic. Will definitely be in the points soon. Two late good results for Musgrave just this weekend in the ultra-traditional Ski Classics tour suggest that he still has good years ahead at the longer distances.

Agree, that is really asking people to stick a target on their back, Polish Government should really have known better given Poland’s Communist history when such Declarations were demanded almost weekly.

Cross-Country skiing veteran Anders Aukland finally for-sure retires after his last race on the Ski Classics Tour, 8 years after finishing on the FIS Tour, a 30 year career in all. One of the last guys that regrets the end of the old Individual Start 50km format.

I suppose military band versions of 80s synth- rock classics are pretty old hat to you guys, huh?

Damn, beaten into Fourth by ! The figures for , , etc are utterly bogus because those were never united independent countries until the 20th Century.

Ken Buchanan, Scotland’s first ever Boxing World Champion from the days when there were only eight classic weight Boxing World Champions & every casual sports fan knew who they were, https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/boxing/65149207

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce runs in her son’s School Sports day. She makes no concessions to the opposition. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/athletics/65148492

Some trespassers on the Norwegian Plateau - Rosie Brennan second & Andrew Musgrave third in the Reistadløpet just now.

Full Champs are on YT. Sponsored by Chemist Warehouse. https://www.youtube.com/@AthsAust/streams

TV coverage in Europe is not as good as for the Women’s with the unhelpful timezone All games all sessions live on the PPV - costs about €1-2 per game. https://watch.recast.tv/user/5pYk0?referrer=5pYk0 ES/Discovery Plus have only four RR games in total, but do have the Semis & Medal games.

How’s your PhD thesis coming on, btw?

Just saw a bit, their grand farewell consisted of drinking tons of champagne & eating lots of junk food. I’d also want to wear a big baggy ski suit & to smash scales with a circus hammer.

Yeah, but really World Athletics is very much looser than FIFA so it is the same issue in every country, because WA has nothing to do with FISU, Commonwealth Games, Asian Games etc etc..

Situation is complicated, but it seems to be fully effective, National Federations must also implement the WA rules, which does. Expect all sorts of kerfuffles, ructions, stramashes & stooshies when it is the ‘s turn. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/65140092

Yeah, forgot about cycling. Shooting….used to like it, but they’ve changed to formats again & I haven’t caught up. Really have no interest at all in soccer anymore, it is all way too predictable in every country. Judo & Fencing are Olympics only for me. Would love to watch Modern Pentathlon if not for stupid PayTV now. As I said about baseball before - bring the games back to 120 mins as they were as recently as the 1960s.

We’re going into the Spring Dead Zone - those five or six weeks between one sports season ending & the next beginning. So what do we have from now till mid-May? Last week of ski jumping & Ski Classics. Would you believe the Norwegians have got another 30km/50km race today! Still the men’s & mixed doubles curling to come Rugby League both hemispheres. Can’t be bothered with baseball anymore so it’s NCAA softball for stick sports. No rest for NCAA track & field, early season meets already. And some things prudently saved. Only up to 16/12/2022 on Russian Biathlon Whole of the Cross Country World Juniors & U-23s to go.

My first chance to post in Magyar! The word is - szalámitaktika.

Adam Peaty struggling. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/swimming/65116313