Grassmarket

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)

Yeah the attitude seems to be. "Governments criticizing journalists is an attack on free speech." Yes it is. "Ordinary citizens criticizing journalists is an attack on free speech" Errm....no. Ordinary citizens saying what they like about journalists is an EXAMPLE of free speech.

Ah, so “press freedom” now means “the extent to which journalists are treated like royalty”

So in their view Elon Musk’s RELAXATION of censorship laws on Twitter was a blow to press freedom because…..well, who knows. And they don’t realise that speech laws in & are completely different, that’s some ace reportering right there.

Full Doha programme. https://doha.diamondleague.com/programme-results-doha/

Coverage here too, so they’ve maybe got a couple of guys off cycling for the day. https://www.lesoir.be/510451/article/2023-04-29/luca-brecel-le-rebelle-qui-ecrit-lhistoire-du-snooker

Seems like we have got more men winning women's cycling races to look forward to this summer. A well-deserved reward for all those women who've struggled over the last decade to get three Grand Tours, all the Classics etc etc. Well done the UCI! Transgender cyclist Austin Killips wins women's Tour of the Gila – next stop Olympics? (msn.com)

Wow, that’s someone whom everyone of my generation knew. We only won three golds in 76, so Modern Pentathlon suddenly became a huge story. 5 disciplines in 5 days - the world was younger then. Also there was a bad guy - Boris Onischenko fencing cheat!

History made in the USA as for the first time a man wins a women’s UCI-ranked Stage race. https://tourofthegila.com/2023-tour-of-the-gila-concludes-uci-women-press-release-stage-5/ And it was a unique double because a man also won the men’s race! Truly a day to remember. https://tourofthegila.com/2023-tour-of-the-gila-conclude-uci-men-press-release-stage-5/

Pretty incredible. I will guarantee you that as of 1983 there was not a single billiards table with pockets in the whole of - French-style three cushion carom was the cue sport game they played.

Having had a look at the names……Cambodian cricket is Cambodian to the same degree cricket is Swiss. (ie it’s all subcontinentals)