Grassmarket

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

So Angry Birds is out?

They also are afraid to upset their key voters, who love guns, but are not organised into an actual lobby group.

Well, he keeps winning elections so…..

Maybe biathle, the UIPM running & laser pistol shooting variant? Or bike/run triathlon?

Was a very good one - usually it’s all over after the first 10 strokes.

Is there a phrase in French that means “sang froid”/ Diners shared a romantic glass of wine by the fire as demonstrators rallied across France in protest over President Emmanuel Macron's pension reform. A video posted on TikTok shows couples dining at Place de la Victoire, in the southern wine-growing region of Bordeaux on Thursday, as rioters set fires in the streets. The diners, chatting away and scrolling on their mobile phones, seem unfazed by the violence erupting near the restaurant. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11903791/Unfazed-French-diners-enjoy-glass-wine-protesters-set-fires-background.html

Had a couple of good chances for decent scores, even a chance at a game winning two in the final end, but didn’t take them so the streak continues.

Worth watching - two mass starts today & a Club Relay tomorrow.

There is always a bit of controversy. By default we use an established team, like Bruce Mouat in the men's. When it's an emergency - like Muirhead last season when she had to go to the last chance Olympic Quals - the authorities insisted on picking the team.

Think Rhona Martin when she won Olympic Gold started even worse than that.