Grassmarket

Eurosport have highlights from the Irish women’s race, the Ras mBhan (which is Irish for “The Women’s Race”) tomorrow mirning.

Turning the clock back a fair few years in Sicilia - Vincenzo Nibali attacks a few km from the top of the last big climb, Movistar & Alejandro Valverde can’t react, & Nibali beats Valverde to both stage & his home Tour. Nibali’s first win since the 2019 TdF, so a very emotional day.

Amateur boxing corrupt from top to bottom, according to this evidence. It’s a great shame, because it ought to be one of those sports where poor nations can do as well as rich ones. Always was suspicious after the very transparent judging system used at Beijing 2008 was changed back to the subjective judges’ verdict system in 2012. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10049895/Olympics-boxing-judges-bribed-thousands-dollars-hidden-toothpaste-tubes.html

Next year's Tour Down Under & associated events cancelled because Australians are a bunch of girly men.

Jess Lowden beats the Women’s Hour Record. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/58751483

The good news: the wild population of Catalonia is thriving. The bad news: they are attacking the world’s favourite Columbian/Lebanese pop singer. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-58747464

More details on the story from yesterday. Long way to go before redicisions are made, if ever. Investigators fear eleven boxing bouts at the Rio Olympic Games were fixed by officials, including GB boxer Joe Joyce's controversial defeat against France's Tony Yoka in a gold medal fight. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-10045585/Investigators-fear-11-boxing-matches-fixed-Rio-2016.html

Of course the logical solution would be to have two categories, a defined category for Women & an Open category for everyone else. But i doubt that logical solutions are what the gender lobby are trying to attain. Transgender athletes have an unfair advantage in female sports and a new 'universal' category should be introduced for them, a major review has suggested. The report, from Sport England, concluded that trans women have an advantage in some sports, even when testosterone levels have been reduced. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/58732146

Problem is he’ll also have to meet the very strict NZ national qualifying criteria - effectively world level top 12 or something, like

The idea that the judging at Olympic boxing is rigged will come as no surprise to anyone, but it would be a major shock if anyone on the IOC were willing to do very much about it. Especially to the extent of re-awarding medals.... https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/boxing/article-10042649/Joe-Joyce-Olympic-gold-fix-probe-loss-Tony-Yoka-Rio-2016.html

Competing for Lamin Deen, very much Britain's B sled. I'm sure he'll do a very good job because he has always been a truly professional athlete, but it does seem a bit of a publicity stunt to get sponsors onboard.

Ice hockey is not like soccer or volleyball. There is a risk of physical injury when hugely mismatched teams play, not just embarrassing scores.

Or “Kash” as she is known to us monosyllabic anglo-saxons.

When I saw her I am embarassed to admit I thought “That’s a rider in Hungarian colours….no, can’t be” and ran through my mental database of nations with red, white & green flags. Well, it wasn’t Lebanon either.

British team tactics also rubbish. Worked mid-race, did all the chasing down late race, were exhausted for the last 2km.

10k to go, and the Dutch have seven riders in with a chance.

She was always only a time trialist, only ended up in the Olympic road race because Austria did not have enough UCI points to place her in the TT.

Trouble for Oranje as Demi Vollering has a mechanical at the worst possible place on the whole circuit.

Russian Summer Champs this weekend: streaming on the Russian Biathlon channel on YT. Ability to read cyrillic an advantage.

In fact Schmid is the older one, but she is indeed tiny.

Zoe! Just a great ride. Proud dad Magnus lost for words in the comms box!

Yeah, I’m as one of those teams that goes all-out in the first 5km of the World Champs, gives up at the first railway bridge.

Autumn Marathon season is unusually strong this year with Boston & London being postponed from the spring. First major is on Sunday with Berlin as the first in the newly named Elite Platinum series, as the marketeers at World Athletics show worrying signs of running out of superlatives. https://www.worldathletics.org/competitions/world-athletics-label-road-races/news/road-races-elite-platinum-label-marathons-2021

Another two meet weekend. The world’s best are in Malibu for the final race of the Super League Series. For the strivers, it’s the European Championships in Valencia, .

Commonwealth Games European Regional Qualifiers taking place at Portobello Beach, Edinburgh this weekend! Your local correspondent can assure you that it is blowing a gale. Fans of women in bikinis are going to be disappointed.https://www.teamscotland.scot/2021/commonwealth-qualifiers-at-portobello-this-weekend/Live on BBC streaming!https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/scotland/58649390