Grassmarket

Cyclo-Cross season starts today with Race 1 of the Ethias Cross series from Lokeren, Belgium. Men & Women’s races live on the ES Player this afternoon. Obviously, most of the biggest names are busy elsewhere…

BBC has live coverage, which I think is otherwise on the FEI’s pay-tv system https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/equestrian/58262817

Got £10 on that at 80-1, thanks for the tip.

Easy enough: just let transgenders & DSDs compete freely. You'll see records tumble every week.

Not quite the end of the season yet, but that was a great end to the DL.

Mboma is going to kill women’s 200m running.

I do think the reason why performances were down post-Tokyo is that people were targeting this meet. We’ve seen huge competition in practically every event. Think Femke Bol must have easily won whatever prize there is for most MRs in the course of the season.

Thompson-Herah another one glad to get an auto-qual; Jamaican sprint trials can also be tough if you’re on a bad day.

Americans have a huge incentive to go for the win here - automatic pre-qual to a home World Champs. It’s so difficult to peak twice in six weeks. Siderova joins Isinbayeva & Morris as the only 5.00 female PVers

Good news is that there are three professional football teams here in Edinburgh, so I am sure we will be able to find work for all these desperate & penniless refugees. Also, lots of bars are short-staffed post COVID, and our haidressers stand ready to give them modern haircuts. We will take care of these unfortunate people! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-9972423/Plane-carrying-German-national-football-team-declares-mid-air-emergency.html#comments

See, it’s not just us. Karsten Warholm is also suffering a post-Olympic morale slump. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58493871

Well, only gets a decent woman’s tennis player once every 50 years or so, so I guess we were due.

Lasitskene 2.05 for a WL!

Don’t think anyone can get their heads round this 5000m track: just going to wait for the bell & race it out, I reckon. There is surely no way these shot performances should be valid for record purposes because they are throwing from an elevated platform. Niyonsaba wins that pretty easily. We can look forward to seeing her at the Worlds in Oregon.

Alternatively you’ve got an exotic mixed team time trial relay in the European Championships at Trentino. Organisers have missed a trick to create drama by putting the nailed-on-certainty-to-smash-everyone team of in the first wave.

Queen stage in the ToB today, a long day in mountains (ie gently rolling hills) or North Wales. Wout van Aert was the pre-race favourite but at the moment is behind in-form Ethan Hayter & Ineos.

Like everyone else I have been either not watching so much sport, or watching non-Olympic sport, or trying to watch too much sport & having to watch on delay & fast forward. There's the natural break coming up from mid-September to mid-November, so will be getting back into a normal sequence at about Levi slalom time.

Two day Diamond League final coming up starting tonight and continuing tomorrow. Tonight's events are on a special city-centre facility for the field events and the two 5000m races, which won't be official counted for records. Tomorrow's events are a throw-back to the old "Olympics in a Night" three hour format of the classic 1980s Zurich meets at the Letzigrunde stadium. The good news is that the stupid and hated "best of one attempt" format for the field events will NOT be used. Here's the full schedule. https://zurich.diamondleague.com/en/programme-results-zurich/

Ok, guess we can say that Russia was targeting those champs.

Tour de Grande Bretagne starts tomorrow with a stage in Cornwall, which my brother almost single-handedly infected with COVID last month. Probably the strongest field for any British race outside the TdF & Olympics. Don’t know what kind of coverage Johnny Foreigner gets, but here in Blighty it is every stage live start to finish. Well, except 15 minutes of ads per hour. https://www.tourofbritain.co.uk/

Oh dear, Niyonsaba slashes through a strong 5000m field again. Strange thing is that the Drummers of used to be a highlight of the Brussels meet, yet the one time they were needed… Nboma wins the 200m easily. Oh dear again.

Great to see a big crowd in Brussels.

Is the Indian athlete’s name really Praveen Kumar Praveen Kumar? Seems a shortage of inspiration from his parents.

COVID rules for .

Preview for Brussels tomorrow night. https://worldathletics.org/competitions/diamond-league/news/memorial-van-damme-2021-duplantis-hassan