Grassmarket

We still have an active outdoor track in London, (built for 1948!) but it’s just for club & school riders. As soon as riders get picked up as a prospect they move near one of our five!!! indoor ones.

OK, needs a bit of work done, but surely possible.

Looks like that’s it for the winner. Couple of days to settle out 2nd & 3rd now.

This is what they always do in World Curling as well, they are like the NBC of obscure sports.

Damn, the “steriods in my burrito” defense is shot down in flames. These people are harsh! https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/sportsnews/article-9947853/US-distance-runner-Shelby-Houlihan-LOSES-appeal-against-four-year-drugs-ban.html

You cannot begin to conceive how weird paralympic tandem cycling has become. In the early conception, obviously, the main athletes were the blind riders and the pilots were basically very fit club-level athletes who wouldn't get too much in the way, just like in the athletics. However, about 15 years ago, the British & the Australians found that, because they had such strong track programmes, they could give their fourth or fifth ranked Olympic track athletes jobs as tandem pilots. Even guys who had won Olympic medals could extend their careers in the paralympics. At the Commonwealth Games tandem cycling became thrilling sprint duels between guys who used to race each other on the full world circuit regularly circa 2000-2008. But under that system, the blind people at the back - supposedly the point of the whole thing - tended to become dead weight, so we started to select people who were not simply blind but also small & physically frail, rather than actual good cyclists, thus defeating the whole point of the event.

1-2 for in the men’s C4 Cycling Time Trial out at the race track.

I always remember that Kaisa Makarainnen - at that time still half a cross-country skier - got her first ever wins in summer biathlon & then started to get winter wins as well.

New World Record in the women’s half marathon - surprisingly at quite a small race in Northern Ireland. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/58374488

Ernest Obieno gets a NR at 5.91 in the Pole Vault & surely the best ever international athletics performance for SE Asia.

Slovakian weather letting us down - cold, wet & windy. Didn’t realise this was the actual Danube they are swimming in. Long way from being blue, although the swimmers’ feet are.

Lisa Adams, sister of Valerie, takes Gold in the shot.

Does Saint Boy have an alibi?

As long it is not a beauty contest.

The two Biathlon sprints tomorrow are live on the ES Player, so hopefully with commentary.

We have another attempt to produce a new format for triathlon on Eurosport tomorrow, live from that home of all forms of sporting innovation, . Some familiar names involved. https://thecollinscup.protriathletes.org/

Actually, it is EPO, which in some cases could possibly, conceivably, theoretically be legitimate use….…but I wouldn’t want to be his lawyer all the same.

If this were a winter race it would be a blizzard. But as a summer race it is just wet & windy! Turned out to be a good women’s race; won’t post spoilers but worth watching.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/disability-sport/58267874

There have been so few international Paralympic cycling events since Rio that we are seeing five years of progress compressed into a week.

Shelley-Ann Fraser-Pryce gets a big PB 10.60! Femke Bol gets a few scalps, 53.06! NR for in the women’s 4x100!

Bad night for Duplantis in windy conditions, 5.62 is all he can do.

Great to see things are pretty much normal in , big crowds, no masks… Warholm in the 400m….deserves his place in the relay team, shall we say.

Every day is a new challenge for Sha’Carri Richardson’s PR advisors. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9927793/ShaCarri-Richardson-brands-Olympic-sprinter-FAKE-Felix-spoke-kindly-TV.html

Lee Pearson wins again, he is the Michael Phelps of equine terpsichore.