Grassmarket

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

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/