Grassmarket

TEAM GB & NI MEN Alex Yee Jonny Brownlee WOMEN Vicky Holland Georgia Taylor-Brown Jess Learmonth

Groan of despair from the street downstairs, what can that mean? Aha. 0 2. Back to my book.

Full squad. https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/triathlon/57471497

Important win for Mark Cavendish in Belgium today - beat all the big sprint names straight up. Really was a career defining moment, if he hadn’t got something out of this Tour he’d have been hanging up his shoes, I think.

Ok. I think we have max Olympic quota in both m & f.

Sadly here in we only get highlights on Sky about a week after the event. In the past it has been on the BBC, we often get medals.

Richard Mäder very sensibly brought along a book to read while he was sitting in the leader’s chair.

Jousting. Just sayin’. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=jousting+pictures&t=brave&iax=images&ia=images

Another story from my days in . Every year there was a national sports meet, of which the highlight was the Slow Bicycle Race, sort of like a track stand. For many years consecutively it was won by the father of the Monarch, the elderly Seri Begawan Sultan, who somehow always managed to beat the cream of the nation’s young, fit, jungle combat-trained Army Officers. People in Brunei are very polite, everyone clapped.

Just passing this on in case, y’know….. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-9677153/Man-failed-drugs-test-new-job-eating-slices-favourite-Tesco-poppy-seed-bread.html

Catching up on this week’s NCAA Finals from earlier this week, continuing over the weekend. The new Heyward Field in Eugene, Oregon is looking absolutely superb now. Proper athletics stadium, not the usual track surrounding a football pitch.

Rui Costa can count himself a lucky man if he gets to keep his win in today, after coming outrageously off his line on the mountaintop village sprint.

OK, I don’t completely agree with this, but I can see his point. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9675957/Kim-Jong-calls-K-pop-vicious-cancer-introduces-harsher-punishment-listeners.html

Same with us and facemasks.

Women’s 4x400 is an outside chance as well.

Another PB & NR for Femke Bol - 53.44

When I lived in Borneo in the 1970s there were still people - the Dayaks & the Iban - who lived the old traditional longhouse life in the jungle. About 20 years ago I was out in Edinburgh & I met a whole crowd of 20-something Dayaks dressed like typical Asian student tourists out taking photographs of the castle etc etc. So it can be even quicker than that.

Just watched the race. Gidey got several major advantages over Hassan Better weather, warm & dry. Back markers got out of the way, so she ran a much shorter line. Evening conditions, so disco lights much easier to see. So a head to head will be…enticing.

Speaking as an , I have seen middle & distance athletics go through these WR growth spurts before. Apart from the doping records, it’s down to technical or organisational progress. Late 60s/early 70s - end of the old dirt tracks, arrival of all weather tracks. Late 70s/early 80s - professionalisation & emergence of commercial televised meets Early 90s - Emergence of professionally managed East African athletes. Now we have this new combination of super shoes & computerised pace-making, opening up WRs long thought unbeatable. And what has always happened before is that eventually someone sets a genuinely unbeatable record, after which everything will settle down for another decade or so.

DL starts again tomorrow with the meet in Florence, subbing for Rome. Preview & highlights. https://worldathletics.org/competitions/diamond-league/news/florence-diamond-league-2021-hassan-cheptegei

Well, it’s like Pole Vault World Record, you just have to beat it by small increments to ensure frequent paydays.

True enough, the Kenyans are always trying to find sprinters, throwers etc, but the Ethiopians stick with the usual.

Ah yes, but she gets away with it because everyone knows she is lying. Whereas all the leftists hated Trump because me meant it. Same with Obama/Romney on gay marriage. Both were opposed to it, but Obama got away with it because the gay lobby understood he had to lie to Black church-goers to get their vote.

Two good meets tonight on YT Paavo Nurmi Games from Turku, https://www.worldathletics.org/competitions/world-athletics-continental-tour/news/2021-how-to-follow Ethiopian Middle & Long Distance National Olympic Trials from Addis Hengelo

Didn’t know this story, but I came across it last week reading a book about Nazi Germany. Did you know that there used to be an official Olympic Salute that was often used on ceremonial occasions? What happened to it? Well, at the two 1936 Olympics there was a certain amount of confusion because…… https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/the-olympic-salute-we-dont-use-anymore-because-it-looked-too-much-like-heiling-hitler-19789031/ Both actually derived from the same source, which you can see in this famous 1784 painting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_the_Horatii