Grassmarket

Not often you see Denmark in sliding sports. Or indeed any winter sport at all apart from Curling & people with suspiciously Norwegian-sounding names in Cross-Country. Must have a kind of isolated sub-tropical climate south of the Kattegat.

Crikey, Katie Uhlaender back! Well done her!

Fans of eccentric and slow British sports will be delighted to know that today is the beginning of the World Indoor Bowls Championships 2021. It’s basically curling on a carpet, not like the vulgar, noisy & hard-to-understand-the-scoring American 10-pin bowling. Can also be prescribed to new mothers having trouble getting new-borns to sleep. Sadly, because of COVID, this year it is a World Championships in the same sense that the Baseball World Series is a world series, but still at least four nations are represented, possibly even more if any players from the Channel Islands have qualified. All live on YouTube. No spectators, who generally represent a cross-section of the very highest-risk COVID percentiles. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCN9-c2EDRAjclRkUXk1TuBA

Reading the article, may just be a de facto retirement, so not doing the paperwork.

Musgrave & Clugnet have withdrawn - no point in continuing when you are bang out of form. Are heading for World Cup points here? Have checked, in fact he has had points a few times with a PB of 16th. Wow de Fabiani! Aw, lost out on the sprint. PB & NR for Maloney-Westgaard, 9th!

There’s really deep fresh snow: if you don’t get the line right you’re in trouble.

She’s just having a terrible season.

Early lead for Tiril Eckhoff, looking very...relaxed...after her break. And goes 0 0! Hanna Öberg also 0 0, but >20 secs down.

Lindvik has the advantage of being one tooth lighter, of course. Not really enough for Geiger....

Eisenbichler doesn’t even make the Second Round!

Who’s this new guy Magnyifikatov we haven’t seen before? Unfortunately it looks like Andy Musgrave has succumbed again to his old vice of over-training during the break. Now is getting thrashed by guys he was easily beating last month.

Awww...Stupak’s son’s first birthday!

Still in there fighting.... Stupak takes the sprint! Karlsson another bad day.

My mother did get better quickly once she got home. Never back to 100%, but certainly much better than in hospital. My father also - much better at home than in a care home.

Geez, bring the Norwegians back! Russia, 7 out of the top 8.

Interesting. I noticed that the athletes in these races were all representing Regions rather than clubs, so it’s possible that the root of the problem is at that level. Also, I have seen that in several sports - cycling, swimming, athletics - that some, at least, Russians take a “Dope ‘em young, serve the ban” attitude. There’s evidence that adults continue to get benefits from doping while they were under 20, even if the doping stops by that point.

Another stormer from Diggins & Brennan. Got the top two & all the bonus points.

Best snow conditions for ages, it’s always been brown hills this last few years. Dunno how this draw has been worked, but all the Swedes are going mid-race, all the Americans in the last four,

Scottish ski resorts have the best snow conditions for 10 years - - unless you live in the same county, you’re not allowed to ski there.

Yay Jess! That was hard work!

Stoch looking good for the three-peat.

Disaster for Granerud, good round for Poland.

Lordy, big shock in the relay as beat up on Bavarian ice!

He has been re-instated on appeal, but with a time penalty that puts him alongside Thailand & Australia.

What was funny was that the English-language ES commentators had just been talking about how the Russian skiers always worked well as a team, unlike the Norwegians etc who were always competing against each other.