Nickyc707

Eh! Thought Dubois clearly won the first two rounds. Landed better punches and was more evasive. I had the Belarussian just edging the last round as did two of the judges but definitely the right result.

Football is the most popular sport in the UK but I wouldn't describe as the top "priority". Like badminton it doesn't receive any Olympic funding. And while football is popular there are many other popular sports. Badminton was invented in the UK and has long been a popular recreational sport for those who like to keep fit. Apart from Denmark, GB was probably the strongest badminton nation until the emergence of the Far Eastern Countries in the sport. The All England Championships was the de facto world championships until the late 1970s and is still probably the most prestigious title to win apart from the WC and OG. If Ellis & Smith win the mixed doubles they won't be the first British players to win it. British players won every XD title from 1899-1939, and have won a further 20 titles since WW2. The last winners were Olympic medallists Nathan Robertson and Gail Emms in 2005.

This is going to be an interesting division. Also unseeded Caroline Dubois is making her debut at senior level having gone undefeated in her previous 40 fights during which has won the junior world championship and Olympic Youth Games title.

It was a system I preferred but which the AIBA did not because it exposed their corruption and incompetence more openly.

Are AIBA officials judging this event or have the IOC found alternatives?

On the other hand England have ended their tour of Sri Lanka today, while South Africa's tour of India still seems to be taking place. Seems to depend on individual governing bodies as much as anything, but good to know there are some Indian stiff upper lips as well!

Badminton QFs from the All England Champs in Birmingham.

https://mobile.twitter.com/gbboxing/status/1238465011355435013 Draw was made 90 minutes ago with details available on the website later this evening. 342 boxers from 45 countries chasing 77 quotas. An Italian team is here having arrived in the UK ten days ago.

I'm not sure about other clubs but three players at Leicester City are in self-isolation so teams are facing significant disruption even without the issue of spreading the virus by going ahead with fixtures.

A great athlete who competed at four Olympic Games. Apart from her gold medal in 1952 she was 7th in 1948, 4th in 1956 and then - just a few weeks before her 38th birthday - she won silver in Rome in 1960. In 1958 she became the oldest woman to break an outdoor athletic world record an achievement which she holds to this day. Her husband Emil Zatopek is considered by some to be the greatest runner of all time. After winning gold and silver in 1948, he set a record that will surely never be equalled of winning the 5k, 10k and marathon at the same Games. What makes it even more incredible is that he ran four races - there was a semi-final in the 5k - in just eight days! Difficult not to be in complete awe of such an achievement. R.I.P.

Various international cricket tours are still going on - England in Sri Lanka, New Zealand in Australia and South Africa in India - but they may be curtailed if circumstances change.

I was thinking that Nevin has been around a long time until I realised I was mixing him up with his cousin John Joe who's more than a decade older and won a silver back in 2012.

Haven't seen them yet but for what it's worth the GB squad is Men 52kg - Galal Yafai 56kg - Peter McGrail 64kg - Luke McCormack 69kg - Pat McCormack 75kg - Sammy Lee 81kg - Ben Whittaker 91kg - Cheavon Clarke 91kg+ - Frazer Clarke Women 51kg - Charley Davison 57kg - Karris Artingstall 60kg - Caroline Dubois 69kg - Rosie Eccles 75kg - Lauren Price

Another factor maybe the potential physical damage to a 15 year old throwing an adult javelin. Javelin throwers often seem to carry injuries of varying degree.

Great win for Liam Pitchford over world number one Xu Xin in the Qatar semi-finals.

Most of the early Games were lengthy affairs. As late as 1924, the Paris Games lasted nearly three months. Many of the competitors would have had to endure lengthy sea journeys to attend so I guess a longer games made it seem more worthwhile. In 1928, Amsterdam managed to deliver the Games in two weeks and that seems to have stuck pretty much ever since.

Deaths of Olympians in February. Ryszard Olszewski, 87 - Basketball Jana Vapenkova, 72 - Volleyball Alexander Skvortsov, 65 - Ice Hockey (1×G, 1×S) Eugene Plesko, 71 - Cycling Giancarlo Bergamini, 93 - Fencing (1×G, 2×S) Abadi Hadis, 22 - Athletics Brian Glennie, 73 - Ice Hockey (1×B) Maurice Girardot, 98 - Basketball (1×S) Bill Robinson, 71 - Basketball Tamas Wichmann, 72 - Sprint Canoeing (2×S, 1×B) Karel Neffe, 71 - Rowing (1×B) Renzo Chiocchetti, 74 - Cross Country Skiing John Cockett, 92 - Hockey (1×B) Jaime Amat, 78 - Hockey John Robertson, 90 - Sailing Istvan Gali, 76 - Boxing Usman Ullah Khan, 45 - Boxing Janos Gorocs, 80 - Football (1×B) Jan Kowalczyk, 78 - Equestrian (1×G, 1×S) Braian Toledo, 26 - Athletics Craig Mackay, 92 - Speed Skating Teresa Machado, 50 - Athletics Eva Szekely, 92 - Swimming (1×G, 1×S) And three late reported deaths from January. Herbert Voelcker, 90 - Shooting Sandra Kalo, 75 - Handball Irina Laricheva, 55 - Shooting A bad month for Hungary with five deaths including Tamas Wichmann who won three medals in sprint canoeing between 1968-80. He also won nine world titles. Eva Szekely was Olympic champion in the 200m breaststroke in 1952 and followed up with silver in 1956. From a sporting family, her husband Desso Gyarmati won medals at five consecutive games in water polo including three golds. Her daughter Andrea was also a swimmer and won two medals in Munich in 1972. Alexander Skvortsov was a member of the Soviet ice hockey team that famously lost to the Americans at Lake Placid in 1980. However, he gained redemption when the Red Machine got back on track to win gold four years later. Last, but not least, the deaths of two athletes who competed at the last Olympics in Rio. Abadi Hadis was an Ethiopian middle distance runner who, although only 22, had been ill for sometime. Braian Toledo of Argentina was Youth Olympic champion in the javelin in 2010 and went on to compete in London and Rio where he finished tenth. Sadly he died in a traffic accident aged just 26.

Well it wouldn't be very hard for anyone to appear sportsmanlike compared with your good self judging by your nasty little comments. Still if it makes you feel good about yourself

A true sportsman! Reminds me of the French complaining about the British wheels in 2012, when it turned out they were made by the same French company that made the French team's wheels.

I was alluding to the whole programme of sports, not just the team sports.

In most sports Australia has the easiest Olympic qualification route of any country as part of Oceania. In most cases their only significant opposition is New Zealand. European countries usually have the toughest route to qualification as in many of the sports the continent has the greatest strength in depth. So I'm sorry, but I really can't find any sympathy for your argument.

There's a pattern emerging in this race with one country sweeping the medals every three years. The French in 2011, the Belgians in 2014, the British in 2017 and now the Belgians again in 2020.

Deaths of Olympians in January Aleksandr Manechinsky, 61 - Swimming Roman Monchenko, 55 - Rowing (1×B) Harvey Reti, 82 - Boxing Bill Hobbs, 70 - Rowing (1×S) Charles Oguk, 55 - Hockey Mike Wheeler, 84 - Athletics (1×B) Jaime Monzo, 73 - Swimming Karl Saitl, 95 - Weightlifting Bergljot Sandvik-Johansen, 97 - Gymnastics Guido Messina, 89 - Cycling (1×G) Maurice Moucheraud, 86 - Cycling (1×G) Carlos Giron, 65 - Diving (1×S) Sophie Kratzer, 30 - Ice Hockey Rhona Wurtele, 97 - Alpine Skiing Kazim Ayvaz, 81 - Wrestling (1×G) Larry Amar, 47 - Hockey Robert Archibald, 39 - Basketball Duje Bonacic, 90 - Rowing (1×G) Kobe Bryant, 41 -Basketball (2×G) Jos Bernard, 95 - Gymnastics Mike Dancis, 80 - Basketball Blagoja Georgievski, 69 - Basketball (1×S) Kobe Bryant's sad death has been discussed widely in this thread and he is one of three athletes who passed away this month who competed at the Games within the past decade Robert Archibald (39) competed at the 2012 Olympics, while Sophie Kratzer (30) who sadly died of cancer took part in the 2014 Games. Among the other athletes who died in January perhaps the most notable was Guido Messina of Italy who won a gold medal in cycling's team pursuit in 1952. He was the individual pursuit world champion five times between 1948 and 1956, but unfortunately had retired by the time this event was introduced into the Olympic programme in 1964. There have been a number of deaths in the past year of champions from the last Games to be held in Tokyo in 1964. The most recent is Kazim Ayvaz of Turkey who won the gold medal in the lightweight division of the Greco-Roman wrestling.

I wonder what the other 63+ million people in the UK think. In most of northern England - Newcastle may be an exception - rugby union isn't even the most popular form of rugby. If football is the UK's national winter sport, cricket is the national summer sport.

Deaths of Olympians in December Miguelina Cobian, 77 - Athletics (1×S) Zvonimir Vujin, 76 - Boxing (2×B) Mike Lindsay, 81 - Athletics Stig Sollander, 93 - Alpine Skiing (1×B) Sir Peter Snell, 80 - Athletics (3×G) Roger Midgley, 95 - Hockey (1×B) Jorge Hernandez, 65 - Boxing (1×G) Yuri Belyayev, 85 - Football (1×G) Bernard Lefevre, 89 - Football Karin Balzer, 71 - Athletics (1×G, 1×B) Abdullah Khodabandeh, 83 - Wrestling Jagdev Singh Rai, 50 - Hockey Roland Matthes, 69 - Swimming (4×G, 2×S, 2×B) Stefan Angelov, 72 - Wrestling (2×B) John Simonian, 84 - Hockey Giacomo Bazzan, 69 - Cycling Roma Cuyas i Sol, 81 - Administrator Vilhjalmur Einarsson, 85 - Athletics (1×S) Giovanni Paliaga, 88 - Cycling Peter Snell is probably the most distinguished athlete in this month's list and has been commented on earlier in this thread. There are some other notable individuals. Stig Solander of Sweden was a forerunner of the legendary Ingemar Stenmark and his bronze in the slalom at the 1956 Winter Olympics was his country's first in alpine skiing. Roman Matthes of the former East Germany achieved the double in the men's 100 & 200m backstroke in both 1968 and 1972. Vilhjalmur Einarsson won Iceland's first ever Olympic medal in the men's triple jump in 1956 and one of only four overall to date.