Nickyc707

Some sports have a long history of crossover, e.g. cycling/speed skating, while triathlon athletes often have a background in running or swimming. Other crossovers are more unusual but Rebecca Romero won Olympic medals in rowing and then cycling. Clearly some of the attributes enjoyed by competitors in endurance sports are interchangeable and if a country has strength in one or more of them there are opportunities to develop a base in others, although culture and tradition also plays a part. In the case of Norway you have running on the track or road (athletics), running on ice (speed skating), running on snow (cross-country/biathlon) and running on pedals (cycling). They've also produced quality rowers and triathletes like Tufte and Blummenfelt, so your theory has credence.

Norwegian athletics seems to be at its strongest point since the mid 1990s when they had competitors like Trine Hattestad, Geir Moen, Vebjørn Rodal and Steinar Hoen.

I always thought the Dutch could only jump that high over water! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fierljeppen

Suspect that the bronze is going to be heavily disputed after that men's 800m race.

I always assumed he self-treated.

A near miraculous recovery from Doom after withdrawing from yesterday's individual final with a hamstring injury.

Women's 10,000m (California) Eilish McColgan 3:00.86 Alicia Monson 3:03.82

I always think Bart Swings is a great name for a speed skater.

Yep, although I'm surprised he doesn't have a particularly Dutch accent, at least to my ear. I guess it comes from being brought up in a household with a Dutch father and a mum from Islington. Maybe this is what you get when you cross a Dutch accent with a north London accent. 😊

The results have bern remarkable by GB winter sports standards across a whole range of winter sports. I'm not sure how much of this is down to improvement and how much is down to competitors from more traditional winter sports countries taking the foot off the pedal in the year after the Olympics. We'll have a better idea this time next year.

They didn't naturalise him. His mother is British and he has dual nationality. He could have chosen to compete for either GB or the Netherlands. On the one hand competition is obviously on a different scale in the Netherlands but then so is the available support for skaters. His girlfriend and business partner is British so that may also have influenced his choice.

Beth Potter has come a long way since competing on the track in the 10,000m at the Rio Olympics.

Katie Archibald wins the 20th European gold medal of her career and third of this year's championships in the madison.

Women's Park Final 1 Brown 90.83 2 Hiraki 86.66 3 Yosozumi 85.15 4 Kusaki 84.50 5 Wettstein 84.40 6 Tamblyn 81.53 7 Stess 80.33 8 Marhoefer 80.18 The same podium as in Tokyo but in reverse order.

Wrong link I think. https://www.fis-ski.com/DB/general/results.html?sectorcode=CC&raceid=41544

And yet oddly you don't mention the Brazilian vaulter who touched the mat with his backside and scored 13+

Given that every team produced some poor routines, e.g. the average score on PH was 12 point something, presumably you think that no one should have won a medal. 😎

Frankly everyone performed awfully on the PH. China managed to score 41 but no one else managed to get more than 38 which is why GB's 35 didn't cost them in the end. Add to that that everyone had at least one bad piece of apparatus and some more. Going into the last round I thought that the US had the advantage but then they produced the worst performance of any team on that apparatus. Pity about the sour grapes.

Some of the Americans and Canadians were interviewed about the water on the beam afterwards.

Let's face it competitions marred by gymnasts struggling on the beam is nothing new. Personally I think it's the toughest of the eight pieces of apparatus, not that I'd want to do any of them. I feel the pain when the gymnasts drop down and straddle the beam in one of the moves. It's no wonder men don't perform on this apparatus! As others have mentioned it is the equivalent of the PH in the men's event but much more impactful as it accounts for a quarter of the gymnasts score rather than the sixth of the PH. So far as this competition was concerned I was actually much more surprised by the high number of errors on the floor and asymmetric bars. I think my memory is topped and tailed by the desperate struggles of an Italian and a Japanese gymnast on the latter apparatus, particularly a very painful looking belly flop which I don't think I've ever seen before.

Which means that is they not the voting system that needs reform.

Hall and Regini-Moran both had falls on the HB and unusually I think Joe Fraser did on the PH as well, although it hasn't prevented him from leading in the AA. China and the the US also made mistakes so they all have scope for improvement. It will be interesting to see how Japan do later on.

Don't forget Duterte of the Phillipines who left office in June.

As Minas Gerais goes, so goes the nation to paraphrase someone.

Yes, and he was duly brought to justice showing the system works.