dcro

June 21.

Just to confirm, Czech riders (namely Kellnerova, Opatrny, Vingralkova and Zvara) have re-confirmed their MERs after 2019. @Jan Linha As of today, China and Ukraine still have nobody with (re-confirmed) MER. Should China fail to obtain their MERs, Canada will be given another chance. EDIT: China actually has one rider, but still needs another two.

Surprised there are people still living in West Virginia.

What I loved about Nomadland is that it remains apolitical from start to finish. In the hands of a lesser director (AKA almost any given Hollywood director these days), Nomadland would have been full of heavy handed leftist political agenda.

That'll teach them!

Yes, this would give Slovakia and Bulgaria reallocations. There should be 11 spots via rankings, since all female players in doubles will also take part in singles. Technically, there are 59 fixed spots + whatever is left from the mixed doubles (up to 70).

Also Austria (men). So, by my reckoning (and provided North Korea really withdraws), there shall be 6 spots for men, and 10 for women awarded via rankings. Men Pitchford Aruna Gardos Samsonov Habesohn Gerassimenko Women Pesotska Matelova Shao Gaponova Vivarelli De Nutte Dvorak Moret Ho Lupulesku

Canada and Cuba have already entered mixed doubles-only athletes. Therefore, at most, there will be 68 starters in the men's singles.

Duuude... Moments after escaping the accident site (see above), Ogier was filmed intentionally driving through red lights. FIA fined him 7000 euros apparently (5000 for causing the accident + 2000 for running the red lights).

My final rankings... Nomadland Sound of Metal The Father Minari Promising Young Woman Judas and the Black Messiah Mank The Trial of the Chicago 7 Glad Nomadland and Hopkins won, don't care for the rest. McDormand having three Oscars is bizarre. Don't tell me she will tie (or even surpass) Katharine Hepburn.

Korfball.

Kentucky Three-day is completed. https://kentuckythreedayevent.com/leaderboard/ Regarding the Olympic selection, Boyd Martin, Philip Dutton and Tamie Smith are the front-runners for the American team. Where do I sign? Yeah, Kentucky Three-day is their main selection event, but I fear Tamie will be left out in favor of some establishment... Granted, she made a mistake on cross-country yesterday (11 pens for activating meme clip), but even so, she still defeated other contenders like Liz Halliday-Sharp, Will Coleman and Lauren Nicholson. We'll see, but Dutton and especially Martin should be considered as Tokyo bound already. As for the Canadian team (well, two individual starters)... No idea what happens here. Colleen Loach had a freak fall in the show jumping of all phases, but surely she must be safe (aboard either Qorry Blue or Vermont). Lisa Maria Fergusson is the only one who completed Kentucky, but her horse Honor Me has been past its peak for like 2-3 years now. Karl Slezak fell and is surely out (?). Hawley Bennett-Awad withdrew before the cross-country, so I guess she will be aiming to prove her form elsewhere. Out of international starters, Kevin McNab and Jesse Campbell have proven their form and could just sneak in on their respective teams.

So this happened in between stages of the first ever Croatian WRC stage... I'm curious where did this World Champion got his drivers license...

Why not give 1 quota to all 205 NOCs?

Yes, definitely.

Also, I focused quite a bit on the nominated documentaries this year... And they are good! The overall quality is much better than usual. I can recommend them all.

Well, I liked Nomadland best. Sound of Metal is good, as is Minari (but with obvious faults). Promising Young Woman is decent. This leaves Judas and the Black Messiah, Mank and The Trial of the Chicago 7 as the obligatory propaganda pieces. Will watch The Father tonight.

Wait... So IWF will send an official to all those 15 islands or what? Surely they don't expect the online results to be trustworthy by default...?

I don't know about that. When did they compete last?

Looks like Paraguay will sneak in through the rankings. Pitchford Aruna Gardos Samsonov Habesohn Gerassimenko Sirucek or Drinkhall or Ionescu Aguirre

Pesotska, Ekholm, Matelova, Balazova, Li, Shao, Gaponova, Vivarelli And if North Korea really withdraws, then Balazova and Trifonova qualify via the European QT, while De Nutte is through on rankings.

First fencer for Singapore since Barcelona 1992.

Well, you know, there was an Algerian official who accused Algerian athletes of taking doping for the qualifiers, and then stopping and performing badly at the Olympics proper...

This "opt-in" option opens all kinds of possibilities though. If both jurors agree, they can both rank all 35-ish songs and just go from there. No random draws, no special provisions.

Here is a specific example of the USA votes from the 2020 Annual. Under the revised "opt-in" rules, China would be moved up to earn one point instead of Canada (interestingly, this would have narrowed the gap between the winner and the runner-up). Under the more radical rules, China would earn 9 (!) points, which would have almost been enough to win the contest instead... That's too radical for my liking. Revised rules should not be that much different than the standard practice (in a sense that historical outcomes could have been made completely different using them).