dcro

New Perry Mason starts quite slow, but then just explodes. I'm impressed. Hooked and waiting for Season 2.

It's Roglič.

Apparently Eugene Wang transferred his individual spot to Hazin... https://www.ittf.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Tokyo_2020_MS_2020_04_22.pdf

Well, alpine skiing / marathon is still the most impressive combo IMO. Especially given that Njeim qualified in both sports on merit.

Artistic segments can either be very intriguing to watch (Beijing) or incredibly boring (Rio). Not a fan of the oaths. We all know that both athletes and referees will cheat either way.

Starting this weekend, Hungary will be hosting European Dressage Championships for Ponies, Children, Juniors, Young Riders *and* U25. The festivities will last almost to the end of the month (August 9-30). Here are the entry lists... Ponies Children Juniors Young Riders U25

Great. They stole our format.

Gold Coast?

Visions of Eight (Munich 1972) becomes my favorite artistic Olympic film. Not surprising, given that it was a collaboration of some star directors. Meanwhile, Beijing 2008 film is trash. It's literally almost 2 hours of nothing. For a film which claims that over 60,000 hours of Olympic footage was created, it sure had a lot of narration happening off-screen.

Finally rewatched 16 Days of Glory (1984), for the first time in about 10 years or so. That was Bud Greenspan at the height of his powers. Wonderful Olympic film. Didn't mind its length (4.5 hours) at all. I am almost glad that the Olympics got postponed, since Olympic Channel probably never would have uploaded these films otherwise.

Greetings from the World Truffle Center...

He would have to give up on his whole athletics career pretty quickly if he is to become a driver. Would be a weird decision for someone who placed 5th at Europeans and 7th at Worlds before age 22...

I agree. It can take weeks to recover from a long, mediocre BM episode...

Yeah. Mixed-NOC mixed team sprint would be the perfect addition for the speed skating mix.

But probably there is not enough space for such addition... Unless it's mixed team sprint of course!

vd Poel uses "more than a shampoo"? Where do I sign up for that?

Well, hope Toms can win it today. Incredibly unlikely, I know...

I like the penalty shoot-out idea. My twist had us using a fixed number of judges (say 10). If they can't decide the winner, then another 5 judges are called up and their votesare revealed penalty style.

Since there are two repechage matches, should each have 15 judges? This would mean that everyone will get to judge one match, except for one judge who will do both. 13 judges or less would mean that some would miss the repechage stage completely, which could be fine too I guess. Rounds of 16 could have 11 judges per match. This would mean that everyone would be drafted for three matches, except for one judge again who will do four. Quarterfinals could have 13 judges per match. 23 judges would be drafted for two matches each, while 6 of them will officiate one match only (these could be the ones still in competition). Semifinals could again have 15 judges per match. Judges still in competition are fully excluded, leaving 25/26 eligible ones. Finals opened for everyone. For the Challenge Trophy (if held), we could be looking to just have 7 judges for each match? Including their quarterfinals, semifinals and finals.

If cross-country is to replace anything, then that can only be 3000 m steeplechase. Steeplechase event was basically introduced to recreate cross-country conditions within a stadium.

But it makes up for almost as much effort as the main bracket. And it becomes somewhat bizarre when songs placed 17th-20th get to play 3 more matches than those ranked 9th-16th. Everyone would stay involved through judging.

How about scrapping the whole lower bracket? It would save plenty of effort for the organizer and jurors alike.

Asia with only 1/6 nations survivng. Oceania is out. Potentially we are looking at Albania v Macedonia showdown in the R16.

Japan is officially and amazingly the least liked song of the group stage, with only 5 votes on their tally. Belize is the only other nation with less than 10 votes (7).

Mali needs just one more vote. Taipei is out.