mpjmcevoy

I think a lot of people may be sleeping on just what an astonishing 400 that was - never before has a European's legitimately seen anything like that (I will not pretend Koch and Kratch are legit). World class 400 runners like Klaver simply left in the wake of top 2. And I don't think Rhashidat ran her perfect race; she was a little conservative opening, and then lost a smidge of form under pressure for the last 30 - and still ran that astonishing time v an absolutely world class runner smashing her own pb/nr. Pity Syd and Bol are swerving the 400 flat, but it's still gonna be an astonishing race.

You wait for one European Championships gold medal for 26 years...

I'm tempted to hold fire on the 1500 joy because that barge by Ciara, while legit in race, was bordering on assault! If Jemma had finished 4th rather than 5th, I wonder... I hope Jemma concentrates on 800, where I genuinely think she still has a Paris medal shout in the right race - the extra two laps just takes too much sting out of her finish, which isn't fabulous to begin with.. and yes, that SC DQ looks horrific, stand by for appeal methinks

Sub 11 with a start like an absolute clown is quite impressive, actually.

Tactically, Giles has run like a drain his entire career. It's almost supernatural!

The maximum entrants in the XC is 2.

They already announced Mallory and Kimberly for the WKX, but only Joe for the MKX. Burgess doesn't want to do it, though he could do so - this was the chance to get a XC specialist in for the men. Kimbereley absolutely guaranteed to do XC - there may be a calculation/conversation on whether mallory wants to step back - my money would be on absolutely not.

I assume there has been a major funding injection in Italian Sport similar to that provided by the UK Lottery that turbo charged UK sport?

The mistake being enthusiastic italian wants to grab another gold in the official table!

It's even funnier - they COUNT the German's men's bronze, but not the women's silver!

Technically, historically the Marathon and half Marathon cups have not ben counted as medals in the Championship medal tables but as stand alone events that happen to run co-terminous with the championships. Entertainingly that rule appears to have been ignored on the official website for Italy's men, but not for GBR's women's!

Indeed - Athletics, Swimming, Gymnastics...you'd almost think it was a Rome Olympics we were heading to, rather than Paris. Must say, in terms of 'home-erism', it vaguely ammuses me that the official website counts the Italian men's team cup in the medal table as a gold, but doesn't acknowledge the GBR women's as a medal event!

I'm going out on a limb, here, but when a test comes back at 40% proof, and the athlete isn't Shane McGowan, I'm calling interference...

In Ireland the combination names Erik de Bruin and Smith don't make you think of Rutger (though the boul' michelle was Smyth, I think)

I'm vaguely hoping Pidcock tries to do a Road Race MTB double, just for the shits and giggles. The course seems to have a liege-y Ardennes quality. The profile might also suit a Ben Healy.

Seems like a three from four here - The road race is hilly, 2800 m of elevation. The TT is almost pan flat

They redid the tarmac, which is a good thing, but it's too fresh so there's no grip when it rains - bizarrely, it's not worn enough. Still a bit freakish - in decent weather with dry tarmac it would have been a lovely surface.

Dunno, if they dropped breaking to let in chess, i'd live with it...

That's the way to make continental games very relevant, and thus bigger - lean into the fraternal relationship with the IOC - it also provides a useful pathway to the IOCs ambitions with Olympic Qualifier Series and the like.

In the above 16 mixed, there are four duplicates, - USA, AIN, ITA and ESP which would open up for the first four alternates NZL, BEL, CZE and GBR, and there's obviously the continuing AIN issue which MIGHT open up for BRA. Do men's doubles players in the top 10 doubles players not get to choose their partners more or less regardless of ranking so long as the NOC stays within the six per sex lines? I know Salisbury and Skupski are willing to play together, and might be a formidable pair - but there's often been a suggestion they don't match styles that well, and might prefer to split with Salisbury & Murray and Skupski & Evans -in Tokyo Salisbury chose to play with Andy Murray, not Skupski

Does Deux de Couple refer to two, each with a 'couple' of oars - i.e. what Brits call sculls?

I don't dismiss the idea of a 'Major' being created for that 'off' year - Quite a lot of continental and community events happen in that year, not to mention world Indoors, and both Gymnastics and Cycling seem to do perfectly well with annual 'finals' - I understand that. But i think the sell is wrong, and I think the Bienneial is probably wrong too. This is not - and should not be suggested as -a championships, least of all the 'Ultimate' championships, a major naming mistake that undermines all their other properties, opens them up to ridicule and sells what is essentially a Diamond League final as something it isn't. If they had called it the World Athletics Grand Prix, the World Athletics Grand finals, something that didn't overshadow the champiomnship properties, the it could have been just a bit of well financed fun, a move to create short sharp 'majors' of a type different to 'major championships'. Raxxamataz it a bit with a Gala dinner/Hall of Fame/Awards ceremony beforehand, so it feels different from the more natural drama of a champs. One of the unappreciated realities of award shows is they rarely exist to actually give awards. They exist to bring the industry together to do business, and also to sell the industry with a facsimile of competition. WA has actual competition to sell. But there's no reason it couldn't add the razzle, make an event of it (think how IOC and EOC do this as second nature) But not like this. It just doesn't work.

In the sense that Atlanta United can pull a 60,000 crowd for a home regular season game. Or more prosaically, in the sense that they have now got an ecosystem of 30 professional tier one clubs with significant attendances, backed by a pyramid of smaller pro clubs that can draw too - e.g. Sacramento Republic or Lousiville - that unlike the old NASL, doesn't always look in danger of imminent collapse.

Agree to an extent, though what's noticable is Canada's particular relative weakness at those sports, preferring baseball, Canadian gridiron football, ice hockey and (for netball, the other commonwealthy team sport), Basketball. As for patterns of immigration, they are probably similar enough. The big difference, really, is Soccer and the number of futbol crazy hispanic Americans, though the sport has clearly reached a tipping point in the US

I think that's fair enough, given that it was specifically a screw up by the French Federation. Mischance over individual nominations is an occupational hazzard, but FFA had a systemwide brainfade.