mpjmcevoy

I think what worried Paddle UK was the video Kurts posted of him "performing a sex act on an aeroplane".
I just hope he wasn't the pilot...

Joking aside, apparently discussions are ongoing with ECB and CI for some kind of euro 6 Nations in T20 cricket - apparently the idea at this point is automatic qualification for England, Ireland, Scotland and the Netherlands, while the final two places will be decided at a Tri-series in which Italy will be the only automatic entry, more or less guarnteeing Italy entry - from there, its two parallel Tri series with a finals day. Apparently inspired by the rise of Nepal and the Asia Cup, English cricket think they can make a short sharp tournament of this sort financially viable, as it would involve only three T20 games over 5 days in the early season, and they could rest the biggest players while getting some goodwill from ICC - previously they had not shown interest in a comp the Scots and Dutch have always wanted.

ioc operates under Swiss law
is it illegas in ?
no
so, it's as simple as it looks: no test? no professional sport (at least those sanctioned by ioc)
end.
 
being an Olympian wasn't ordered by the doctor, if you don't like the ioc rules, just don't take part in ioc sanctioned sports/events
 

Hey, no fair.
 
It's a rugby monolith too!

Sorry to all Italy

It is by far the biggest ticket sales of any sport at the Olympics - even 70% full stadia means about 58 matches with 30-40,000 odd crowds - even the athletics rarely sells that many tickets (usually across 18 sessions full to the brim, the equivalent of about 36 matches of 30-40,000.) and no sport other than track and field comes close. Moreover, it tends to create an easy win for 'spreading' the Olympic bounty, and rarely requires any meaningful new build, unlike Athletics. You are talking, when you add in VIp ticket sales and the usual venue add ons, generating revenue in the $200-300 million range - Revenue which, unlike most of the money from the Games (TV rights, sponsorship, branded merch), goes to the host organiser, not the IOC.
 
The thing about being an Olympic fanatic is that we often get here precisely because we rejected to some extent or other the overwhelming soccer culture that exists everywhere outside North america and the antipodes. So we aren't Olympic football's target audience. Casual fans who like football - of whom there are a LOT - are.
 
I do wonder, in all sincerity, if Brisbane might be better doing this with cricket than soccer - or if LA would have been better doing it with baseball.

It is by far the biggest ticket sales of any sport at the Olympics - even 70% full stadia means about 58 matches with 30-40,000 odd crowds - even the athletics rarely sells that many tickets (usually across 18 sessions full to the brim, the equivalent of about 36 matches of 30-40,000.) and no sport other than track and field comes close. Moreover, it tends to create an easy win for 'spreading' the Olympic bounty, and rarely requires any meaningful new build, unlike Athletics. You are talking, when you add in VIp ticket sales and the usual venue add ons, generating revenue in the $200-300 million range - Revenue which, unlike most of the money from the Games (TV rights, sponsorship, branded merch), goes to the host organiser, not the IOC.
 
The thing about being an Olympic fanatic is that we often get here precisely because we rejected to some extent or other the overwhelming soccer culture that exists everywhere outside North america and the antipodes. So we aren't Olympic football's target audience. Casual fans who like football - of whom there are a LOT - are.
 
I do wonder, in all sincerity, if Brisbane might be better doing this with cricket than soccer - or if LA would have been better doing it with baseball.

Honestly, I don't really like these team sports that only have 6 teams. I understand there's a limit on the number of athletes, but it should be at least 8 per gender. 
 
 

Exactly the other example I thought of.
 
I genuinely think there's an issue with those two sports  - in Diving the rise of GB prevented somewhat embarrassing back to back to back clean sweeps; they would be well advised imho to seek to add mixed synchro, team and high dive events, which could be done faguely cleaply with relatively little rise in total quota (14 fr the high dive - the rest could be found from existing competitors), and uses only another reasonably cheap venue (Basically scaffolding with wrap, a big pool which you can reuse, and temp seating near the beach) - given the increase in beach based events - volleyball, but more so coastal rowing and beach sprint canoe, and possibly triathlon and open water swimming, there's no harm adding a nice spectacular high dive event with about 24 quotas total (12+12) - the advantage being the Chinese are not so into high dive so it automatically jazzes up your medal table - in a way its a pity Gymnastics aren't having a beach based flying rings competition which has a long Venice Beach tradition.
 
Don't know how we fix Table tennis, truth be told - it is simply 'their' game, in a way not even diving is - they have tables in railways stations and everything.

There are only 10 gold medals. A spread of 6 winners i frankly pretty good - you should try Diving...

I am embarrassed that I knew that 

5 individual medals was exactly the same as Paris, despite injuries to two of GBs best prospects, Caudrey and Kerr. Hunt's medal was a revelation, wightman's a vindication, while KJT's felt a bit valedictory, although O'Dowda had an excellent two days - the big news out of it, however, was the continued rise of Anna Hall and Kate O'Conner - the event felt very much like a signal for the end of what has been the Nafi-KJT era, or even the Nafi-KJT-Ennis era if you want to go all the way back to 2009.
 
The relays were the issue. They were, let's be honest, appalling. I could be mistaken, but as i understand it MHS has some mental issues that make relays a bit of an ordeal unless he runs first leg. The wheels certainly came off at this champs, but if they are coming off, this is the champs for it to happen. I would still add Charlie Dobson to your list for this cycle, in a similar position to Burgin. I would add Amber Anning to that.
 
I have felt like we're on the downslope with both Daryll and Dina for a while now. I'm not sure how in love with the sport Dina is any more, her other passions seem to be asserting themselves, and the move to America really only set her back, after enjoying the culture to begin with. Daryll has not had a great couple of years, and Imani seems to be an injury casualty now. That generation may have had its time, not unlike the great Gemili-Hughes-Mitchell-Blake cycle a few years earlier...

Very good news is that the financial problems of the last few years seem to have been resolved.
 
UK ATHLETICS DELIVERS FIRST SURPLUS IN SEVERAL YEARS AS FINANCIAL TURNAROUND CONTINUES – UK Athletics

Annabele Fasuba is a brilliant young teenage sprinter. Her father Olusoji Fasuba is a former Nigerian sprinter who was the African 100m record holder who then joined the British Royal Navy so Annabelle was born in Plymouth in Devon
 

Divine Iheme is the fastest 14 year old over 100m in the wordd. Both his parents are Nigerian and his mother served in the British army

once again, you've chosen the wrong example
 
Kipketer lived in Denmark for years before he could even ask for the Danish citizenship, he married a Danish woman and got through the entire process as any other foreigner extra-EU, waiting 7 years and more before his request was accepted and started representing Denmark in global events
 
if there's an example of fair decision to live in and represent a Country different from the one he was born, that's it
 
no purchase happened in this case, not at all

We'll be back soon!

Tyrrell Hatton gets a half point so Europe win the match

And STILLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL reigning and defending champions of europe beating austria, who rocked them at the world games competition a couple of months back, 

The men finished 4th 

Yes, they did. Boosting GDR was more important to the Communist project than any nation other than the USSR itself because it was seen as in direct competition with West Germany, a flagbearer in the non-Slavic space in Europe. we no from the files that GDR brought an astonishing level of science, discipline and ruthlessness to the issue, and led the world in sport science both legitimate and illegitimate - and to hell iwth the health consequences, especially for the girls who, being female, were superresponders to oral testosterone.
 
Indeed, it's always a bit of a giveaway that a state sponsored, or at least state encouraged system of professional doping based on testosterone is in place if there is a sudden across the board rise in results for a nation's girls, but not nearly as obvious for their boys - See the sudden rise in Russian girls swimming at the european juniors in the years leading up to their being caught at Sochi for an excellent example (say 2010 to 2016) - from middling to utter domination in a few years, but ony dominating the girls.
 
The tells on blood doping and EPO, etc are rather different and less sex skewed - plus less evidence of government pushing it - but tend to entail a sudden simultaneous rise in pure endurance athletes in the pool, on the track and on the bike.

Evie Richards misses out on a medal at the World Championships as she finishes 4th - 12 seconds off the bronze.

Whcih World Games sports would I like to see cross over?
 
Like many here, I love the tumbling and have a lot of time for the variations in Trampoline - sychro, Team and double Mini...but if I had to choose, Tumbling and Double mini look like events that could be added with relatively few extra quotas and still provide six to eight sessions of excellent sport
 
I agree that I think Lacrosse sixes passed its audition, it works. I'm not sure flag football does/did - it'll be fun but even rugby sevens - which splits opinions - seemed more serious.
 
Field Archery offers more than it provides; the biathlon style event does sound more like the alternative 'wild' event that some people might enjoy, though I could imagine an event that operated almost like golf, with 20 set targets, and twenty set marks to aim from, carrying your bow and arrows on your way, tv cameras at each 'hole', with a variety of elevations and distances, and scoring operating, as I say, almost like golf.
 
I do think the olympics need some form of bowling sport. A amny broad families of sport should have some representation as possible, and bowls and bowling seems the one obvious missing link right now.

Just saw this now, but apparently it came from Swedish ringboll, which was apparently influenced by the early forms of basketball. A Dutch PE teacher saw that, came back home and adapted it a bit and korfball was born. The mix of men/women, which was there since the beginning, apparently worked well and there you go.
 
I have no idea about statistics and it is certainly not like the Dutch team is full of well-known players or anything (go out on the street, ask 100 people to name one single current international, and I'd be surprised if 5 people manage to do so), but it is somewhat popular locally. Like, I remember from my early school times that even in my small town there was an annual 'korfball tournament', with the local schools playing each other (outdoor, on the grass, which was apparently slightly different than indoor). I don't remember ever playing, but it was a somewhat big deal and the one moment in the year to meet the other schools  

Well, maybe not some of the Russians...

OK, for all of the complaints about clueless commentators, disappearing graphics, not showing this or that event etc etc they actually did a great job of covering all the different sports at some point and getting the finished vids published on the site within a few minutes, and that is 90% of the battle when it comes to creating international interest in your event.  Even much bigger events like the Paralympics don't always manage as much.
 
So   to everyone who worked on that.