Federer91

Ireland should consider it a huge success, if they get top 10. Top 5 is wishful thinking for me.

Croatia building a very good lead in the odds today. For 10 days they were at 18-24% and a huge jump today before the first 1/2. Swiss and Ukraine on the other hand dropping a lot.

Watched the rehearsal clips, so time for updated observations. Still standing, that if either Italia or Croatia doesn't win, it will be preposterous (something quite usual for Eurovision in a sad tradition). Ukraine exploded with the best staging and from a top 10 song rose to a top 3 position. Unfortunately they already gifted them 2 undeserved wins with mediocre songs, so this time, when they actually have a song, that is worthy to be a winner, someone else should win... Countries with the biggest improvements with the staging: - Georgia and Armenia - two songs, which i won't add for repeat listening, but they will be great for an arena performance. Much better, than expected, so hopefully they will do good. - Greece - I commemorate our neighbors for going with a traditional Greek sound, but i just dislike the song, a lot.. Which is a shame, cause Marina seems an awesome person and the staging accompanies the song perfectly. I just wished they went with a different song, ughhh... - Ireland - the crazy song. The visuals will carry it from a non-qualifier to the final, but meh for me. Songs, which i already like and nothing changed -> Austria, Cyprus, Lithuania. Safe staging for all 3 of them. Some other countries: France - initially i was like "not another French ballad", but the guy is just such a good singer. Probably the best singer of the whole contest. Don't see many fan votes for him, but the juries will carry him to the top half i reckon. Germany - not great at all, but won't deserve their usual last place this time. The staging doesn't stand out, so i'm afraid another 0 pointer is coming. Sadly for them, they have taken UK's spot as the "not taken seriously participant every year", so they will need something unique to get out of the hole. Speaking of the UK, well, i think it's better not to say anything about the UK at all.... Israel - not as good as Noa Kirel, but a decent song for Eurovision level. However, given their worldwide position currently, i wonder how much backlash it will receive. Not by the juries of course, but from the fans. And the semifinals are only fan votes, so interesting to see, if it could be a shocking non-qualifier. Probably not. And of course, i still vividly hate Netherlands and Switzerland.

Wow, after 32 years we have again a medal in women's artistic gymnastics. Bravo Valentina

Happy Giro d'Italia kick off day? Pogacar to be in pink from day 1 to day 21

That was a really impressive showing for Olympiacos. Even after Villa equalised , they didn't fall back and continued to attack and it paid off.

Absolute disaster if true.. Our 2 best GR wrestlers both missing the Olympics is just yet another nail for our current state. Shows just how important it is to get the quota at the World Championships, so you can have a buffer for such unexpected problems..

Our best player Aleksandar Nikolov will miss this year's VNL, as he is going to get surgery for a back problem. And with a number of retirements last year, after failing to qualify to Paris, it's going to be an almost brand new team.

Thank God Totallympics is back. For a moment with that "domain suspended" page i thought @Sindo 's HQ was being raided by the authorities.

Happy for Yoana, even though she had to go through the final chance tournament. It would have been a complete waste, if she didn't manage to qualify. All and all a good day, after also the rowing quota earlier. We got what was expected today after the disappointments in a number of other sports, most recently shooting..

Austria are really generous gifting skiers like that. Baumann to Germany, Hirscher to Holland, i wouldn't mind getting a Puchner

Probably not the most competitive EURO amidst the 2 Olympic qualifiers, but our women had a fantastic day today in the 1/4. 5 wins out of 5 matches and all get a minimum bronze. Our 6th woman Stanimira Petrova though had a high temperature and had to withdraw, otherwise we could have a perfect 6.

Selin After a near perfect first day, what was that..

North Korea wins quotas, but the real question is will they actually send those people to Paris

I am still fond how people who don't like sports are working overtime today to spam the forum.

US / AUS / UK already have the paperwork and statements ready for the upcoming China success in Paris.

Russia is out of the picture now, so it was about time the moved to China as the next target. I am surprised it was NewsCorp and not NBC leading the charge.

The country is growing in every aspect, bar the sporting one. And this has nothing to do with the EU, as the change started happening already in 1990. It just took 15 years for everything that was built in the prior decades to fully crumble. All results in the 90s and up to Athens was the last pipeline, that was structured in the old system. The truth is, like JoshMartini mentioned, that sport funding, country wide structuring and people's mentality completely changed in one day after the old regime fell. The next day and upcoming years no one was thinking about sports as an important issue. On the contrary, it became the bottom of the barrel. Which is true to this day still. Every time there is a new Government, in the 20 or so Departments, that are structured, the Sports one is always not taken seriously and the sports Minister is looked like a joke amongst the rest. There were even years, when there was no Sports Ministry and sports were added as a backburner in the Education or Youth Ministry. Regardless of the money aspect, i have talked in length before on the old system and how it will never be duplicated. In those days, for every kid, from every town and village, it was mandatory to do sport already from 1 grade. Lots of sports, after school sports, not your typical 2 hours a week killing time, like in the present. Then there were agents, or a special committee, that had a job to go to every town, to every school and scout the best children and navigate them to which sport will be best suited for their abilities, so that they can start specifically training in their pre-teenage days. After that they were taken first from the local coaches, again every big town had training camps for a dozen sports, it wasn't just the one camp, where you could go train for gymnastics etc. Then there were selections between the different regions and only after that you were elevated to National team status and get the full system structure. Nothing like this is being done today. Kids are not only not encouraged to do sports, everything in the system actively tries to discourage them. Any top level athlete we have is purely based on the individual person's desire and a small team around them. I can also add the notion, that kids in the 70-90s were waking up and going to bed with only the thought of playing sports. It doesn't have to be on an organized level, just your regular play with friends. You couldn't find a street, where the neighboring children weren't playing. Even in my teen years, in the mid to late 00s, you had to wait your turn for a football field in my school, even though there are 5. Each of them were always taken, from schoolers to people on their 50s playing matches. You make a goal post on the street and play, it was a luxury to get a normal (concrete) pitch. You walk in the school today and you would be lucky to see 10 children play after school. Everything is phones, tik tok, instagram, video games, cafes etc. Who wants to sweat doing dumb sports. Multiply that for the grind and dedication required for how many years before you become an elite athlete, garnered with non-existing funding, crumbling facilities, not enough knowledgeable coaches and staff in general and you get and optimistic prognosis of 5 medals. And yet, it would still be better, than a huge part of the World. People may laugh, but if we had even 40% of the system and desires from the 80s, we could be fighting for a top 20 in the medal table at least.. (Or you could still say it was only magical potions and mushrooms..)

Spoken truly like someone, who has read only headlines growing up and never bothered learning how the system was functioning.

Gracenote are predicting 5 medals for team BG, which more or less is what should be expected. Though the configuration is to be seen. They are predicting 1 silver and 4 bronzes: - Silver for the Group in Rhythmic Gymnastics; - Bronze for Stilyana Nikolova in Rhythmic Gymnastics individual; - Bronze for Svetlana Staneva in Boxing W57 kg; - Bronze for Bozhidar Andreev in Weightlifting M73 kg; - Bronze for Semen Novikov in Wrestling GR87 kg. Interestingly, Gracenote are not seeing any medal for Karlos Nasar in weightlifting 89kg

Great matches last night Dortmund in the 1/2 after 11 years.

This is ludicrous.. I thought the rule was to have only 1 American in a squad?

She was probably in the top 5 most secure Golds in the whole OG And the season hasn't even started properly.

I presume the main sponsor stopped funding and they can't self finance?

The difference is, that i am not deaf, blind or from The Netherlands Take it as you will.