thepharoah

Kolding Station - Photo: S.Juhl - Wiki
With the Grand Final getting close, we can welcome @dezbee2008, @Olympian1010, @thepharoah and @DaniSRB to Kolding, hometown of Blaue Blume who competed at the 2015 Annual Contest.
Kolding dates to the second half of the 1100s and for most of the medieval times it was one of the most important cities of the country, including having the castle Koldinghus as an occasional Royal residence for a few hundred years. Due to wars and Plague the city suffered and had trouble growing due to taxes. During the Napoleonic wars, some Spanish mercenaries started a fire at Koldinghus by accident burning major parts down to the ground. Only in the 1890’s restoration of the castle began, finishing about a 100 years later. During these years the city grew steadily becoming the 7th largest city of our country.

Koldinghus - Photo: Hubertus - Wiki
Kolding is most known for its men’s handball team who has won the Danish Championships a record 14 times. Among the major athletes from the city, two-times Olympic Silver Medalist in heaveweight boxing, Søren Petersen and former Liverpool midfielder Jan Mølby.

Kolding Castle Lake - Photo: Hubertus - Wiki
As you may have guessed, Koldinghus would be a place that we recommend to visit. Both to see the historic building in a new form but also due to its highly interesting exhibitions. Trapholt Arts museum, a look around in the historic center or by Kolding fiord are also worth the time. And how about bit of pizza? Kolding likes to call themselves Slice-town for a reason!!

yeah, I was not referring to Egypt when I wrote about North Africa dominating the event, rather to the very good results, way better than usual, for the other Countries of that Region (I mean, all the North African Nations, except for LBA, won at least 1 Gold and more than 1 medal, which is quite unusual to see in the other sports)...
 
and of course I agree on anything else...

I only reacted as sad because I wanted your post to have every reaction possible. 

That isis guy must have nine lives, he's being killed every year.

I'm sorry for the irish here but this whole sequence of events was absolutely  the "diving" stroke in the last second, the 3-1 penalty lead blown and finally the irish player crashing the ball into his own foot in the most decisive penalty. It's just too much.

Pantelis Hatzidiakos (AZ Alkmaar) after air crash with Konstantinos Mitroglou (PSV)
 

By now I've lost count of how many brazilian athletes complained about dubious judging/decisions. The one that probably was the most vocal about it is Caio Bonfim, who received a direct red card 20m away from the finish line in the 20km race walk:
 
 

At least Trump is honest about one thing: "We want to secure the oil"
 
 

Yeah for a statement about a terrorist leader killing himself together with three children, it's both sad and surprisingly hilarious the way he brings it and turns even this to 'I am amazing!!' 

North Korea became the newest FEI member.

Congrats to Bahrain, they deserved it more than anybody else here. I don't like some of Bahrain teams (in other sports, specially football) but their handball team is great for such a small nation. Bahrain's population is smaller than the city I live !
 
Korea had the lead for something like 40-45 minutes but Bahrain finally took the lead and never gave it back to Korea. I hope they play good at the Olympics and don't make a joke of Asian Handball
 
and South Korea has no chance in the qualification tournament, if it was Qatar (or even Bahrain) yes maybe but Korea no way.

Heywoodu comment next week: "I finally watched the final of the 2010 world cup, wow can't believe the chance Robben missed and that the dutch lost another final."

Our NOC announced that 5 of our lifters were caught doped in the last African Games without naming them but rumors says that Sara Samir is included in this list so it's officially over for our weightlifting the sport could even die here in Egypt,  Mohamed Ehab announced his retirement unless he can participate under Olympic flag or something which isn't available ofc this's what we got from conflicts in our federation I seriously started to hate Egyptian sport with this bunch of losers governing our federations 

Entry list...
 
South Africa
Laurienne Dittmann (Don Weltino K)
Gretha Ferreira (Lertevangs Lavinia)
Tanya Seymour (Ramoneur)
Nicole Smith (Chi La Rou)
 
So... This will be interesting. As long as they finish the competition, South Africans will be given a quota. There are many more riders actually entered, but nobody else from Group F except two Palestinians (Diana Al-Shaer and Christian Zimmermann), who obviously can't form a team.
 
Nevertheless, provided they finish the competition and obtain requirements, South Africans are on path to become the first ever African Olympic dressage team. And that is really cool, especially given that in 2016 they missed out on a team qualification by a ridiculously small margin of 0.06%!

KOREA
 
 
 
 

First ever gold medal for Brazil, and quite the news here since Maicon wrote on Instagram that he is proud to be black and the racist Bulgarians had to deal with his gold medal. 

Festival of Music begins! 
The member of the Egyptian jury couldn't wait, so let the Festival of Music begin!  For those who are new to TISC, Festival of Music is an opportunity for any TISC participant to present songs and artists from nations who are not represented at this year's TISC Open. All participants of TOISC 2019 can write a post about which nation or nations they would to like present in Festival of Music. Usually a TISC participant can present up to two entries from two different nations. Remember, the same rules apply to entries in Festival of Music as TOISC 2019. Artists must be from or associated with the nation they represent, and entries must have been released on or before December 31st, 2014. 
 
Enjoy the festival!  
 

Senegal 
 
Ismael Lo : Jammu Africa ( Peace in Africa ) 
 
 
 

The "Small Countries Division" European Championship took place the last couple of days in Faroe Islands. It is a bi-annual tournament for countries too small to participate in the Eurovolley, however due to the changes in the format of European Volleyball Championship, only 4 teams participated this year.
 
Results:
 
4. October
 
Iceland 3-1 Scotland ( 19-25 / 25-22 / 25-23 / 25-22 )
Faroe Islands  3-0  Greenland ( 25-16 / 25-14 / 25-18 )
 
 
 
5. October
 
Island 3-0  Greenland ( 26-24 / 25-21 /  25-20 )
 
 
Scotland 3-1 Faroe Islands ( 25-22 / 25-20 / 28-30 / 25-22 )
 
 
 
6. October
 
Scotland 3-0 Greenland ( 25-11 / 25-14 / 25-18 )
 
 
 
Faroe Islands 3-1 Iceland ( 25-22 / 21-25 / 25-22 / 25-22 )
 
 
FINAL STANDINGS:
 
1)   Scotland
2)   Faroe Islands
3)   Iceland
4)   Greenland

So if I understand it correctly, The Arabic language is in basic the same (let say the one used in Quran) it´s the official one, peoples write, read and officially use it, but everyone speak in his own dialect, right (Maghrebin, Egyptian, Middle Orient, etc..) ?

Yes it's the same

We have quite a lot Arabic vocabularies which was spread from Muslim merchants about 700 years ago. Even some country names in Indonesian used Arabic derived ones because those merchants are the ones which made people at that time aware of those countries like Mesir, Aljazair, Yunani, etc.
 
With the exception of Morocco, somehow we used the Western derived "Maroko". In Malaysia they still use Maghribi (and the number of Arabic vocabularies in Malay is even more prevalent than in Indonesian).

No we speak the same language which's Arabic but in different accent or way, In Maghreb countries for instance they mix Arabic words with Amazigh language and French so it's bit harder to understand them,  maybe the Egyptian version of Arabic the most understandable because of Egyptian songs and movies which was widespread in Arabic region and because many Egyptians worked for years in Arabic countries 

I can say I understand the basic Arabic (probably more than just the basics) but that doesn't apply to everybody here. yes everybody has to learn some Arabic (in a very low level) at school but then almost everybody forgets it right after the school. (I was a good student and still remember everything and probably even learned more)
 
if you turn your TV in Iran and switch channels, 100% sure you will find at least 1-2 channels showing something in Arabic but it doesn't mean people understand it most of religious people just listen to Quran without understanding a word.
 
but beside that, we have Arabic speaking Iranians, I think for 2 million people Arabic is their first language and Persian comes second.

For Arabic I think being the language of Quran holly book for Muslims' made much non Arab speakers know basics of Arabic language,  so people from Iran,  Pakistan, many  African countries especially chad has good base in Arabic language,  also Turkish people,  maybe Indonesians and Malaysians especially those who study here in AL Azhar university, Israel so I think Arabic is somehow spread language , ofc like every other language it varies from country to another,  Egyptians don't speak like Maghreb countries or people in Sham areas ( Palestine, Syria and Lebanon) and gulf countries, etc each ethnic groups has different way of expressing language but at the end of the day we understand each other