heywoodu

Yeah, whenever writing something about Polish athletes, I'm always afraid. At least Kamil Stoch or Dawid Kubacki aren't a problem

Kruidnoten, like probably many of these things, are hard to define as one thing I have a box full of bags of kruidnoten here at home, but in 15-20 different tastes and there's a big difference between them Stroopwafel definitely deserves it's nice high spot though.

Judging by the massive number of z's in this example (and the overall lack of feeling like anything resembling German), not at all, no

Oh it definitely wasn't meant as argueing, I am sure they have infinitely more knowledge about all of it than all of us combined It was mostly a matter of curiousity, as to why this would lead to peak results. I can also imagine it works best to go for a peak at moment X, then take it a bit easier to recover somewhat and rebuild to a peak at moment X + 1,5 months. It clearly works for them, I'm just always interested in the timings of peaks and supercompensation and those kind of things

Alright, that's a bit close, yeah I do wonder why these countries with trials somehow want the trials to be that close to the Olympics. Why not just hold them in March or April, so there's plenty of time for recovery and then rebuilding to peak shape again?

It'd be great to not have that line at all. As in, for the love of God just remove that graphic from the screen, it takes away so much tension and excitement By the way, interesting to think Biedermann's world record was only barely faster than Thorpe's previous world records (plural), but somehow after that, it stopped entirely. Thorpe was well before the annoying super suit, wasn't he?

When are the Australian trials? Olympics are wtill three months away, and as we see in plenty of other sports, it definitely shouldn't be impossible to have two peaks separated by 2-3 months

Like I said, she's definitely not a medal favourite, but "she hasn't been top-5 in any race this year" is rather underselling her qualities/performances Since January, every single race she has done from the Deakin University Elite Women's Road Race on (where she finished a more than excellent 9th) has been a big one-day World Tour race, none of those smaller .1 races in between. A very respectable 25th in a tough Strade Bianche, after being in the breakaway for a long time, 11th in the Trofeo Alfredo Binda, 9th in De Panne, 13th in Gent-Wevelgem and probably the best of all, 10th in Roubaix after very much being part of the main part of the race at the end. Her weakest race in the past two months was a 23rd in the Tour of Flanders, of all places. That being one's worst result says a lot (in a good sense). In her entire pre-Olympic career, Anna Kiesenhofer had basically accomplished nothing remotely near to what Pienaar has shown in the past three months alone. Again: that does not make her the (or a) favourite, obviously, but in road racing weird things can happen and she is definitely a contender to keep an eye on, instead of one of the default 'exotic nation riders' who we often see in the first lead group of the world championships.

As far as I could tell, there is no specific thread for this but with the first gold medals, and I didn't think it'd be big enough to open one, so here we go It's not a first medal, since Mauritius has won one bronze medal in boxing once, but they surprisingly have a shot in women's cycling this year. It's not a huge chance, obviously, but in Tokyo we saw how someone who wasn't even considered on any list of dark horses ended up with the gold due to the Dutch women totally fucking up their tactics, so weird things can always happen Kimberley Le Court Pienaar has been very impressive this year, often fighting at the front of the very biggest one-day races. Again, she is far from being the favourite, but I'd say her chances are significantly bigger than Anna Kiesenhofer's chances were ahead of Tokyo, and we know how well that ended. Definitely worth a mention, the chance exists!

So I'm guessing you're even less of a fan of Omanyala? At least Lyles backed up the most important of his talks, Omanyala just said he was going to win every 100m and then lost everything

As a sport I'd put (men's) weightlifting high on my list, haven't seen it since Tokyo despite always enjoying it. Just have mixed feelings about it because of the tiny field size. Same kind of thing with wrestling, I find it fun to watch but never really get to it, so I'm looking forward to that as well. Most of the running events in athletics, the 100m freestyle in swimming, most of the rowing, obviously the mountainbike...I'm surely forgetting some things but off the top of my head I am definitely looking forward to those

What's the problem with Lyles? I get Richardson, but Lyles doesn't seem to be all over the top (for a sprinter, at least)? Of course anyone has their favourites and dislikes (personally for example I'm beyond happy that the aggressive idiot Mekhissi-Benabbad isn't competing anymore, although it'd have been even better to see him compete and fail miserably at home...probably the only athleted I'd wish that one, since most of my other dislikes I just, well, kind of dislike, but don't really wish ill or anything )

Where can one find the full timetable for the apparatus finals? All I can find on Wikipedia and official websites is a generic thing saying "apparatus finals, part 1" or something, but I want the actual timetable (like, at the very least which apparatus finals are on which day?)

Now I'd like to see William Poromaa try and fail miserably*, after his comments about biathletes basically being failed cross-country skiers. *unlike Nilsson, who like you said gave it a real attempt and definitely did not 'fail'. Most World Cup athletes never get a podium at all in their career, so she's done a fine job. Nice to see her in the races for the real tough ones from now on

A regular Diamond League.