heywoodu

I only kinda know Wayne Gretzky by name, don't think I ever heard or saw him really do anything, but man, for someone called 'The Great One' that sure was an underwhelming performance by him Pronounced half the countries like he had never even heard of them (which I assume is correct), and made it seem as though reading a card with a grand total of 4 countries on it was super difficult. Shaquille O'Neal and Aaron Judge at least clearly practiced the names in their pot. The full 'Islamic Republic of Iran' by Shaq for example, I feel like Gretzky would just have said 'I R Iran' and thought the I and R were a typo.

This is such an annoying thing at events like this. Like that guy who came on the podium with a speech in Spanish. I mean, no blame at all if you don't speak English, there's no real shame in that and that's fine, but if you don't....then don't go on a global stage and give a speech even if you're asked to, unless someone is there translating sentence by sentence.

I guess there's some ice hockey or baseball thing going on or some weird overseas thing like that.

Andrea Bocelli is lucky, he doesn't need to watch this.

Well this was the most cringey speech humanity has ever seen.

Draw starts around 19.00 CET, commentator here said.

And there's the biggest criminal in FIFA history "Simply the greatest event the world, humanity has ever seen and will ever see." Hahaha, he is talking Trump's language

Scratch Curacao, just realized Turkey is also an option, oh dear Lord

I want maximum controversy or Let's go

Ukrainian diver Lyskun switches allegiance to Russia, loses all medals | Olympics News | Al Jazeera 'loses all medals' I would assume Al Jazeera could have been a bit clearer and mention this would presumably only be national medals. I mean, it's not like the Ukrainian federation, or any single federation for that matter, has the power to strip her of her world and European championships medals I hope (not for her sake, but because that would be a super weird precedent)

That's what I'd plan as well (except for MelFest), but I also know I am hypocritical enough to still want to watch the show and have a fun evening

On the bright side after all this nonsense, EBU seems to be very busy buying some other countries back in. Bulgaria, Romania and even Moldova, which didn't even have money for their own selection process, are now back. Talks still going on about Canada and Kazakhstan, apparently

EBU pulled a very, very nasty one there. First there was a vote about the new rules, which were made/changed after Israel's voter fraud of this year. However, they actually tied that vote to the Israel vote: if a majority was in favour of the new rules, which was the case, the Israel vote was not even going to happen. It's like they thought "Israel's fraud is the reason for the rule change, so if people accept the rule change, they'd accept Israel's entry as well, no reason to vote". Too bad, even looking purely at Eurovision and not the Gaza situation, Israel (or more specifically, their broadcaster KAN) should already have been in doubt after their nasty behaviour in 2024 and the incredibly shade business of this year in which they nearly succeeded in buying the win. Luckily Austria managed to get it, at least. This whole thing was already decided days/weeks ago by the way, judging by the form that was sent out somewhere stating there'd be 35 countries competing, which is what we're likely to have now.

That is odd indeed. It's already gone, it seems? https://www.fis-ski.com/DB/v2/quota/list/owg/cc/2026 There's no way he is making the Olympics, unfortunately. He would need to score top-8's in the World Cup and that seems like somewhat of a stretch I'm afraid

No idea actually There's absolutely no way 10 NOC's are making it in the women's events, not sure about the men, but I would assume every NOC with a somewhat realistic shot would have already appeared in Ruka.

Since AIN is in reality no different than RUS, surely countries who boycott with RUS competing would also boycott if AIN competes?

And the Olympics cancelled, yada yada yada, but not gonna happen. Personally it would not at all be bad for me/us, since a bunch of European countries withdrawing would rather strongly increase the chance of Brazil getting a 3rd ticket

Oh damn, Wierer crossing the line there with 0,3 seconds faster than Leinamo is one of the biggest ever moments of "ah goddammit!" despite an amazing result I don't often react physically when watching sports, but here I had a good strong disappointed punch on my leg at that moment Too bad, so close...but still, 2nd is just absolutely amazing beyond words!

Ecuador's Klaus Jungbluth did so by 5 seconds, nice The athletes from Peru and Israel came up less than 20 seconds shy of qualifying, for now at least. It should be somewhat promising for the later races.

What if those 10 quota aren't all filled up, will they be added to the reallocation pool?

Third place for / Mika Vermeulen, impressive start of the season!

If I am not mistaken, 30:57.2 was needed to get under 300 points today, Klaus Jungbluth-Rodriguez had 30:52.7 and so should have made it! 28:32 for Claveau-Laviolette, so he's certainly in.

No idea, I'm generally more familiar with the women from the 'exotic' nations than the men (with a few exceptions, like Klaus Jungbluth)

If Stenshagen wins, Attila Kertesz will likely have made the Olympics by 0.2 seconds. Although I do think Stenshagen's time will be broken. Chance for is alive, is very likely in! In the women's race Chanloung made it, Flores and Thekkada didn't get close, unfortunately (but not necessarily surprising).

World Cup starts tomorrow with the 10k classic in Ruka, we immediately see the result of the new FIS rules for non-qualified nations (for the Olympics) having a chance to qualify through the World Cup. Three of those in the women's race: Martina Flores of Chile, Karen Chanloung of Thailand and Bhavani Thekkada being - I presume - India's first ever athlete in the World Cup, so that's cool. If Chanloung has her pre-Beijing 2022 level, she might stand a chance, I fear Flores and Bhavani simply aren't going to get anywhere near it. Hopefully Indians won't be too disappointed at that, she recently filled up all of social media with a historic first ever Indian podium finish in a FIS race. I mean, it was cool, but she did finish 3rd in two Chilean races where the best Brazilians and Argentinians were not racing, and was far behind...well, Martina Flores. All due respect and since she's a good friend of Bruna, I sincerely hope she somehow makes it, but literally dozens of posts about the 3rd place was a bit much I think