heywoodu

Still something needs to be done about the whole equipment saga. Whether that's neutral wax, very strongly limiting the number of skis, whatever. It is absolutely batshit crazy that most of the big-country athletes have 40 or even 50 pairs of skis with them. Limit it to a maximum of say 4-5 pairs of skis per athlete per World Cup round, that is really, without a doubt more than enough. Add something like a neutral wax provider to that, with a limit number of waxes one can use. It takes out at least some of the insane advantage the big teams have with their research budgets, while still including the actual skills of the waxers in applying them correctly and choosing correctly (from the limited number of options that are available to everyone).

They already did that a while ago, including checks. Or at least they prepared it and started with the checks. Which in at least one occassion led to a bottle of fluor being found in the Brazilian wax cabine at an IBU Cup

Isn't it time to be done with those cheap spots through the Nations League? I mean, come on: Estonia get one (1) single point in eight qualifying matches, and is still in the race because they're in the easy Nations League division, whereas quite a few clearly stronger nations are out because they're in a harder Nations League division...I know this was obvious since the beginning of this system, but this is just ridiculous

And apparently it wasn't even cancelled, so they (referee/authorities/whoever) just accepted it as 'oh this is slightly annoying'?

Well in that case, does he want to go back in time and collect their foreskins or what? It's just a weird and rather sick overall thing to say anyway

If true, this is pretty sick. Actively calling for purposefully maiming genitals - like in Bible stories - in a way that should incredibly obviously only ever be done to adults who make the decision for themselves (or in medical emergencies).

With times like this I would never say no to moving it forward an hour, but if not, the chance is still fairly good I'd post the Dutch votes anyway I mean, European users have had the 'good' (daytime) hours almost every single TISC anyway, so if this time that's not the case, so be it

I'm definitely planning to go, but it does somewhat depend on who qualifies

I like the system in general, although I would like something like a basic minimum limit in order to get into parliament, because it's just a massive mess with 15+ parties realistically getting seats (including a lot of small ones) and a lot of those parties disagreeing with each other on just one or two specific things. We'll see how it goes tomorrow, I think it's quite long ago that three or even four parties were this close together and all having a realistic shot at becoming the biggest. Last time it was clear well before the elections, and before that it was a two-way fight or something with three or four being clearly above the rest, but nothing like it is now: VVD, PVV, PvdA/GL and NSC all have a more or less serious chance at becoming the biggest. Things might be easier in terms of forming a government: majority of 76 is needed and any combination of three of these four would be quite likely to get there. PvdA/GL being the only left party in that short list means it seems pretty likely we'll get a VVD-PVV-NSC government (unless Wilders, like so often, just makes it impossible to form a government with him so he can keep shouting from the sidelines).

Referee tripled his money with his sweet San Marino +1.5 bet Also: first time ever San Marino scores in three consecutive matches, that's pretty cool

Latest polls for tomorrow's Dutch elections, probably the last ones before the actual elections (this one is a combination of the two main 'poll providers'). Geert Wilders (that blonde right-wing guy) getting dangerously close to the top. Meanwhile the FvD leader (conspiracy nut and right wing nationalist Thierry Baudet) got a whack on the head with a beer bottle yesterday, after being hit with an umbrella earlier this month. Attacks on any politician are bad, obviously, but hopefully this doesn't lead to extra sympathy votes or something Meanwhile I still haven't been able to make my choice. I wrote down the entire list of 27 parties and am now in the process of eliminating them one by one for various reasons (one wants to stop supporting Ukraine, so bye, another is the strictly religious party, so bye, another is Turkey's party, so bye, conspiracy nuts, bye, etc), hopefully I can get it down to 4-5 or so and make my choice a bit easier...

They can do that after Churandy Martina and Liemarvin Bonevacia retired please

Video challenges should be the way to go anyway...it is just super weird how VAR is being used now, by first taking ages...not to make a decision, but to decide 'ok, we are going to look', and then looking for ages, and then taking an actual decision. Give both teams 2-3 challenges, and maybe the referee as well, and let the VAR - who is an actual referee anyway - make the decision. That would save tons of time and make games a lot more fluent.

Come on, four goals in one match now and he couldn't make even one of his roughly 1800 chances in the deciding group match in the World Cup last year?

This just looks like a regular road. Greetings from autumn in the Netherlands

Damn, there's disagreeing about stuff (even strongly and so on)....and then there's posting language that could actually get one into some legal problems. Edit: huh, Slovak buddy closed the thread apparently while I was typing my post, and in that case apparently I could still post mine despite it being closed (which I hadn't seen yet) Forum bug

There was no Fledderus in the Dutch team, it was Antoinette Rijpma-De Jong who did the last lap Also no Martyna Baran for Poland, but Iga Wojtasik. As the Dutch commentator said today: in the team sprint, the start list is really more of a 'suggestion on the possible start order', because there's last-minute changes which often aren't communicated in any way, so the only way to know who was riding is by actually watching the races And yes, Dubreuil was 18th last week, so relegated to the B division. Just like Schouten will most likely have to ride the 5k in the B division next time.

Yeah, I can especially see Swiss, Italian, Austrian, German, Norwegian TV and so on be rather unhappy with it, so I don't actually see it happen, but it would be awesome Too bad there's maximum altitude rules in the World Cup, otherwise biathlon and/or cross-country could go to Portillo at nearly 3000m where South American championships have regularly been held....that'd be something I know alpine has had world champs there, but an endurance event...oof

Yeah, the whole Zermatt thing sounds great, but didn't work out so well...still curious if they can try it in a different time of year perhaps. Chile would be awesome though, it's the World Cup, it shouldn't be utterly impossible to have something like a back-to-back weekend in Chile + Argentina every few years (and one in Oceania on some other years). "But our training schedules!"...yeah, adapt. You're an athlete.

Nice job by the Italians And Swings once again losing in the final sprint because of closing too many gaps early on

Excellent race for the Han dynasty's best ever speed skater

Postponed to 12:30....

Super slow race for Schouten, wouldn't even be close to the podium in the B division (where, granted, Groenewoud was fast, but the rest was nothing special). NOS guy in Beijing says the ice is very soft, so they may have thrown way too much water on it or something. 4:10 for Schouten, 4:20 for Greta Myers, both are just awful times for them, there is no way this is not due to the ice.

Ugh, Nuis being Nuis. Doing an interview after the race, an official doing his work points to ending the interview because it's podium time, and despite just having had a fantastic race, Nuis can't just laugh it off and say "be there in a second, thanks!", but angrily goes all "Oh film that guy, film that guy! Unbelievable!". Reminds me of him angrily grabbing an official's accreditation in a threatening manner in Collalbo after a DQ He's a great skater when he's 'on', but man I won't miss him when he retires.