heywoodu

For the love of God and Allah and Buddah and the Spaghetti Monster and whatever, don't bring more of these ideas to FIFA for 2034, 2038 and so on Spreading it across a continent is already disastrous enough, these things should be in one country. The issue is that we've seen which kind of countries end up getting it lately when it goes to one country, so that's not promising

And yeah, Saudi Arabia seems super likely for 2034. Good thing North Korea isn't rich or we'd be having every event there

Honestly this is what might make it worse. Tons of people making entirely unnecessary travels for 1-3 matches.... Obviously it is indeed all about having paid FIFA, but they've got to make a nice story around it

So ridiculous it's almost beautiful, the 2030 World Cup will be played in 3.....continents https://www.fifa.com/about-fifa/organisation/fifa-council/media-releases/fifa-council-takes-key-decisions-on-fifa-world-cup-tm-editions-in-2030-and-2034 Can't wait for another tournament that doesn't really feel like a tournament at all, like the random collection of matches that was 'Euro 2020' Obviously all 6 host nations will qualify automatically. I guess that's fine, because presumably by then we'll have 128 teams in the World Cup?

Aular seemed like he'd step into the ambulance, but one of the Lidl-Trek riders pointed him towards the finish line to avoid a rather dramatic DNF And still not the weirdest finish of the day, that one goes to Arnaud de Lie

I'd be happy with at least some of a threshold, compared to what we've got now...and the way things are going, next time we'll have 20 parties if not more, with everyone and their mother separating from their current one to start something new.

The bodyguard in the back is holding the folder with Putin's instructions for their meeting?

One small bright side: I see a grand total of only 7 parties in parliament. Ours has 150 seats as well, but the previous elections (2021) resulted in 17 (!) different parties being elected into parliament (with the biggest 3 resulting in 75 seats, so the smallest possible combination would have been 4, the whole thing resulted in the longest formation since WW2) The whole thing collapsed earlier this year, so next month we'll have new elections. So far, according to the polls, 16 parties are likely to end up in parliament (which includes two parties who were separate last time but have now merged to get big), while 18 isn't impossible neither.

Yeah, the heptathlon was sort of the base indeed. It's too bad Schippers went from heptathlon to sprint, really. Heptathlete Schippers was a lot easier to cheer for than sprint Schippers (where being easy to cheer for is obviously not her job, so no problem there, everyone can of course choose who they cheer for)

Right, if you're counting the 400 meters as well, sure. Although those are definitely separate entities here, and they're also not really considered sprints here as they are in the US (since all-out sprinting for 40+ seconds is simply not physically possible). I do agree, like said before, that she paved the way for a broader sense of improvement across the board. Whether that is because she was a fantastic standout or because the program was starting to work and she was the first real success to come out of it, who knows.

Not really talking about sprinters though, since Dutch sprinting didn't really improve or undergo any significant change since Schippers' successes. Dutch athletics has improved more in a sort of broad sense.

Meanwhile, some of the most tragically hilarious news around Russia in recent times: Russia, of all countries, wants to rejoin the UN human rights council. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66919358 For what it's worth of course, there's already Eritrea, Qatar, UAE etc on it, so it's not like that council is worth much anyway.

If that ever becomes a thing, the whole thing with 'but Armenia committed genocide against Azeris in the 90's' comes back and it will be a never-ending back and forth thing of "they started" vs "no, they started"....not saying it's good, but it's not entirely impossible to understand no federation wanting to burn it's hands on that, let's say, somewhat precarious situation...

So no more throwing with shoes, bitching against teammates and so on Honestly I thought she had retired already. Hopefully she'll at least get her physical problems under control. The best thing for Dutch athletics is that she kind of put it back on the map here, which more or less paved the way for the current successes. When separating her (public, at least) character from her sports performances, she is one of the most valuable Dutch athletes of the past 10 years for sure.

Adidas' new super light shoes, which Assefa of course used, are apparently even more ridiculous than the 'super shoes' which helped break record after record lately: these ones are, according to Adidas themselves, done after a single marathon

The actor who played the main role in the video for S10's 'De Diepte' has taken his own life, his family announced today. Reiky de Valk was 23. https://www.nu.nl/film/6282493/dertigers-acteur-reiky-de-valk-overleden-op-23-jarige-leeftijd.html

I had to skip quite a few parts, but other than the last few hundred meters, did she actually have a moment somewhere where she was not running behind her male pacemaker?

This one usually provides updates (they waited long with the cancellation notice, but had a delay message early in the day, which suggested wind hadn't died down ). https://twitter.com/UCI_BMX_Racing/with_replies

Any idea whether tomorrow's Mountain Bike test event can be seen anywhere? Edit: seems like not https://www.paris2024.org/en/mountain-bike-test-event/

And she's now on altitude training with a 200km+ ride

I think one of my old classes had a reunion, but there's literally zero people there I am still in touch with, so....just not very interested I mean, by now I assume at least 70% of them has at least one child, so I'd be a bit out of place by now anyway Go TISC

But I try to skip class reunions Definitely not going to skip TISC though, is in of course

And today became a dad. What an incredible rollercoaster the past two years have been for him and his wife (girlfriend?).

Adriatica Ionica Race was supposed to start today, it was cancelled yesterday Organizer blaming the federation, federation blaming the organizer, yaddi yaddi yadda. https://www.cyclingnews.com/news/adriatica-ionica-race-cancelled-just-16-hours-before-start/

Sadly certain parts of the world are basically permanent wasp nests. Sometimes it cools down for a bit, but there's always going to be whatever that kicks the nest and the whole thing blows up again, be that with actual war or non-stop bitching between countries (especially the whole big line between roughly Morocco east towards Turkey or so). And now the Poland vs Ukraine bitching contest, nobody really cares about what the presidents of the countries say (especially now, because the international eyes are still firmly on Ukraine vs Russia and not on it's neighbours), but it does fill up a bit of space in the news broadcasts, so there we go.