heywoodu

Right, that makes sense, although definitely is a terrible way of holding the lead portion of the combined Theoretically it's possible that the athlete who opens the lead portion gets such a high score in both boulder and lead, that after his lead climb, the remaining 7 finalists already have literally no chance anymore to win, that's absurd

Aaaaaaaand Burundi is gone. Well, most of them, that is. https://www.handball-planet.com/ten-burundi-nt-players-dissapeared-from-wch-2023/

Yes, seeing three separate medal events would definitely be a lot better. If that actually happens, I am glad with the short-lived existence of the combined though, since it definitely would have helped putting climbing on the map (considering without the combined it wouldn't have been Olympic). And climbing is one of the super rare additions which I personally find to actually add something different in a good way, so if the combined helped with that, I can tolerate it for two Olympic cycles (as long as from 2028 on we have separate events)

What was up with the order of the lead in the men's combined final? I swear the women started in opposite order of the boulder result, as one would expect: this way, the tension is built up. However, in the men's final, the order seemed entirely random, resulting in possible situations of having climbers start their lead in such a position they already can't mathematically win the gold anymore....that's just odd and makes for a rather mediocre viewing experience... I feel like there was some reason why it was mixed up...?

Spain gets rewarded for their 3-4 minutes of stalling during the extra time, with the referee only turning the 7 added minutes into barely 8 Alright, they deserved the win anyway since they were better, but referees should let play go on a bit longer after injury time, especially when the leading team has been stalling.

Only England can qualify Great Britain? It's about time England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland get their own NOC's to stop this always returning mess

Huh, this is in the Netherlands? Someone tell Dutch media please

Italy has been super strong in women's cycling for a good while, to be fair. There was always some Italian or another to beat Marianne Vos to her 520th consecutive silver

Still not that far off of your PB's, which, considering you're (I assume) not a professional with a professional coaching team around you to time everything to the right week, is definitely an excellent performance I'd say

What's the problem with that?

It's the tradition of the Dutch women's team to entirely forget a small name being ahead of the peloton in a major championships road race. I would genuinely not be surprised if they don't even know Chabbey is there.

Dutch NOS is being very annoyed with Shirin van Anrooij seemingly going for her U23 chances instead of the team effort. NOS should shut up, as long as the U23 race is still integrated in the elite race, the U23 riders should fully focus on their chances as they wish.... Luckily after today it's just one more time of this nonsense and then in 2025 the U23 women have their own race in Rwanda.

The women have barely entered the local lap and already an attack with the two big favourites (Vollering and Kopecky) both in it

Milesi was all the time basically actively trying to stop the chase from happening. Slovak guy tried to up the pace? Milesi came riding in such a way that it didn't work. German starting to try and increase the pace? Milesi was there to stop him. Morgado and Rootkin-Gray definitely didn't deserve much of a beauty price for their riding neither, but Milesi's riding today was the definition of cowardly racing (he started with that way before 20km already). Of course that whole group just messed up massively, but none had the same portion of poor riding as Milesi did. It's all good, I do think Laurance was the strongest in the race - not surprisingly, considering he is basically a full pro - and Milesi simply helped make sure Laurance would win

Edit: oh, apparently that was not just the case here

I swear he has a French passport secretly, it's the only way in which his riding today would make sense (as a teammate of Laurance).

Looks like Milesi's behaviour is rewarded with a 4th place

Laurance is cooked, but Milesi is acting as a perfect teammate in trying to keep the chasers away

Meanwhile in the men's U23 road race, Axel Laurance is on the way to the world title, possibly. Behind him is a group which would have caught up with him if it wasn't for Lorenzo Milesi trying to keep the pace low.

Ah yeah, that's a thing too. What does, say Van der Poel (or less realistically but still hopefully, Sagan) need to do to qualify or for the Olympics?

Amazing ride by Prevot and her super heavy gear.

Aaaand it's 1-1

Fantastic kick by Santos, awful goalkeeping by Earps and 1-0 Colombia shortly before half time

DNS for Rissveds by the way (concussion)