heywoodu

Are those names references to those US thingies where they stick three random Greek letters together and then act all super cool when they meet someone who happens to have had the same three letters in their school period? No idea what this 'sport' is though Edit: I thought it was remotely operated for the downhill part, but there's actually a small person laying inside it

The thing is Philipsen always does this. But if nobody falls, there is no punishment, whereas a less dangerous move resulting in a mostly unfortunate fall often does lead to punishments. There is no consistency in the decisions whatsoever.

Kickboxing would add a new group of fans if it's the 'real' professional kickboxing, the big names that headline big events. That's definitely never going to be an option (for one because there is no way you can make them fight a bunch of fights within two weeks in a responsible manner), so one would be stuck with the amateur version, which indeed would add....well, nothing. No fans, no money, nothing really indeed.

What's with this random count and then waving the fight off by the referee at roughly 8 minutes in the video? https://europeangames.tv/videos/3564114/boxing-mens-80kg-final-bout

No, this is now the event in swimming and WE rule it

I really doubt it's different in many other countries I do read on this forum and only now I realized this event is even going on. If I was an avid swimming enthusiast, of course I'd have known, but it's not like swimming is so massively mainstream that even continental junior championships are anywhere in the news (I think the only sport for which a junior worlds would be news here is speed skating and mostly only if the Dutch get some special kind of medals there - like a 16-year old dominating the event) Still happy someone on here follows it though, now I can check the results

Although control is a bit of a tricky use of words in this case. Once again, Philipsen relied on shoving others out of the way in a manner which would lead to being thrown down the ranking if it didn't affect the stage result (like if you make the moves he makes, but you end up 15th anyway, then they might push you down to last place, but the judges don't have the balls to do that for someone in the top). Yesterday he just shoved Girmay towards the barriers to get into Cavendish's wheel for a second, which wasn't the first time even this Tour (although in Philipsen's case, endangering everyone around him has always been his way of sprinting). It's a shame, really, since he really doesn't need all that incredibly dangerous riding - he is far and away the world's fastest sprinter right now, without all kinds of shenanigans.

Surprisingly large amount of well-regarded drivers.....and then there's Ragunathan, of course

Specifically the way organizers set things up towards the finish. If you set things up right, spectactors reaching over so far that they can touch riders is not possible...plus that weird little corner in the middle of the sprint. Seems like ASO's rules might not count for ASO

Yep. Just give a penalty every time and they'll learn the correct speed for the turn fast enough.

Everyone has their strawberries and cream ready?

Yeah, sprint stages (especially the long ones) always have entertaining endings, because after 180km of not much happening, suddenly things explode Plus those kilometers get into the legs as well later on. All in all this opening weekend was already more enjoyable and saw more attacking than the entire Giro d'Italia this year, which is interesting to see considering some years ago it was usually the exact opposite.

Boy how I wish you were able to read Dutch now, Belgian media (and the comments) is absolutely comedy gold at this moment, Vingegaard is basically enemy number one because he didn't pull in front to get Van Aert to the sprint I'm quoting the main (former) commentator in the world of Belgian cycling: "This was Vingegaard's moment to show he is a true leader, his time to pull his weight. This is a loss for the personality of the Danish rider."

Yep, finally it's public I'm assuming (and hoping) she'll be back for the season if all goes well.

Fantastic opening stage in terms of the fight, and twins battling for the stage win, but yeah...a serious podium candidate being out with a rare level of a thousand yard stare on his face (like the Dutch Eurosport commentator said: "If you put him back on the bike now, he's going to cycle the wrong way"....), and with Carapaz we also lose someone who could have brought some attacking fun in the mountains Well, on to another day in between the madness of the Basque fans for the rest of the riders

And in of all places, the most cycling crazy region in the entire world and it's already showing Definitely one of the best Grand Departs ever!

Dutch racing driver Dilano van 't Hoff has died, aged 18, after a horrific crash in the Formula Regional European Championship at Spa this morning. Got sideways in the rain at the top of Raidillon and then T-boned by someone who had absolutely no chance to avoid him (if he even saw him at all with all that spray)... Super dominant Spanish F4 champion two years ago, and second in the UAE F4 winter championship in between a whole bunch of well-established talents.

To be fair, I doubt this can really be compared with the real, professional kickboxing though? The likes of K1 and later Glory in it's top days and such. Even in those top days, I doubt kickboxing on an Olympic level would have been interesting for many people to watch, since they want to watch the stars of the sport (think Rico Verhoeven, Cedric Doumbé, Badr Hari, Murthel Groenhart, Serhiy Adamchuk, Robin van Roosmalen and such....and before our Polish friend comes with names from the 50's, I'm just talking about a few years ago ). Just like pro boxing has a high level of popularity, even here in the Netherlands where we have nobody in it it's quite decent at least for the heavyweights, but the Olympic boxing, with the athletes people don't know....nah, nobody will watch it anyway. It's more about the stars than about the sport itself in these cases I think, and sports like boxing, kickboxing and MMA have stars that made or make them popular, but in a shortened Olympic version with a whole different level of athletes....I doubt it'd be a success (and a real, top-level MMA tournament with the big stars isn't going to work within a two week period I'm afraid ).

I think that is made even clear by one simple thing: even in the Netherlands, the absolute top of the kickboxing world for many many years (both with athletes and with tons of the world's best foreign athletes training in the Netherlands), kickboxing is behind a poorly-visited paywall nowadays. There used to be a Glory event more or less monthly, a few years ago, and they were watched well on regular open TV, then on a still regular but paid sports channel (which also had F1, so a lot of people had a subscription anyway, and they showed the entire event live no matter where in the world it was). Then it moved to a channel which only showed highlights in random order and it went downhill very fast. So yeah...not good.

Looks like the whole results system website is down at the moment?

Great, the one day with a Dutch taekwondoka in the quarters (+87kg, Monday) and it's the one day of taekwondo that was apparently not shown on the broadcasts on EuropeanGames.TV

Lewis Hamilton has said it's 'unfair' that Red Bull Racing can focus on the 2024 car so much earlier than the rest, and wants that work on next year's car can only start on 1 August of the year before. Golly, why did he never say that in all those years Mercedes was at least equally dominant! Verstappen with a golden reaction to Hamilton's nonsense: "A lot of things in life are unfair and we have to deal with it."

Apparently Chicago simply had the third-best chance of getting the number one pick though? https://www.dailyfaceoff.com/news/2023-nhl-draft-lottery-standings-which-teams-have-the-best-chance-to-select-connor-bedard Not that odd to get it then in a lottery where the single highest chance for any one team is still only 25%.

Even if things aren't fixed, if a big player gets out of something well, people are going to say it's fixed anyway.

So it's mostly just a anti-Blackhawks thing by people who are fans of their main rivals? I didn't know also in things like NHL people so often think that whoever they don't like is being favoured by the people on top And about the assault case: since that was apparently made public in 2021, shouldn't that have resulted in a draft pick or some form of punishment for last season, instead of for a season two years later?