heywoodu

@Monzanator @rybak and fellow Polish users: do you know where the official schedule/timetable for the Irena Szewinska Memorial can be found? The (I think) official website still only has last year's schedule on it, but it's next week already https://bydgoszczcup.pl/en/events/

It's hard to choose in Norway though, especially for those right under the absolute top. They've easily got 10+ athletes who could get a double digit amount of IBU Cup top-10's in a season. I guess there's more playing in the background behind his retiring that is not directly related to performances.

I'm not specifically a fan of Newgarden (but nothing against him neither), but that was great to see It would have felt a bit....'meh' if the ever-anonymous Marcus Ericsson of all places would be a back-to-back winner. Although he did try to make some media lines by going all "it was so unfair!". Yeah, duh, you felt it was unfair because you were in the worst possible position for a 1 lap restart.

Yeah that was....dumb. His race was incredibly impressive in terms of his speed and positioning, still finishing in 10th and even being in the fight for more in that chaotic last part despite a drive through...but yeah. Damn.

"Street circuit king" Perez making a bit of a fool of himself in Monaco

Yeah, it was hard to believe this was actually officially in Italy Even more awesome that Roglic managed to explode the way he did right there in front of basically an entire home crowd

Belgian's main cycling pundit: "It's not that Evenepoel might have won had he not gotten COVID-19, he would have won." https://www.hln.be/wielrennen/kijk-michel-wuyts-die-op-z-n-honger-bleef-zitten-in-deze-giro-is-duidelijk-remco-had-niet-kunnen-winnen-hij-had-gewonnen-br~adebcb17/

Looks like beach handball and beach soccer also don't have their draws and full schedules out yet.

It seems like there have indeed been changes. 3x3 basketball for example. Austrian's document: Official website: Apparently there still hasn't been a draw, so there's also no Wikipedia to help out

McNulty will absolutely get his chance though. Almeida isn't going to do every GC and Vine seems to be barely capable of riding in a straight line (so great at climbing, but a massive danger in anything else). McNulty is a potential GC podium rider.

Fun to rewatch this, Dutch commentator on Eurosport going mad at the moment the last split is known (Thomas 29 seconds behind Roglic and so basically decided), English commentators on Eurosport had no idea about the differences, seemed mostly oblivious to what was actually going on and kept with the default English Eurosport thing of "he is sufferent, he is now rrrrrrreally pushing hard!" What a final ride, damn. It doesn't make up for the near-total lack of action in this Giro overall of course, but at least - at long last - there were a few edge-of-the-seat minutes at the very end, what a finish

50% time limit That's just ridiculous, 30% should absolutely be enough for any healthy pro rider at this level. It's fine if it's hard. Oh well.

Fun fact: Laurenz Rex has a younger and also talented brother....called Tim. Yeah

So far we're only getting images of the first 10k, nothing of the climb, which is the only part everyone wants to see Hello, it's 2023. Use a drone or something, come on, at least give us something this Giro Edit: finally, we see someone on the climb!

Right, the climbing ITT today, with 5km at 15% or so, parts at 22%....this climb is an absolute monster. Can't really blame the riders for not wanting to attack at any moment, putting a time trial like this on the last real day is really just asking the riders to please take it easy until then (also so we can have a fairly close GC and thus all pretend it is an exciting race). It's an addicting sport though, so we'll keep watching even if for three weeks we have been watching to something that's less exciting than watching one's nails grow (which they did, because there were no nailbiting moments)

Almeida did a 5 second attempt, Thomas for a tiny bit longer and Roglic waited until the very end after holding on for a bit. Surely they're putting in the effort, but in terms of entertainment for the GC this is understandably quite widely seen as the most dull grand tour since the Froome-era at least...then again, one assumes the organizers were not going for an action-packed Giro but for something a bit easier to follow, considering they put almost every single hard thing in the last stages (which of course leads to waiting, waiting, waiting and more waiting). On the bright side, the near-total lack of GC action - maybe they're waiting for Rome to really try something, or after Rome? - is definitely being made up by some fun fights for the stage wins. Riders who do want to attack, the likes of Ben Healy and especially the absolute man of the match, Derek Gee. The Pinot vs Cepeda fight was quite fun to watch as well, just like Nico Denz' stages. Actually good that the GC teams and guys are still on wait-mode, because without it we'd probably not even have seen these fights for the stage wins.

Oddly, it seems that they have removed the file. Luckily I downloaded it earlier, but it makes one wonder whether there's some significant schedule changes

At least it wasn't Cepeda who won....Rubio didn't do much, but still came across like a major workhorse compared to the infuriatingly annoying Cepeda (Pinot wanted to punch him off the mountain it seemed, understandably so)

Likely to be rain on the Simplonpass, plus it's fairly cold, so one can carefully start to expect the only serious thing of today's stage to be scrapped. Like it wasn't enough of a Tuesday stage yet

So apparently the problem is not at the Croix de Coeur, but at the Saint-Bernard pass, which will now be skipped altogether. The good news is that means we won't have the kilometers long tunnel where broadcasts are impossible, the bad news is obvious From Israel-Premier Tech, this should be the new stage: Photos show that the first part of the Croix de Coeur descent is absolutely awful, with some cheap alternative for asphalt being used which corrodes away in a short time, and so now it's full of holes and stuff. That's going to be something. Rumours have it three teams (not clear which) wanted to do the whole stage, nineteen did not.

Talks about not starting at all today, after at first there were talks about the Croix de Coeur being scrapped or riders not wanting to ride there. Potentially either due to rain or bad roads, or a combination. If bad roads have anything to do with it, the riders.....well, suck. First of all it's the Giro, we know bad roads are always a thing there (there is no race more famous for roads becoming super slippery as soon as it rains), and second...the route has been known for quite a while now, protest a certain dangerous downhill earlier in the year if it's such a big deal. You're all professionals, surely the teams have done some recon rides and such. Feels like the 2028 Grand Tours will be done on Swift. Edit: there's talk about ice on the roads of the Croix de Coeur. Yeah, that makes it pretty understandable not to ride there Stage will start, but it's not known yet exactly what the stage will be other than it'll be shortened.

Mads Pedersen Sick.

It was a long, long, long wait, but after 12 (!) stages, we finally get the first real mountain stage today. I really don't know why GC organizers sometimes seem to think putting every single difficult thing in the last (roughly) one week makes for great racing, because it quite literally always leads to nothing really happening in terms of big fights for most of the race. Today could be interesting though.

I doubt it will happen nowadays, but yeah, it definitely should. Every year again there are at least some doubts about the highest altitude Giro stages... And I'm not just saying that because screw snowy Giro mountains Greetings, Steven Kruijswijk

Tao G. Hart is out of the Giro by ambulance, after a fall that wasn't that hard in terms of speed, but he came down very unfortunate and seems to have broken something Shortly after that, a Trek rider cut off Oscar Rodriguez, who then went to the side and crashed head-first into a sign and a house (but seemed to be somewhat ok). Edit: Rodriguez is out as well. There's also 8 DNS's today again, including half the Soudal team with Vervaeke, Hirt, Cattaneo and Cerny. Ballerini, Serry and Van Wilder are the only ones left there.