heywoodu

Well done in giving away a very good lead in a matter of minutes

I hope you could at least download it or something. God, that's horrible. I hope I never have to live through the terror of missing my show because of a terrorist attack

Wow, are you alright?

Tomorrow in the EuroCup, Varese would play the Antwerp Giants. The match will be postponed to Thursday, because Sebastien Bellin (former player and current staff member) was injured in the Brussels terrorist attacks. The team had barely left the area where the bombs exploded... This was one of the first photos that appeared this morning and it turned out to be Bellin: I remember seeing the full photo earlier this morning and there was quite a lot of blood around his lower legs.

You were gone?

Because there was no news anymore, just repeats of things that were news 1-2 hours ago. It's just waiting for some press conferences and things like that, but apart from comments, nothing "real" is happening at the moment.

Belgian TV has stopped the live coverage now, so things are calming down in terms of "new news".

That's because the "threat level" has been upgraded to level 4 this morning. Non-essential personell has to evacuate then, so there is no imminent threat.

Now back to actual news: 34 dead so far, 20 in Maalbeek, 14 in Brussels Airport. A bomb vest has been found at the airport, meaning there could be one more terrorist who escaped without blowing himself up. Also, nails were found in people's bodies, meaning they used metal crap in the bombs.

Ok.

Nope, didn't look like that

They mostly got arrested for using idiotic Nazi symbols, by the way.

I have been watching Belgian tv for the past 5 hours and didn't hear anything new There were 3 metro stations named: - Maalbeek - Schuman - Art-Loi/Kunst-Wet (French/Dutch) At all three people were coming out covered in blood, but there has only been an explosion at Maalbeek. The others are close to Maalbeek and quite a few people walked from the metro that was hit (or a metro that was stopped) undergrounds to Schuman and Art-Loi, were they came up. This was reason for confusion on Belgian tv this morning, but now it's clear that only Maalbeek was actually hit.

Most likely there's not so much going on there. And there is nothing new about a new metro station..

There's quite some nuances needed in there. Pig caps were references to threats that were made to mosques and muslims in general and thing thing about spring instead of Easter is just not true. One magazine of one shop had the word "spring" instead of "Easter" on the frontpage of their little paper (not a newspaper, but the paper of some shop), but in the paper they used Easter everywhere.

11 dead, 81 injured at Brussels airport 15 dead, 55 injured at the Maalbeek metro station in Brussels

There we go again, terrorist attack at Brussels airport, 1-11 people dead and, surprise, people apparently shouted "Allah akbar" before the explosions. Who could've guessed..

Exactly! Leandro Lutz and Fabrizio Bourguignon were competing in the IBU Cup (the level under the World Cup) for years, but they are getting quite old and they simply aren't showing any signs of serious improvements...they were in the last 5 every time almost 10 years ago, 5 years ago and it's still the same. Mika Picin was a bit better but has a terrible career shooting record (I have the exact numbers in Excel somewhere, but without that I'd say it's around 50-55%...that's seriously not good for a biathlete). Besides, she's getting quite old...Jaque Mourão is almost exclusively focussing on cross-country in which she is still in great shape and at the moment I'd say she is the fastest Brazilian, but again, age... she reached 40 in December. Right now in pure cross-country speed I would rank the Brazilian women like this: 1. Jaque Mourão 2. Bruna Moura 3. Flavia Fernandes (Leandro Ribela's wife, member of the BRA water polo team until half a year ago or something + ex/current triathlete, she started cross-country skiing more seriously recently) 4. Mika Picin 5. Gabi Neres Gabi is by far the youngest so it's not so weird to see her at position 5 and I think she can catch Picin next season. It's hard to compare Mourão and Bruna because they never really race head-to-head, but I think Bruna can take over 1st place next season. (The Brazilian federation has physical tests every year around April and somewhere in June/July, including a rollerskiing test where they climb a hill in São Paulo. There's a small chance Mourão will be there, which would be really cool because then she and Bruna can fight head-to-head ).

For the Brazilian's over here, I've written a season review and next season preview for the biathletes (Bruna and Gabi mostly), so if you're interested, here it is (it turned out to be quite a long story, so I've placed it in a spoiler)

Time to look back at the season of the Brazilians and look forward at the off-season and the 2016/17 season Idre and a tough start After a summer of preparation, including some good results (and a win) in Ushuaia, Argentina, the season really got underway with the IBU Cup in Idre. Both for Bruna Moura and Gabi Neres it turned out to be quite hard: heavy snowfall meant they had to compete in conditions which were completely new for them and were very unfavourable for people who aren't yet among the fastest skiers in the field. For Caio Moreira, Leandro Lutz and the two girls this resulted in the slowest skiing speeds of the fields and the two last places in both sprints. Ridnaun...history! Then came IBU Cup 2, Ridnaun. The program had a mixed relay in it and this meant Brazil fielded a relay team for the first time ever in biathlon history (and the 2nd South American team ever, after Argentina in Forni Avoltri 2007). Bruna started off with using two spare rounds in both shooting bouts and although the exchange happened in last place, handing over to best friend Gabi was, I quote, "an unforgettable moment". Gabi managed to perform very well and only needed one spare round, before handing over to Caio. His 0+1 and 0+2 was one of his best shooting results so far and it was Lutz who got the chance to reach one shooting bout before the race finished. Fabrizio Bourguignon joined them for the sprint in Ridnaun and the veteran missed one shot to finish 135th out of 136 competitors. Caio's six misses brought him 131st place, 1.4 seconds ahead of Lutz' 5 misses. As for the women: Mirlene Picin stepped in and, having less tired legs because of her not doing the relay, was half a minute faster on the ski's than Bruna. The participation in Ridnaun of Henar Extebarria (Spain), Claudia Salcedo (Chile), Maria Dominguez (Argentina), Angela Banduri (Georgia) and Sara Lucic (Serbia) gave the Brazilians a good chance to finish ahead of some athletes and that worked out well. Picin finished 90th, Bruna 91st and Gabi 95th in a field of 100...progress! Obertilliach...more history! Next up was Obertilliach and, on a side note, my first taste of biathlon in real instead of on TV (see my report on the trip earlier in this thread). Despite a burning throat and a face that told "This pain is killing me", Bruna managed to shoot well (2+1+0+2) and finished in 87th of 91, one place ahead of Gabi. Day 2 arrived, the sprint, and boy, did Bruna perform! A magical clean shooting, only the 3rd time in history a Brazilian did so, and 88th place out of 100. The 244,46 IBU points were the best result by far and were welcomed with a hearty celebration. Gabi finished 98th because of four shooting errors, but her skiing speed showed a promising upwards trend. Junior Worlds After Obertilliach the biathlon season for Bruna was over, but Gabi and Caio still had the junior worlds in Cheile Gradistei to compete. Caio didn't have the best week of his life in terms of performance and had the slowest skiing speed in both the individual and sprint, resulting in 102nd and 101st places respectively (out of 102). Gabi finished in last place in the individual with nine misses, but on the plus side, she did beat two girls in skiing speed. Four misses in the sprint and not the best skiing result meant last place instead of qualifying for the pursuit, but she'll definitely be back next year, one year stronger. End of season Meanwhile over in Austria, Bruna competed in some cross-country races. The highlight of this was the Austrian championships in Saalfelden in which Teresa Stadtlober (two times top-10 in the Tour de Ski) competed as well. Looking at relative results, Bruna was closer to Stadtlober than she was compared to the top IBU Cup skiers, meaning her skiing speed kept on improving! The whole team was united after Cheile Gradistei and competed some cross-country races in Switzerland as well...although the very last race could not be reached: there was literally too much snow to go from their hotel to the track, ending their season as the next day would see the travel back home. Comments I haven't gotten word from Gabi yet (I'll try to get some comments soon), but Bruna looked back at the season with the following: "I believe I had a good season and I'm happy with my results, but I believe I can do it even better next season. If there's one thing I want to keep doing the same way, it is to be focussed on my shooting trainings. I want to shoot at least 80% next season, but apart from that I also want to shoot a bit faster. Also I'm happy with my skiing speed in the biathlon competitions. Maybe I wasn't the fastest, but I could feel improvement and that's what is important for me, because I know I can improve season after season. Compared with last (pre)-season, I know I need to change some things in my training plans, but I have already talked about it with my federation (CBDN) and I'm expecting they will change that for me. I believe if my training changes in the right way, I can improve a lot compared to the two seasons I have had so far." Off-season and looking forward to 2016/2017 As an example of why Bruna (and myself) believes she can improve a lot next season: gym trainings normally only happened in the relatively short times in Sweden, but starting this month, she will actually train at the gym in her hometown in Brazil almost daily, effectively doubling her training input compared to last (pre)-season. Depending on how some laws, licenses and documents work out, she could also very well receive her very own laser rifle soon. Obviously this isn't the perfect shooting training, but I think we can all agree that it's a huge improvement compared to absolutely no kind of shooting training at all (like previously when not in Europe). Bruna's goals for the now finished season, set by CBDN (the federation), were to shoot 65% over the course of the IBU-season and get a result below 280 IBU points. She destroyed those goals, by shooting 78% during IBU Cups 1, 2 and 3, a percentage only Jaqueline Mourão could beat in her best days, but never for a full season. She got 244 IBU points in her best race, also way better than the goal. Next season I firmly believe she can reach the first "magical" line of 200 points, which would mean that she qualifies for the next trimester in the IBU Cup. Talking about next season: during the summer they will have a big training camp in Argentina (Ushuaia), after which the calendar shows a trip to Chile, where the national championships will be held in Portillo (and maybe the South American championships, although they won't have a lot of competition there from Argentinians and Chileans). We won't see the Brazilians in the first IBU Cup trimester. Beitostoelen - Ridnaun - Obertilliach would be too expensive of a combination (it's a shame the season doesn't open in Idre again) so instead, they will be in an IBU development camp in November and December, the location of which isn't known yet. Their IBU Cup season then starts in January with the competitions in Martell and Arber. Participating in the 3rd trimester depends on getting 200 IBU points or less in Martell or Arber, or, if they compete, at the Open European Championships in Poland in the end of January. There is a small possibility Bruna and Gabi will compete at the Universiade in Kazakhstan, which isn't sure yet, but would be awesome! All in all, next season is going to be an extremely important one in terms of possible Olympic qualifying or at least getting close to that kind of level. I have a lot of faith in seeing big improvements for the team and I very strongly believe they can break the 200 point-barrier and qualify for a 3rd trimester of IBU Cups, which would give them invaluable experience (and a fun trip to the Kontiolahti Wall!).

Yeah if you're expecting Prevc to repeat this season, you're probably gonna end up disappointed This was just stunning

It's held in the Netherlands, but it's not even anywhere live on tv here

For the men's competition you can check Wikipedia, because it says there will be quarterfinals, however, for the women they say there won't be

Not when they crash each other out of the race