heywoodu

Well that's the end of the classics for Greg van Avermaet. I know the Belgian commentators react quite emotionally to these things usually, but this time they even cursed ("god damn it").

One of the highlights of the cycling year is underway since a couple of hours: the Tour of Flanders/Ronde van Vlaanderen/Vlaanderens Mooiste/Flanders' Most Beautiful or as it is mostly known, simply "De Ronde" ("The Tour")

I don't know what's suspicious about that. It's definitely not the extremely childing Russian thing of "OMG it's a Western conspiracy to make us look bad!11!!!!", because if that was the case, Russia wouldn't have voted for the inclusion of meldonium on the WADA list. And besides, that's Russia's standard reaction. They don't like something, they make it "a Western conspiracy". Grow up Russians.

If most top athletes apparently check literally everything they take, then why is this group of (mostly) Russian athletes apparently too busy to take 5 minutes to check some ingredient on Google? It's not like you need 2 hours per day to do that. Any athlete who has time to post a photo on social media for example has time to open Google and enter some medicine they take there.

That would make them even more extremely stupid Especially the top athletes should pay attention and, as many top athletes say, "I read the ingredients of every single thing I eat, drink or take".

No doubt about it, but it was announced months before that it would be banned, it was on the watch list for a longer time already and everyone was warned a million times. In my opinion athletes who are still caught are either extremely, incredibly, horribly stupid with the IQ of a mosquito, or simple cheaters. Both aren't really good.

I think it's more likely that he (and the others) are lying and that they took it after 1 January.. I mean, there are also studies showing that meldonium is only detectable for a few days, certainly not for 2 months, so it's hard to believe these excuses

As for more motorsports, this morning I saw a fantastic Race 1 at the V8 Supercars in Symmons Plains, Tasmania. Especially the fighting between Shane van Gisbergen, Jamie Whincup and Will Davison was wonderful! Tomorrow morning (07.30 CET I believe) we'll have race 2

Fantastic show of force by Chaz Davies and his Ducati in the World Superbike at Aragon today. The first non-Kawasaki to win a race this year Van der Mark crashed out after a great start, moving from 11th to 6th in half a lap

Belarussian weightlifter Andrei Rybakov (double world champion, double Olympic silver medalist, double world record holder) is next, surprise surprise, it's meldonium. http://www.iwf.net/2016/04/01/public-disclosure-66/ Slovak wrestler Istvan Levai as well, bronze at the 2015 European Games and gold at 2012 European championships: http://sport.pravda.sk/ostatne-sporty/clanok/388356-aj-najlepsi-slovensky-zapasnik-bral-meldonium-levai-do-ria-asi-nepojde/

Nice feature, mentioning those names

[hide] Knockout Round April 1st-April 4th, 2016 6 Nations, Placement Matches, Relegation Play-Offs, Quarterfinals, Semifinals, Bronze Medal Match and Gold Medal Match, winning Nation will become Women's Ice Hockey IIHF World Championship 2016 Champion Semifinals Date and Venue Team 1 T1 T2 Team 2 April 3rd 2016, h. 15:00, Sandman Centre, Kamloops United States 4 Russia April 3rd 2016, h. 19:30, Sandman Centre, Kamloops Canada 5 Finland

As long as he qualifies for the 50 free, which is his event, I see no problem

I'm planning on writing a special on this topic for a Dutch website, on which I will most definitely mention this Totallympics thread (who knows, maybe it gives Totallympics one or two extra Dutch users)

By the way, is it easy to add something like Skrill or PayPal? I think especially the last one is well-known worldwide and trusted

Am I know the first ever Totallympics Premium Member?

Thanks! It's always interesting to read more about the insights of this

Moradi got suspended for doping, then came back and lifted 20kg more than the world champion? Yeah, you're right about me not liking him I remember Salimi's injury, that looked horribly painful to watch... Are there some Iranian weightlifters (of a decent level of course) who are actually "down to earth" guys instead of "divas" like Salimi?

Ah right, I remember you writing about the athletes getting way too much freedom. If I'm remembering correctly, Salimi was among those who preferred to stay up at night playing PlayStation?

Who was the previous coach? How are the relationships/workings in Iranian weightlifting? For example, in Dutch speed skating there's commercial teams (like in cycling) who of course all have their own coaches, and a "national coach" who mostly doesn't have a lot of real power because the athletes train with their commercial teams. I seem to remember there are different camps who are strongly opposed to each other in Iranian weightlifting?

How does the Guam doctor qualify? Some tripartite thing or something? I mean, Guam isn't in the top-24 nations.. Or is it because AUS and NZL are in the top-24 nations so the continental championships quota for two nations will move from AUS/NZL to Guam?

There are 5 world ranked top-3 athletes who won't even go to the Olympics, including two world leaders?

Disappointing day for the Dutch by the way. Van Gendt, Van Gorkom and Kimmann were all in the same semi-final and Van Gorkom and Kimmann finished 7th and 8th

To my huge surprise, the "new" Dutch paid sports channel also shows the Supercross World Cup live Unfortunately I found out minutes after the one in Argentina finished, but in a couple weeks I can watch the one in Manchester then (and of course I can visit the Supercross in Papendal live if the weather isn't too rainy )