heywoodu

But if he wanted someone in the breakaway at the time he crashed, someone should have been in good enough shape to even get to that point and I don't think Lotto has anyone who could have done that Apart from that, Lotto's team leaders are usually not exactly geniuses when it comes to strategy, so yeah. "We should prepare ourselves well for these final stages so we can be prepared for every scenario, because we have to be prepared for that so we have to prepare ourselves for all situations", are the smart words of a couple of days ago.

Apparently the GPS is somewhat right....that's a miracle

GPS says the difference is 30 seconds, but we know how reliable the Giro d'Italia GPS usually is...

I'm not sure it's a mistake, I'm mostly thinking it's just a matter of not being good enough. Only Battaglin might be in good enough shape to do so, but he is the only one who can help Kruijswijk on the climbs so he can't get in a breakaway. Don't forget Lotto is basically just a quite mediocre team

Luckily it was only in snow, which shouldn't be a really huge problem.. Wow, horrible crash for Zakarin...

Instead of saying "OMG it's a Western conspiracy!!" as people like Vitaly Mutko and Yelena Isinbayeva love to say, why not come with actual arguments?

What a finish today Moser had such horrible tactics

Those 17 are all members of the current team, including Olympic champions of 2008 (who are apparently still active)?

He means you are our favourite shooter and we'll cheer for you in the upcoming competitions now

And there are still 14 countries above Moldova... we keep hoping.

Well you can at least remove the Netherlands, because we won't use any of the reallocation places

I mean, you're saying (just like others) that reallocation will be based on the number of MQS's a nation has. Therefore wouldn't it be useful for us to know these numbers? We know now Moldova has 4, but how about the other unqualified nations?

At least there's one good thing: if you keep posting here on Totallympics I think you have a whole group of new fans

I'm guessing there's no list of unqualified nations sorted by the number of MQS?

One of the best songs I've ever heard and I'm already in love with this song since his first performance in the semi's of Eurovision in 2014.

Wow, epic stage win for Roger Kluge

He knows, I guess it was a poor choice of words The point is that obviously it's absolutely stupid that the Belgian quota now goes to a nation that already has 5 qualified boats. This isn't helping diversity in the smallest bit, which in the end was the goal of these rules wasn't it? One big "meh" for this situation.

Thanks. Poor Belgium and indeed so incredibly unfair that it goes to a country that'll now have 6 boats I hope more athletes like Drysdale stand behind Belgium in this case.

Apparently there's a row going on in rowing, with Belgium winning one of the events but not being allowed to compete? This is what Mahe Drysdale says about it:

The Dutch outfits have been presented. Nothing fancy, just orange top and blue bottom and that's exactly how I like it (blue could be black but both are good)

How do you see Pletikovic' chances? That would make for such an awesome story, winning a medal for the Unified Team and then competing again (and have a realistic medal chance) 24 years later

Trouble in the Netherlands. Our only serious world-class player, Jean-Julien Rojer,won't go to the Olympics if our NOC doesn't allow him to take part in the opening ceremony. So far they still haven't told him he can be in the ceremony. "He's really clear about this, but if he or the NOC don't change their mind, it's also over for me", is what Robin Haase said (no way he'll go in singles, so it's his only chance). "Eight years ago I missed the Olympics and in London it was a shithole in terms of organization for the players, so I'm really hoping for Rio...not saying it's my last chance though."

And about this: I'm guessing the athletes who got stolen of medals by proven cheaters would obviously have preferred to have their moment of glory in the moment itself, but it's still better to get a deserved gold medal now than never get it. Imagine being beaten by Alex Schwazer or some other proven cheat. I'd definitely be angry that I didn't have my moment on top of the podium with my national anthem, but getting the gold medal years later is still better than never getting it and knowing the proven cheat has it. Besides the whole thing that really not every drug can be found at any moment and so the "Why didn't you do it then?" isn't really a matter of "You should have done it then", because it simply wasn't always possible.

When was that? Because that sure was gone back in the 1890's already.

So if someone does not win a medal, it's absolutely sure that they didn't use doping? That's not very logical...how about the dozens of positive tests from both Western and non-Western athletes who didn't win a medal?