heywoodu

And Beaver Creek has now gone entirely down the drain: after both downhills also today's super-G is cancelled Men's speed season is cursed. Slaloms and giant slaloms are fun, but come on, let's go with the speed

Although it was mostly mentioned as Zermatt in terms of the ski races anyway....

Ice was horrible for the 10k, but super fighter Ghiotto managed it absolutely perfectly And Roest with his typical all-or-nothing ride. This time it was a 'nothing', completely collapsing in the end.

First heat in the 10k B division (where they ride with 4 at a time): one finisher, one DQ (apparently for stayering behind someone), one WDR, one DNF

I wish we'd have that here, that'd be absolutely amazing, but for now I'll take the fact that this week it's been like this most mornings and the past two days also during the day

Ah good, after all it's only 2-3 weeks after that absolute hell in November.......jesus.

Phenomenal Diggins

Yeah, since an actual solution to the whole situation is just not going to happen (the two options I mentioned), this is the way that would at least reduce it somewhat.

And is sadly never going to be fixed. Only way to do that is having Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England have their own NOC and from now on compete as four separate nations in every sport and event, including the Olympics (which would be the best solution, but is definitely not going to happen in our lifetimes), or to have Great Britain be the representative entity for them in every single sport outside of the Olympics as well, which obviously isn't going to happen neither. So this kind of nonsense as we see right now - where even if players won't do it, the mere existence of "to have a chance at the Olympics, we need to lose by as much as possible" is obviously a very questionable situation - will just keep going on

Little guy being awful at football, at some point his coach goes "Hey little Pieter, why don't you come and sit on the bench now?", with his teammate saying "you really suck at football". His answer: "Yep", and then it reveals the full name of the little kid.... A satirical alternative was also made with kickboxing legend - and criminal - Badr Hari, which kind of speaks for itself

Those were two unusually fun mass starts Chaos in the women's race and nice attacking in the men's race. Loubineaud's moment will come!

Riots in Birmingham yesterday for Aston Villa against....yeah, no points for the correct answer: Legia, including a police officer apparently catching fire. Waiting for Legia to say it was totally all the fault of everyone except for the people pretending to be Legia's fans

If you call constant torture with electric cables and a small piece of cheese to be shared with four people as everything for one day as humane treatment, sure. Let's not kid ourselves, Palestinian prisoners and the hostages Hamas took are not generally treated in any kind of humane way. Judging by earlier actions and reports: if you're a Palestinian prisoner in Israel, you can consider yourself lucky if you're not beaten up every day, and if you're a Jewish hostage in Hamas' hands, you can consider yourself lucky in that case as well (plus if you're a female prisoner in the hands of Hamas.....yeah, we all know what's likely happening then). If you're a prisoner/hostage on either side, you're gonna be in for a very rough time unless you are one of the 'lucky' exceptions.

And Daria Virolainen for the first time since 2017/18. I've read about her a few times since, but forgot what happened

Wow, and in - as far as I can see - her very first IBU-level competition on snow Feels like one of the best Lithuanian female performances in quite a while I think?

I'm quite sure IBU Cups were streamed last season, but I forgot where...Eurovisionsports? That's not having anything available for today it seems... Edit: never mind, it's there, starting in a few minutes actually

Honestly I doubt Venezuela would actually attack. Is anyone anywhere in the region going to accept that? Venezuela might beat tiny Guyana and take most of their terrority if there was no help in any way at all, but I doubt they stand a chance against basically any other power in the area. Besides, several significantly stronger countries than Venezuela have some influence in the wide area and likely won't exactly want a war close to them. Seems like just your typical thing to deflect attention from how bad the government is doing. That link you posted about Brazil increasing it's military presence in the northern border says a lot though. Specifically, the photo says a lot: If actual armed forces are around and this openly involved in elections/referendums, you know it's just another scam election/referendum, Russia-on-Ukrainian-territory-style.

I'm glad with Switzerland being targeted for 2038 though, if 2030 and 2034 wasn't realistic for them. Switzerland is basically the number one country in the world that should have Winter Olympics in the next 20 years

Lack of support being the main reason I believe, so...apparently the Swedish public/authorities don't really want it?

But, yeah. France confirmed as the sole interested party going into the next phase for 2030, same for Salt Lake for 2034. Switzerland's project was invited for talks with eyes on 2038. Sweden is basically ignored, other than saying "thank you, your project would have been the most sustainable ever, but your people don't want it"

Inzell was legendary until they put a roof on it 2005 world championships were some of the most amazing ever, super surprising gold medals for the likes of Even Wetten and Rune Stordal. Now it's just a regular track like almost all others, including the total lack of atmosphere

I would not be thrilled with that, no I mean, in terms of atmosphere, there is absolutely not going to be any better place in the world for speed skating - from national championships to Olympics - than Thialf. Hamar once rivalled it, but not anymore. That being said: I'd be sad to have Olympics in one country, and one sport pretty far away in another country. Last week a Dutch former speed skater (Olympic champion Mark Tuitert) was talking about it during the World Cup broadcast, and he said he'd have been sad to have that in his career: according to him, a majority of athletes of course wants to go to the Olympics, but with part of that being immersed in the entire Olympic feeling, from a nation's culture to so many athletes from different sports being in the same area, which normally just doesn't happen. Olympics in France or Switzerland or so, with speed skating in Thialf, would mean the speed skating is basically just another championship instead of something special like the Olympics.

Wow, what a race for Baiba Motherhood

And Baiba is indeed there, in the relay today, a grand total of 2 months and 1 day after her son was born

Such a bag of mixed feelings there I'm super happy with 2nd for Preuss, after all the injury trouble and all kinds of other misery in the past years, from her friend Julia Pieper killing herself with a biathlon rifle (leading to the horror relay at the Olympics) to losing basically a whole season because of slipping on slippery stairs.....but I'd have preferred her to be 2nd with 5 seconds behind instead of this close, now it was both awesome and super frustrating