heywoodu

At the danger of receiving a rant because it's a sensitive subject: does one need to be fully pro-Palestine and fully anti-Israel to be considered to 'have something of humanity' in this context? I do hope not (and to be clear, I am far from anti-Palestine, just to be very clear). Meanwhile I'll continue this so far excellent bit by John Oliver, starting with talking both about how awful Hamas is and then how the often-heard 'Palestinians elected Hamas, so they want this war!' is obvious bullshit, and then going on a similar route about Netanyahu (and how just like Hamas not speaking for all Palestinians, Netanyahu definitely doesn't speak for all Israelis).

Apparently they also have unlimited space for headlines now (just ignore the unnecessary . at the end of the headline, where one generally doesn't end with a dot) https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1142467/skiing-levi-shiffrin

More sports should follow this example of not having OQT finals in events with more than one available spot (so where every finalist would be qualified anyway).

Saturday was the second race of the South American championships, distance classic. As usual 5k for the women, where Totallympian Bruna was once again the fastest, although Duda Ribera surprised by being only 3,5 seconds behind - she is normally much more of a sprinter. Mika Picin, who is usually stronger in longer distances, came up short and finished in third place. https://www.fis-ski.com/DB/general/results.html?sectorcode=CC&raceid=43876 The men's 11km race went to Norwegian Chilean Sebastian Endrestad, who was 12 seconds faster than Brazilian junior Claudio Gustavo Oliveira - currently probably the strongest of the Brazilians who live and train in Brazil. Victor Santos, the one the federation usually wants to put on the forefront, was 52 seconds behind in third. https://www.fis-ski.com/DB/general/results.html?sectorcode=CC&raceid=43875 After a rest day on Sunday, yesterday the next series of races started. These are not South American championships anymore, but only part of the regular Brazilian rollerski circuit. It started off with a freestyle mass start, where Duda was simply a bit too strong. Bruna was in the lead in the last part, but didn't have the power to hold off a strong final sprint by Duda. Once again, Mika was the third wheel on the bike and finished third. https://www.fis-ski.com/DB/general/results.html?sectorcode=CC&raceid=43866 The men's race saw a tight final sprint as well, but with a slightly bigger group. It was Endrestad who again took the win by overpowering the rest in the final few hundred meters, Victor finished in second and Martin Flores in third. Fourth place for Yona Fernandez, which makes it three Chileans in the top-4. https://www.fis-ski.com/DB/general/results.html?sectorcode=CC&raceid=43865 Also, I am frankly somewhat angry at the races even happening. Cross-country races are not even allowed to go on when it's -20 degrees Celsius or colder (measured at the coldest part of the track), but for high temperatures, FIS rules only state that it's up to the technical delegate (which in races like in South America or the Balkan is usually someone with close ties to the organization). It was already awfully hot in the South American championships races, but yesterday it was even worse: the women started at 08.30 for example, and whereas the official results sheet that was sent to FIS listed 23 degrees as starting temperature, in reality it was already well over 30 degrees, by the time they finished (not even 20 minutes later) it had already gone up to 36 degrees. And that was not even the last racing of the day, the para-athletes still race after all that. Doing a cooldown after the race was barely even possible, because how are you going to do a cooldown when the temperature is literally higher than a healthy human body temperature? The women's race yesterday already saw a DNF purely because of the heat, 16-year old Julia Reis (who will be Brazil's representative at the Youth Olympics this winter) became unwell due to the heat....and again, it was not even 9am yet. Today is classic sprint day, so shorter but even more intensive and also, later in the day, because there's qualifyings first and then heats and finals and such, and the organization has declined the idea to move the starts to 7am. It's going to be even warmer today and probably tomorrow for the skiathlon as well, I am honestly worried about the health of the athletes and find it irresponsible for these races to go on...

Or we just ditch all the new-fashioned nonsense altogether and have five individual distances, like we had for decades and was always more than fine Team pursuit is okay...ish. Team sprint, meh. The current mass start format is still just nonsense and maybe at best 20% of the distance a real mass start race should be, mixed events just don't work well at all. Nah, 500, 1000, 1500, 3000/5000 and 5000/10000 are more than fine.

If we're in need of extra events, I'd much prefer the relay over the team sprint. That just adds nothing at all, it's basically just the team pursuit...but short.

Well, whoopsie for Vlhova Nice podium for Popovic

That's the most expected result of the week considering the past few days there

What was supposed to be a great afternoon for Albanian football fans, with leader FK Egnatia playing champion and current number two FK Partizani, ended up a tragedy: Egnatia player Raphael Dwamena from Ghana collapsed, players of both teams and medical help were there within seconds, but nothing could be done and he died on the way to the hospital, 28 years old. Former RB Salzburg and Levante player and 7-time international.

VPN is certainly not a problem Thanks!

Do let us know once there's a link to watch the Swedish races as well

That's an adventure. I'd say they should have a drink on that, but you know

Meanwhile in Brazil the South American Championships are going on in 30 degrees (in the early morning, after 9am it goes way above that, up to 37-39 later in the day). Yesterday were the freestyle sprints, with Victor Santos taking the men's title, ahead of Rhaick Bomfim, who competed in the early 2020 Youth Olympics and then just stopped altogether, but managed to get out of the situation and pick up the training again. Sebastian Endrestad made the podium somewhat international with a bronze medal for Chile. Claudio Gustavo Oliveira was the fastest in qualifying, but in finals had to compete with the juniors. https://www.fis-ski.com/DB/general/results.html?sectorcode=CC&raceid=43871 In the women's qualifying, Duda Ribeira was the fastest, but to everyone's surprise - her own, her coach, her competitors - she was then basically forced to start in the junior's final, where she apologized to the other juniors who were definitely not counting on that. It was also a shame for the senior race, where a nice fight between Duda and our very own Totallympian @brunamoura was expected, but yeah, that didn't happen. https://www.fis-ski.com/DB/general/results.html?sectorcode=CC&raceid=43872

Absolutely this. A short or long finishing straight doesn't make it 'better' or 'worse', the top athletes simply take it into account when making their race plans.

Yes, when I'm on my Samsung it's different. Oh well, personally I wouldn't be a fan of it anyway, unless it's a little outside of the avatar, so not covering part of it.

But you already don't have to check the user's data, it's quite literally in the large space right underneath the avatar already

Good to finally see a Leerdam race without the cameras spending more time focusing on Jake freaking Paul (like at the World Cup qualifiers two weeks ago)

Aren't F7 and F8 simply the current flag, but smaller? Some kid really needs to be taught about international stuff. I know Finland doesn't actually exist, obviously, but come on

What a super weird schedule by the way, the fuck is up with the 500m being followed by the 1000m

They usually appear online significantly earlier than they did now. Usually a list with which athletes in which distance, and then the night before the first races we get the start lists.

@SalamAkhi Would the French 2030 bid that's been in the news this week actually include speed skating in Thialf?

Liemarvin Bonevacia or Churandy Martina. Although I doubt that'll happen because probably they won't be there yet anyway.

Rather unlikely, alright. If Churandy Martina gets a medal I swear I'm not gonna keep my eyes dry Individual medal for Liemarvin Bonevacia would be absolutely amazing as well. Both guys are true gold medal winners in terms of life attitude and overal source of inspiration. For example, I love Bonevacia's answer in Tokyo when, after the semi's (where he qualified for the final), he was asked about his 'prayer' before the race, asked if he was asking for help from above: "Not really, you're not gonna ask God to make other people have a bad race. I just asked, please, if today is my day, let my dream come true, if it's someone else's day, let their dream come true." Just a minor example, they're just overall great guys.

Might be one of the most predictable events in the entire (Winter) Olympic program, with a super-small list of countries with any remote sort of medal chance, but still sad to see it go

In cross-country skiing most World Cups still have most of the top athletes (not always all, no), but also: the cross-country World Cup is a consistent season. It starts in November and until March or so we've got competition almost every week, with always some focus on the World Cup standings (the overall especially). In speed skating, there's a handful of World Cups and that's it, and there's always more big names missing, especially when going to Asia. Besides, there's just never really a focus on the standings. Not even the overall ones, let alone the little globes (if they even have globes for the sub-classifications? No idea)