heywoodu

Well thanks, my interest in watching it had slowly made it's way from 0% to almost 1% and rising, but this description has made it drop down again

Isn't Olympic flag football a similar thing as men's football in terms of how weird it is to have it at the Olympics? Men's football is a junior tournament, which obviously shouldn't be the case at the Olympics, whereas flag football seems like the amateur rip-off of the real 'American football'? Oh well, as long as it doesn't cost other sports too much, it would be kind of fun to see two sports that are super obscure in most of the world but insanely popular in a very specific part of the world, it will add a nice bit of contrast

Thanks! Yeah there's no way they will actually pick all of them of course, but it's always good to know what we should expect in terms of numbers.

By the way, there are nine sports on the list going for inclusion...is there a minimum or maximum number of sports to be selected? Like, do they have to select something, or can they choose to go with none of these sports? Or in the other side, can they choose to go for all nine, theoretically? Or is it a matter of choosing specifically X sports?

I have no idea what is and isn't Nestle, but apparently KitKat is, so...sorry

Of course nobody really knows other than Jumbo, but it's not like people don't have their suspicions I mean, we've seen the same level of often just insane team-wide performance from Gewiss, Festina, US Postal, Saunier-Duval, Sky, etc, all of whom have either been rolled up entirely or managed to sweep it under the rug and make people ignore it. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, and I didn't count the ones where I believe there were no actual cases in the end, but where teams are full of highly dubious figures (UAE the past years, Astana before their decline, Vacansoleil which was ridiculously good for one or two years, and so on). It's impossible to know things for sure though, but if we can only have at least some small suspicions when we are absolutely sure....

Ah, those people who go to the gym to stand in front of a mirror and look at their muscles

Well if I have to tolerate skateboarders doing a 0,3 second trick and surfers laying in the water for half an hour before trying something in order to have sports climbing on the program, alright, I can do that

Wait, sports climbing being 'additional sports' for Tokyo and Paris, but not even being mentioned for LA....does that mean the Olympic era of sports climbing - a rare new Olympic sports which actually adds a whole lot to the program - will already end after Paris?

Oh boy. Judging by the amount of times I've seen 'cricket' while scrolling through the past pages, I have a feeling....

By the way, quick question: I see this thread has absolutely exploded in the past few days....is there any actual news or is it mostly discussion? I wish I did (and normally I do), but sadly at the moment I don't have time to read 10+ pages about everything

The first argument is a matter of preference of course, but the second argument: I couldn't agree more. There are plenty of sports which, personally, I wouldn't want as part of the Olympic program (hello breakdancing, modern pentathlon among others), but that doesn't mean I don't respect the work the athletes put in... Added to that: the sports which for me don't need to be part of the program....what I care about is not that they are part of the program, but that they take away decently sized fields - or even entire events - from other sports which I personally prefer. Anyhow, as much of a sports fan as I consider myself, I am extremely happy I am not the one making any decisions about all this, since there is no way to do it 'right'

Nestlé being mentioned as dangerous parasites, that provides like half the jobs in my town (ok not exactly half, but it is big enough as a job provider here to greatly influence stuff like where a new road will be made)

@mrv86 If you're entering to run a marathon, you do know you're supposed to actually run the marathon course right? Public transport does not count, buddy https://runningmagazine.ca/sections/runs-races/11000-runners-disqualified-from-mexico-city-marathon-for-cheating/

It is very split. There's a big Dutch forum where it's split between people laughing their heads off at the absurd dominance they're showing (Vingegaard's Tour de France time trial was a real highlight, but Van Aert's climbing for example scores rather high as well) and some people who either just ignore it or try to rationalize it a bit. I believe there's also two other big specific cycling forums, but I don't really post there, so it's hard to say. From what I've read from other people, it's mostly just a "hurray, it's amazing!" atmosphere there though Newspapers and 'critical journalists' and such are just cheering along.

@dcro Almost influenced a competition this morning during my bike ride, unsurprisingly in the Ermelo area (it really isn't that close to Ermelo in reality, it's the outskirts of the town of Uddel where things happen) I took a turn to go towards Staverden (smallest city in the Benelux, fun fact), saw a sign that traffic was being controlled a bit further up ahead and indeed, where the main road was crossed by a smaller road, and two guys with bright yellow bibs were keeping an eye on traffic there. Bike path was clear, so I had no reason to slow down, but suddenly saw a rider on a horse come up on the smaller road, with a bib (green bib, number 22), luckily I was just in time to stop (and receive a 'thank you' hand gesture from the guy) A little further up ahead, there was a sign pointing people towards the 'FEI Endurance EC 2023', which I have now learned - as I assumed - means the European Championships. On FEI's website I see competition starts tomorrow, but I absolutely did not imagine the horse crossing the road Any idea what's going on today and, just out of curiousity, who the #22 guy might have been?

Time trial today, let's see what the organization and TV direction manages to mess up today after forgetting to check the sunset time in Barcelona, randomly taking the times way before the finish in such a way the whole stage might as well be erased and the danger was not taken away anyway (and having no system in place for that, so asking spectators for videos so they can make a result), a weird final kilometer in Tarragona causing some crashes, missing basically an entire bunch sprint for the stage win, missing deciding attacks on the climbs, being stuck in 2005 with their late TV starts resulting in missing an epic echelon battle on Sunday and going live when everything has already calmed down, being stopped by some mud and so taking the times at 2050 meters (?) from the finish at some random gate in the middle of nowhere (but with a solitary lady with a notepad standing there, so a mess in recording the times is impossible!) and then messing up the travel to the time trial city resulting in riders arriving almost in the morning. Ah, La Vuelta I can already see some of this week's stages being cancelled because they end up not having permission to cross the French border or something

It wasn't even the last mess of the day, because the travel to Valladolid for tomorrow's time trial took until 3-4am for most of the teams (plane and bus....come on, plan your Grand Tour in such a way at least in-race plane flights are gone...).

Step 1 is making sure he stays with Jumbo

Yeah, I do like it as well, but it feels so insanely obscure when it's even hard to simply fill a normal-sized final.

Lol.

Well that ain't much at all, but at least enough to fill a competitive-looking final

How many women's eights will be at the Olympics in the end? Surely more than...well, 5?

Ok, not even this month

Even some careful single digits already on the west of that map, lucky Although after a hot week here it's also rather nice now the past few days, with maximum temperatures topping out at 19-20 or so