heywoodu

To be fair, riders did have the option to ride down by bike (and in some cases, by car). The cable cars were plan A, but the organizers didn't manage to book them for the Giro only (as they were planning to do). Not an issue for Evenepoel though (and a few his teammates, and the Bahrain team), as he was picked up by helicopter - much to the chagrin of the UCI, which found it unfair.

It's not really a DQ, but a decision to pull out. And rightfully so, since doing endurance exercise while having COVID has been shown to be rather dangerous and just definitely not worth the risk. It's not without reason doctors have been telling people not to do intensive exercise when they're having COVID..

News from more and more polling stations (of course those where Kemal did well) saying AKP is delaying the results badly. As in, asking for recounts literally dozens of times in a single station. Polling workers have been told to guard the ballots carefully, fear is growing of AKP people stealing them.

Top favourite Evenepoel is out. Sadly it's to the surprise of absolutely nobody after today's time trial, where he was way off the pace that was expected from him and he looked very much 'down' after the finish, plus sounded pretty bad in the interview.

Sure, conspiracies etc etc, but I'm sure there is an actual explanation as well

73.5% RTE: 48.26% KK: 45.96% Keeping in mind the 73.5 is the percentage of polling stations, not the percentage of votes. Most votes that still have to come in are from major cities like Ankara, Istanbul and Izmir, where Kemal seems to be winning (almost 70% in Izmir). RTE winning it today seems highly unlikely, KK winning it seems vaguely possible, but unlikely as well, so second round incoming it seems.

A lot of polling stations where Kemal wins are being protested by Erdogan's party, which demands another count and in doing so delays the results.

Erdogan has taken the lead. 55% RTE: 47.69% KK: 46.55%

Why did Pinot not get that score in the deciding match in the team final? She threw the Japanese cleanly on her side/back and since it was golden score that should have been it, no?

He is winning according to the pro-Erdogan Anadolu, which is basically only counting the results in which he did win and ignoring the (many) results in which he didn't. In terms of actually counted and published results so far, these are the standings: 36.8% counted RTE: 46.58% KK: 47.65%

Funny thing is there is really no reason for any serious outcry at all, it's really mostly just creating a problem out of thin air At least last year it was understandable that there were doubts about the whole thing, since Ukraine obviously won 100% because of the war.

Well if you see Eurovision as one big cheating show, then yeah, cheating Finland (you know, with all the diaspora voting, X voting for Y every year, etc)

'Cheating Finland because they didn't give us points', come on

That seems unfair...why not do the same with the televotes to make it fair with both set of votes being treated the same way?

Drama unfolding in South East Asia, where one can pretty safely say a lot of people who are alive at this very moment, won't be alive anymore by the time the day is over.... In the past few hours, after days of building up and eventually reaching category 5, the massive Cyclone Mocha has started to absolutely pummel the northern coast of Myanmar (and the southernmost part of Bangladesh). That's already a disaster by itself, but nowadays there's also the largest refugee camp in the world with hundreds of thousands of people there, it would not at all be surprising to see the entire camp being wiped out at this very moment...

Well, that's going to be a matter of having to agree to disagree then I think

And also: televoting had Norway in third, which suggests televoting is not fantastic to have as the main deciding thing. I mean, I adore the song and before this week I really wanted to vote for Norway, but it was performed very disappointingly

Which unfortunate souls gave 7 points?!

The whole point is that it's a mix of televoting and jury, so I really don't get what exactly the problem is with Sweden winning in that regards (other than my own personal opinion of thinking the act simply is nothing special). If you win one but not the other, that's fine, the entire point is you are the best overall instead of either just the most popular or the most 'professional'... If it's mostly televoting, we'll get complaints about acts scoring high just because of sympathy (hello Ukraine) or diaspora or something (hello Turkey) and 'we should have judges award points too'

Which is why I'm happy Eurovision is always on a Saturday If it was on a Sunday, the viewing numbers would be cut in half, at least.

It should be a more or less equal mix of jury and televote though..

I'm in favour of keeping it 50-50, but the only change being in the announcement process. So back to the thing where all countries announce their 12-1 points (which combines jury + televotes) and that's it. It creates less artificial tension.

I take my dad as an example: every year I heard about how this or that act is 'weird' or a bit of a 'freak show', but in the end every single year the TV is tuned on to the final for most if not the entire duration of the final including the announcement of the winner at 1am

It just sounded very generic to a lot of ears. This is quite literally the first time I hear anyone say it sounded Arabic.... Plus, Europe voted someone with Arabic roots as winner....for the second time. Come on

Duncan Laurence was actually heavily involved in this year's act. As in, apparently he picked them, guided them and so on..... At least he can sing, because guiding and picking an act didn't go so well...