heywoodu

Shanne Braspennincx, reigning Olympic keirin champion, has retired due to a lack of motivation. https://nos.nl/artikel/2510803-olympisch-kampioene-braspennincx-stopt-met-baanwielrennen-plezier-is-weg

I agree, better breaking than kata on the program....and that says a lot

I think the main point of the discussion here could be interesting, as long as it's more a matter of 'Who are the biggest gold medal favourites?' instead of the whole thing about calling it a lock or not

But predicting upsets is also....on the edge. Once people mention someone as a possible surprise, that person is barely still a possible surprise The real surprises and upsets are those winners who nobody mentioned as possible winners, outsiders or anything.

The moment you're even mentioning someone as 'wouldnt count them out', the first one is already not a 'lock' anymore

Unsurprisingly I'm a couple of years behind, but I assume this means I'll have to let go of my hope to see Mijain Lopez compete again?

Not really at home in the world of sailing, but surely the few countries mentioned here aren't the entire list of world championships participants?

No idea how table tennis has been doing in the past few years, but the previous Olympics are three years ago....recent results say a lot more

Almost every year I kind of agree with this on one hand, but then I also realize that quite a few of the songs that don't fall in that category are just...rather unappealing to me personally (and it's not specifically to do with the genre, I've voted for quite a few different things as well, from sensitive slow songs to pretty loud rough songs and even Croatia's epic piano music)

But we won't know if Peaty is back to his best until the Olympics are underway, so we can hardly take that too much into account (even if yes, based on world championships form, Qin is of course the favourite)

And even in the 200m, it's not like every single athlete apart from Lyles has a combined chance of only like 10%. People often forget that there's a difference between someone being the favourite and someone being a near-certain winner

I don't agree it should be closed because literal locks not existing, of course we can still discuss those who are genuinely seen as 95%+ favourites, because a few of those do exist (didn't synchronised swimming have some of those in the past years, before the Russians got banned, where the result really was basically set in stone?)

No way Favourite? Of course. Lock...in a sport like climbing where a single slip can end it? No way

The Dutch sprinters have been better than they are now, so if there's one moment for them to be beaten, it's the Paris Olympics. Probably their last big thing in this team. Couple of years ago I'd have given them 90-95% or so, now I'd give it at best 75, which is far from a lock

But there is just no way they are anywhere near a 'lock' for gold, with the rise back to the top of the Australians, the Brits who always have something extra at the Olympics and Hoogland who is going down rather than up.

Of course Even if there's 100 events where one athlete/team has like a 95% chance to win (which is very high and generally reserved for at best a handful of events), it is still highly unlikely for all of those 100 to actually win

The main reason I'm hoping for her not to win Nothing against her personally, but I do like to see champions not avoid every possible competition...

I highly doubt she is as much of a 'lock' (if locks really exist of course) as for example the Australian 4x100m women It probably all depends on how we define a 'lock'...say, 95% chance at least? In that case I'd absolutely not put McLaughlin there

Dutch former figure skater Joan Haanappel has died in Belgium, where she had lived for years, aged 83. Competed in the Olympics in 1956 and 1960 with a 13th and 5th place, and won three bronze European medals. Together with Olympic champion Sjoukje Dijkstra she is seen as the best the Netherlands has ever had to offer in the sport. https://www.ad.nl/schaatsen/voormalig-olympisch-kunstschaatsster-joan-haanappel-83-overleden~a43871b8/ She had also been a commentator for decades since 1975, mostly for NOS and Eurosport, and even hosted a major German sports show in the 80's.

Aren't those the years Ajax got far in Europe? I definitely watched those matches, but damn.... There's a super young Matthijs de Ligt in the top right....and I am pretty sure the bottom left is Nouri, I do believe his heart attack and still ongoing coma happened after 2015. Maybe going for David Neres in the middle and one of the other two being Frenkie de Jong, but those are honestly just guesses and could be wrong by multiple years

It probably depends on the sports as well. Just looking from my own perspective: sports like athletics, biathlon, cross-country skiing and such have the same exposure, because the events can be and are generally held together. Also, when it's about fastest times and such, it's good competition anyway. But then when watching women's tennis, where the balls are often hit a meter over the net, or women's football, where even at the World Cup the level is often almost insultingly low....that shows that there is still a very long way to go in some sports before we get to a point where it gets somewhere close to as much interest. It is on the rise, and that's a good thing, so for now I'll hope it all keeps going up. Who knows, maybe one day it will even be good enough in Nordic combined for the women to be on the Olympic program there (which, in my opinion rightfully, isn't yet the case for 2026). Anyhow, we should probably either move this to another thread of get back to athletics

4,5 years in prison, and what seems like actual prison time instead of 'prison but you can pay it off', for rapist Dani Alves Although it might be shorter due to already having been in prison for a year, and maybe even more time goes off because of paying the money (that he got from Neymar's dad, like there weren't enough reasons to dislike Neymar), but hopefully of course it will still remain multiple years of prison time.

Those channels are mostly commercial though, so will show what they believe earns them money. Especially in a sport like football, there's just not going to be as much interest in say the women's Champions League final, as there'd be in a regular men's Champions League group game. Anyhow, this is in the end about athletics, a sport where men/women generally don't compete in separate events, so this whole thing isn't much of an issue there

"Used by local populations", are they talking about families of raccoons and bears or something?

This does sort of depend on the sports, competitions and so on. When competing for national teams, I'd say men and women should have the same prize money and such, but in commercial competitions (think club football, road cycling and the likes) it simply makes sense to distribute pay according to what it brings in. One can easily pay a star football player millions of euros, since shirt sales alone will easily make up for that, but good luck making up a 3 million salary for a top female player by merchandise and such..