heywoodu

Errani then went on to say Bertens' nearly dying of cramp after the match was just show Wow, some people are born sore losers...and then there's Sara "My mom's cancer medicine made me test positive for doping" Errani

Anyhow, as expected after the new measures were announced here Monday: no Amstel Gold Race that was supposed to be held on 10 October, the organizer announced it's cancelled.

Yes, but wearing masks is like a little bandage against the bleed, in the end the only really efficient thing is keeping physical distance. I do get the reasoning we're hearing quite often here: "We won't make masks mandatory everywhere yet, because people think with masks, they don't need to keep their distance anymore and so the whole thing only spreads easier." Anyway, glad their protest worked and they can play again, now stay away from other teams please

Hirschi, one of the riders of the year, takes the win Perfect opportunity for him this year.

Alex Aranburu has been pulled out of the Giro d'Italia because of a positive test. Again, not that test, the COVID-19 one. Jonas Gregaard was standing at the start of the Fleche Wallone today, but was pulled out and so didn't start, the reason is probably obvious

Those people haven't heard of the whole "keep your distance" thing that's the main thing in trying to stop this situation?

Aaaaand that's it for the BinckBank Tour. Or it could be. The three stages in the Netherlands have been cancelled tonight, organizers are scrambling to see what to do now. An option is to have a time trial at the Zolder race track. Bit of a weird decision specifically to cancel tomorrow's stage. Like a lot of people would show up on a rainy weekday for a time trial in Zeeland of all places. Anyhow, tomorrow is going to be a rest day after today's opening stage, whether or not the Tour will continue will be decided later.

So basically Angelina Jolie is Slovak-Dutch. Yeah, I think I'm gonna go with American, you know, being born there and all Else I might have to refer to myself as French-German-Belgian-whoknows if I go back far enough

APELDOORN - Fans have been eagerly waiting to get a clue on one important topic: when will the event be held? It really could be at any moment and so the people of Apeldoorn have already spotted some weirdly dressed people from all over the globe - apparently fans are keeping a close eye on Omnisport, just in case the event is suddenly about to start. Kids have reportedly seen a few weird birds walking in the vicinity, which they described as 'wobbling, white and black upright chickens', but it's safe to say that's most likely just magpies being the smart little creatures they are. Back to the actual news: a date has been dropped! Our reporter is just back from a visit to Het Loo Palace, which used to be a royal palace for a few centuries. It's a national museum nowadays - although not everything is open to the public - and it's being renovated until somewhere next year. Rumour has it the Dutch king is using this time to go back to his roots for a little while and our reporter might just have gotten word from Willem-Alexander himself: 7 November 2020 is going to be the day of the Totallympics Open International Song Contest 2020! Het Loo Palace, if one looks at the right place, one can see the window behind which talks about the TOISC 2020 date have been held

-nevermind-

I'm waiting for @bestmen to register.

Arminas Jasikonis has been placed in a coma after his crash during the MXGP race in Mantova Sunday, according to his team he has suffered brain damage. Jasikonis is 7th in the standings and had taken his first GP win earlier this year.

Ah, the Golden Kilometer kind of thing they have in the Belgium Tour?

Hence my doubts about how realistic that would be. I can see the DQ's 'for knowing a prior result' coming in already

Yeah, see my post right above yours If that's possible, that would quite clearly be the better option.

But Roglic has a pretty decent bit of explosivity in his legs usually, he could normally be expected to have a bit of a better chance behind Van Aert, his sprint looked like he wished the finish was 150km earlier I really didn't think he had anything left..

I really should have tried 5 minutes of research before picking Medvedev to win a match, I see he was mentioned left and right (before his match already) as one of the more expected first-round losses among top-32 players Then again, I already needed more than an hour just to fill in my predictions without too much thinking

But for quick races we've got other events, in championships it's all about placement anyway I'd be in favour of something like climbing where athletes don't see the previous results, but since I doubt that's realistic, this seems better than giving athletes in later heats bigger chances to qualify simply because of the draw.

Absolute horror for fans of the sport. Trying something new, sure, but once you see it just doesn't work, be big enough to say it wasn't a good idea..

The time based qualifying positions make for the same unfair possibility again and again: be in the first heat and your chances automatically go way down, since in later heats they simply can (and of course often do) run on a certain pace.

This is a good one though.

Oh shit. Not that absolute horror of a semi-knock-out format where the 3rd best of the day can win in events like long jump Gold with 8.10m, silver with 8.65m and bronze with 8.54m, it is entirely plausible.

No word on the Amstel Gold Race here yet, but government did announce yesterday that from now on (again) every sports event on every level will be held without spectators. They didn't specifically say it, but we've got football 'fans' to thank for that, unsurprisingly behaving like idiots so they won't be able to go again for a while. I guess that's what they wanted

That would not have been new at all, the commercial team pays the bills, especially for a rider from a nation that's usually less developed in the sport. It's all a bit of a moot point anyway, since Roglic clearly didn't have the energy to either pay back Van Aert for riding his lungs out for weeks or to try and pull out some sort of 'sprint' for bronze anyway

But it has, and that's nothing new. I'm not a big fan of it, but it is simply how it is and of course it's not entirely illogical: cycling at the pro level is a sport of commercial teams, not a sport of national teams. Most riders aren't going to help a rival team get the rainbow jersey when someone from their own team is still in the fight as well, which flag they happen to have next to their name is a lower priority. Van Aert (and the rest) pulled every bit of energy they had out of themselves to help Roglic win the Tour in superb (yes, boring, but superb) fashion and this was his chance to repay. If he had the energy left, of course, which he didn't.