heywoodu

Still waiting for them to finish 35th or something. I mean, Japanese walkers being super fast and then absolutely flopping at the big championships is one of the main athletics traditions, after all

I'm already super happy, it's on HBO and with that my favourite athletics commentator (the one who is also doing cross-country and actually came to our house for a roller skiing lesson last year) will be doing this for the entire 9 days Has not called Cerny a Czech or a Slovenian yet, luckily

Cerny waving to the public when leaving the stadium for 2,5 hours

I wonder if Tretiakov and Nikitina are still active. Hopefully we still get to see them one day, especially Nikitina (Tretiakov was getting quite old already).

07.25 and already 25 degrees with high humidity. Imagine how this would have been an epic event if we still had the full 50k event

Meanwhile, beautiful win for Julian Alaphilippe today in the GP Quebec. We also got a glimpse of Tadej Pogacar's tactical skills....which are basically just non-existent. It is impressive to see how physically he is basically the very best cyclist in the world (although right now that might not be entirely true, as a general rule in the past few years it definitely is), but tactically he is amateurish at best... Imagine the list of his wins if tactically he was at least 20% as good as he is physically.

Monaco really is quite impressive in terms of sports. If I'm not mistaken both Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc and bobsledder Rudy Rinaldi are born and raised Monegasques, which with Langelotti already makes for a very easy three names in top-level sports for such a small group of people.

That may not sound like much, but if that all comes true - and somewhat depending on the exact colors - that could make it one of the most succesful global athletics championships for Brazil in at least 20 years or so I think two medals would be a nice score out of those three, but who knows, three is certainly not impossible.

Fun little fact: @brunamoura's bosses at her bike shop job here in the Netherlands are at the world championships as the first part of their vacation (they have been involved in Dutch mountainbiking for years, Anne Terpstra was in his team when she was young, for example). They sent Bruna a photo of Karen Olimpio, asking if she recognized her, which she absolutely did because they raced together a lot in their youth. That led to more and more contact and now Bruna's bosses are the most vocal supporters of the Brazilian team (especially Karen Olimpio and Luiza Cocuzzi) at these championships How the world can be so big, yet so super small

Erriyon Knighton (athletics) can go and focus on the 2032 Olympics, he's been handed a 4-year ban.

Diribe Welteji

Yeah, that's part of what I mean. And it's a shame, because besides running not many sports can be more easily accessible than swimming at least in terms of the very basics (you've got a body of water? Ok cool), but financially, like many sports, it's just not that massive. It doesn't often provide massive entertainment value (like, say, team sports with long matches full of action, or even athletics where you can visibly see the athletes fight for every meter), there's no enormous equipment market... The only way you're going to get swimming rich enough for lots of athletes to make a living with it is if you have some super rich people funding certain competitions out of sheer interest. And even so, it's going to very quickly end up with a massive prize pool for the top-3 or something and the rest ends up not a cent better.

Talks and rumours going on about the mass start possibly being replaced by an elimination race from 2034 on. Interesting, although if we need to keep having these 'circus events', I'd rather have a marathon instead.

News from July, but the news of today is that now they have actually been destroyed https://edition.cnn.com/2025/07/29/europe/usaid-contraceptives-burn-belgium-france-intl Truly unbelievable. Helping people in poor countries getting access to contraceptives is quite literally good for everyone, no matter if you're on the left side, right side or anything in between, but no, even when being offered money to take them out of their hands, the Trump administration still actively decided to destroy it (mind you, there would have been 0 negative influence on them if they had accepted help from other countries to take over those contraceptives and spread them around). Easy access to contraceptives would eventually lead to fewer children being born and raised in horrible conditions (which in general is good), fewer people wanting to go to the west (which has always been a massive point for the right), less overpopulation and therefore better chances to actually develop a country (good for everyone). There are no negatives. But I guess someone told Trump it's against one religious book or another, and so it's bad or something. To the ovens!

On the other hand, some sports simply aren't attractive enough to consistently bring in enough money for not only the superstars, but also the B tier to earn enough. That doesn't necessarily mean something is inherently wrong with the sport or the way it's organized, most sports simply aren't as big as athletes and fans would like them to be.

Still only going to believe it once he is actually, physically inside a prison cell

Interesting, I remember being in Brazil when Bolsonaro lost the elections and even driving through the city felt dangerous at some moments due to hundreds of people randomly blocking the road We were already very clear that if for whatever reason one of those people would ask us anything, we were certainly not going to say we were happy with Lula winning...

Is that already confirmed? Earlier today I was saying that of course I hoped I was wrong, but to me it felt like one of those cases that will just keep dragging on for years on a technicality here or there, or he will suddenly be 'sick' or whatever. But if he's actually in jail in a couple of weeks, that'd be amazing news

Oh goddamn it. https://worldathletics.org/competitions/world-athletics-championships/tokyo25/timetable World Athletics used to have an excellent timetable page, easy to find (unlike European Athletics and their horrible website), with start lists and results separated (so you can still get start lists when not watching live). This just seems like another mess. Of course this... ...is going to change to a result after the event, I seriously wonder if you'll still be able to get a start list then? Edit: I think you can if you got to yet another separate page, where you then have to select the event, hold your hand over the result, and click on the start list. https://worldathletics.org/competitions/world-athletics-championships/tokyo25/results/women/discus-throw/qualification/results Why make things easier if you can make them harder?

Apparently in Brazil there's a form of public, one by one voting of judges in a case like that of Bolsonaro's failed coup attempt, so judges who vote later can be nicely influenced by the standings so far (unless I'm just really misunderstanding things) Anyhow, today the 5th and last judge voted 'guilty', resulting in a 3-2 guilty verdict Now the question remains exactly what will happen to him, but it's at least a good thing that unlike Trump's obvious coup attempt, Bolsonaro's failed attempt is now actually biting him in the behind.

Meanwhile, for those who want a shot at a nice bit of prize money (without needing to pay anything), the traditional, long-standing and well-known Atstat contests are here again https://www.atstat.org/contest/ In contest 1, you have to predict all medal winners. In contest 2, you select the 20 biggest favourites and gain as many points as you can. Obviously enter before tomorrow night.

If he is fit enough to start, one can imagine he is the favourite. The only question is if he is fit enough..

Also the kind of person who was so utterly fanatic in his religious views, he said he'd let his own 10-year old daughter carry a baby to the end if she'd end up pregnant from abuse. That's horrifying shit. Obviously it doesn't justify killing anyone (before people say stuff like "oh, so it's ok to shoot him then?"), but besides doing lots of debating (which in itself is certainly a good thing), he has said plenty of awful stuff.

Political murders are always bad, the Democrats being killed earlier this year, this, it's all bad. Don't need to feel too bad though, a certain Charlie Kirk said empathy is just a made-up 'New Age' term, so we certainly shouldn't have it now, I guess.

Just in time, I see!