heywoodu

Yeah, the national clubs may also be a factor in the 'international forum' being less active, it's like it has been split into smaller forums that don't really interact with one another and just happen to be on the same website (also part of the reason I'm not really active in national clubs, basically anything I would have to say, I can say in the regular threads) I wonder how many countries would participate if we started registration for a TISC now. I'm still in favor of doing a more simplified version, since it takes such an ungodly amount of time to prepare everything in the usual way (it's cool, don't get me wrong, but understandable that it is hard to find someone having the time for it).

One contest per year would be absolutely fine, I'd say, makes it feel more special. On the other hand, the bigger issue is lots of people (from lots of different places) kind of leaving the place. There are lots of days where in the 'Latest forum replies' there's like 2-3 threads that saw action in the past 10+ hours.

Which battle, exactly? Whatever one's opinion about today is, it made for basically the only slightly interesting thing so far in this Vuelta

No stage winner today and times will be taken at 3km before the finish. That was exactly what one feared for, especially after the first passage through Bilbao: lots of dangerous situations, people trying to attack the riders and cause injuries and everything. Goodbye Basque Country/Bilbao for the next few years, one might hope, sadly.

If you want to see one of the most incredible examples of a world leader giving a press conference and just entirely losing his whole train of thought time after time after time, watch Trump's thing of around 15:00 local (DC) time. Going on and on about construction work and safety doors and a terrible governor and locks on those doors and distinguished veterans who are teachers and how other countries have problems and the walls and the LA fires (those of bullets) and the Olympics and how that construction work keeps the children safe and this and that is a hellhole. Even JD Vance, of all people, was standing behind him with a non-stop frown on his face that just said everything ("the fuck is he going on about?!").

The winter calendar is starting to be nice and full, more and more countries have added their races and now it looks like not much is missing anymore (Switzerland for a bit, still). But...what is up with race organizers? Four years ago the calendar was filled to the brim with the two kinds of races that would be at the Olympics (freestyle sprint, classic distance), now they are surprisingly - and annoyingly - hard to find... Especially the normally super useful FESA Cup has a disappointing list of events now Gonna be quite a puzzle where to go this winter. Do we have any active Finnish user who could tell us a bit about the best way to get to Muonio?

For those interested in such things, recently tried this and I'd say this is hands down the best wine I have ever tried, damn that is amazing It was a little hard to get after trying it, but managed to find a place to order it, so there's two more coming my way next week

What a random looking list A gazillion varieties of simply ice cream, but at the same time one entry "milkshake" Stracciatella is fantastic though, whenever someone gets ice cream for me here in town, they don't even ask which taste I want

This hasn't aged well so far. One of the worst GT's I remember in recent years in terms of action. The start in Italy was godawful, zero action, entirely uninteresting course, and after that it didn't get any better...

The larger number of teams is the bigger issue I think in a relatively small sport. Having 4 groups of 4 might be more sensible. For me the main objectives should be as follows: - Groups, then KO (and no second group format) - Top-X in every group goes to the KO stage, no spots for "best 3rd/4th placed teams" because that is by definition an unfair comparison So in the end we should end up with either 8 or 16 teams that get out of the group stage. Could also have 8 groups of 3

That would be Athens 2004 minus around 2000 years

What a battle to close out the 2025 Diamond League year

3+ hour broadcast and still they can barely be bothered to show half of the field events. This whole 'cram nearly the entire finals in a single day' format is such bullshit.

Those 50 people and 300 cows are way too busy with the triannual Schwingen festivals these days

Massive fight by Brown for her very last chance to go to Tokyo and she gets it!

Here we call that the Dutch Disease. Often accompanied by quotes such as "in the training everything was going so well".

Werro

Absolutely, her progress this year has been amazing

Wow, Gressier

Two consecutive Diamond League events with a non-violent European winner, who knew that was ever gonna happen

Safety car, I think, since Hull's engine blew up spectacularly.

If cyclo-cross makes it, I certainly hope it's snowy and icy. Definitely a sport that'll race in any conditions, from hot and bone dry to freezing and a layer of snow, but the very rare snow races are cool. Too bad that'd be about 10 years too late I think for which had a specialist in those frosty conditions

Or the speed skating marathon. If they add natural track luge of all things, they really lost every right to ever question Nordic combined again

About free-ride, two issues: you really need serious snow I guess, one can hardly do some real freeriding on one of those fake snow pistes that are generally fine for alpine skiing. Plus, isn't it freeride a kind of off-piste skiing? If so, I can hardly see them promote that extremely dangerous activity to a large public of recreational skiers...

Awesome to have this new format now instead of going from groups to....another group and only then a knock-out. Makes the whole thing feel a lot more professional and serious for some reason, and way easier to follow