heywoodu

It has been so blatantly obvious that the shoes are making insane differences in the past one or two years, yes Just in the last two weeks alone we saw the women's 10k world record being broken by runners who seemed to be running relatively comfortably, whereas in the men's 5k we've seen someone gone from semi-alright continental level to absolute world class level (in terms of times) in two races. Those are not exceptions.

[hide] Preliminary Round June 11th - June 23rd, 2021 24 Nations, 6 Groups, the 1st and 2nd Nation from each Group + the 4 best 3rd-placed Nations will qualify for the Round of 16 Group A Date & Time (GMT +2, CEST) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 June 11th 2021, h. 21:00 Turkey 1 2 Italy June 12th 2021, h. 15:00 Wales 1 0 Switzerland June 16th 2021, h. 18:00 Turkey 0 1 Wales June 16th 2021, h. 21:00 Italy 2 0 Switzerland June 20th 2021, h. 18:00 Switzerland 1 0 Turkey June 20th 2021, h. 18:00 Italy 1 1 Wales Group B Date & Time (GMT +2, CEST) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 June 12th 2021, h. 18:00 Denmark 2 0 Finland June 12th 2021, h. 21:00 Belgium 2 0 Russia June 16th 2021, h. 15:00 Finland 0 1 Russia June 17th 2021, h. 18:00 Denmark 0 1 Belgium June 21st 2021, h. 21:00 Russia 0 1 Denmark June 21st 2021, h. 21:00 Finland 0 2 Belgium Group C Date & Time (GMT +2, CEST) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 June 13th 2021, h. 18:00 Austria 1 0 North Macedonia June 13th 2021, h. 21:00 Netherlands 2 0 Ukraine June 17th 2021, h. 15:00 Ukraine 2 0 North Macedonia June 17th 2021, h. 21:00 Netherlands 1 0 Austria June 21st 2021, h. 18:00 North Macedonia 0 2 Netherlands June 21st 2021, h. 18:00 Ukraine 1 1 Austria Group D Date & Time (GMT +2, CEST) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 June 13th 2021, h. 15:00 England 1 1 Croatia June 14th 2021, h. 15:00 Scotland 1 1 Czech Republic June 18th 2021, h. 18:00 Croatia 2 1 Czech Republic June 18th 2021, h. 21:00 England 1 0 Scotland June 22nd 2021, h. 21:00 Croatia 1 0 Scotland June 22nd 2021, h. 21:00 Czech Republic 0 1 England Group E Date & Time (GMT +2, CEST) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 June 14th 2021, h. 18:00 Poland 0 0 Slovakia June 14th 2021, h. 21:00 Spain 2 0 Sweden June 18th 2021, h. 15:00 Sweden 0 0 Slovakia June 19th 2021, h. 21:00 Spain 1 0 Poland June 23rd 2021, h. 18:00 Slovakia 0 0 Spain June 23rd 2021, h. 18:00 Sweden 2 1 Poland Group F Date & Time (GMT +2, CEST) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 June 15th 2021, h. 18:00 Hungary 0 2 Portugal June 15th 2021, h. 21:00 France 1 0 Germany June 19th 2021, h. 15:00 Hungary 0 2 France June 19th 2021, h. 18:00 Portugal 1 0 Germany June 23rd 2021, h. 21:00 Portugal 0 1 France June 23rd 2021, h. 21:00 Germany 2 0 Hungary Finalists Place 1st Place 2nd Place Nation France Portugal [/hide]

Fun fact: Jimenez Kasintseva and Noskova battled each other in the girls' quarterfinals (with Noskova winning), while on the same day yesterday they played together and qualified for the semi's in the doubles

Honestly, I'm not entirely sure I would notice a difference in competition with 30 men's starters. It's not like there are 'exotic' athletes we would miss (like we would in cross-country), because they aren't in the sport at all in the first place. Don't get me wrong, never a fan of reducing the number of starters in any event, but there are plenty of sports where I'd find it worse.

To be fair, women's Nordic combined in 2026 wouldn't be half bad. It's great it was not added for 2022, that would have been ridiculously early, but it might be alright for 2026. There's been an international circuit of competition going on already, unlike for example women's monobob which was added before it even had a regular international competition circuit.

Ah, of course. Adding a near-copy of an existing event wasn't unnecessary enough, it had to be mixed. Because.

Can we have this in speed skating? First a competition where a set of medals is decided as per usual, through a ranking of times. Afterwards the result of this event can be used as the seeding for a second event, where the medals are awarded after a bracket format! I mean, biathlon can have one medal event where the result of another medal event even gives actual, hard advantages, so surely speed skating can have the same with a lesser advantage even? And not for all events, of course, only the 500m, 1000m and 1500m !

Well, 1990 is available now. Can't register yet though, since the only available options (combinations of the first and second appointment) are not possible for me: either midway on a Sunday (there's F1 then), or somewhere during the Olympics (later in the day I'm sleeping, earlier I'm watching) I guess I'll wait a little so the first falls somewhere before 23 July and the second somewhere after the Olympics..

These sound pretty clear and straightforward though, don't they? I'm assuming the displinary, doping and ethical things aren't an issue for either and hopefully the same goes for the last one. Then it's about the first and second one, which seems like a pretty clear points system, or does Anderson end up on top, numerically speaking?

None. What I meant was that she would not give up her Olympic dream for something 'silly', so considering the fact she does give up the Olympics, it must have been something (or more than one thing) that very much affected her and probably also affects other (young) female swimmers. Which, to be fair, would be extremely unsurprising, sadly.

Madeline Groves has withdrawn from the Australian trials, due to the behaviour of certain people in the federation ('perverts', her words), by the looks of it. Obviously she isn't giving up her Olympic dreams just because of some little thing, so it's a rather sad situation.

That's sad, I wonder if he knew this was possible (wouldn't be surprised if nobody really counted on this at all). But yeah, hoping for another athlete to get injured is sort of cruel, can't really say I hope someone else's Olympic dream will be shattered or something, that would be good for Kuworge but just as much of a tragedy on the other side

Damn, that went down quickly. So if someone from BLR or ARM does get sent in this category, Kuworge even needs two or three of these specific athletes to get injured/withdrawn?

Wait what, what on earth is the logic in going for 82-86 and 97-01 first, before doing the groups in between?

In Amsterdam there will apparently be 16k spectators allowed. I'm assuming after testing negative and such

Meanwhile, tomorrow or Saturday I can probably make my appointment, judging by the schedule. Format is date | time on said date | year of birth from which people can start making appointments. I'm from 1990, so it's getting close 27-04-2021 | 08:35 196130-04-2021 | 16:45 196216-05-2021 | 09:06 1963 en 196417-05-2021 | 17:14 196520-05-2021 | 11:02 196622-05-2021 | 08:45 1967 en 1968 (Janssen)25-05-2021 | 11:26 1969 en 197026-05-2021 | 12:05 197127-05-2021 | 10:20 1972 en 197328-05-2021 | 10:55 1974 en 197529-05-2021 | 11:30 1976 (Janssen)30-05-2021 | 10:30 1977 en 197831-05-2021 | 11:30 1979 en 198001-06-2021 | 11:30 198103-06-2021 | 10:00 198204-06-2021 | 11:00 198306-06-2021 | 11:30 198407-06-2021 | 11:30 1985 en 198608-06-2021 | 11:30 198709-06-2021 | 10:27 1988

How about results last year? For example in mountainbike, this year's results didn't count as much as last year's results for Brazil, no idea if it's the same in BMX.

I've got a feeling quite a lot of Brazilians have great-great-great-great-grandparents who came from ships as well. Just, you know, a little less voluntarily... Personally I actually find it pretty cool that a good number 'came from the jungle' (to use the Argentinian president's words). Like, my girlfriend's granddad was apparently born in a native jungle tribe and moved to 'the city', but his parents were full-on native people including their way of life. That's not a lot of generations ago at all, which is really very interesting to realize.

Does all this effect Kuworge's chances? If so, I am also against the move of changing weights just to make the Olympics. If not, I find that a smart move

And two matches suspension + 18.000 euro fine for her. Hehe. The excuse: "I just wanted to tell my teammates to defend like the Thai girls." That goes right on the list with Sara Errani explaining her positive doping test by saying her mom's cancer medicine fell in the pasta sauce

I just had my playlist of this edition on while doing my daily stretching, and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, I realised the Norwegian song I liked so much is from TIX....the Eurovision guy Boy, do I feel like I've been living under a rock

Did everyone bring some bricks to build the wall?

That actually sounds pretty cool (at least theoretically), it shows that one really needs to put in quite some effort and learning (and I assume also language) before being allowed to get citizenship. I wonder how much Amine knows about San Marino

Thanks to both I just now saw his Wikipedia page...he's representing San Marino because his mother's grandfather (!) was a citizen. I wonder if I could represent Switzerland because some great-uncle 15 generations back might have spent a night there that one time

Is this Amine guy just high in the rankings because of 'easy points' (if such a thing exists in wrestling), or does San Marino actually have a chance there?