heywoodu

Snowboard cross legend (double Olympci gold, 6-time World Cup crystal globe winner) Pierre Vaultier has announced his retirement https://www.fis-ski.com/en/snowboard/snowboard-cross/news-multimedia/news-multimedia/news/sbx-great-pierre-vaultier-announces-retirement

Flying is done on huge-ass hills, of which there are only five in the world. One could sort of compare it with running 5k vs 10k: it's both distance running and generally those who are good in one are good in the other as well, but there are significant differences.

Wikipedia fail Eisenbichler definitely didn't have the longest jump of the qualifying round.

Lewis Hamilton is confirmed to be back for Abu Dhabi this weekend. Too bad..

The latter shouldn't be massively different compared to other seasons though, should it?

I wonder if Anika Kozica will join the party somewhere this season, but I definitely hope so.

There's an Anne Frank memorial in Boise, Idaho of all places? Huh, look at that.

SpaceX just succesfully performed a 12,5km test flight of Starship SN8, a new milestone in their incredible development. The thing exploded rather violently on landing, but that is not at all surprising and absolutely not an indication of a failed test - it was a first of this kind, the flight and move went very well and the data will be invaluable. What a show Go to 1:47 hours for the flight (the first attempt was stopped).

That would be incredibly unsurprising from the Soviets By the way, Virolainen...wow, now that's a name who was doing quite well in the World Cup for a bit not even that long ago and has completely and totally disappeared into oblivion, hadn't heard that name for ages

Too bad it's not about more freestyle events but about events where it's actually about who is objectively the best February events in Germany already being called off isn't too promising for the Nordic world championships by the way..

Even FIS noticed

What's up with Val d'Isère this week by the way? There's supposed to be a downhill training today, but there's no live timing, not even a start list, nothing.

Just to clarify, this is not a change, right? I see I already put Jasna in my calendar on those dates two months or so ago and am just trying to avoid editing the wrong thing now

[hide] Main Round December 10th - December 15th, 2020 12 Nations, 2 Groups, the 1st and 2nd Nation from each Group will qualify for the Semifinals Group 1 Date & Time (GMT +1) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 December 10th 2020 Montenegro 3 Sweden December 10th 2020 Denmark 2 Spain December 11th 2020 France 2 Russia December 11th 2020 Denmark 2 Sweden December 13th 2020 Montenegro 5 Russia December 13th 2020 France 5 Spain December 15th 2020 France 5 Sweden December 15th 2020 Denmark 5 Russia December 15th 2020 Montenegro 2 Spain Group 2 Date & Time (GMT +1) Nation 1 T1 T2 Nation 2 December 10th 2020 Netherlands 2 Germany December 10th 2020 Croatia 2 Norway December 12th 2020 Hungary 2 Romania December 12th 2020 Netherlands 5 Norway December 14th 2020 Hungary 2 Germany December 14th 2020 Croatia 2 Romania December 15th 2020 Croatia 2 Germany December 15th 2020 Hungary 5 Norway December 15th 2020 Netherlands 2 Romania [/hide]

Great, now the Dutch government not only requires a recent negative test before entering the country (which is of course fine), but it has to be in one of five specific languages English, French, Spanish, German or Dutch. Good luck getting a result in one of those languages in Brazil.

Anyone watching Serbia - Croatia? Apparently they're trying to turn handball into an all-out MMA contest and the referees are letting them

Not only the Nordic federations then, by the sounds of it. FIS people screwing up wouldn't be much of a surprise of course, to be honest

Wait, the 'it's a political boycott' was not a joke? What's the goal of the Big Bad West Scandinavia then other than world domination? Because yes, COVID raises very much valid concerns in terms of preparing for competitions when having to go in mandatory quarantaine for ten days every time you get out of country X or Y.

If Sweden does not participate, you mean? Because otherwise...not so much (for the women, at least)

You store your decorations outside of the house after Christmas? As always I am happy with our tree, not overly decorated because I do want to actually see the tree instead of only decorations, and it looks good

DESTROY THEM

Thanks. Too bad it looks like there's only a small uphill visible from the Egli Hill stands, whereas the largest and most decisive part is on the outer part of the course...especially the large Burgstall climb could be crucial to have some support, but I don't think it'll be possible to walk that way..

Does anyone have a clue on where to find a track map for the World Championships races in Oberstdorf, more specifically the women's 5k freestyle qualifying? I do see the ticket map here, but annoyingly there are literally only seats available somewhere halfway on the track: https://www.ticketmaster.de/event/fis-nordic-world-ski-championships-2021-cross-country-2402-tickets/405119 And I'm not really sure what one can see from there. I mean, if it's close enough to yell some support and commands on an uphill or something, that's fine, but I'm a little afraid it's only next to the downhill where support won't do much. From what I can see on a video from last season's World Cup sprint there, this could possibly be an area where there's an uphill as well, but I'm not sure.

Sergio Perez wins the Sakhir Grand Prix and with that, Formula 1 has a new race winner Someone, preferably Marko, give the dude a seat for 2021 man, come on. Screw Stroll and his dad.

Futselaar's finish in 2:11.30 AKA the Olympic limit: