heywoodu

Italy responded to everything the Dutch riders did today, which was kind of hilarious, considering the Dutch all seemed to not have the legs today. They rode like hyenas, but with the wrong pray in mind

@Josh @intoronto You guys awake? One of the biggest surprises I have ever seen in professional cycling, wow

Vallieres on her way to the rainbow jersey, what the actual hell Awesome, come on!

Never mind, that whole group of 'favorites' is just done Looks like Garcia, Fisher-Black or Vallieres, somewhat unexpected winner no matter who wins.

medal is certainly not impossible yet (not like it would be a major surprise, but still). Gonna be tough, but who knows.

Again, in Italy specifically But yes, the more money goes around in sports, the more likely doping is and the better they are at hidding it or the less the authorities care because the bigger the financial damage would be when it becomes public knowledge, that's true (again, football as the absolute number one example).

Yeah, sure, but my question was meant out of curiousity, not as part of the whole "should they/should they not" discussion (because it does make a difference if they decided to go there themselves, or if the federation sent them)

Cool for Bagnaia, being chosen to do this is by far hig biggest success of 2025

Just as a matter of clarity: "they started a training camp"? Or were they told by the Russian federation to go have a training camp there?

In Italy, one might add to all this I suppose. A sport being compromised with doping is not a problem, a sport trying to deal with doping is the problem (tennis and especially football for example aren't, but by keeping it quieter, nobody cares, whereas cycling had years of actively hunting dopers and banning them for years).

You should also get some tickets for women's cross-country skiing, so you can cheer on fellow Totallympian @brunamoura (assuming she'll qualify, which for now is quite likely) I think Cortina and Bormio both have certain train stations from where a shuttle bus will leave, I'll see if I can find that page somewhere. Edit: This page: All the info for the Venues of Milano Cortina 2026 For Bormio, you can take a train to Tirano, for Cortina Dobbiaco or Ponte nelle Alpi. Keeping in mind all of those places will also have a German name, like Dobbiaco = Toblach, so keep an eye out for that

Sure, remove one of only two remaining snowboard discipline that are actually measurable and easy to see in terms of who wins. I guess having clear and easy to understand winners isn't urban enough anymore. Although anyway PGS should go back to the old two-run format, because the current one is inherently unfair, but yeah, we all know that's not gonna happen and fairness is almost never a reason for changes in sports.

No, their policy had always been that they were very strictly against having athletes compete for them who had previously competed for another country, with the 'previously competed for another country' being the main thing For me, even no matter what the law says, Braathen is just as Brazilian as I assume you and the Brazilians here on Totallympics are, since of course he has a Brazilian parent. When we have a child, he/she will for sure grow up in the Netherlands, but we would certainly consider them equally Dutch and Brazilian simply because they have one Dutch and one Brazilian parent. I like Braathen, I hope he does well (who would have ever thought Brazil goes into the Winter Olympics with multiple medal chances?!) and for me, he 100% deserves to compete for Brazil, my only issue is not with him personally, but with the way he is likely to take every single possible spot for staff and whatnot for the Olympics away from all the non-superstar athletes in the same federation. I hope I'm wrong though. I hope even more former and current Gaia Brunello keeps it up in biathlon though. Definitely less likely to medal, but whereas we'll not be likely to ever be close to superstar Braathen, Brunello is close enough to maybe one day have a vacation partially in our home

Sure, but for example about Kenya there have been plenty of stories thoughout the years of athletes being treated like shit by the federation, which seemed to have plenty of money, but only to give their officials luxury trips while the athletes had to make 48+ hour travels instead of a more expensive but better single flight. Sure it's often financially motivated as well, but to be entirely honest, if I was an athlete, my federation treated me like shit and making a good income was basically impossible, and then another country offers something the opposite...I might well be going for it as well. In the end, you're an athlete for yourself and perhaps to take care of your family.

And even this was entirely off the table in Brazil only a few years ago, the federation was very strongly against this. Now they're going all-in though, snowboarding, biathlon, alpine skiing, they're looking everywhere and have thrown their policy overboard as fast as possible

Like most people, I think it depends on the situation. No problems at all with examples like Sifan Hassan or Lonah Salpeter, or plenty of athletes who simply moved to another country for whatever reason (from fleeing home to a relationship). The problem with a lot of athletes who don't fall in that category but really are 'bought' is also often with their home country federations and such, driving them away basically (in some cases at least, especially Kenya is of course notorious for this).

But yeah, that 4x100m bronze, what the hell Awesome young team as well (except for Burnet), I know they've been promising this season, but yeah, was of course not expecting this

I doubt today will be in any way special Anyhow, from Saturday: One of today, no idea where to find a bigger example (F1 spoiler in there) Like I said, it's not like we have sports newspapers. Most regular newspapers have a sports section, of course, but no idea where to find front pages of those. We don't really have a "front page culture" anyway

William Estvleteren is unfortunately not really climbing the ranks yet.

Alright, time to switch to F1 here, athletics is gonna have to be for a bit later Have fun with the relays and such!

As long as, F1 spoiler....

Lyles 200m, Duplantis, Kipyegon 1500m, Bol, Perez Hernandez, Allman all were higher in my list (ok, also Warholm, Diaz Hernandez and Weber but ignore that ).

Mostly just don't want to make people go through the trouble of measuring a distance they know is useless anyway. Athletiquette, so to say

No second consecutive global gold for Hodgkinson, but awesome race Can't say I had heard much of Odira before this tournament. And silver for Hunter Bell, who asked ChatGPT to decide if she should run the 800 or 1500

Ok that is excellent by Kaul