Olympian1010

2 Brazilian athletes have been caught doping so far. One was a cyclist who did not medal, and the other was a swimmer who did. So Brazil loses 1 silver and 1 bronze medal. Argentina is upgraded to silver, and Brazil is upgraded to 2 bronze (they had the fourth place swimmer in both events).

You like the “long game” clearly

Easily the biggest failure of the ISSF. #BringBackDoubleTrap

The ATP/WTA/ITF/Davis Cup thing still feels a little confusing though. I mean, can’t they just come up with one governing body for tennis? I can’t help but feel like that would benefit the sport.

I don’t follow tennis that much, but I see all these different events with different acronyms, and I find straight confusing. All I know, is that there’s the 4 big Opens that matter, and that’s all I really need watch.

Yes, the randomness of the fencing calendar is absolutely something that needs to be fixed. There is a valid ranking system, the top tournaments are the world champs, world cups, and regional champs, and the best fencers compete at those tournaments. I wouldn’t actually use tennis is an example of good organization. There’s like 5 organizations that all run different aspects of the games, and it’s hella confusing. I mean, what even is the Davis Cup? Why haven’t the WTA and ATP combined? Why doesn’t the ITF actually do their job? Why are there dozens of different circuits? It’s not that much better than fencing honestly, it’s just more popular. I have mixed feelings about television monetization. I think IFs should sell exclusive rights to their live streams, but then they should have an area on their website, or preferably YouTube, where they post free replays a week or two after the competition. That way they make money off their streams, but also promote the sport like the purpose of an international federation is to. They could even have their streaming service with the same principles. If you want to watch something live, you have to pay like $5 USD a month, or $2 USD a game (or something like that), but then it becomes free after the tournament ends or weekend passes. I do think that IFs should be non-profits or at least be for-profits that return all money to the athletes, and do the most to market their sport, govern their sport, develop their sport, and support their sport.

This might just be my favorite banksy:

FISU is joining the trend of live replays: https://www.fisu.net/news/fisu-launches-unisportsclassics-today

You know this is just an issue that I’m passionate about. Like I said in my last post, I’ve seen where the “it’s just a game” mentality can land you. There’s absolutely a place for that (Leclerc organized a virtual lawn mower races with his mates where they knew they were crashing on purpose), this wasn’t it. They cost people money, time, and effort; and their should be some consequences for that.

The argument being made is that this race was national television, with sponsors and interested groups fully engaged in the delivery of a proper. When Norris addressed the issue he talked about how many drivers and even teams (strategists, spotters, engineers, etc.) had put hours, if not days, of preparation into this race, and how it was very much a serious event, and that was made clear. To me it seems fair to punish them. We have to teach young drivers and kids that it’s not okay to be an asshole just because your online and there’s no consequences. I’ve already seen what that attitude can do to people, I lost full function of my left thumb from an incident related to that attitude. So when these asshole crash people on purpose, they’ve wasted people’s time, effort, and energy to make a legitimate alternative for fans. Plus, fans came to see a clean/contested race, and now everyone’s disappointed about the outcome because of some low grade professionals who can’t what they do seriously. Virtual or not, there was a lot invested into this race from many parties. Now, I don’t think the punishments should be harsh. I think should be banned from iRacing until both apologize from purposely crashing another competitor. I would then suggest that they be allowed to race, but that they forfeit all prize money and series points for the first race of the season. That seems more than fair to me.

Yeah people are saying that Pagenuad and Ferrucci should be permanently banned from iRacing, and maybe even punished when the season starts up. Formula E didn’t even bother with sim racing. They went straight to marble racing and partnered up with the channel I always post about (I’m dead serious about this). I’ve actually really enjoyed the F1 races. They’ve been much more entertaining than the actual F1 races (because people have equal cars, and there’s some actual overtaking). Plus, they’re playing with a bunch of YouTubers who are fanboying hard

Exactly. Iceland would win. No doubt in my mind.

@Griff88 Trading card games were pretty much out by the time I was in elementary school. People still played Pokeman here and there, but it was all about Beyblades when I was in middle school. I must of had like 25 of those things, and they weren’t cheap!

If you have steam, I’ve heard about something called “Tabletop Simulator.” I’m not really sure how it works though. I just know you can play board games online with your friends using it.

Coup is the shit! I have a group of old high school friends I play with when we’re all in town (and when Covid isn’t around). We will literally play for 4-5 hours. We’ve come up with some rule variations as well (Everyone gets three characters when there’s four players, you can always take one coin no matter what). I always begin every game by proclaiming that I have two Dukes

Coup. It’s a card game where you have specific characters that can do certain actions. Your goal is to kill everyone else’s characters. You can do that by amassing seven coins (you can 1 or more (depending on your characters (everyone has two)), or by using a special character action to kill another player’s character. The catch is you can lie about everything. However, if you’re caught in a lie, you lose a character. One Night Ultimate Werewolves is fun too. It’s essentially Mafia, but with more roles and slightly different rules. Loveletter (a card game) is fun too. I’ve never played World Championship Russian Roulette (board game), but it looks hella fun. There’s a bunch of other games I can recommend, but those are my favorites currently.

I get the strand feeling that Arabs don’t like Israel That actually is a seriously interesting point you make though.

I think he’s more interested in doing work within World Athletics. I could see him as the President of World Athletics one day.

Well, besides them not being Arab.

iRacing and the F1 Game are highly entertaining to watch. There’s been some great racing up until this drama. There were some epic battles at the Brazilian Grand Prix last weekend.

Happy Cinco De Mayo @mrv86! My family has decided to appropriate your holiday today in order to both support our local Mexican restaurants, and give us something to celebrate while under quarantine. My town has a very large Hispanic presence, so there’s bound to be quite a few Mexican families celebrating today. My español instructors have said that Cinco De Mayo is a bigger deal in California than Mexico. Do you know if that’s true? People around here tend to celebrate with parties, fireworks, etc.

I’m so sad about the Nordic Combined situation. It’s exactly like you and I have said. These guys should have had zero success. However, they were winning medals at the Universiade (and I don’t think Poland generally gets a ton of those in the winter) and doing amazingly well at the Wolrd Championships. It’s such a shame. Poland kills so many of its promising talents. Of course it’s not an isolated problem to Poland, but you hate to see that anywhere.

Yes, and I will absolutely stand by that. As a team they beat at least 4 other teams in each team event. They also never finished more than 2:54 behind the world champions. They also had guys place 18th and 22nd in the Normal Hill event. They also scored 4 medals at the Universiade in 2017. I know none of you probably care about that last one, but those are medals at a major international event. Are they the greatest? No. Are they competitive? Yes, those results would suggest that. I knew people have high standards, but athletes deserve recognition when they perform well. I mean Poland had an actual Nordic Combined program that was producing some decent results for a while. There should have been a good amount of funding going into the that program. There was clearly talent there. I’m positive they had a smaller budget that most of the teams in that competition as well.

So I guess there’s an assload of controversy after the virtual Indy 500 last weekend. There were two major incidents in which drivers purposefully took out another driver who was in the lead at the time. Racing channels and forums are hot with debate right now. Also, because the first incident was between Lando Norris and Simon Pagenaud there’s now some sour relations between F1 and IndyCar fanbases and drivers. Honestly, IndyCar drivers being assholes doesn’t really shock me. Americans love athletes that have poor attitudes and model poor behavior.

From what @Vojthas has explained to me, from athletes accounts, and from reading sites like ITG; Poland is easily the best example of how not to run your sports programs. I know Poland isn’t rich. I know there’s still a lot of governance problems. However, I also know that Poland has some of the most dedicated fans, good young athletes, and more money than many other nations. Poland punches way below their weight in my opinion. It’s so sad to see a team I had high hopes for just give up like this. Polish Nordic combined was going places. They had Universaide gold medalists, that 6th place at the World Champs, competitive skiers, etc. This sucks