Robert s

A big problem handball has vs some other team sports like football, is, that "casual" play (with kids running around unorganized) usually is not much fun. Back in school, we played it from time to time and when I was in a class that had a couple of people who also played in a handball club, it was pretty fun, when it was just a bunch of clueless kids running around, it was definitely not. Volleyball also falls into that category. On the other side, I also remember field hockey being pretty easy to have a nice game with. Basketball fell somewhere in between.

Regarding 3x3 basketball, I somehow would have expected the US to sweep the floor with the rest of the competition, however, they did not even qualify. Any specific reason for that? I mean I have seen them play in the qualifying tournament and they did not get knocked out due to bad luck or whatever but because they were not good enough, but what is the reason for that? Are the "good" players not interested in these tournaments?

The highlight today (yesterday?) to me was the bronze run of Russian (well, ROC) Judoka Madina Taimazova. She went 15 minutes in the round of 16 (where she got her right eye fucked up), close to 17 minutes in the semifinals (where in the end she got choked out cold) and still came back and hour and a half later and won her bronze medal match in something like 5.5 minutes.

Mexico had one of the highest excess mortality numbers worldwide over the last 18 months. One source I found puts the number between March 2020 and May 2021 at 620.000 people (official COVID-19 death toll for that time frame is about 220.000) or about 4.9 in 1000 people. For the US, that same source lists an excess mortality of about 912.000 people or about 2.8 in 1000 people. Other more heavy effected countries fall in the same ballpark as the US (2.9/1000 for Brazil, 2.6/1000 for Spain and 3.0/1000 for Italy).

Rowing was already cancelled for the next two days and I suppose the same will be true for sailing.

The women's road cycling was really funny: there was a breakaway group of mostly complete outsiders. The peleton gave them something like 10 minutes and waited way too long on working to reduce the distance. With 25 km or so to go, there were still three cyclers in front of the field (split in two groups of a single women in front and two a minute or two behind her). The favorites caught two of them, one they did not. However, most of the field did not realize that and the second-placed van Vleuten celebrated her presumed Olympic victory only to find out that she only won the silver medal. Apparently, there were communication problems (in non-Olympic races, the cyclers have direct radio contact to their coaches). Actually, that's the second Olympic mishap for van Vleuten. In Rio, she was on route to Olympic victory when she had a horrible crash. Oh yes, and the gold medal was Austria's first Olympic cycling medal since Athens 1896.

Splitting up Punk and Cabana was the only success WWE had with the Chris Amann lawsuit.

I am surprised that there are even still countries willing to run Olympic Games, at least democratic ones. The bid for the 2026 Winter Games (Milan and Cortina "won" that bid) turned into a desaster when one country after the other dropped out due to lack of public support (Calgary, Graz (which was the Austrian fallback plan after a referendum in Innsbruck - which I think would have been the preferred host by the IOC (the idea being to show that Winter Games can be done in a smaller, more sustainable setting) - ended up with a negative result) and Sion dropped out, Stockholm stayed in till the final selection even though the support among the population was non-existing). At least for Winter Games, Sochi, Pyeongchang and Beijing with their absurd budgets destroyed any positive associations with holding Olympic Games in traditional winter sports regions.

I can't have lasted long, Wikipedia says Heenan started managing him in December 84 and Rose was gone by April 85 (he only had one more match in WWF after Wrestlemania).

I just realized how few members of the WWF-era Heenan family are still alive. Wikipedia lists 14 members until and including 1987 and of those 14 wrestlers only four are still alive (Haku, Tama, Sivi Afi and Ken Patera - apparently Polynesian genes not only effect your weight but also help you survive wrestling). Buddy Rose, Big John Studd, Paul Orndorff, King Kong Bundy, Missing Link, Adrian Adonis, Hercules Hernandez, Harley Race, Andre the Giant and Rick Rude all are dead.

If they are lucky the press concentrates on the riots before the game.

Southgate brought Rashford and Sancho in the 119. minute for the penalty shoot-out and both guys missed their penalties.

Yeah, if such decisions are not revoked, then the VAR is not working.

Spain actually played a great game yesterday and in the first halt of extra time were pushing heavily for a second goal. I guess towards the end, they ran out of steam and Italy had the upper hand in the second half of extra time. I did not expect Spain being able to force their game on Italy as much as they did. I expected Italy to pass to the finals quite easily with the game currently going on be a 50-50 thing. Let's see if my second prediction is more accurate.

Also LOL at the NWA/WCW production crew not knowing how to spell "Avalanche".

Kicking hard to either side plus either keep the ball high or completely flat, not something like 0.5 m to 1.0 m above the ground - that is the zone where keepers have the best chance to save it. Italy-Belgium was a good game that could have been a great game if it had a somewhat competent referee.

Now I am really pissed, the Ukraine had 20 good minutes against the Netherlands in the group stages; apparently they played bad against North Macedonia and they definitely played horribly against Austria and somehow they are now in the 1/4 finals.

Maybe he does not like Tom Zenk?

That would be the perfect way to bring back Kassius Ohno.

and then off again

Well, that Dutchxit happened way sooner than I expected.

I guess being disappointed at being eliminated is the best we could have hoped for before the match. The 10 minutes before and after the offside goal, I really believed that the upset might be possible (as at that point Italy seemed insecure, made simple mistakes and Austria was pushing). Afterwards the Austrian team showed the effect of the intense match and the Austrian coach should have done a couple of substitutions and not wait until the players physically could not continue (Austria exchanged one player before the first goal, Italy four). The first goal of the Italians looked to me a bit like Chiesa stopped the ball with his left hand, but I guess the VAR could not find a camera angle to proof it (or he did and it was no hands after all).

I don't know, England did not really impress me in the group stages. There were three teams I would put way ahead of them (Italy, Netherlands and Belgium) and some more that I would favour over England. Besides the bracket and the potential of a full Wembley (and the way COVID numbers are developing in the UK, I would not bet on that for the semis and finals, no matter what the UEFA wants), there is not much speaking for them. Apropos COVID and the Euro: there have already been close to 100 infections among Finnish fans who attended their final game against Belgium in St. Peterburg (I think out of 1000 fans tested so far).

Those were two wild hours and I guess not the best for Germans with heart problems. On paper the KO bracket looks to be a bit uneven, just looking at the names. The upper half has Belgium, Portugal, Italy, France, Spain and Croatia (plus Austria and Switzeland), the lower half England, Germany and the Netherlands (plus Wales, Denmark, the Czech Republic, Sweden and the Ukraine). I am still a bit pissed that the Ukraine got rewarded for their shitty game against Austria with a game against Sweden. They still might be the underdogs but nowhere near as much as they would be against Italy (Austria's opponent as runner up in group C). Also they now have a seven-days break which cannot hurt either.

The second Danish goal was one of the biggest gifts I have seen on that level. You have to be insane to try such a blind pass back to the goalkeeper - without the slightest idea where the goalkeeper might be standing (and the guess of the Russian defender was off completely).