Ikarus360

About time, and I saw this coming now that the new SK president is much less willing to be on friendly terms with NK, specially now that the later has gotten worse with their tirades to the point they actually achieved the impossible: Make Japan and SK resume diplomatic activities again and put aside their differences.

We all knew for a time FIFA became too but dear god. Infantino has pretty much became the Sheikhs little pet. He's embarassingly pathetic at this point, and he'll probably play the racist card again when confronted by everyone like he did in the WC.

The whole Cortina Milano brand has been a mess. A farcry from the beautiful brand we had in Torino 2006 (except the mascots which were godawful). Anyway....I think the flowers have potential to be good, if they get redesigned (since the drawings we've seen are obviously how they were originally submitted). They should had done that before presenting the choices. The whole thing feels very rushed.

After Soohorang and Bing Dwen, seems we're up for dissapointments mascot wise.

The Torch Relay will begin in Marseille. It will arrive to France by boat. https://www.instagram.com/p/CoMlbDaD8gM/ I love it. It also reminds me a lot of old torch relay on which domestic routes also began by sea (Mexico 68, Seoul 88...)

After how they self sabotaged themselves last time and how most Swedes feel contempt toward the Olympics as a whole (see 2004 and 2026 bids), I don't have much faith from this. Don't get me wrong, a WOG in Scandinavia again would be great, but Swedes keep proving time after time they just don't want the games.

I'm glad they refined the look. While I liked it very much I couldn't help but feel it still felt a bit random at times. Here you can see it has more consistency and blends better with the colors.

Yaay, Marco Balich will do another sport ceremony.....again. https://www.santiago2023.org/es/noticias/portada-sitio-web/detalle/770/santiago-2023-adjudica-empresa-a-cargo-de-espectaculos-de-los-juegos Remember when we had more diversity of producers back in the day? Whatever happened to that. Not saying I don't like his work but the company has way too much monopoly over the business.

I thought they might bring back Soohorang but seems the mascot is gonna be entirely different.

Tokyo 2020 really damaged any remote possibility of Japan hosting it ever again, at least for some decades.

Pele was the final torchbearer at the 2011 World Military Games held in Rio. Possibly due to the fact he served during a time in the army.

R.I.P, King

Interview with Philippe Decoufle shortly after the ceremonies, also shown by Antenne 2 (the video embeded in this article). https://www.leparisien.fr/sports/dans-le-retro-1992-les-jo-d-albertville-emerveillent-le-public-03-02-2016-5511271.php

I know it was kinda eclipsed due to Calgary and Lillehammer being generally considered much more memorable sport wise, but I still liked the early 90s vibe of the games and the fact the ceremonies tried to be much more different than usual. I personally liked them although I know some might probably differ. On a personal level I preferred them over Calgary ceremonies but I put them slighty below Lillehammer because of the later's perfect winter/countryside feel.

Most of the cultural portion of the Albertville 1992 opening as seen in the old Antenne 2 channel (today's France 2) with original french commentary.

Respect to the Argentinean team for refusing to accept the offer from the country's government to celebrate at the Casa Rosada (their equivalent of the White House) considering all the mess which is happening in the country right now thanks to them. The victory was for the people and politicians trying to steal the spotlight to whitewash themselves was a very disgusting move. Too bad Buenos Aires was a complete chaos and they had to cut short the caravan.

Olympic Council of Asia recently awareded back to back Asian Games to Qatar and Saudi Arabia (the later, regarding human rights violation, being basically Qatar on Steroids) for 2030 and 2035 and even the winter edition (lmao). FIFAGate 2.0 needs to happen. Hopefully something as bad or worse happens to the IOC which still wants to give a vibe they're not as bad as FIFA (when they are).

Getting really tired of Gulf States as a whole shoving their tentacles in everything from sports to politics.... Qatar scandal: What just happened at the European Parliament? https://www.politico.eu/article/eva-kaili-doha-panzeri-qatargate-what-just-happened-at-the-european-parliament/

Now that Qatar's shitshow is over (although i'm happy for Argentina's victory) we can now finally focus in a real host nation (well, nations in this case).

My biggest criticism of this World Cup has been the lower than average referee quality. Too many controversies and criticism from players regarding this, specially during the Argentina vs Netherlands match. Some people say it benefited Argentina more but for me it was targeted at helping Netherlands given how the referee lacked the guts of drawing any yellow cards (granted, Argentinean players joined too into the constant aggressions but the lead up was also the lack of action by the ref). And then you got those 10 minutes of additional time which helped Van Gaal team to equalize. For me, it was also the second goal Japan did against Spain in the group phase. Granted, Spain was playing mediocre but the ball obviously crossed the line. It was all for the sake of sinking Germany even further since we all know the Qatari government/sheikhs wanted them out of this WC due to their protests against their discrimination against LGBT. Anyway...I feel that Argentina had to face much tougher teams to get into the Final, much like France did in 2018. And while this french team also looks really strong and its very likely they will win their third trophy tomorrow, you could tell they were somewhat struggling in the second half of the Morocco match, plus they didn't had rivals as strong as Argentina (which was smart enough to defeat Croatia before being dragged into Penalty shots).

Only if he's able to surpass Croatia and beats them before getting dragged to penalties for the millionth time. And even if Argentina survives that they would be too drained to face France seemingly unlimited stamina.

This world cup is already smelling of French victory. I hope i'm wrong but it seems to be the only logical conclusion so far. As for Grant Wahl, there was definitely some kind of foul play. Too much of a coincidence for him to die but sadly we might never see an independent autopsy. Screw FIFA and Infantino for awarding the tournament to this place to begin with.

I wonder if Messi and this Argentina squad will be able to finally unlock Croatia's insane defense. The key is to beat them before going to extra time/penalties.

Spain played like complete trash. They still live in 2010 and think ball posession = victory. If their strategy was to suffocate the Moroccans making them go through extra time, that didn't worked well at all for them because it was really obvious they either were the ones who ended up completely tired for Penalty shos or didn't even practiced Penalty shots at all. Like, seriously, 3 failed penalties? I hope Luis Enrique is sacked and Spain finally stops living in Tiki-Taka era already. It overstayed its welcome.

Demonstator invaded the pitch during Urugay vs Portugal with the LGBT flag. Its gonna be very interesting to see what is gonna happen to him over the next days. More fue to an already ugly fire....