Sir Rols

Me either - despite the fact that being in our time zone, I watched almost everything from them. PC evokes no memories whatsoever. What I recall of Beijing is mainly negative - the coolant towers behind the freestyle course, the barren brown mountains around the alpine events.

Interesting piece on the future of the Rigby WC tournament. Seems not all is well with the unions, and South Africa and NZ (who between them have won the past five tournaments) seem to be ruled out as future hosts. Rugby World Cups aren’t adding up for major unions and there is no easy fix

It does a bit. But quite like the colours and quite like the design - elegant and stylish.

C’mon, it’s chalk and cheese. LA at the moment is about tweaking and shuffling around lots of pre-existing locations, not talking about starting major construction projects. Brisbane will no doubt be doing the same down the track. What Brisbane has done so far to raise eyebrows is squander an entire three plus years not even getting the basic foundations of their plan tied down, even before they have to start the actual construction of some major keystone facilities of the games. It’s not comparable at all.

Japan’s cool! And you’ll be there for Sakura season. Have a great time!

Baseball/softball already has a strong base and competitive leagues in Oz. It’s also given us medals in both disciplines in the past, so far more likely than flag football, which is niche to say the least here, only “boosted” by a recent NFL-funded coaching clinic that toured a few schools for their PE lessons.

It’s virtually unknown in Australia.

I certainly won’t be visiting over the next four years How Trump Is Torpedoing Foreign Tourism To The US—Potentially For Years To Come, Say Analysts

FIFA pushing to have more women’s than men’s teams in LA Women’s soccer at 2028 LA Olympics In a further boost for women’s soccer, Infantino detailed FIFA’s plan to have more women’s teams than men’s playing at the next Olympics. There were just 12 teams in the women’s tournament at the 2024 Paris Olympics and 16 in the men’s tournament. Though the International Olympic Committee strongly supports gender equality at the games, adding four more women’s teams — and about 70 extra players, plus team officials — would push the limit of agreed athlete quotas for organizers in Los Angeles. Infantino said on Thursday that FIFA’s new proposal is to flip the numbers to have 16 women’s teams and 12 in the men’s tournaments. The final decision is for the IOC, which has an executive board meeting next Wednesday. First Coast News

Surely the rule of thumb when considering Trump is: NEVER underestimate how vindictive, spiteful and utterly shameless he will be

Seems he’s looking at the Putin/Medvedev playbook Trump says ‘there are methods’ for seeking third term in White House

I think most hosts do a one year anniversary celebration of their games (and then significant anniversaries - 5 years, 10 years, 25 years etc) after that. So not really an innovation. Sydney had big celebrations planned for September 15 2001. But then 9/11 happened four days before, so it became a much smaller, muted affair.

Jokes about croc-dodging in Rockhampton aside (and there’ll be plenty of them over the next nine years), could we make a virtue of them and have a crocodile as the official mascot? Would be pretty iconic and soooooo Queensland. Could even rope in Bindi and Robert Irwin to introduce it, and be co-faces of the games. Pity Roy and HG are getting a bit long in the tooth. It’d be nce if they can hang around till 2032. If not an offical ascot, I’m sure THEY would make one our unofficial mascot, the 2032 answer to Fatso.

I was actually trying to separate the NIMBYs from the green space advocates. My natural sympathies would lean towards green space preservation. But the stadium is needed and it appears there weren’t many other viable options. I’ll delay judgement unbuilt we see how that all plays out. As for he indigenous aspect, I was aware it was a significant site, known to them as Barrambin, but apparently it’s also a location for a number of massacre incidents. The Guardian’s starting to focus on the indigenous aspect: Queensland plans to build 2032 Olympics stadium on significant Indigenous site The broken promise aspect seems to be the angle a lot of the headlines and comments the media’s focussing this morning. It was heavily drowned out though by Federal Budget coverage - it was brought down yesterday ahead of an election expected to be called within weeks.

Looks a fair enough plan. Can’t fault much. The stadium was needed, and I like the idea of a new Aquatics Centre rather than dropping in a temporary pool in Brisbane Live. And I’m on board with farming off more events to the regions - that’s in keeping with the original spirit of its bid pitch (even if building such major new venues in Brisbane - as needed as they are - isn’t). It’s not going to silence the controversy, though. Victoria Park will inevitably become a lightning rod for NIMBYs, green space supporters and indigenous activists.