Faster

No one can answer the question; is this McDonald's not wanting to be associated with the Olympics any longer or is this McDonald's not being able to afford the sponsorship any longer because of the current business struggles they have been having?

I do wonder what could have happened with a longer campaign like the one Canada had a few years ago. Another 2 weeks of good Labour campaigning could have done a lot of interesting things. Honestly I do not think this election result is the doom and gloom that people are making it. I actually think that the weakened position of May and the destruction of UKIP will lead to a non-Brexit Brexit. It will also likely lead to another election in 18ish months. But c'est la vie. I think there is a lot of positives out of this election: - emboldened labour - high youth engagement - took the piss right out of Scottish independence - weakened the hard Brexit position

Oh hell, this is too good. Though it really does show how biased the electoral map is towards the Conservatives in the UK. Only about 2% separates Cons from Lab and there is a dramatic difference in seats. The only way the Cons govern with some stability is with the support of DUP. Lord help y'all. Btw why does Northern Ireland have to be so difficult. Can't they vote for regular parties?

Spoken like people that have never played the game. Mixed curling is a lot different to men's and women's. Just like men's and women's are different. More power to the men's game, more finesse to the women's. Similar to almost every other team sport. Biggest issue was that mixed curling was added to give smaller curling nations the chance to compete in the Olympics. Once it became an Olympic sport the bigger curling nations started to take it seriously. Only Finland qualified for mixed without qualifying another team and they are Olympic medalists in men's. Hungary a world champion in mixed didn't even come close to qualifying.

Canada qualified in mixed curling today. That is going to be some interesting qualification. I am pretty sure the Canadian curling association is going to discourage someone from qualifying in both. But you will have a lot of disappointed curlers come December looking at the mixed qualification in January as their Olympic chance.

I am still not a huge fan of this. So Canada/Mexico/USA would get half of CONCACAF's qualification spots. I can see the games of importance being staged exclusively in the USA. But I think that if this were to go through that Mexico should get the opener, USA the final and Canada the 3rd place. I'd rather see Canada/USA do a joint bid to host the 2027 Rugby World Cup.

I am not a fan of this idea. If it was joint it should be Canada-USA or USA-Mexico. All three is just too much. I'd assume that it would be Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal from Canada. Guadalajara, Monterrey and Mexico City from Mexico. And your pick of 8 of; Boston, Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, New York, Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, Orlando, New Orleans, Nashville, Dallas, Houston, San Antonia, Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, San Diego, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix. I think I just provided the reasoning for no joint bid.

It does seem odd. In a year when realistically only the USA is a serious contender to make a joint bid with the other big countries of North America. I am guessing there is FIFA politics are at work here. From a logistics point of view this would be a crappy World Cup for fans. Mexico City to Montreal to Los Angeles anyone?

So 17 skaters in figure skating. Highest qualified nation and given the results Canada should be favoured for the Team Trophy. Chan needs to clean up his long program and D/R need to recover and rework their programs to be more inline with the judging.

A little surprised by speed skating since the consensus is that Canada is sending a stronger team to Pyeonchang then was sent to Sochi.

Biathlon: 5 men, 5 women; improvement of 2 over Sochi Curling: 1 women's team, would take a miracle for the men to not qualify Figure Skating: 3 pairs; looking good to send 3 ladies, 3 ice dance and probably 2 men unless Chan get get into the top 2. Hockey: men's and women's team. It is hockey.

I'm pretty sure Iraq is eligible.

The only downside of Calgary hosting the 2026 Games is that Nenshi won't be the mayor. Hopefully by then he is the Prime Minister. As for the East/West divide. Around the time of Atlanta/Sydney it was fairly even in Canada between the winter and summer. With Vancouver and Sochi, there is a massive slant to the winter now. I think that if you did a cross-country survey. Support for Calgary 2026 would be much higher then Toronto 2028. Also from a political standpoint. The Trudeau Liberals have a lot to gain from supporting a Calgary bid.

That is the biggest benefit to awarding both. You don't risk pissing off either the French or the Americans.

I think most Canadians would rather see Calgary host a Winter Olympics compared to Toronto hosting a Summer. I certainly would. I also think of it this way. 2020 - Tokyo 2022 - Beijing 2024 - Paris 2026 - Calgary 2028 - Los Angeles 2030 - hopefully things settle down enough in Europe and in the IOC to have a traditional country host. That gives the IOC 13 years of certainty. 13 years to rework the public image, to rebuild the brand and figure out how the Movement is going to function in our brave new world.