cfm Jeremie

I think it would be nice to give him a nod but there are many talented composers and conductors: time to pass on the baton!

Well given what happened with Durban 2022 and then Victoria 2026, you cannot blame Commonwealth Sports for being cautious... But it would be great for sure for the Commonwealth Games to finally come to africa.

No it is not. The new brand will be launched in September.

I am sure a more elaborate countdown clock will be unveiled eventually, once the brand identity is launched.

I mean who could have foreseen that the Ramadan would fall within the foreseen window for the WC....

Of course it did. You can also add Jakuk Orlinski, Juliette Armanet... It is just another cheap shot of Seb at anything American with a touch of typical French "Let's get ready to be dissapointed" syndrom. LA84, Atlanta 1996 and Salt Lake 2002 have established that the US can stage spectacular ceremonies.

There is a lot of tricky questions here: The whole "moral" issue is complicated: there is no doubt whatsoever in my mind when it comes to Ukraine who the agressor is and that some atrocities have been committed by Russia and that Russia should be sanctionned for that (see below). Having said that, there are other wars, agressions going on in the world, which brings the question "who holds the moral compass to decide what is right or wrong?". The UN, for all its flaws, was playing this role at one point but this time is long time gone. I can understand that some could feel there is a double standard when it comes to holding some countries accountable for their unlawful behaviour. Having said that, when it comes to Russia, there is no moral ambiguîty whatsoever. The question is then, "should the athletes be accountable for their leadership behaviour". I thought the initial approach of "individual Olympic Athletes" was probably the most balanced option: sanctioning the country but not necessarily the indiviual athletes. But there was some hypocrisy in allowing Individual Olympic Athletes in principles whilst preventing athletes from Russia taking part in LA28 qualification process. There was also the risk of losing to CAS in case a blank ban was maintained (as happened for FIS prior to Milano Cortina). I hope, and that might be wishful thinking, that, at the very least, Russian athletes won't be able to participate under their flag and that no national anthem will be played. Regarding the doping issue, my understanding is that it is up to WADA to confirm whether or not the Russian Anti-Doping Agency is compliant and therefore whether the results of RUSADA testing programme can be trusted or not. If this is not the case, then WADA/ITA must define a clear testing protocole to ensure regular testing of Russian athletes in the lead up to LA28. Finally, it is worth reminding that, at this stage, IOC still has a ban on Russia hosting IOC-event (including the Games). So "Saint-Petersburgh being a clear favourite for 2036" is really a non-starter at this stage.

The Paraguay team behaved on the field of play exactly the way you behave here: could hardly be a more perfect match!

But will it be deemed "equally important and expansive" as what they are "giving to hockey" by his worshipfulness mini-POTUS of this board?

You are right, let's propose ISU a non-existing venue...

Don’t forget that if history has shown us one thing is that Bach is not a gracious loser (Oslo 2022 anyone?). If you look at Bach’s immediate reaction after the 2018 election, it is obvious he is very unhappy: I don’t know whether he was (unpleasantly) surprised by the margin of PyeongChang victory or whether he had such a high esteem of himself that he thought he could pull it off (I.e. the Munich and IOC presidency combo).

Arena de Lyon = LDLC Parc des Expositions = Eurexpo

Local organizers are the one proposing Tony Garnier. And yes of course more seats mean more spectators... which brings me to: which sport is hosting more ticketed events? If you look at Milano Cortina : 12 sessions of figure skating (including Gala) + 6 sessions of shortrack speed skating : 18 sessions in total for the skating arena 33 sessions for Ice Kockey Arena 1 Sure, not all Ice Hockey sessions will be sold at the same price range as the skating ones but the difference in number of sessions is very consequent. Just to show that things are slighlty more complex than "Figure Skating is the marquee event so should get the biggest venue". Besides, Ice Hockey drains a lot of foreign spectators (you can count on German, Fin, Swedish, Swiss, Canadian, American fans to come in numbers just like they did in Milano).

At this point, it might be worth remembering that there is no requirement for minimal capacity anymore and that the mandate of an IF is to assess the technical suitability of a venue not to pick the venue with the highest capacity because they deem their sport more important than others'.

Honnestly, this is getting embarassing.... Lyon has the venues needed and the plan has been approved by the IOC Executive Board. There is still on going discussions with the IF to fine tune the allocation of the venues.