Jesus christ, Irvine and Cotter, just stfu, we can see what’s going on!
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I think their job is to translate the less literal bits - the interpretative dance etc
that’s some first class shithousery
Sad it’s over, this week coming is going to be really dull!
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Yes, but I might actually get some sleep!
I’ve had a twitchy left eyelid for a fortnight. The last time I recall that happening was during my PwC training contact, and my various exams for that! 
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I’m in mourning already
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When does the vuelta start?
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I just looked it up… Next Saturday! 
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I’m reminded that I feel quite bereft after every olympics. The memory of that feeling fades in the years between and then it hits me like a ton of bricks the next time. I am already planning on being in Paris in 2024. It would be rude not to!
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I promised my son a few years back wed go to Paris to keep him quiet about something, he reminded me this week, FFS 
it would be rude not to though if I can get some tickets, even just to watch tri on street
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We decided we’re going to go, hire a camper drive down, probably for the 1st week and get what tickets we can. See the free stuff like triathlon, etc. too. There’s a good site just East of Paris and decent bus connection to train into centre.
Hotels will be horrendous. During London 2012 I went to book a travelodge in Borehamwood and it was something like £150 a night, usually about £20-25. Utter shite too. No batteries in the remote, deposit for the iron. I was given a key card once and walked into a couple sat on the bed 
. Luckily they were just watching TV.
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I’m not really into the summer Olympics at all and much prefer the winter version but I did enjoy these games for sure.
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Commonwealths in Brum next year. Track cycling in London it seems, Triathlon in Sutton Park, MTB around Cannock Chase.
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Applied for tri tickets as soon as the ballot opened, close to the Brum tri course of recent years, they’ll probably have less issues with avoiding mountain bikes than I did when I raced it
We are too!
Cannot wait 
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Paralympics soon
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Saw a Channel 4 advert for the Paralympics on a bus stop yesterday.
“It’s rude not to stare.”
I don’t know what thread it was on, but someone wondered why all of the runners were using Next% over Alpha’s in the marathon…
…seems like the Alpha’s were banned?
Rupp was definitely wearing them. I started reading that article, but it was basically just clickbait. The timelines they refer to at the outset make no sense.
However, new guidelines unveiled by World Athletics back in January 2020 saw the Alphaflys banned from elite competition. These new rules outline a shoe must have no more than one carbon-fibre plate, with midsole height not exceeding 40mm.
But the story doesn’t end there. Nike has released an altered version, the Vaporfly, which adheres to the new regulations and the shoe took 31 of the 36 podium positions at major marathons in 2019.
What they refer to as the Alphafly’s are what EK used in 1:59. Those were correctly never legal. But the Alphafly’s as released were, and are, legal. It also makes no sense to say “Nike released an altered version, the Vaporfly”, as the vaporfly came first, and every single version of Vaporfly was, and is, legal. The vaporfly naming was dropped with the Alphafly (only the NEXT% part of the naming was carried over from the third iteration of vaporfly).
I stopped reading at this point.
What I did note was that despite most athletes seeming to wear original vaporfly NEXT% rather than Alphafly, a NY Times article and a few others talked about a “latest iteration of Nike’s technology”. I thought that must be incorrect, due to the new requirements of having shoes available months before a pro-race, but looking at the IAAF list of approved shoes, there is a new “streakfly” that I’d not heard of before, and it was listed as allowed on the road (note you can also see here that the Alphafly is legal)
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I think this was dropped, or amended somehow. Seem to recall some fuss about a women who won a big city marathon in an ASICs development shoe and it was confirmed that prototype shoes were allowed.
“The new World Athletics rules state there can’t be any “prototypes” or “one off” shoes, but it does not say it has to be available to the public. If it meets the plate and stack height requirements, and has been made available via the (relatively undefined) “availability scheme” (current interpretation is that it would have the be available to the unsponsored Elite athletes in the race) then it would be allowed.”
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