#european continental championships

[miafi]

Wout van Aert at European Continental Championships 2023 | September 20 2023

[sheisbeautyweareworldass]

a whole ass essay can be written about european national teams refusing to play against teams from other continents (africa, asia and south america) and closing themselves in continental championships instead - because they’ve convinced themselves they’re the only ones who can play “good” football - and how they’re only now facing the consequences of their superiority complex and pride: netherlands struggling against ecuador and senegal, belgium and germany being eliminated on group stage and losing their spot to african and asian teams instead, denmark not winning a single match, etc.

[blorbocedes]

hi! i am relatively new-ish to f1 and i have a question about nico that i wondered if you might know the answer to. obviously i know his parents are finnish and german respectively, and he was raised mostly in monaco, but my question is -- did he ever really seem to consider monaco his home or special in any way while racing in f1? (like, obviously he was racing under the german flag, and *really* played up that aspect of it, but was monaco just another race to him? was it like "home part 2" or nothing beyond "hey that's my house lol" or ... you get the question.)

his nationality Thing™️ or whatever you want to call it is something i really find interesting (i guess also kind of relatable in a weird way) so any other info or sources on anything related to that in general, i'd also love to know! thanks so much (no pressure to answer, i just think you might be the best source on the topic haha.)

oh definitely. he considers Monaco his home race. obviously while he was racing under the German flag, in a German team, with a teammate claiming he's not German enough he couldn't say it but after he did

he calls it his home race here, and now winning monaco and his championship are the 2 most important races of his life (crazy cause he won monaco 3x. he's also won his "official" home race of hockenheim 😅). he also partied like crazy after winning monaco 13

and in 2022, sky does promo videos for each track/gp, nico did the one for monaco which was basically his love letter to monaco - which is ironic when you realize they already have a monegasque driving in f1 at the time 😭. this video always makes me a bit emotional 🥹

one of my fave nico youtube vids, where he explains the monaco gp track and how to master it while also driving his cycle through it - you can see his enthusiasm and pointing out his school and all the landmarks

and finally, when there was negotiations to remove monaco from the calendar because ykno present day f1 cars are too big for there to be much overtaking and being a prestigious crazy expensive race, nico himself knew that Prince Albert was involved in the negotiations to keep it. so yeah, he's very committed to the Monaco Grand Prix

I think something about nico's nationality that really struck with me is that ofc he speaks a lot of languages, his german doesn't really have a regional accent. he just sounds International, like seb's german is very much his home region where he grew up. Nico's a continental European. not belonging to any one place~

[supermaks]

Omg this verstappie rewatch is literally gonna be the whole season lmao

Part 1 2016-2018 > Part 2 2019-2022

In 2013, after becoming the World and European KZ class Champion, European OF class Champion, Continental KF class champion, and 3rd place laureate in the World KF class, 15 year old Max Verstappen had turned that years karting scene into a 'one man show' according to Vroomkart International. The title of the piece wasted no time posing what was, admittedly, a very bold question:

Gentlemen, a short view into the 2023 season

Baku, 2023. Ik what ur thinking. 19 wins and ur gonna start wid fucking Baku? And yes 🙂I will, and so shud u 🫵🏽Max lost Baku. The pole, the sprint and the race. Lingered about 3 secs behind checo after the SC, never closed the gap. And guess what, Baku was actually one of the most important races of this season, Maxs own words. Because that inconsistent pace? Those choppy lap times, killing his tires? Max was learning how to setup his car. Rb19 was clearly rb18s big brother, a real sunday beast, faster, more reliable, but a lil sensitive, demanded some hands on attention from his boy. So Max turned Baku into their fp4. U can c it on his onboard, hear him asking for different settings, toggling wid the balance. Those of us who know Max, we kinda suspected what he was up to. But it seemed others didnt. And whatvr max was about to do to these people in Miami bro, it wud be the type of reckoning u read about in the bible.

Miami, 2023. When max qualified p9 cheers echoed across both Americas. After the Baku loss, the slow start to the season, there was hope. Max Verstappen was about to lose the championship lead. People bought into the fairytale and they were loud about it too. They taunted him, booed him and his mechanics in parc ferme. And then Max was p2 by lap 15. Cut thru the field like butter and the whole stint he kept setting purples. Fastest lap after fastest lap. By lap 40 his hards were outpacing fresh mediums on a track u cud fry an egg on. Red bulls strategy for Max required the impossible and that's exactly what Max delivered. Before Miami, Checo was a title contender. After Miami, he was barely a competitor. Max took the 'tire whisperers' ambitions and grinded them into dust in 45 laps or less. It was the race that marked the beginning of the most dominant individual season in Formula 1 history but at its core, in classic Verstappen style, it was a lesson. A very simple one.

Shot by Brook Ward.

Monaco, 2023

- Qualifying Yk who doesn’t give a FUCK about lessons tho, Monaco. Monaco wont be taught by no man. But it’s 2023. This classic immovable object about to meet the most unstoppable force in modern sport history. Max's very first pole in Monaco, and fittingly so, it came out of an all-timer session. One of those saturdays that make u understand why the tax dodging diva of f1 is going absolutely nowhere. Pole switched between Ocon, Yuki, Sharl and Alonso right up until Max did his thing. 2 mins to the checkered flag, it looked like Nando had it locked. 2 untouchable purples, textbook. It wud have been a beautiful moment, a deserved reward for an old dawg who’d kept at it and had a capable car again. Unfortunately for Nando, though, Sennas illegitimate child clocked in that Saturday. He had a bit of a history wid third sectors that once fucked him. But it's 2023, so this wud be the one that made him. Max put 3 tenths on Alonso's head in one of the shortest, most technical corners of the entire calendar. F1's 'sunday' driver by excellence, the one stop pacemaker, the metronome, the endurance machine, proved that he was all that and also, in fact, the type of elite qualifier who can write his signature on the walls of Monte Carlo.

- Race Monaco is all about Saturday obvi but imo this years race is also worth watching because its actually kind of a banger wid mixed conditions, insane strategies and because this is a verstappie rewatch, u get to c Max at his best: in a chaotic packed field under the rain.

Canada, 2023. Speaking of rain masters. Senna's legend has been clinging to Max from the very first time he traumatized wet cat Rosberg in Brazil in 2016 but it was this year, in Canada, wid Nando and Lewis by his side, the guys who were also there, who saw it happen too, that Max finally matched Senna's win tally. 41. It was a perfect weekend, a testament to the talent that allowed a 26 year old to overtake Ayrton Senna in the record book, and it began, as if in tribute, wid a soaking wet qualifying. Max's pole lap was one second faster than the rest of the grid. One full second. If ur a Nando or a Lewis fan, I wud definitely give it sunday a watch as well because old gays were definitely out there. Also we got this. What yall know about this .

Shot from Nurphoto.

Lemme tell u something rn: Ur looking at 12 world championships, 189 wins, and a 14 year old gap from youngest to oldest. You're looking at statistically, the most successful driver of all time, the guy whose racecraft still seen by many as the finest this sport has ever seen, and a kid who's been sitting between them since he was 17 years old. The same kid who, a few racers later, broke records that existed long before the other two were even born. Yk, Lewis said it better than I ever cud, 'this is quite an iconic top 3'.

Austria, 2023. Why are u a Verstappen fan? U ever been asked that question. Ik i have. 😐 Lots of possible answers. To me Austria has all of them. In Canada, Checo barely made the finish line while Max pushed rbr to their 100th team victory and ((unofficially)) began his chase of the Vettel record. Mind u the mf wont admit that’s what he’s doing, but it is. Him, GP, the whole team. They want it. But we'll get to that. Max is a hunter, and his boy car is the best hound of his career so far. Together, they’d caught the scent. Races like Australia, Spain, Monaco, Canada, they showed it was possible. His management was getting Schumacher shouts, his qualifying was getting Senna's. Clarks proficiency. 2023 can be understood as the result of Max's life long pursuit of perfection, the crowning point of his hard work, the realization of all his potential, that prodigal nature that had been so obvious for so long, finally, entering its prime wid a car that can make history. And yet. AND YET. max has something that all those other legendary mfs lack. Something that is deeply, deeply Max’s. Free practice 1 in Austria and that talented, beautiful creature of God was ready to send it all to hell to make a POINT. Austria was a sprint this year, so already you've pissed him off. During fp1, Lewis impeded Max like once.

((And listen

Lewis saw that boy enter the paddock and immediately called security and along wid seb vettel and raikkonen launched a class action lawsuit against him on the grounds of a) fuck b) them kids. Then 6 years later Lewis and that now grown ass man spent a whole legendary season trying to kill each other. U c how this relationship may have some residue of . lets say. conflict.))

So Lewis impeded Max in fp1 and Max's raytheon hamilton-calibrated sensors activated and he did nothing less but the exact same thing in sprint qualifying. Blocked old mans flying lap. Lewis is limping thru this weekend, mind u, like it’s almost sad. It’s kinda elderly abuse. THEN, the actual sprint. Again, Austria is red bull's home turf. packed wid red bull fans. The car is a rocket, they're on a streak, lots of good photo ops for the team. It started raining. Even better. Lights out, and Checo took the lead first and in the process like . squeezed Max a lil bit. Pushed him on the grass. U can guess what happened next. 😐😐😐😐To answer that first question and to quote somebody who knows him, Max is Max. No matter where, how, against who. Wid a rocketship, wid a hole in his car, winning, losing, fighting for the lead against Lewis Hamilton, fighting for sixth against baby schumi, refusing to comply wid team orders against sainz, scolding danny ric about discipline, waiting 7 months to deliver his justice in brazil, calling russell a dickhead in Baku, whether in front of 300 000 haters in Silverstone of half a million fans in Spielberg, he'll do what he thinks is right. Thats the kind of mf that wins constructors all by himself. 575 points, on his own. Over 1000 laps lead. Max Verstappen has not succeeded in f1 despite his character, but because of it. Because when Checo squeezed him at the start of a stupid fucking sprint that wont make a dent in his records or his lead, Max collected his car and lunged thru the inside line like the title wud be decided in the next turn. He was willing to send himself, checo, and a goddamn haas to hell to remain at the front. And that’s why I'm a fan.

Zandvoort, 2023. 9 consecutive wins. A race that u feel in ur stomach because you know what it means. The sheer size of the accomplishment. That word ringing in everybodys ears since Miami. Inevitable. inevitable. Up until it happened, and then obvi Monza wid the perfect 10, nobody really wanted to believe it. seb's 9 was one of those things held sacred and hallowed by the sport. Like Schumachers points in a season, Ascaris win percentage, Clarks laps lead, and Hamiltons consecutive podiums. Sacred things. And in 2023, the nonbeliever broke them all. Grasped and squeezed wid his very cynical hands. They’re his now. No one else’s. What he did, no one else can do. Max is always outstanding in Zandvoort tbh, thats his track, his fans, his weather. But this years quali was particularly emblematic of the gap to the rest of the grid , and his teammate especially. 1.7s faster than checo. The race was just as impressive. Rain hit early on, complete chaos, and while everybody scrambled to choose the right tires, GP was in Max’s ear, calm as ever, 'it’s up to you'. It really was. It always was.

Zandvoort, 2023. > Monza, 2023.

Japan, 2023. Red Bulls factory crowning weekend. Coming out a disaster Singapore, yet another statement win. Singapore had showed what it took to slow down Verstappen in 2023: not just the wrong setup, but the wrong strategy too. As we'll c in Texas, like we've seen in 2016, 2019, 2020, a machine off the pace alone wont stop Max from winning races. In Suzuka, rocky was back into his operational window, and Max proved exactly who was it that singlehandedly delivered the constructors championship. One of those classic Max weekends. 20 drivers on track but 2 different leagues and he's on his own. Wid a 177 point lead over his teammate, yet another record broken, biggest point gap between 1st and 2nd. ((In the end, the margin was 290)). Max names Suzuka as his most satisfying pole lap of the season. Bro put half a second on the grid in one go.

COTA, 2023. just something in the Americas ((me)) that unlocks the extra prodigal gene in this mf. Talent of the century? Put his ass in North America we can stretch that shit to the millennium idc idc . Miami, Texas, Brazil, Mexico, and now Vegas, to me these are cornerstones of Verstappen excellence. Max holds the record for most wins in a single geographical location over one season. ((Of course he does)) 10 consecutive wins in NA, across state lines, country borders, wid different conditions, tracks, circuits, tires, formats, setups. This years’ Austin GAG? Apparently they didn’t set the tarmac right. track was a bumpy mess. Max struggled from the start wid braking issues and tire wear, but he kept his head cool because he knew he had the basics. There was once a time before the rb19 , when all he had was a cap and 1 year of open wheel experience, and his 18 year old self put on a clinic against a 30 year old world champion on how to defend on old faulty rubber. That’s exactly what Max did in Cota. Bro was able to make up for aerodynamic loss wid nothing but pedal and wheel work. Do not talk to him during braking. Do not fucking talk to him during braking. That’s all Max asked. 50th win. Offically 3rd OAT, behind Vettel, Hamilton and Schumacher. ((He’s now alone in 3rd OAT, wid 53 wins.)). He’s 26. After Merc and Ferrari were proclaimed ‘illegal’ what truly shocked me wasn’t that they tried to cheat, but that they wud try to pull that shit against this Verstappen, in this car, in 2023. They lowered their floors for smoother suspensions to fight Adrian Neweys Frankenstein monster but the real machine was sitting right behind the wheel. And he won. Actually, he mollywhooped those bitches. Not the floor, not the wings, just a damn good racing driver. Good luck next time.

Qatar gp, 2023. Dutch man allergic to winning world championships in a normal way, millions left emotionally berated every year begging for the sweet release of ted kravitzs voice. No I’m jk but actually tell me why this fool cud not have waited for the race to clinch it. Bro had the title confirmed by a sprint where he finished SECOND. As a verstappie, imma tell u to watch this because it’s like. get out of my face rn I love you so much I’m so happy for u also that helmet is so pretty. In Qatar, Max became 1 of 5 drivers who won back to back to back world championships. After the year 2000, 1 of 3. Along wid the biggest championship margin in the most successful season of all time, well. 1 of 1.

Las Vegas, 2023. ummm ok ik this may SHOCK u but he wasn’t a fan. Max spent the whole season bitching about Vegas and breaking records and threatening retirement like that’s literally a fair description of events. Just very verstappen and migraine inducing type of shit. But yes, Vegas. Vegas held no old school appeal whatsoever. And he was right about some things. He never berated the circuit itself, the quality of the racing, just the show around it. U shud build for the track, not around it. It’s not that difficult to understand, or even that unpopular. But Max forgot about one important thing that wud prolly hurt his cause. He has never landed on US soil and not served. The plot armor wud simply never let my baddie have her AHA!!!!moment in Nevada. So I want u to open that cringe FUCKING compilation Sunday stream of the Vegas gp and c what happens when a sleep deprived verstappen and his so called ‘dominant’ ‘untouchable’ ‘unbeatable’ ‘rocket ship’ are released on a frozen track wid barely any data because one of the potholes burst and cut practices into 10 mins. Bitch what happens is good fucking f1 😭😭😭 Some real formula uno cabron 😭😭 Max retakes the lead at the start, overcooks his frozen tires, pushes sharl off, gets a penalty, serves his penalty, comes back wid gods wrath emanating from his fugly white helmet, obliterates the gap to first and Russell along wid it ((🫡)) passes both cars in front in one slick veteran move and sinks his teeth into p1 for the remaining 13 laps. And wins. Maybe not his most characteristic win, but def the funniest one. Stupid ass even sang Elvis. That’s an f1 driver bitch. He can’t trick me.

Here we are. Abu Dhabi. Breathe out. Red Bull won constructors in Japan, Max won the drivers championship in Qatar. It all started wid a lesson, remember? Max was a good teacher. He spent 8 months making sure we learned. Did you?

By Abu Dhabi, 2023, Max had officially set 20 new records, including the record for most records broken in a season by a single driver. 5 of those achievements had already been set in 2022, just upgraded in 2023: most wins in a season, most podiums in a season, most consecutive wins from pole, most hat tricks in a season, and most consecutive top two finishes in history. 3 of his achievements, however, kept him on the hunt until the very last lap: 3rd most wins of all time, over a 1000 laps lead, and the highest percentage of wins in the sports history. Max got them all. He’s now, statistically, the sole protagonist of the most dominant season in f1, and f1’s 3rd most successful driver, behind Schumacher and Hamilton. Max won 19 out of 22 races. 10 of those wins were consecutive. Right now, he’s already on another streak. 3 more wins and he matches his own record. 4 and he resets the book forever. What Max did wid the rb19 needs to be watched again and again and again, because it’ll be years. YEARS .Until we begin to learn how to truly appreciate it. This is just my humble attempt.

In Abu Dhabi, the job was done wid a series of incredible defensive moves that completely shut the door on sharl. No flashy overtakes, no heroics on the inside line. Just strong classic defending. Sharls attack was dealt wid, nullified, the gap was built, set and managed, and Max saw the fireworks 17 seconds earlier than the rest. In 2023, Max was untouchable by all but one. The car he called ‘rocky’. The only car, to this day, according to the man himself, that ever saw him smile before he crossed the finish line. That ever made him happy before it made him a winner.

You tell me.

[jennibeultimate]

hiii this is random but !! ive been watching the olympics gymnastics and im kind of Obsessed and wanna get into watching gymnastics not just once every 4 years ?? wondering if u have any advice on where to start !! coz i know Nothing lol :))

Hi, you're welcome!

There is plenty of gymnastics to watch all year round. The Olympics is the highlight though every 4 years!

Btw I also got into watching artistic gymnastics by seeing the Olympics (20 years ago 🤯, when watching was depending heavily on terrestrial broadcast).

I am not really sure if I am the best to explain artistic gymnastics and tbh I am not following gymnastics as closely as 10 years ago but I still try to give some advices. I hope it helps. Pls ask if anything is unlcear.

I think in short the best advice is to just watch as much gymnastics as you can 😁 With time you will see and understand more about the sport.

A short and incomplete introduction into artistic gymnastics:

Let's start with some basics:

There are different kind of gymnastics, but I assume anon talks about artistic gymnastics as this was the most prominent discipline that gets most attention.

The governing body of gymnastics is the FIG. You can find a YouTube channel, an Instagram account and a Twitter account.

There are two shortcuts for artistic gymnastics. Men Artistic Gymnastics = MAG and Women's Artistic Gymnastics = WAG.

Male gymnasts perform on 6 apparatus (Vault, Floor, High Bar, Parallel Bars, Pommel Horse and Still Rings), female gymnasts on 4 apparatus (Balance Beam, Uneven Bars, Vault and Floor). The All Around (AA) competition is the most prestigious as you have to be good on all apparatus.

I would not bother with understanding everything about the points for the start, but for the basics there is a Difficulty Score (D-Score) and an Execution Score (E-Score) for each routine. The execution score will be deducted starting by 10,0. The difficulty score is open end. How the deductions on the E-score work is far too complex to explain in a simple post but you can watch out for landing errors, going out of bounds on a landing on Floor and Vault, pointed feet and bend knees, just to name some common errors. A fall is easy to spot and is always 1,0 off. The D-Score works different. Each element has a value starting by A and going up to H. A has 0,1 difficulty and H has 0,8. The 8 most difficult elements count towards the D-Score. There are some different requirements on each apparatus what you have to fullfill, but it would lead to far here to explain.

Competitions:

Artistic gymnastics has a World Championship every year except in the Olympic year, so that's the event to watch out most besides the Olympics. It always happens some time in October each year. Next World Championship 2025 will be in Jakarta, Indonesia.

Before the World Championship there are multiple other competitions to watch. There are championships on continental level (European Championships for example), World Cups and national competitions. And more but these are the competitions I would put my focus on. The Nationals of the USA are probably the most hyped and easily accesible via YouTube. European Championships have various broadcasts on TV but also have their own streaming site here Most events have some form of livestreaming or videos accesible afterwards.

Watch just as much as you can from competitions. You can always rely on Youtube videos. Also old videos are fun to watch.

Gymnasts and countries I recommend to keep an eye on:

I will focus on those who compete at the Olympics this time, but tbf getting into gymnastics at the Olympics may be the worst time as a lot of gymnast you'll see at the Olympics retire afterwards. So next year you might not see many returning ones...

There are plenty of amazing gymnasts but the post is already far too long, so I'll point out a few of the best and a few of my faves. (There sadly is a picture limit per post on Tumblr)

WAG (Women's Artistic Gymnastics)

I guess this name is familiar but always worth mentioning: Simone Biles 🇺🇸(superstar of the sport, called "Greatest of All Time" GOAT and frontrunner for the last decade - most decorated gymnast of all time. Olympic AA champion 2016 and 2024, World AA Champion 2013,2014,2015,2018,2019,2023)

Rebeca Andrade 🇧🇷 (World AA Champion 2022, Olympic Silver Medalist 2021 and 2024, Olympic VT Champion)

Qiu Qiyuan 🇨🇳 (2023 Uneven Bars World Champion - great Beam and Bars worker - just won Olympic UB Silver 2024 few hours ago)

Some others worth mentioning (sadly not pictured):

Kaylia Nemour 🇩🇿 (2024 UB Olympic champion - first African gymnast to win a medal at the Olympics)

Sunisa Lee 🇺🇸 (2021 AA Olympic Champion, 2024 AA & UB Bronze Medalist)

Flavia Saraiva 🇧🇷 (the most fun floor routines and gorgeous beam)

Elsabeth Black 🇨🇦 (fan favorite, 2017 Worlds AA Silver Medalist, 2022 Worlds Beam silver medalist)

Team USA is without a doubt the strongest nation in WAG. Not only did they win most of the team competitions the last decade, but also with quite a margin. Team Italy and Team Brazil have fought their way up to the top with Italy having a balanced team of gymnasts who can score evenly on all events and Team Brazil having superstar Rebeca Andrade who contributes massively with huge scores. Team China imo has the prettiest gymnastics of everyone but their weakest event Vault prevented them from winning team medals since 2014. Their strongest events are Beam and Uneven Bars.

(From left to right: Team Italy, USA and Brazil)

MAG (Men's Artistic Gymnastics)

Zhang Boheng 🇨🇳(World AA Champion 2021, Olympic AA Silver Medalist 2024 - tbh the best AA gymnast atm but battling with injuries and lost the AA final by a few tenth despite having a fall)

Daiki Hashimoto 🇯🇵 (Olympic AA and HB Champion 2021, World AA Champion 2022 & 2023)

Shinnosuke Oka 🇯🇵 (Olympic AA Champion 2024, World Junior AA Champion 2019 - the surprise AA Olympic Champion. Just 20 years old with a bright future)

(Shinnosuke Oka (left) and Daiki Hashimoto (right))

Zou Jinyuan 🇨🇳 (Olympic PB champion 2021, World Champion - the cleanest execution on parallel bars and overall you'll ever see)

Some more MAG gymnasts worth mentioning:

Carlos Yulo 🇵🇭 (first Philippine gymnast to win a world title and Olympic title - great AAer and Floor and Vault specialist - 2019 FX World Champion, 2024 Vault and Floor Olympic Champion)

Ilia Kovtun 🇺🇦 (2021 Worlds AA Bronze medalist & 2023 Worlds AA Silver Medalist)

Team China and Team Japan are those to watch out for the titles. They have the best teams and are far off all other countries atm (with Russia's team banned who won in Tokyo 2021) Team China is very strong on Still Rings and Parallel Bars. Team Japan is very strong on Parallel Bars

(Podium from left to right: China, Japan and USA)

Team USA unlike in the women competition are not frontrunners, but have received the Bronze medal at this games with hitting 18/18 routines. Other teams to watch out are Team Great Britain and Team Ukraine. Team Ukraine are the current European Champions are strong on Parallel Bars and Vault. Their weakness is High Bar which costed them the team medal in Paris. Team Great Britain has strong gymnasts on most events, most prominently Vault, Pommel Horse and Floor.

(Team Ukraine at the European Championship 2024 - from left to right: Nazar Chepurny, Stelmakh, Oleg Verniaev, Igor Radivilov and Ilia Kovtun)

About artistic gymnastics fandom:

If you wanna talk about gymnastics you can join the fandom, called gymternet. (The experience to see your faves suffering together may sting a little less 😅)

Tbh I am maybe not the right person to ask about fandom side of gymnastics (I am mostly active in figure skating fandom). There are a couple of "fandom" sites I use to follow gymnastics news: The Gymternet (link here) and The Balance Beam Situation (link here) (this one is a bit more on the "drama" side with the reporting)

For more fandom stuff you should better ask someone else for advice.

______

And while I am at it I also recommend watching rhythmic gymnastics, it's different but very beautiful. And the competition at this Olympics is about to happen from 8th to 10th August 2024! (Tbh by now I follow RG much closer than AG)

[meademalove]

Vivianne Miedema has been ranked 10th on ESPN's list of 'Top 25 women's soccer players of the 21st century'.

Key accomplishments: Women's Super League winner, Frauen-Bundesliga winner, three-time FA <Continental> Cup winner, UEFA Women's European Championship winner, all-time top goal scorer in Women's Super League, Netherlands all-time top goal scorer.

Despite becoming the Women's Super League all-time top scorer and setting numerous records, Miedema remains unfazed by her success. "It's just another record or milestone that's there to be broken, and that's the way I've always been. I've always treated records and landmarks as something to hit, be done with, and then just move on," she said after reaching 100 goals for Arsenal.

This mindset likely contributes to her rapid success. She isn't focused on being the best but is steadfast in giving 100%, and her approach to milestones is why she continues to excel. -- Keogh

[dracothelizard]

It's catch-up day for @ecclesiasticallatinfest the OFMD Continental Challenge, so I'm catching up with Europe!

Pairing: Ed/Stede

Rating: PG-13

Summary:

Izzy then shows him the email, the website and some online news articles from legitimate newspapers that confirm that yes, there is a European gull screeching championship, and it’s held annually in some coastal town in Belgium.

“We’re going,” Ed tells him, while Izzy points at some of the previous judges with his mouse and explains that they’re renowned colleagues of his in the world of marine biology. “I want to see you judge gull screeching.”

Ed and his marine biologist friend Izzy go to De Panne for the European Championship Gullscreeching where Ed meets the blond DILF of his dreams. Luckily, the DILF's son is competing in the gullscreeching championship, and Ed will happily accept the opportunity to flirt with the attractive blond.

Yes, Belgium has a gullscreeching championship.

Yes, a British kid named Cooper won the Juvenile category last month. (A Portuguese scientist won the Adult category, btw)

Yes, lesbian seagulls pissed off a lot of conservatives back in the seventies.

Also, this is Gilles De Coster:

(Source)

[rhythmicgymnasticsnews]

More Olympic quotas were confirmed! The Universality place goes to Praewa Misato Philaphandeth from Laos.

Alexandra Kiroi-Bogatyreva won the Oceania Championships and therefore the continental spot alongside the Australian Group!

Announcement still pending for the European spot! Vera Tugolukova won in front of Liliana Lewinska, which prompted harsh comments from fans and specialists all over the world. No words whether or not an investigation is ongoing at this time!

[csykora]

hi csykora! i appreciate this may not be your field of academic interest but as the pre eminent hockey professor i was wondering if you could give any insight as to why some draft classes are just stacked and others are ??? thinking about the absurdity that is the 2015 draft class vs the 2012 class for example

This is a great question! I have 500 answers. :)

I'm not a statistician, so I can't really talk about how particular draft classes are different, but there are a lot of reasons why they are. It's sort of a stew made up of some amount of the following reasons:

the annual draft isn't a snapshot of all the hockey players born in a certain year: it's a sampler of American and Canadian players who were between 18 and 20, and international players between 18 and 21, at a certain point in a certain year. While the top prospects we talk most about do often get taken in the first draft they're eligible for, keep in mind that this is a large and often overlapping group. That means that random differences between kids born in certain years can get folded together in an odd way.

whether you're taken in your first year and if so, where, depends on how much NHL decision makers have seen and heard about you. Teams judge prospects based on the assessments of the Central Scouting Service, and by the team's own scouts. The CSS is meant to be an unbiased resource for the whole league: they're the ones who publish out the twice-yearly draft reports ranking players, and who organize the Combine. (It's worth noting that while other major sports franchises also have league scouting departments to assist their teams, hockey is unique in that it publishes the scouting reports publicly and people, like normal members of the Canadian population with families and jobs, read them. Other sports fans just do not care about ranking prospects like this.) The CSS has about 5-10 full time scouts and 15 part time scouts in North America, and hires 6 more scouts from the European Scouting Service out of Finland to watch European and continental games.

You will notice that the CSS doesn't have a Russian wing. A couple of the ESS's 6 scouts rotate cover it for them, but--and I don't know if you all know this--Russia is large as hell. CSS scouts work long hours and travel ludicrous distances just to cover some of the US and Canada--and even then they manage to make Colton Parayko-sized mistakes. I want to be clear that I respect individual scouts' work, but the CSS reports are fundamentally flawed.

So each team will also hire some number of scouts to hunt for them. Several NHL teams still don't have a Russian scout--meaning an NHL team is ahead of the game if they have one. Russian hockey players barely manage to travel across Russia to get to all of their own games. And that's Russia, one of the richest mines for talent! Most teams don't have consistent scouting in lots of places like Czech Republic, Slovakia, etc. Scouts typically go to international championships and then might follow up on a player who has already been identified as promising. Sometimes while they do that they catch a random glimpse of other players. Vítek Vaněček, for example, is now a sturdy NHLer who wasn't on anybody's radar and would never have been drafted at all if he hadn't happened to be in the same city at the same time as Jakub Vrána.

The team scouts still have to start their hunt based on previous scouting, and some peer pressure. According to Serge Savard, "When Central Scouting comes out with their first-round list, all the scouts think, 'Oh, Christ, I better get this player in my list or I’ll look bad.'" Sure, you want to find a hidden gem before somebody else does, but on the flipside nobody wants to be the person who wasted days of travel and your boss' time by going to freaking Krasnoyarsk to watch some kid play and he turns out to be just okay. There are a lot of boys in Alaska who aren't Colton Parayko. That risk vs. reward leads to a happy medium of mundanity. NHL scouting is, by their own admission, accurate about 50% of the time.

So, did you make it to World Juniors? How did your team do this year, and maybe the year before (since again, we're looking at a draft eligible window)? How did your regular season team do? (And was that because of you, or in spite?) We often talk as though the World Juniors team are the best young players, but realistically if a young player's regular season team is strong and makes it deep into the season, maybe because he's helping them, sometimes they don't want to send him off to tournaments. Youth teams don't really care if one of their players gets on a national team or gets drafted to the NHL--maybe if he does he'll bring some good reputation for their program, or maybe not. In the CHL, it's fuck him really, he'll be 21 and age out anyway. Internationally, going to the NHL might bring a ton of money back to the community, but if there's a local pro team then they can't make money off him. They aren't inclined to be helpful. So it's not that all WJC players are actually bad, but there's a back-and-forth tug of pressures on which young players get on the international stage.

(This is especially a problem for young goalies: getting to the WJC really depends on their team being good enough that they look good, bad enough that they can leave in the middle of the season, or somehow both. In 2007, one of Canada's World Junior goalies put up a pretty miserable .833 save percentage. That was only to be expected--the reason he was available for the tournament was because he'd only won 42 out of the last 115 games for his regular season team, so they weren't exactly busy. As a result, he was drafted in the fourth round. His tandem partner for that tournament managed a more respectable .918, which had been about his average for the last few regular seasons, and was taken by the Avalanche in the second round, inside the top 50 prospects. One of these two players now has a Vezina, a Jennings, a Stanley Cup, and is named Braden Holtby. The other is Trevor Cann, who probably nobody outside Ontario remembers but me, and for sure nobody in Colorado remembers because he's never been there.)

Now, that's not scouting or teams' faults. It's also that 18 to 21 is a mind-bogglingly stupid age to predict young men's physical abilities. It seems like the idea that the human brain isn't "finished developing" until your early twenties has become a relatively common tidbit of science that people talk about on the internet--what I wish people would remember is that's as or more true of young men's freaking skeletons. Those boys are half-baked! There's a relatively wide range in when people reach their full heights, but your skeleton cannot fully mature until you do. In testosterone-driven development, your long bones grow from the soft growth plates at each end, until a hormonal shift stops them, causing the ends of the long bones to harden and thicken. (This process is why people with high T tend to have broader hands and bigger knuckles, in comparison to a similar person with lower T. Note that I phrase it this way because we all have testosterone.) Until that happens, bones are vulnerable to cracking at the growth plates, and muscles which generally attach at the ends of your long bones can become too strong for the bone under them. You really just do not know for sure how strong a boy is going to be until this process finishes, which could be in his mid teens but generally is in his early twenties. And as long as he's growing and his weight distribution is changing, he's going to have to keep adjusting how he moves. Some boys just go through a real gangly awkward stage, and that doesn't mean much of anything. (Speaking of things that don't mean much: the Combine. A lot of the tests aren't relevant, the ones that are, like the Wingate, aren't useful unless you have technical knowledge to interpret them, and it's a bad time to be testing boys anyway). As a pretty predictable result, the NHL tends to favor not just tall men, but men who got tall young, which is actually a pretty specific subset. Parayko grew six inches after he was 18.

Teams and their scouts follow trends, just like the rest of us. They want their own Carey Price, so they look for boys built like Price, who move like Price, even if maybe there's a different shape and style of goalie who would work just as well. They want tall boys. They want players with a certain body fat percentage, which means less than nothing. They want players with muscle in certain areas, so much that young players today do certain exercises just to look the right way. Maybe one year there's a really great smaller player, or a really great defenseman, and everyone gets excited about that guy but also knows they can't all have him, so they look closer than they usually would at other players in that 'type' to try to find a good alternative, and they drive up interest in that type of player.

And players make trends themselves. I think the biggest single explanation for 2015 is that, most of the time, playing either with or against a good player makes you a better player too. From a skill-development perspective, it's not actually the competition that matters, it's not about Eichel trying to beat McDavid, it's just about proximity. We learn from watching each other, being near each other. If you have a guy on your line who has already mastered a skill that you haven't yet, you'll learn it from him faster than you probably would have on your own. If you play against him, you'll learn it too. And when you're a younger kid playing near someone slightly older, who's more physically developed and therefore has had a chance to master more skills, you'll also tend to learn those skills. So again, we're talking about this range from 18 to 21, which I think can give you almost a hangover effect that stretches from year to year: you have a player like Mitch Marner who happens to be old enough to land in 2015, and then you have a younger teammate who had the opportunity to learn with him like Matthew Tkachuk who lands in 2016. (Not the greatest example because I'm sure Tkachuk would have been Tkachuk regardless, but my point is there is a clustering effect, most famously in Warroad, but also in Toronto and other places. Tom Wilson grew up learning to play from his future teammate Devante Smith-Pelly, and so on.)

Also, last but never least, the injuries. They completely change how we feel about a class retroactively. We really can't assume that just because some kid who was drafted high never panned out, he was never that great: very often there just wasn't a place available for him, and then he got injured in some quietly catastrophic way.

[twotimeracewinnerlandonorris]

i know i do this quite a lot already but before i disappear into nothingness i wanna talk a bit about someone called lando norris.

born 13th november 1999, in bristol. his father is english, and his mother is belgian. he holds dual british and belgian citizenship. he barely speaks either language. he has three siblings, two younger sisters and one older brother.

in 2010 he placed 3rd in super 1 national championship, and then 2nd in 2011. in that same year he won formula kart stars and placed 3rd in copa de campeones. in 2013 he won the wsk euro series, the cik-fia european championship and cik-fia international super cup while placing 2nd in the wsk super master series.

in 2014 when he was 14, he placed 3rd in the ginetta junior championship with 4 wins, 11 podiums, 8 poles, 2 fastest laps and 432 points in 20 races.

a year later, he partook in the msa formula championship with carlin where he placed 1st, beating ricky collard and then teammate colton herta. that same year he also raced in the inaugural season of adac formula 4. he entered in 8/24 races, won 1 race and got 5 other podiums and ended in 8th place out of 51 drivers.

2015 also saw him race in the italian formula 4 championship where he placed 11th after racing in 9/21 races, and the brdc formula 4 autumn trophy where he placed 5th after racing in 4/8 races.

2016 was a busy year for 16-year-old lando. as a rookie he won both the eurocup formula renault 2.0 and formula renault 2.0 nec with josef kaufmann racing, and also the toyota racing series - also as a rookie.

he drove 11/24 races in the brdc british formula 3 championship, winning four races and getting on the podium for four others, resulting in an overall p8. he drove as a guest (ineligible for points) for carlin in the fia formula 3 european championship and placed 11th in the macau grand prix after having started the race p27.

in 2017 lando entered the fia formula 3 european championship with carlin. he won the drivers' championship with 441 pts. during 30 races he won 9 times, got on the podium 11 other times, got 8 poles and 8 fastest laps. he became the first non-prema driver to win the championship.

he also won the fia formula 3 european rookie championship with 628 pts, beating drivers like jehan daruvala and mick schumacher.

in the macau grand prix that year, he placed 2nd. he made his debut in round 11 of the fia formula 2 championship with campos racing, replacing ralph boschung, retiring in the feature race and placing 13th in the sprint race.

also in 2017, lando was signed as a junior driver with mclaren. he tested for mclaren in a scheduled mid-season test and set the second-fastest lap in the second day of testing at the hungaroring. later that year he officially became the mclaren test and reserve driver for the 2018 season.

in 2018 he entered the formula 2 championship with carlin. as a rookie, he placed 2nd with 1 win and 7 other podiums. current f1 drivers that competed alongside him are george russell, alex albon and nicky latifi.

he also drove daytona 24h with fernando alonso and phil hanson in a prototype car on continental tyres, recovering 33 seconds in 20 laps.

2019 was his rookie year in f1, the youngest british f1 driver of all time at age 19. he was partnered with carlos sainz at mclaren. that meant mclaren had a brand new driver line-up, with carlos having signed a two-year deal after a two-year stint at renault. lando finished 11th in the drivers' championship with 49 points, while carlos scored 96 points. lando did outqualify carlos at 11/21 races. during this season lando signed a new contract keeping him at mclaren until 2022.

due to covid the 2020 season started in july, and it started with a bang with lando qualifying p4 (elevated to p3 because of a hamilton penalty, the highest grid position of lando's career at the time and the highest for mclaren since the 2016 austrian gp). lando finished the race p3, getting his first f1 podium and his first fastest lap (he got his second at the turkish gp). scenario 7 lando was born. this also made lando the third youngest podium-finisher in f1 history (a record formerly held by jenson button). he finished p9 in the end, with 97 points, almost doubling his 2019 points. carlos finished 6th with 105 points but once again, lando out qualified him 9/17.

2021 was lando's best year in f1 to date. he got a new teammate, daniel ricciardo, who, like carlos, came from a two-year stint at renault. lando amassed four more podiums this year, three p3's and one p2. he started on the first row for the first time when he got p2 in quali in austria, but went on to do better as he got his first pole in sochi, and a first real shot at a win while also recording the fastest lap at the same race. he finished the season in p6 with 160 points, 45 more points than his teammate. he also out-qualified dan 14/22. this year he also set a record for consecutive points finishes for a mclaren driver, with a streak of 15 races in the top-10. the record was previously held by two-time world champion fernando alonso. lando signed a new contract locking him down at mclaren until the end of the 2025 season.

the 2022 season isn't over, but while the car hasn't really been up to speed, lando has done everything and more to keep mclaren in the p4 fight. he has one podium, a p3, the only driver outside of rbr, ferrari and merc, and he has 109 points, 79% of mclaren's 138 points. he's currently p7 in the standings, behind the rbr, ferrari, and mercedes drivers.

he also did all three days of preseason testing in bahrain after daniel fell ill, raced in monaco with tonsillitis securing the fastest lap and has only once, in 79 races, been eliminated in q1 (never this year). he has made it to q2 since silverstone 2019, one of the longest streaks of any current driver on the grid.

in 2016 he won british club driver of the year and the mclaren autosport brdc award at the autosport awards.

in 2018 he won national driver of the year at the autosport awards.

in 2019, 2020 and 2021 he won british competition driver of the year at the autosport awards.

in 2021 he was nominated for fia personality of the year at the fia prize giving awards, alongside drivers such as max verstappen, lewis hamilton and sebastian vettel.

tldr; lando isn't just someone who stumbled into f1 back in 2019 with nothing to show for it, with no accolades or experience on his back. does he have a disproportionate amount of privilege coming from a wealthy family? of course, he does, but so do most of the grid in one way or another. whether it's monetary, being connected to the former president of the fia or getting personally invested in by a team principal of an f1 team when you're still in karts.

there are a lot of talented drivers that never get into f1 because of reasons; there are some drivers who lack the talent to drive an f1 car yet still get into the series. lando doesn't fit into either category. he's there because of a lot of things, but the main ones are talent, speed, dedication, teamwork, focus, preparation and the willingness to learn and partake in building a car for the future, whether it's giving feedback through sim work or working with the mechanics to figure out how the car works.

tldr2; lando deserves to be in the sport, on the grid, to be lauded and loved and applauded.

[hardtchill]

I don't really understand the Olympics qualification....does Spain make it automatically for winning the WC? And what are the chances of the US making it, like 100% or is there a chance they wouldn't?

Olympic qualifying is determined by mini tournaments within the different continental confederations. 11 countries can qualify, the host nation (France) is qualified automatically to make 12 teams in total.

The US already qualified last year by winning the Concacaf championship.

Spain will have to do really well in the nations league (sept 23 - feb 24). They will have to make the final of the nations league finals to qualify unless France makes the final in which case a 3rd place in the nations league finals would also be enough. Only the winners of their group (during the group stage) go through to the nations league finals.

Spain is in a group with Sweden, Italy and Switserland so it will be a tough one but certainly not impossible. If they win the group stage they will have to beat at least one really tough European country to make the final or win the 3rd place match (if France makes the final).

[chibrary]

today in chontent: may 7th

source: peter allen, formulascout.com format: article (profile) season: 2015, european f3 summary: formulascout profiles a 17-year-old charles.

Excerpt:

"Leclerc marked himself out as a real prospect in karting – so much so he topped our 2012 ‘karters to watch‘ feature, ahead of Verstappen. But it’s never a foregone conclusion that a successful karter will make a successful car racer. His debut season in FR2.0 was in some ways fairly low key with ‘only’ two wins, but the jump up from karting to continental FR2.0 is very rarely made to look easy by anybody. Leclerc ultimately finished as high up in the Alps standings as he could have been realistically expected to do so, given the presence of an on-form de Vries. It was actually up against tougher competition in the Eurocup that he really shone, with three consecutive P2s taking quite some doing in a series where nobody was particularly consistent.

Those performances suggested he would be capable of stepping up to F3, particularly as his old rival Verstappen had made it look easy and didn’t have the benefit of a year of car racing experience. And so he has proven to be. It’s still early days, but Leclerc has so far been the class of a large crop of rookies and taken the fight to proven F3 winners with multiple years of experience already under their belt.

His early performances are on a par with what last year’s star rookies Esteban Ocon and Verstappen were doing – in fact, his record of two wins and five podiums from the first six races replicates the 2014 champion’s start. If he keeps it up, he will deserve to be held in the same high esteem as them a few months down the line. [...] While he’s got plenty in common with his old karting rival and Van Amersfoort F3 predecessor Verstappen, a lesser reputation and sensible management mean he’s unlikely to be making the jump straight up to F1 next year. He will therefore need to sustain this impressive form into an intermediate category like GP2 in order to make the grade."

Monaco plays host to probably the most famous of any Formula 1 race each year but, perhaps unsurprisingly for a microstate of less than 40,000 people, it doesn’t have a history of producing its own successful Formula 1 drivers. Louis Chiron won his home race in 1931 but since his last participation in 1958 (the oldest ever F1 driver at 58), only Olivier Beretta in 1994 has represented Monaco in an F1 race. Clivio Piccione and Stefano Coletti have won in GP2 since then, but didn’t make it to the top level.

Charles Leclerc is only 17 but he is probably Monaco’s best chance yet of repeating Chiron’s home streets victory. A long-time protege of F1 driver manager Nicolas Todt, Leclerc was a star in karting and has had no trouble adapting to single-seaters, impressing in Formula Renault 2.0 last year and now taking up the mantle of being the star rookie in European F3. A winner on his debut at Silverstone, he added a second victory at Hockenheim last weekend and is just five points off the standings lead.

A quick history (so far)

Leclerc’s father Herve was a Formula 3 driver in the 1980s, and Charles began karting at the circuit owned by Philippe Bianchi, the father of Jules. Working his way up the ranks, Leclerc was French was French cadet champion in 2009 and the runner-up in KF3 and the Monaco Junior Kart Cup winner in 2010.

The following year, he claimed a CIK-FIA double, winning the Academy Trophy and the KF3 World Cup. Moving up to KF2 for 2012, Leclerc triumphed in the WSK Euro Series and took second in the European and U18 championships.

Together with Max Verstappen, Leclerc took part in the KZ gearbox classes for his final year in karting in 2013, winning the Winter Cup and finishing second to his Dutch rival in the world championship.

Leclerc entered Formula Renault 2.0 for his rookie single-season season, embarking on the Alps series for Fortec Motorsports. He quickly became a frontrunner, making the podium at round two at Pau and then twice again at Spa. At Monza he won both races, and followed that with more podiums to secure second place in the championship behind third-year FR2.0 racer Nyck de Vries.

Some of Leclerc’s most impressive performances last year came in Eurocup Formula Renault 2.0 as a guest entry. He took part in six races and finished second in the last three of those, up against lots of drivers with multiple years of experience in the series.

He could have made the full-time move to the Eurocup for 2015 but instead stepped up to Formula 3, and after testing for several different teams, signed with Van Amersfoort Racing. He would essentially replace Verstappen as team leader, working with the same engineer Rik Vernooij.

Leclerc was rapid in testing and demonstrated his pace on his debut weekend at Silverstone, scoring a double position and winning the final race of the weekend. At round two at Hockenheim he extended his podium streak to five consecutive races, and defeated F3 veteran Felix Rosenqvist in a battle for victory in the wet in race three.

Up next

Leclerc is just five points behind championship leader Antonio Giovinazzi, and so far he’s only raced on circuits he hadn’t competed at before. Next up on the calendar are Pau, Monza and Spa, and he tasted success at all of those last season. Therefore, it stands to reason that there’s yet more to come from Leclerc.

It’s a long season (there are 33 races) and plenty could happen between now and the F3 paddock returning to Hockenheim on the weekend of Leclerc’s 18 birthday in October. But based upon the first two rounds, there’s no reason to think of Leclerc as anything other than a serious title threat. Beating the more experienced Rosenqvist and Giovinazzi – driving for bigger teams in Prema and Carlin respectively – will take some doing, but he’s already given them a hard time. Anyway, his season’s hardly going to be a failure if he loses out and finishes up third as a rookie.

Talent and potential

Leclerc marked himself out as a real prospect in karting – so much so he topped our 2012 ‘karters to watch‘ feature, ahead of Verstappen. But it’s never a foregone conclusion that a successful karter will make a successful car racer. His debut season in FR2.0 was in some ways fairly low key with ‘only’ two wins, but the jump up from karting to continental FR2.0 is very rarely made to look easy by anybody. Leclerc ultimately finished as high up in the Alps standings as he could have been realistically expected to do so, given the presence of an on-form de Vries. It was actually up against tougher competition in the Eurocup that he really shone, with three consecutive P2s taking quite some doing in a series where nobody was particularly consistent.

Those performances suggested he would be capable of stepping up to F3, particularly as his old rival Verstappen had made it look easy and didn’t have the benefit of a year of car racing experience. And so he has proven to be. It’s still early days, but Leclerc has so far been the class of a large crop of rookies and taken the fight to proven F3 winners with multiple years of experience already under their belt.

His early performances are on a par with what last year’s star rookies Esteban Ocon and Verstappen were doing – in fact, his record of two wins and five podiums from the first six races replicates the 2014 champion’s start. If he keeps it up, he will deserve to be held in the same high esteem as them a few months down the line.

Off-track

No doubt assisted by the Bianchis’ tutelage, Leclerc signed with Todt Jr’s All Road Management firm in 2011. At present, Leclerc has no ties to F1 teams, but through his work with Felipe Massa, Pastor Maldonado and Bianchi, Todt has dealt with most of them and will be very well-placed to get his protege a role when the time comes.

A potential stumbling point is that most F1 teams are already overflowing with some serious sub-F1 prospects, but if he continues to impress as he’s doing at the moment, they could begin falling over each other to find a space for him.

Funding-wise, Leclerc benefits from partners usually tied to Todt’s projects, and watch maker Richard Mille (currently a sponsor of the Lotus F1 team) is his loyal main backer. And you’d imagine that being billed as a future F1 star from Monaco could well tempt some further future investment.

Verdict

In just his second season in single-seaters, Leclerc is quickly marking himself out as a star of the future with fine performances and two wins in his first couple of weekends in European F3, making him seriously stand out from a large and competitive grid.

While he’s got plenty in common with his old karting rival and Van Amersfoort F3 predecessor Verstappen, a lesser reputation and sensible management mean he’s unlikely to be making the jump straight up to F1 next year. He will therefore need to sustain this impressive form into an intermediate category like GP2 in order to make the grade.

But the signs are definitely there that Leclerc is one of the very top talents in the junior ranks right now, and that he’s capable of tasting success in F1 in the future.

His lifelong friend Bianchi was so sadly stopped in his tracks last year just when his F1 future was looking promising. In a few years’ time, Leclerc could just pick up where his mentor left off.

Allen, Peter. “Driver Profile: Charles Leclerc.” Formula Scout, May 7, 2015. https://www.paddockscout.com/driver-profile-charles-leclerc/27403.

[freifraufischer]

Aleah Finnegan's 2 bronze medals from the 2023 Asian Championships enter her in a very rare club of gymnasts with medals from two different continental championships (including her team gold from the the 2019 Pan American Games). The only other WAG I know of to have done so is Oksana Chusovitina's medals from the European Championships and the Asian Games/Championships.

[darthmelyanna]

This effectively cuts off Russia’s last chance to qualify to Worlds this year. There had been quite a lot of noise about them being allowed to compete in the Asian continental championship, but that takes place in mid-June. The hangup was reportedly an inability to agree on a definition of neutral.

Russia’s remaining qualifying opportunities for the Olympics will be earning the all-around quota from a continental championship and the Apparatus World Cup series next year (which will be the top 2 per apparatus). They will only be able to qualify a total of 3 individuals, and in the case of apparatus qualification, only 1 per apparatus per country.

Unless of course the FIG decides to bend some rules, but from the sound of the reporting in the article, the Europeans have stood firm.

[itracing]

Ferrari Hypercar Crews Announced for the FIA WEC

Ferrari officially announces its crews for taking on the 2023 season in the Hypercar class of the FIA World Endurance Championship in the 499P that was officially presented at the Finali Mondiali in Imola. The drivers chosen to bring the Prancing Horse back to the top class of the world championship represent a unique mix of talent, speed and stamina, essential qualities in endurance racing.

499P number 50. Antonio Fuoco, Miguel Molina and Nicklas Nielsen are the three drivers set to take turns in the car that proudly bears the number 50, chosen to mark the years that have passed by since Ferrari last raced in the top class of the endurance world championship. Italian Antonio Fuoco, born in 1996, is rapidly establishing himself as one of the most talented drivers on the endurance racing scene and, together with Spaniard Miguel Molina, won the 8 Hours of Bahrain, playing a decisive role in winning the Manufacturers’ World Championship title with a great season finale. Molina, born in 1989 and European Le Mans Series champion in 2021, brings experience and determination to the crew. Danish driver Nicklas Nielsen, born in 1997, after becoming World Champion in the LMP2 Pro-Am class, completes a unique journey that has featured the Ferrari Challenge as an extraordinary accelerating element and has seen him win at least one continental or world championship title without interruption since 2018, always at the wheel of Prancing Horse cars.

499P number 51. Alessandro Pier Guidi, James Calado and Antonio Giovinazzi make up the crew that will share the work of racing the car bearing the number 51, one of the most successful in Ferrari history. After becoming World Champions for the second time in a row (the third in their careers) in the LMGTE Pro class, Italy’s Alessandro Pier Guidi, born in 1983, and Britain’s James Calado, born in 1989, will take on the challenge of earning the winners’ laurel in the top class together. This partnership, now in its sixth season in the world championship, can boast a unique list of triumphs: no one before them has been crowned champion twice in a row in the LMGTE Pro class and no crew has won three laurels (2017, 2021, 2022). The numbers of the British-Italian pairing over seven seasons in the WEC represent an unmistakable calling card: 11 wins and 23 podiums from 39 starts. The pair of world champions can count on the speed of Italian Antonio Giovinazzi, born in 1993, who is competing full-time in the endurance world championship for the first time after his experience at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2018, where he made his presence felt. With Scuderia Ferrari since 2017, Giovinazzi will continue as a reserve driver in 2023.

[ifreakingloveroyals]

Through the Years → Queen Letizia of Spain (2,192/∞)

7 October 2022 | Queen Letizia during the audience with the men's and women's national water polo teams in Madrid, Spain. Don Felipe and Doña Letizia have received in audience the Spanish Men's Waterpolo National Team that won the highest world title in the World Championship held in Budapest on July 3, 2022. They have also received the Spanish Women's Water Polo Team that won on September 9, 2022 the highest Continental scepter, revalidating the title of European Champions achieved in Budapest in 2020. (Photo By Jose Oliva/Europa Press via Getty Images)