Archive for the ‘Distractions’ Category

Good songs this year. I liked Denmark but I was apparently the only person in Europe that did.

There were two points of controversty rearding Isreal’s performance. First was the claim that there was fake cheering added. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) have confirmed that this was true.

Second, multiple countries have now asked for audits into the voting. I think it is plausible that Israel did win the public vote. It’s very easy for the Pro-Israel camp to make a political statement by voting but almost impossible for the Pro-Palestine camp to do the same because there are 24 other options to vote for. It’s the same problem we have in the UK general elections: first past the post does not create a result that accurately represents the views of the electorate.

Well done JJ for winning the thing.

I watched loads of ultra-endurance documentaries over lockdown and beyond and compiled a big list of them. This has been sat in my drafts for years so I am just going to hit publish. If you are looking for some running and cycling documentaries, here are the ones I’ve watched.

Iron Cowboy

One of my favourite documentaries. James Lawrence tries to complete the 50-50-50: 50 Ironmans, in 50 days, in all 50 US states. If you are ever going to do an Ironman, watch this first as you cannot help but coming out of it thinking “if James Lawrence can do that, I can do one Ironman”.

Brittany Runs a Marathon

This is a comedy drama and it’s a lot of fun.

3100: Run And Become

This documentary follows runners on around the 3100, a 5,000 kilometre race that takes place in New York named the Self-Transcendence 3100 Mile Race. They use a 883-metre loop that runners loop for 18 hours a day for nearly two months.

Safety to Nome

The Iditarod Trail Invitational is a 1,000-mile race that follows the Iditarod dog sledge course on either foot or fat bike.

The Race That Eats Its Young

Possibly the best Barkley Marathons documentary out there, following the 2012 race where Brett Maune set the course record and the only year ever to have three finishers.

Where Dreams Go To Die

Follows Gary Robbins in his attempt to complete the Barkley Marathons.

Last Woman Standing

Yorkshire’s own Nicky Spinks attempts to be the first woman to complete the Barkley Marathons.

Kim Swims

Kimberley Chambers attempts to become the third person ever, and the first woman, to swim from Farallon Islands to the Golden Gate Bridge.

Running The Wainrights

This is a feel-good running story as Paul Tierney attempts to set a new FKT for running the 214 summits of the Lake District as described by Alfred Wainwright. It’s a little over 510 km of fell running in less than seven days.

Icarus

Bryan Fogel attempts to make a documentary about doping in cycling and finds himself in the middle of Grigory Rodchenkov, head of the Russian anti-doping lab and mastermind behind the Russian state-sponsored doping of Olympic athletes, exposing the Russian scheme.

Stop At Nothing

This documentary looks at Lance Armstrong and how the widespread doping in the US Postal Service cycling team came out.

The Least Expected Day

It follows the Movistar team through their 2019 cycling season, where Richard Carapaz took a surprise win at the Giro d’Italia. It is in Spanish with English subtitles.

Once Is Enough

Jeffrey James Binney presents his experience going from non-runner to 100-mile ultra runner in a film that is half documentary and half live comedy show talking about what happened.

From Fat to Finish Line

A group of overweight individuals who found running come together to complete a Ragnar relay race.

Running for Good

Follows Fiona Oakes as she attempts to complete the Marathon des Sables to raise money for her animal sanctuary.

Inspired to Ride

Follows the Trans America bike race, an unsupported race across America (not to be confused with RAM).

London Edinburgh London

Follows the London-Edinburgh-London audax, and features A-Soc’s Chris Tedd!

Dragon’s Back Race

Follows the second-ever running of the Dragon’s Back race. Originally run in 1992.

Running for Freedom

Follows Gerald Tabios, a Filipino runner, as he attempts to complete his 5th Badwater 135 ultra.

Skid Row Marathon

Follows a running club started by a judge.

Being Unstoppable

Follows several first-time Ironman athletes.

Finding Traction

Nikki Kimball attempts to complete the Long Trail.

Tugende

Documents the 1,000 km unsupported race around Rwanda. Lots of beautiful scenery but difficult to follow at times as everything is explained by brief title cards.

The Longest Journey

RAM, also Race Across America and 3089 Miles Across America. I don’t even know what I wrote here. Are these separate documentary names?

Ultimate Triathlon

Follows Luke Tyburski as he attempts to complete a 2,000-kilometre triathlon from Morocco to Monaco. it has an irritating voiceover that you find on Channel 5 documentaries.

The Bill Chill

This documentary follows Gary Robbins’s attempt to be the first to link up multiple trials around his home in Chilliwack.

Wild Man to Ironman

This documentary follows Mat Pritchard doing a ultra-distance triathlon around the entire border of Wales.

What a games! I have such good memories of watching London 2012 and Rio 2016 was a superb performance from Team GB. In comparison, Tokyo 2020 was a little deflating because everything was on in the middle of the night and you would just wake up to see what happened. So, when Paris rolled around and back in our kind of timezone, I cleared my schedule to watch.

In fairness to the organisers, they were brave in trying to do something different with the opening ceremony. But it wasn’t my favourite part. The athletes parade is long enough when they are walking, let alone when you put them on a barge. And stuff needed faster cuts. That horse was running down The Seine for like five minutes. Just get Danny Boyle to direct it next time.

The water quality in The Seine was also an issue. But people in glasses houses and all that. The UK struggles with water pollution and there were similar problems in Rio.

Everything else was brilliant. The venues were beautiful. It was right in the heart of historic Paris. The Eiffel Tower was ever-present and made for some amazing finish lines. And world records were broken in a slow pool. I tried to take in as much as possible. At one point with the gymnastics on the TV, golf on my laptop and road cycling on my phone. I was pretty Olympic-fatigued by day 14.

Overall, we can be really proud of Team GB. Seventh in the medal table is a low finish for us. Japan is arguably on a post-hosting bounce, and similarly France were the hosts. But we would want to beat Netherlands and Australia. Some things just didn’t go our way with Josh Kerr, Matt Hudson-Smith, Beth Shriever, Beth Potter, Kimberley Woods and others narrowly missing out on gold. And it would have been great to see Kate French try to defend her title. But there were plenty of success stories, too: Alex Yee and Tom Pidpock both made amazing comebacks. Bryony Page smashed it, Keely Hodgkinson was a dominant as everyone expected and Nathan Hales set a massive new Olympic record in trap. Also, Toby Roberts is Spiderman.

So, despite being seventh, if you rank it in terms of total medals, we’re third behind the US and China. We have one first place, back in 1908 but by Atlanta in 1996 we were down to 36th place with just one gold and 15 total medals. Compare that to 14 golds and 65 medals in Paris. The BBC has a good breakdown. Many of our Olympic athletes are trying to fit training in around working full-time. When we fund British athletes, we unlock their potential and we win medals.

It’s a shame that Discovery+ own the rights. The BBC’s coverage of London 2012 was much better, whereas Discovery+ has consistently bad service and technical problems.

Two weeks until the Paralympics. We’re consistently the second strongest nation in the Paralympics, after China, so let’s hope we can keep that streak going.

Cav! The Merckx record has been topppled with Cavendish winning his 35th stage of the tour.

Otherwise, some had described it as a dull tour. It’s true that Pog mostly dominated. But Evenepoel and Vingegaard both took stages. I wasn’t sure about Pogačar at first but I’ve come around to him over the years. Shame he isn’t going to ride La Vuelta.

Fantasy league went well:

I had Pogačar-Vingegaard one-two as well as Almeida and Ciconne. Cav was my sprinter and while there were lots more points to be had with others, I’m happy with my choice.

Back to back finals. Not to mention we already hold the trophy on the women’s side. What a time to be an England fan. Shame that Southgate has gone. I managed to get a £100 disappointment offsetting bet on Spain half way through the match so even though football didn’t come home, I did come out in profit.

Tadej Poga?ar Others also cycled.

I almost managed to catch Bogdan in the fantasy league. I had Pogačar and Martínez but alas, wasted all of my sprinter points on Jakobsen.

Didn’t want to be in the Premiership anyway.

Well-earned victory by Switzerland. It was a good song. Croatia I was a bit more surprised at. Also that France scored so many jury points even that Graham Norton said his voice broke for the jury final. How can these scores be accurate when the technical quality was notably low?

Disappointing night for the UK. After 2022, we known people will vote for us. We just need a good song and it just wasn’t a banger. The staging was very innovative. But it was also in a toilet an I don’t want to look at a toilet for three minutes.

It was odd that Israel were allowed to compete with Russia have been excluded from the competition when both countries are accused of committing war crimes. People have expressed surprise about Israel getting so much of the public vote but I think it is the nature of voting. Israel’s actions are highly polarising. 66% of people think they should stop committting genocide, according to YouGov, but 13% think they should continue. That’s ten million people in the UK. That’s a lot of votes. And you can’t unvote Israel, not really tactically vote against them given countries give points to ten or so countries and there were 23 options to choose from.

Ironically, Eden Golan lives in Russia. Also ironic that Graham Norton commented on our Loreen is such a good performer and then she sat on a chair the whole time.

Good to see Finland in the final, and Ireland not only in the final but coming 6th. I’ll finish by allowing Nemo to sing us out.

Sean Conway is an ultra-endurance athlete. But he is also a pretty normal guy. Until 30 he was a photographer before deciding his life as boring and quitting to do cool stuff. He cycled around the world, completed a triathlon along the entire British coastline and last year set the world record when he completed 105 full distance triathlons in 105 days.

The talk was him telling his life story which was highly entertaining. Plus I got a signed book.

If you like following this kind of thing, Sean said Jonas Deichmann is going for 120 triathlons this year. Sean and Jonas have been friends since Sean took the self-supported cycling across Europe record off Jonas: some friendly competition going on at the moment!

It’s less than 100 days until Paris! TCD put on a small exhibition last week and had some cool stuff: Olympic torches, kit, medals and display boards on famous athletes.