chunky

He was looking okay tonight, and then he tailed off.

Anyway, the only one in any danger of choking here is Shov - bitterness can be hard to swallow sometimes!

And of course, nobody else in the GP's rides in Poland...

With the amount of Germans listed, I wonder if the other semi-final was held in Germany? The other thing I found strange was that Kjell Carlsson seemingly went through the Continental rounds, rather than the Nordic rounds like the other Swedes.

Don't you mean "fraud"? Anyway, where are Pedants from; Pedantarctica?

And Australasia isn't a country, anyway...

Yeah, I was thinking the exact same thing! Vladimir also represented the USSR, didn't he?

Apparently...

Actually, I think you will find that the opposite is true. New fans will have no pre-conceived notion or prejudice as to what the qualifying system should be, what it used to be, or what people want it to be. All you have to do is say that it is a 16-man round-robin, with race points deciding finishing positions within the round-robin. The Top 8 finishers advance to the semi-finals. At the end, a set number of points are awarded to everyone according to final position.

Darts. Our US National Championship qualifiers are all played over a round-robin format, with each match being three legs (all legs counting). The individual legs totals decide who advance. Even some of those who didn't advance are eligible for ranking points, depending on finishing position. Ranking points reflect finishing position rather than legs one. Everybody seems to understand that... Again, as others have stated, individual heats can be regarded as preliminary events. Like the situation with darts above, GP race points are used to establish position, and not to reflect GP (ranking) points.

Largely because of an inept Ferrari team...

Nah, there are plenty of others - particularly on the BSF! No, it's not what it used to be, but neither is speedway, or any other sport. There are different reasons why people watch/follow speedway (the racing, following a team, watching top riders, the bikes etc), and F1 is the same. What intrigues me is tyre wear, how different teams and drivers get their tyres to react differently, and who can handle them better. This season, it would be a lot better if Ferrari were competitive, but it's fun waiting to see if Vettel does anything stupid!

Exactly...

Yesterday wasn't the greatest race, but I still love to watch F1.

Again, that was not directed at YOU. It's that this forum gets flooded with people slamming other sports, and just because you - and others - don't like or appreciate something doesn't mean that it IS boring, stupid, or whatever.

I agree with you 100%, and my comment was completely rhetorical! I just get tired of speedway fans slamming other sports - and far more popular and successful sports - simply because they don't like it...

I never said you did. Just that a lot of people reading this thread are doing that very thing...

That's the problem. It's easy for speedway fans to dismiss other sports, but there has to be a reason why nearly everything is more popular than speedway...

Yes, it's terrible that riders qualifying for a final (using a system that is the same for EVERYONE, and which EVERYONE knew in advance) get more points than the others... Tsk, tsk...

That does sound like darts here in the US, then. What I find sad is that dart players keep bleating about how it should be more popular, and should be on TV, but aren't interested in helping the cause. I hadn't really thought about that in other sports until you mentioned it. Only in speedway will fans "refuse" to watch the sport they supposedly love!

Do table tennis players watch table tennis on tv or live streams? The reason I ask is that I have been thinking about darts in the US, and also speedway. One thing about American dart players is that unlike the British, the vast majority of American players (both league players and national circuit players) aren't interested in watching darts. We can see from posts here on the BSF that there are many who claim to be "speedway fans", yet refuse to watch speedway on tv (notably GP's). I wonder if other sports have the same issue?

We used t' dream o' livin' in lake!

That's they way you have to be in professional sport. Of course, you enjoy your successes, but getting carried away with it can be very counter-productive. It's far better to stay at the same level mentally - regardless of your ups and downs - rather than put yourself on an emotional roller-coaster. Good or bad, what's done is done. You can't change what's happened, you can only change what is going to happen.

Glebe Park is a place I would love to visit before I die!

It is what it is...