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1. Last week I posted Ben Mondy’s interview with SIMA President Vipe Desai, in which Desai went on the record criticising The Big Sea - despite admitting he hadn’t actually seen the film.
Now Big Sea writer and producer Chris Nelson (above right) has responded in forensic and faintly incendiary fashion. Read the response here…
2. …and click the image above to read a very interesting comment thread (including contributions from Desai himself) after I posted about both blogs on Instagram.
3. Palette cleanser - a new season of Jamie Brisick’s exemplary Soundings series is on the way. Jamie posted an intro episode to this new season - listen above.
4. Ted Barrow, who ran the extremely meta and occasionally hilarious Feedback TS Instagram account, is back with a cerebral new Thrasher series exploring the iconic spots from skateboarding’s past and present. Watch the first EMB episode above.
5. This book floored me. Highly recommended. As ever, I’m posting every book I read here, and my fellow book nerds can also contribute to the latest book thread here.
6. Yep I’m posting another article by the peerless Barney Ronay. This one has lots of thought-provoking things to say about how the Saudi landgrab on football is a type of ‘reverse sporting colonialism’, and the ‘moral contradictions’ we all grapple with by living a life based upon cheap oil dished up by (you’ve guessed it) the Saudis.
7. Looks as though Red Bull have thrown loads of shekels (sorry) at this forthcoming Ryan Sheckler doc. Watch the trailer above.
8. Got some spare cash lying around? Slash Snowboards honcho Gigi Ruff is looking for investors to help him take the brand to the next level. Find out more here.
9. The UCI are the latest governing body to ban trans women athletes from participating in elite female competitions. More here.
10. This topic is also discussed in the latest Science of Sport podcast; and they’re also especially interesting on the sceptical mutterings about Jonas Vingegaard’s stage 16 Tour de France time trial win, which is already being described as the greatest time trial in cycling’s history. Listen above.
This must be over of the best sporting interviews I've seen. What an awesome guy.
https://twitter.com/LeTour/status/1682422045458550785?s=20
The UCI decision is really infuriating because Chelsea Wolfe has been competing in their freestyle events for 5 years and now she suddenly can't. She's been a part of the U.S. freestyle BMX scene for a while and there wasn't a problem until recent years (probably not helped with the exposure she got as an alternate for the Olympics but also our politics -_- ).