Light The Cauldron

Well I made a determination that I would start posting every week starting in 2021, so it's kind of a fluke that I'm posting just a week after my triumphant return. But we had not one, but two  athletics competitions in Europe this week, so I feel compelled to share my joy of watching both those meets.  The first meet was the Paavo Nurmi Games, held in Finland on Tuesday. For all intents and purposes, the meet looked like a regular meet. Masks were not required by fans (and there were fans in the small stadium) and all the competitions went ahead as planned. There were throwing, jumping, and running events. The setup of the field looked like usual, too.  Finland has very few cases of COVID-19 at the moment, so their risk levels are quite low compared to the rest of mainland Europe.  (You might wonder why I'm mentioning these things. Stay tuned for the Diamond League information, and you'll know why.) Since the meet was a World Athletics (the name of the official governi

 As C-3PO so eloquently stated in Return of the Jedi... As of the time of this posting, we are on the date where the Closing Ceremonies for Tokyo 2020 should have happened. I'm supposed to be finishing up a tour of Japan this week.  Instead, I'm here at home, trying to avoid people as best as I can, and wearing masks and socially distancing myself when I can't.  Oddly enough, the past two weeks have been pretty okay! I haven't suddenly gone into a depression spiral because this was supposed to be the time when I was going to be in attendance of the greatest sporting events in history (or at least the past two years). I think what really helped was that everyone  was dealing with this - not just me. I wasn't the only one left out. There was no FOMO because I wasn't missing out on anything!  Reading articles of athletes who have adjusted their training and watching videos of Tokyo's new plans have helped out a lot. It's clear that the world is in this toge