Swimrun

While short of a full triathlon, I managed to first swim 1,500 meters and then run five faster kilometres on the treadmill today at Navet. Having finished my 300 km annual rowing challenge yesterday, I now have about 2,200 meters left to swim before I can tick off all of my Strava goals for 2022.

In the world of real sports, all eyes are currently on Qatar with the FIFA world cup underway. Unsurprisingly, new calls for boycotts and “dictatorship offsets” abound. Though I can understand where these arguments are coming from on an emotional level, I really cannot understand the underlying logic. As should be evident from North Korea that has been under the most stringent sanctions imaginable for decades, authoritarian governments thrive when isolated as they are able to blame the outside world for all their society’s ills. In contrast, through everyday human-to-human interaction, the world becomes less black and white, and over time, the demand for freedom will grow. Rather than isolation and moral self-righteousness, I promise to make 2023 a year when I continue to travel to non-democracies (like Qatar in the picture above from 2013).