No Milanese is definitely super popular. But they have definitely been stocked in a slightly more bias manner. Just from this site, tons of people in the UK who ordered after the 10th have already received their watches. In addition, if you go through Instagram, you'll realize that yes the large population of watches are the sport, but there's a ton of milanese loop pics from UK.
Not sure why they got theirs so much earlier and ahead of schedule. I feel like Apple is going by supply --> continent ---> order receive time
I'm US.