phelps

power play for FIN!

almost!

yeah, 3 vs 3 OT is OK in regular season games, just to have 5 more mins of entertainment... but when it really matters, it must be the true game of hockey, AKA always 5 vs 5 (except for the penalties of course)... IIHF should take the NHL rules and stop (also the rules about fighting, which in the IIHF administrated tournaments suck badly)...

I just can't believe they did it again!

2021/2022 Fencing World Cup Men's Team Epee ( Tbilisi) Gold: Switzerland Silver: France Bronze: Hungary Semifinals Switzerland b. Hungary 45-40 France b. Italy 44-41 Bronze Medal Match Hungary b. Italy 44-38 Gold Medal Match Switzerland b. France 45-35 Full Ranking & Results https://fie.org/competitions/2022/489

2021/2022 Fencing World Cup Women's Team Epee ( Katowice) Gold: South Korea Silver: China Bronze: United States Semifinals South Korea b. USA 35-34 China b. Poland 45-29 Bronze Medal Match USA b. Poland 39-33 Gold Medal Match South Korea b. China 34-29 Full Ranking & Results https://fie.org/competitions/2022/452

Nordic solidarity...

Day #5 (final) in Gaziantep Today's Medallists Recap Women's Team Kata Gold: Italy Silver: Spain Bronze #1: Turkey Bronze #2: France Men's Team Kata Gold: Turkey Silver: Spain Bronze #1: Italy Bronze #2: Azerbaijan Men's Team Kumite Gold: France Silver: Azerbaijan Bronze #1: Greece Bronze #2: Ukraine Host Nation Turkey, as expected, dominated the medal table of this year's European Champs... France and Italy won also a lot of medals, but for their big disappointment, they were just minor medals, failing to win an acceptable number of Golds (Italy, actually, didn't win a single "relevant" Gold medal and had a shameful outing in the Kumite team events )... in general, it was a championship rich of of surpring results, with many big names flopping badly... Finally, here's the full medal table: https://www.sportdata.org/wkf/set-online/popup_main.php?popup_action=medals&vernr=573&active_menu=calendar

where did that Albanian girl come from in the women's -55kg? is this supposed to be a serious event?

the last month obviously has been dominated by the NHL playoffs and the IIHF World Champs, with NBA playoffs, MLB regular season and a few Olympic Sports filling all the remaining space... this weekend, in particular, NHL, IIHF Worlds "final Four", Slalom Canoeing and Karate Europeans being the main food, with some Fencing and Sport Climbing World Cup as the side dish...

First Gold Medal for Italy despite a very disappointing performance (15kg below her PB), Giulia Imperio won the European title in the women's -49kg class with a total of 171kg, ahead of Anhelina Lomachynska with 167kg and Maria Gimenez Guervos Perez with 163kg. Lomachynska won the snatch gold (80kg), meanwhile Imperio won also the C&J gold with 92kg.

2021/2022 Fencing World Cup Men's Individual Epee ( Tbilisi) Gold: Volodymyr Stankevych Silver: Mate Tamas Koch Bronze: Inochi Ito & Igor Reizlin Semifinals Stankevych b. Ito 15-10 Koch b. Reizlin 15-9 Final Stankevych b. Koch 15-9 Full Ranking & Results https://fie.org/competitions/2022/104

2021/2022 Fencing World Cup Women's Individual Epee ( Katowice) Gold: Choi In Jeong Silver: Alberta Santuccio Bronze: Marie-Florence Candassamy & Anna Kun Semifinals Choi b. Candassamy 15-12 Santuccio b. Kun 15-10 Final Choi b. Santuccio 15-10 Full Ranking & Results https://fie.org/competitions/2022/97

Day #4 in Gaziantep Today's Medallists Recap Women's Individual Kata Gold: Sandra Sanchez Jaime Silver: Dilara Bozan Bronze #1: Terryana D'Onofrio Bronze #2: Jasmin Juettner Men's Individual Kata Gold: Alì Sofuoglu Silver: Damian Hugo Quintero Capdevila Bronze #1: Yuki Ujihara Bronze #2: Mattia Busato Women's Individual Kumite, -50kg Gold: Serap Ozcelik Arapoglu Silver: Erminia Perfetto Bronze #1: Niswa Ahmed Bronze #2: Jelena Pehar Women's Individual Kumite, -55kg Gold: Anzhelika Terliuga Silver: Ivet Goranova Bronze #1: Madina Sadigova Bronze #2: Amy Connelly Women's Individual Kumite, -61kg Gold: Ingrida Suchankova Silver: Anna Miggou Bronze #1: Anita Serogina Bronze #2: Laura Sivert Women's Individual Kumite, -68kg Gold: Eda Eltemur Silver: Miroslava Kopunova Bronze #1: Vasiliki Panetsidou Bronze #2: Alizèe Agier Women's Individual Kumite, +68kg Gold: Ivana Perovic Silver: Aicha Zakia Boussebaa Bronze #1: Kyriaki Kydonaki Bronze #2: Nancy Garcia Men's Individual Kumite, -60kg Gold: Eray Samdan Silver: Angelo Crescenzo Bronze #1: Ronen Gehtbarg Bronze #2: Christos-Stefanos Xenos Men's Individual Kumite, -67kg Gold: Burak Uygur Silver: Dionysios Xenos Bronze #1: Joaquim Mendes Bronze #2: Steven Dacosta Men's Individual Kumite, -75kg Gold: Erman Eltemur Silver: Brandon Brian Wilkins Bronze #1: Luigi Busà Bronze #2: Elhami Shabani Men's Individual Kumite, -84kg Gold: Daniel Gyorgy Silver: Enes Garibovic Bronze #1: Petar Spasenovski Bronze #2: Walid Deghali Men's Individual Kumite, +84kg Gold: Andjelo Kvesic Silver: Luca Costa Bronze #1: Ryzvan Talibov Bronze #2: Gogita Arkania Women's Team Kumite Gold: Croatia Silver: Slovakia Bronze #1: Spain Bronze #2: France

Day #3 in Gaziantep last day of qualification rounds... and the Italian disaster is complete! both our Kumite teams (the men are the reigning world champions! ) went out in the early rounds and won't take part into any medal match... what a shame! by the way, also today we've seen a lot of surprising results, with many of the favourite teams flopping badly... top of the pop, Slovakia is qualified to the gold medal match of the women's team Kumite... @hckošice women's team Kumite Gold Medal match: Croatia vs Slovakia (around 19.05 local time, 18.05 CET) Bronze Medal match #1: Spain vs Sweden Bronze Medal match #2: France vs Austria men's team Kumite Gold Medal match: France vs Azerbaijan Bronze Medal match #1: Belgium vs Ukraine Bronze Medal match #2: Greece vs Portugal All the Individual medal matches and the women's Team Kumite medal matches are scheduled for Tomorrow, the Team Kata events and the men's Team Kumite finals are scheduled for Sunday morning... here's the full schedule: https://www.wkf.net/imagenes/campeonatos/continental-championshipsprogramme-2022-ekf-senior-championships-001.pdf Every medal match will be broadcasted for free on Youtube in all those Countries where no National TV network has bought the TV rights (as far as I know, Turkey, Italy, Spain and Croatia are the only plces where no YT stream is available).

Day #2 in Gaziantep and despite some more predictable results, we have the biggest surprise of them all, Steven Dacosta not making the gold medal match in the men's -67kg class... here are Today's events Gold Medal match (I remember that the Medal sessions for yesterday and today's events are scheduled for Saturday at 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. CET): Women's Team Kata: Spain vs Italy Men's Team Kata: Turkey vs Spain Women's Individual Kumite, -50kg: Serap Ozcelik Arapoglu vs Erminia Perfetto Women's Individual Kumite, -55kg: Anzhelika Terliuga vs Ivet Goranova Men's Individual Kumite, -60kg: Angelo Crescenzo vs Eray Samdan Men's Individual Kumite, -67kg: Burak Uygur vs Dionysios Xenos for Italy, finally, a decent day, with 3 gold medal matches earned by our guys (one useless, but still)...

he's really devilish! by the way, great game by the Slovaks so far...really entertaining match overall...

Geraghty-Moats times are way gone... nowadays it's Norway dominating from the hill and on the skis (with the Italian Sieff being the best of the rest among the good jumpers and the Slovenian Volavsek being the best of the rest among the skiing specialists...and all the Japanese team growing very quickly)... early starters have no chance anymore already... I'm pretty sure in 4 years time we're gonna have an interesting event, possibly even more than the men's... the true scandal are those mixed team events in skicross and slalom snowboarding (and the dual moguls, which is basically a double chance for the same skiers)...

I wouldn't let her family dictate anything, but at the same time in cases like this the keywords should be "compromise, reasonable concessions, eye of reguard"... surely, looking at Lara's results, she shouldn't be treated like "many others", because it's clear that she's not like "many others" (actually, we don't even have "many others", I fear)... for sure, there's no way that a serious and responsible federation is going to lose a talent like that (according to all those who have seen her skiing) because of a stupid "pride issue"/megalomaniac mom & dad...

2022 Junior World Championships start Tomorrow in El Salvador with the Opening Ceremony (races from Saturday)... https://isasurf.org/event/2022-el-salvador-isa-world-juniors-surfing-championship/

It looks that 15 years young Lara Colturi (Super-G Olympic Champion Daniela Ceccarelli's daughter), considered the most talented girl in Italy (at least) among the youth classes in SG and above all, GS, will represent Albania from next season... https://www.oasport.it/2022/05/sci-alpino-lara-colturi-sceglie-di-gareggiare-per-lalbania-litalia-perde-un-talento-straordinario/?refresh_ce I wonder how Italy can afford to lose their upcoming alpine skiing star even before she starts to compete at the highest level? Just ahead of the Home Olympics? Going to Albania??? (I mean, I could understand if she goes to Austria, Switzerland or another skiing powerhouse in search of a better and more competitive team, but c'mon, man! Albania???!!!) I knew there's something wrong in our Wintersports Federation, but that's really scary (and humiliating)...

add 1 from Italy!

2022 Karate European Championships ( Gaziantep) May, 25th through May, 29th Day #1 was maybe one of the most surprising session of Karate I saw in the last few years... Nothing new happened in Kata, as expected, but, man! no one of the Kumite events went according to plan/expectation... For Italy, it was basically a disaster, with no gold medal match reached by our guys (even the great Luigi Busà, at his first competition after the Olympic title, couldn't do better than earning a miserable -for his standard- bronze medal match, losing to the most improbable, unknown Englishman Brian Wilkins in the semifinal match)... we all expected him and the eternal Rafael Aghayev to make us the gift of another chapter of their neverending rivalry (it would have been the highlight of the Championship, of course), but both of them couldn't reach the expected showdown... on the other hand, Slovakia @hckošice Croatia @dcro @prso1000 @ all Croatian friends and Hungary @Vektor @ all Hungarian friends seem to have earned the status of powehouses in this sport together with usual suspect and host Nation, Turkey (it's just for this tournament, don't start dreaming too much, guys! ), reaching 2 gold medal matches each in Kumite events... here's a quick recap of the already determined Gold Medal matches (Saturday, May 28th @ 11 a.m. and 5 p.m. CET): Women's Individual Kata: Sandra Sanchez Jaime vs Dilara Bozan Men's Individual Kata: Alì Sofuoglu vs Damian Hugo Quintero Capdevila Women's Individual Kumite, -61kg: Ingrida Suchankova vs Anna Miggou Women's Individual Kumite, -68kg: Miroslava Kopunova vs Eda Eltemur Women's Individual Kumite, +68kg: Ivana Perovic vs Aicha Zakia Boussebaa Men's Individual Kumite, -75kg: Erman Eltemur vs Brandon Brian Wilkins Men's Individual Kumite, -84kg: Enes Garibovic vs Daniel Gyorgy Men's Individual Kumite, +84kg: Andjelo Kvesic vs Luca Costa

Italy needs all the active players from this list (and we would have needed also the already retired players, when they were on top of their game)... https://www.italiansrus.com/resources/hockey_list.htm however, what we really need is: a) money...a lot of money, b) infrastrucures, c) kids that really want to play (and why not? succeed in a hockey career), d) most important to start with, interest by our media (to make money and bring up kids, which would lead to building more infrastrucures and so on...we do really need a virtuous circle that's impossible right now and with all our current political and sports leaders)...

I feel like I wasted the afternoon... even worse...it's like I wasted 2 full weeks... maybe it's even like I wasted another year of my life... probably I just wasted my whole life! I'd better watch breakdance and padel next time...