copravolley

This is one very happy smile
 

Could be the waxing on the last lap fresh snow. Auchentaller, Wierer & Trabucci all fell off on the last lap and basically had the slowest skiing time there? Overall though you have a problem, days of prime Wierer & Vittozzi won't be repeated soon but then I hear the same issues in alpine skiing where there is a huge gap behind Brignone & Bassino (the latter being 28 years old already). And someone claimed Colturi would have plateau'd if she stayed with the Italian federation as well.

Slovakia returns to the podium for the first time since Oslo in March 2022. To find a podium in the mass start we even have to go back to Rupholding 2019, before the covid era

before the Olympics, all the teams will not have a proper warm up period
 
it's like putting on an all-star team...individuals are called to find the way to play together in the most effective way through the early games of the tournament
 
technically, they're all on the same boat

well, in the last 35 years we've had a lot of seasons where the  singles weren't the best at all (despite Georg Hackl and Jens Mueller winning a few Olympic and World titles in this span)
 
among the men, people like Markus Prock and  Armin Zoeggeler have won tons of races and world cups in the Nienties and 2000's...and they haven't been the only ones
 
actually, there have been more periods with  and/or  dominating the field rather than  
 
among the women, after the  Doris & Angelika Neuner +  Gerda Weissensteiner's runs in the early/mid Nineties, it's really been all  

I'm not an expert like he is, but personally, I'm a bit sceptical. Sure, it's incredible that we've made it to the final qualifying round (and avoided Sweden), but the girls played against Germany and Austria some time ago, and you could see the difference. They played well, no doubt, but it was obvious. That said, it’s been done before, so why not hope for a surprise and aim to have 50 athletes from Slovakia qualified with a year still to go?

Stage 6 in Beaver Creek (USA)
 
Women´s Downhill:
 
1. Cornelia Huetter    1:32.38
2. Sofia Goggia    1:32.54
3. Lara Gut-Behrami    1:32.72
 
Full Final Results HERE

Our  rowers are supported by lottery money, so are effectively making maybe double pr triple the average income of someone else their age, plus whatever extra sponsorship they can arrange for themselves. 

Our results are definitely not better, we always do so well in U19 and U23 and then at that point most of our rowers quit to find a career where they can actually make money. Romania and Italy at least have big teams for the Olympics. We've never had more than 4 boats.
 
For example, just look at our U19 women's team from 2022. We won gold in W1X, W2- and W2X.
 
W1X Gkogkou is now in her second year at Yale University. She didn't compete for the national team last summer in U23 even.
 
W2- Asvesta is at University of Texas and still rows I guess but didn't compete with our national team last summer. Argyraki has not competed since 2022, not even in club rowing, so she probably is focusing on her studies.
 
W2X Natsioula quit rowing at age 17 to study medicine and Dalidou is at Harvard University, but again, she did not compete with the national team in U23 last year either.
 
Only two years later and already none of these 5 girls are with the Greek national team, hopefully at least one or two will come back at some point after their studies but I've thought that in the past about some of the girls who go to the US and we never see them again...

Things happened too fast, surprised everybody. the future is so unpredictable. so far these groups are trying to act properly but so did Taliban at first. we will see their true color in next few weeks/months.
 
Bashar Asad was a murderer and criminal but he wasn't extremist. these guys can be both murderer and extremist. but there are lots of groups involved. still it's not totally clear who will get the power ultimately. it's highly possible to see a war between these groups
 
Turkey is sponsoring some (most) of these groups, so the future will be hard for the Kurds too. Turkey will push these groups to conquer the Kurdish parts too.
 
but I think the regime in Iran was the biggest loser here, they spent billions of dollars (at least 30 according to rumors) to keep this piece of crap in power. he was supposed to pay it back someday. now they have to rethink their strategy, everything if falling apart for them. (which is not necessarily a bad thing to be honest) 
 
anyway it was a very hard few years for the Syrian people and the future doesn't look brighter. I just hope I'm wrong and something good comes out of this.  maybe these guys have really changed  Syrian people suffered a lot already.

The competition is now more fierce than in the case of Fontana 4-8 years ago and secondly, Sighel doesn`t have to be a star of her caliber. He is strong, but there are a dozen or so like him. Short track is so unpredictable and lottery-like: falls, dsq etc., that counting on only 1 competitor at the Olympics can end very bad. And individually we can only count on Sighel + possibly the weaker Fontana in favorable circumstances. Canada or China have 3 candidates for the podium in the men's and then dsq of one doesn`t mean the end of chances for medals, like in our case.

Yup, very nice to see Finland on the podium after so many years since Makarainen's retirement
 
Thought this would happen, just didn't expect it so soon and kinda leaned more towards the men's team.
 
On the other hand, it feels like Preuss is one of the unluckiest biathletes of all time. Not to mention the fact that she is sick every season, she might be up there for most 4th and 5th place finishes of all time and I can guarantee that many of them were lost podiums by just a second  

Italian women have never been good at this sport, which may be a bit surprising. Considering our nature, handball is simply made for us, more so than, for example, volleyball. Do you remember times in Romania when volleyball was more popular than handball?

I'm 33 years old only...I  don't know when volleyball was more popular than football, handball or tennis for example. 

I think you're doom spiraling too hard after just a few races...
 
Giacomel is very strong and I think that he might definitely land on a podium this season. The Italian women's team has a lot of very talented juniors that just need some time to grow. Dorothea Wierer also took her time to grow into her best form, so why is it not possible to give some time to the other talented athletes? Not everyone is bound to crush it at 21-23 y. o. 

I think I have some kind of autumn depression but I'm really getting down about these results at the beginning of the winter season. The summer season was great for us now we have this incident with the ice wall Everything looks black for my, like the weather outside the window.

I feel for you. I am also quite a staunch supporter of Italian sport (I always root for your athletes, especially in Summer Olympics). I think Georgia Colomb in alpine skiing and Auchentaler (I hope I typed it correctly) in biathlon have good potential though. They look very promising to me.

Men's snowboard in the alpine version: there is a wide team and many competitors can stand on the podium. The problem it`s a only 1 competition at the games.

Jordan Stolz wins his 13th World cup race in a row (including last season)

Jordan Stolz won the 500m event with the new track record  3 victory on 3 events this season, what dominance.

big big news regarding Olympic bronze medalist and two time World Champion  Zurabi Datunashvili
 
https://ita.sport/news/the-ita-acknowledges-cas-add-decision-sanctioning-wrestler-zurabi-datunashvili-for-anti-doping-rule-violations/
 
to be honest everything was suspicious about this guy, his sudden improvement since 2021, his body, his sudden retirement in 2023 . its great to see him finally getting caught.
 
they will reallocate the medals later after the end of the process but his Olympic bronze will go to  Ivan Huklek, I think that will be the first ever wrestling medal for Croatia
 
his 2021 World title will go  Maskevich and the 2022 gold goes to  Bisultanov
Bisultanov will benefit more than anybody else, he also gets a bronze from 2021 and  Kessidis will get a bronze from 2022.

Really reaaaaaally hard to care less

Linn Gestblom (previously Persson) Will miss all season. Not recovered after surgery.

I read now that Valentina Rodini will be in the new team of Tizzano + Galtarossa and Martini. I was probably in such an information bubble on Instagram that I thought that only Abbagnale was running a campaign and had a team of people around him. That's why I was surprised by his defeat + the fact that, for example, Rodini supports his rival. But as I wrote, for me the change in the general coach position is a plus. We need a new opening and a new impulse: Cattaneo had his best results in Tokyo and then he only explained that his rowers were running away abroad to the USA to study and that's why he had worse results. Ok, except that it's the same in Romania and Greece but they results are comparable or better. It's obvious that no one here will make the UK or the Netherlands, because we don't have such resources and money but I think we can repeat the Romanian results (2 gold - 3 silver in Paris) and that will be a much better result than the 2 silver in this year.

Abbagnale boasted that he had 80 per cent a few days before the vote (I still have the screen) and ran again as a result of a power deal. Not a great loss.
 
I have doubts about the new technical director though, you can't announce him during the congress, brandishing the scalp of the Abbagnale era technical staff (who then, were Crispi's men). Let's hope there are no rifts between the new staff and the athletes, it had to be handled better.