Ted

First big meet of the year on the international Women’s Tour. Big names in action in Basel .
 
https://youtube.com/@WCTWorldCurlingTour?si=VqsHaMr1pj5DhGeV

Curling’s back!  
 
The Baden Masters from  live this weekend.
 
https://youtube.com/@WCTWorldCurlingTour
 
 

This is why I support the idea of moving away from weight classes in combat sports and strength events. The purpose of weight classes should be to allow people to compete fairly at their natural body weight. Instead, athletes/coaches/nations have developed all sorts of extreme methods to gain/cut weight. It isn’t healthy for athletes, and it honestly defeats the purpose of weight classes. I’m not sure how feasible it is to do away with weight classes, but I would agree with those saying other classification systems should be trialed.

Very good point. It should be easier to compete in multiple events. It would decrease the number of athletes. Maybe they should go from heats straight to the final. No reason why one athlete should be able to win multiple medals in canoeing, swimming or biathlon, but not in rowing.

women's Team Skeet
 
Gold:  Italy
Silver:  Slovakia
Bronze:  Great Britain
 
Bronze Medal match
Great Britain b. Czechia  6-0
 
Gold Medal match
Italy b. Slovakia  6-0
 
Full Result of the Qualification Round
https://results.sius.com/DownloadFile.aspx?Championship=1305969c-ecd8-4e4c-b2ec-6d5327d1d2ee&FileName=Shotgun/SKTEAMW/3_QUAL/Q000000TA1309230800.1.SKTEAMW.0.001.pdf

Tough game but we go in semifinals 3-2  

That was expected by me because the punishment for roxadustat is 4 years. We can say Halep is retired already from tennis. 

mixed Team Skeet
 
Gold:  Great Britain 1 (Amber Jo Rutter & Ben Llewellin)
Silver:  Czechia 1 (Martina Kucerova & Tomas Nydrle)
Bronze:  Italy 2 (Diana Bacosi & Tammaro Cassandro)
 
Bronze Medal match
Italy b. Ukraine  42-41
 
Gold Medal match
Great Britain b. Czechia  42-41
 
Full Result of the Qualification Round
https://results.sius.com/DownloadFile.aspx?Championship=1305969c-ecd8-4e4c-b2ec-6d5327d1d2ee&FileName=Shotgun/SKMT/3_QUAL/Q200000TA1209230830.1.SKMT.0.001.pdf

Simona Halep was last played in US Open 2022 has been officially banned for four years for the lingering roxadustat case.
 
https://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/66789732

And that's true. Here's the qualification document, and it says that everyone can gain the quota place through the World ranking, providing that a.) they aren't already qualified in any event and b.) the federation hasn't achieved more than one quota place in the respective event: Paris 2024: Qualification System is on the ISSF website - Asian Shooting Confederation (asia-shooting.org)

According to Olympedia, Greece hasn't had 5+ shooters in one Olympics since 1984 (excluding 2004 for obvious reasons). A great achievement.

oh, yes! you're right 
 
I totally forgot that  
 
thanks for the backup...I just can't always keep up with all the things happening around the sport (maybe I should follow less disciplines, but more carefully...but I love them all, what else can I do?  )

So Luxembourg lost 6-0 and 9-0 against Portugal , but still managed to gain 10 points and go above Iceland and Bosnia !

Great to see Chalkiadakis get a gold medal for us, usually it's either Mitas or Mavrommatis doing something in the men's skeet, so this is a nice surprise! I wonder how the selection will go, as Mitas is world champion and Chalkiadakis is European champion, it will be hard to remove them so Mavrommatis or Gkogkolakis can compete.
 
Now we have qualified 5 shooters for Paris, a big success considering we only had 2 in Tokyo. Of course there is still a chance to add 1-2 more, maybe Chatzitsakiroglou can do it here as well 
 
After we won so many medals at the World Championships this year, and now this, my only fear is that we won't be able to replicate this in Paris 

Thank you!

right now, no team at all
 
as I wrote above, when I was a kid (and always a bit later) I was a Juventus fan (but football has never been my first sport except for my very early years...when I discovered a few other sports, I started to root for them rather than football)
 
the only club I root for right now is Olimpia Milano in Basketball (but I still have in my heart the Hockey Club Milano, even if it doesn't exist anymore since a long time ago)
 
and the I have a sympathy for the Devil...ops...no, I mean...the US sports teams I usually follow (LA Kings in the NHL, LA Dodgers in the MLB, the Oakland Raiders in the NFL and the UCLA Bruins in all the NCAA sports, meanwhile I disowned the LA Lakers in the NBA when LeBron came to town...and actually I'm not following the NBA as much as I follow the European basketball and the other US sports)
 
 

actually, I grew up as a big fan of that club (I used to adore Michel Platini first, Roby Baggio then and Alex Del Piero in the end), but when the old classy managers like Boniperti and Umberto Agnelli left, I started to feel disgusted by the arrogance and lack of fair play of people like Moggi & Giraudo to Andrea Agnelli and Paratici
Today I wouldn't call myself an hater, but really, I'm not interested in anything happens around the Italian Serie A anymore
I just support (with not much enthusiasm) the Italian clubs in the international competitions and our National team (at all levels...more the youth teams than the senior one), even if most times they're a pain in the ass to follow 

Dávid Hancko scored tonight the fastest goal in football NT history.
 
Time of play 0:09, gonna be hard to beat this record
 
 

Yeah, It's just astounding that THAT club is involved... 

It looks like @phelpsisn't exactly a fan of Piemonte Calcio

Ο Μπάμπης Χαλκιαδάκης κέρδισε το χρυσό μετάλλιο στο skeet, στο ευρωπαϊκό πρωτάθλημα. Στον τελικό ήταν απόλυτα εύστοχος, καθώς ολοκλήρωσε τον αγώνα με 60/60 βολές. Με αυτή την επιτυχία εξασφάλισε την πρόκριση στους ολυμπιακούς αγώνες.

Shooting (+1)
Charalambos Chalkiadakis (men's skeet)
 
 

Thank you!

Oscar Reyes is the new World Champion in the men's -81kg! 
 
he lifted 163kg in the snatch (2nd) and 193kg in the C&J (thanks to the very generous judges, tbh) for a 356kg Total
 
the Overall silver went to  Rahmat Abdullah, thanks to his unbelievable C&J world record who moved him up to 354kg in the Olympic Total
 
all these marks, however, don't mean anything in terms of the -89kg class OQR
 
 
and now, in about 30 mins, it's time for the great comeback of  Antonino Pizzolato, who hasn't lift in an official competition since the 2022 European Champs (when he won with at the time an amazing WR in C&J and Total, improved by  Karlos Nasar at the last World Champs) 
 
can't wait! the hype is high 

You are ranking now is different than in Tokyo