Fabinter

Sono un "giurassico" di 63 anni, ho scritto a "Sindo" più di una volta e anche parte di questo messaggio gli è stato inviato a per complimenti, auguri ed opinioni su quanto sto proponendo; non ho mai smesso di usare "Totallympics" come impareggiabile fonte di notizie; sono felice che il sito abbia aperto a Matteo possibilità con "Olympic Channel". Vi confermo che sono solo un fiancheggiatore curioso e preferisco non lasciarmi coinvolgere in lunghe - non inutili per altro, parlare non è mai inutile - discussioni che non mi fanno bene: con il passare degli anni mi accorgo che sono diventato sempre più permaloso e patriota - e il patriottismo viene acuito dal risiedere ormai in Brasile -. 1) Temo che non potremo - mia Moglie brasiliana ed io - assistere alla nostra sesta (dopo Barcellona,Atlanta,Atene,Torino e Rio) Olimpiade dal vivo e non posso fruire di "DiscoveryPlus", come ho fatto nel 2021: esiste un metodo - forse con un VPN ma qual'è il migliore ? - per potermi abbonare ed usufruirne come se fossi in Italia ? In Brasile le trasmissioni sono migliorate ma non sono certo come DiscoveryPlus o come l'EBU del 2008, che trasmetteva ogni singola competizione (ho letto spesso i "post" di "Phelps", collegato con tutte le manifestazioni sportive "urbi et orbi"). 2) pensate che possa interessare agli utenti di Totallympics poter iniziare - con lettere a "Change.org", ai vari Comitati Olimpici, alle Federazioni internazionali, ai giornali, magari coinvolgendo atleti ed allenatori - una campagna volta al tentativo di ripristinare una più equa partecipazione del numero di atleti ? Sono un buon conoscitore della geografia, delle letterature e della classificazione delle lingue del mondo; sono stato membro fino a pochi anni fa dell' "ATFS - Association of Track & Field Statisticians" (ho visto dal vivo 7 mondiali di atletica) e, anche per "colpa" di questi miei interessi culturali, davvero non sopporto gl'illogici criteri di selezione olimpica: nessun dato regge a serie analisi, non esiste logica basata su cifre inoppugnabili (mi riferisco sì all'atletica, ai suoi "minimi" e ai ranking assurdamente innestati su uno sport misurabile ma anche alle restrizioni che colpiscono tutte le discipline sportive); sbaglio o su Totalympics" v'è acquiescenza da parte di molti utenti per i "crudeli" metodi di selezione e traspare non solo rassegnazione ma quasi compiacimento nel constatare che le Olimpiadi sono iper-selettive ? Non sono ingenuo e conosco gli interessi in gioco e, tuttavia, continuo a chiedermi: "cui prodest?", anche da un punto di vista economico. Domande incalzanti a Bach, alle teste coronate e alle cariatidi del CIO potrebbero forse inchiodarli a dare almeno spiegazioni ? Pensate che possa esserci desiderio di iniziare una tale battaglia insieme alla maggior parte degli utenti del sito oppure ho ragione nel giudicare che, tutto sommato, ai molti "Totallympians" le odierne regole vanno benissimo ed è anzi molto divertente - per i più giovani un po' come in un "videogame" - assistere alle progressive eliminazioni di enormi quantità di atleti di assoluto livello (badate che non parlo dell'Afghana vista con i miei occhi ... camminare i 100 m in 18 secondi a Parigi 2003 oppure d'inette judoka saudite ma di atleti forti e spesso in lotta con condizioni di vita ed allenamento difficili - com'è possibile che Eloy Benítez di PUR con 10.04 sui 100 o la costaricana Vargas nei 100 H o le canoiste austriache per pochi millesimi nel 2016 stiano fuori -) ? Ci sarebbero mille metodi efficaci per evitare che ... un sessantatreenne come me "pretenda" di partecipare ... ! Ovviamente di cifre ed argomenti incontrovertibili ne ho a iosa e forse ne potremmo parlare dopo le Olimpiadi. Spero che godrete appieno di Parigi 2024, che fiocchino emozioni e vi sia una pioggia di medaglie italiane e mi permetto di augurarVi di continuare a provare - fino alla mia età e molto oltre - la medesima fibrillazione dell'attesa (come tutti i bimbi di Lodi - "quorum ego" ... un tempo - alla vigilia di Santa Lucia: nella mia Lodi i doni ai bimbi li porta Santa Lucia) di un evento straordinario e commovente ! Un caro saluto. Fabio Majocchi

Tks for reply; of course I know that Globo (Sportv) and CazéTV are going to broadcast many hours of Olympic games but you know I am ... greedy of complete coverage as eveyone of us and I'd like to be able to choose all I want to ...that's why I wonder if there is a VPN which is better and apter than others, in order to exploit the possible Discovery+ subscription. Thanks again.

I am now residing in Brazil and I wonder and ask (all of you way much younger and knowledgeable than me) whether Discovery+ can be used in Brazil thru a VPN (they indeed confirmed I could not use my subscription over here) and which VPN could possibly be the best option; as an alternate choice, do you know if there are other providers here in Brazil able to supply a similar complete coverage (every ring,tatami,piste,heat,preliminary ...) of Paris 2024 (in 2021 Discovery+ was wonderful even for the long-lasting access to the replies!). Thanks a lot for helping this old ... "jurassic" out.

Dear Mohsen, since many years I am a follower of this site, but - due to my "jurassic" age, I'm 62 - I have posted very few messages and only when my rage against some fellows - you can imagine who - was high (I have sometimes complained with Sindo about the lack of good manners of some guys)! Anyway I have never given-up to read some topics and the ones which are really interesting and coming from a real expert, are yours, both dedicated to wrestling and weightlifting, so my congratulations from the deepest of my heart; I am a statistician of track & field and I had the luck to personally attend four summer olympic games plus some world athletics championships; but I lately became increasingly interested in sports like - besides an ancient love for amateur boxing - wrestling,judo and taekwondo;in order to learn more, I have developed draws/brackets sheets on "excel" for the continental championships/games and olympic and world; I am slow in compiling those sheets, but I try to be accurate at the utmost with names, homonymous and translitterations (contrary to the federations sites, which are sadly replete with many stupid mistakes - until five profiles for the same athlete ! -), to be 100% precise (heritage since when I used to be an ATFS member ...); combined with my love for languages and names, that helped me to start to like the wrestling videos (at Rio 2016 Olympics I managed to attend live some wrestling matches too; I must say that my specific ignorance has been often mitigated by the general knowledge of the sports, which allows me to at least appreciate the skills of the best). I am trying to follow the wrestling olympic qualifications and I wonder why the continental and qualifications championships do not coincide/match ? Would not have been easier for the athletes to wrestle once at all for the continental title and olympic qualification at the same time? I understand that some athletes are already qualified thru the world, still I am surprised to see this waste of time and energies (so much precious in a demanding discipline) ! Do you have an explanation ? Thanks again and I renew my compliments for your expertise. Fabio Majocchi

It seems to me that another girl with the bib number 638 has been rejected and disallowed to run; judging from the colours of her singlet, she might be from Nepal ... poor girl ... any news about the reason ? Anyway great victory of Maslova; I never thought she could beat the naturalized Ethiopians and Kenyans.

Here you should find the (perhaps ...) complete results ... Groeten uit Fabio ! http://www.africathle.com/2018/08/01/african-championships-asaba-nigeria-1-5082018/

I completely agree with my Friend INTERISTA (and evidently fan of the Olympic boxe): hopefully both Olympic boxe and Inter will come back ... "a riveder le stelle" (Dante, what a genious ...!)

Multumesc !

Caro Gianlu, grazie ! I have tried to browse thru the UEG and FIG and YouTube, but nothing ! Grazie, in ogni caso ...

Isn't there any live streaming site for these morning and afternoon women qualification of the European Arstistic Gymnastics ? Thanks.

Sottoscrivo tutto e, vista la mia età "giurassica", tendo a ricordare e rimpiangere mitiche domeniche degli anni '70 in cui vincevano tutti: Thoeni, Panatta, Moser e, se invece s'era in estate, Mennea, gli schermidori, gli Abbagnale e le Nazionali degli sport di squadra, per non parlare di Agostini e della Ferrari (che è invece l'unica ad averci deluso oggi) ! Bando alla nostalgia, grande Italia e speriamo nelle nostre squadre e nei giovani virgulti dell'atletica ...

Well, I don't have the time to carefully check but I remember some of your sarcastic opinions (against Schwazer, for instance, who is a close friend of mine); I'm really not sure that, within a discussion group, you must not prove your opinion, above all if it's against somebody; really not sure at all (maybe within a tiny group of close friends but not here).

Dear Dcro, if your message is aimed to me,it's not well aimed; don't be mislead by the "newbie" title, as I am a subscriber since 2014 and ever since I have been almost daily reading many of the comments of you frequent posters; so, implying that the tiny number of active posts must be connected to the lack of knowledge of human habits of a 57 years old person, is at least imprudent; if, instead, I'm not the target of your irony, then sorry and ... "hvala" for your time (hoping that the Bakar bay is still wonderful as in the seventies when I was spending my holidays between Rovinj, Zadar, Biograd na Moru and Filip Jakov !) and Dobra Vecer. Fabio Majocchi

Dear Pavlo, I have not jumped into any rushed conclusion ... it's more than three years that I "observe" many of those commentators and I disagree with your opinions about them: Heywoodu,OlympicsFan and Thiago are definitely smart,but they have the frequent flaw not to be able to prove their statements, besides not being balanced in their judgements and I do feel they adore (more than like) to provoke and this is not a site where everybody can provoke, insult or offend everybody else (otherwise we would subscribe to YouTube or other - unknown to me - sites). Dziękuję and ... ciao.

Dear OlympicFan, I fear that the one who should learn History is you, the REAL history (even of the thirties), trying to behave in a better fair-play mode and show some respect, if not for my "jurassic" age, at least for my (although scarce) world knowledge, as I have a Ph.D. in classical languages and Hispanic-American literature, I have been living many years in South-America and I can also read and speak your wonderful language, besides knowing very well your splendid Country; I hope you can help me in avoiding every time to cite the sentence of one of the most prestigious Italian sports writers - Gianni Brera - who once wrote something like: ..."it's true that the Germans are really the best in everything - athletics,football,philosophy,classical music,literature,organization - but perhaps their problem is that they claim that other peoples admit it ... bowing in front of them" ! Even your comments about athletics are often not inspiring for someone like me who have attended LIVE 7 World Championships and 4 Olympic Games and has been a subscriber of Leichtathletik for thirty-five years and member of ATFS... Anyway, be sure that I will answer in a placid way to every insult, but I will NEVER ignore any comment; wrong things must be fought-off, like the comment of ThiagoSimoes (who probably has not understood the meaning of "pontificatore"), who insults me ("cuzão", even if I don't have a big booty, is definitely an insult, as he might not remember that I studied Portuguese in my University, I have been living in Brazil for many years and I have a girlfriend of Minas Gerais - unfortunately not young and beautiful as the Heywoodu's one ... !-) Finally I would like to remind all my "pontificatori" that it's a good-natured "apelido" (epithet) and it's even a compliment (I call my girlfriend "pontificatrice"); once again, be sure that I will always reply WITHOUT OFFENDING, whenever I read some biased or offensive comment against me, my Country or some other Nation which does not deserve nasty words ! BUT I will definitely reply. P.S. Dear Heywoodu, I hope your Girlfriend brought you some "acerola" (great drink "laranja - your favorite colour ... - com acerola") and/or "açaí na tigela" !

It's always sad to be forced (unless I try to avoid this thread, but I cannot, as I am an old "jurassic" football fan) to read such offensive comments against other Nations or sportsmen: among the most zealous and biased commentators, there are OlympicFan, Bestmen, ThiagoSimoes and Heywoodu: I call them all, with a good-natured Italian expression,"pontificatori"..."Pontificatore" directly derives from the ancient Latin word "pontifex": it implies that someone is always busy in "preaching", besides being often sarcastic and sometimes offensive. They should also remember there's always somebody much older than them who could remind them about inconvenient mishaps, caused by their Nations sportsmen or idols or indeed by their ... whole Nations and I really would not like to reply to OlympicFan with something harmful; so it would be nice that he could refrain from offending the memory of two world cup victories in a period where there were no jokes at all, couldn't he ? One thing is kidding and teasing or expressing an opinion, another thing is stating something unproved. Otherwise I (all of us, actually) could unchain a long list of facts regarding German, Netherlands, Algerian, Brazilian (and many Countries more) athletes and their respective Nations, but that would be a pity for all of us !

Dear Friends, may I ask you whether I can somewhere find the COMPLETE results (not only the medalists ...) of some of the last ASIAN TAEKWONDO Championships (namely Astana 2010, Ho Chi Minh 2012, Tashkent 2014 and Ho Chi Minh 2018) ? I don't seem being able to find them within the usual specialized taekwondo sites (tpss.eu, mastkd.com, taekwondodata.com, ma-regonline.com) as well as the Asian Taekwondo Union one (frankly useless ...). I hope some of you can suggest better sites or ideas ! Thanks in advance and ciao, Fabio

Second consecutive ITALIAN TITLE ("scudetto") for my splendid tiny town LODI in RINK HOCKEY (very popular in a at least five Italian regiorns), thanks to the fantastic "en-plein" play-off serie of AMATORI WASKEN LODI against Forte dei Marmi; it's almost unbelievable that a little town like LODI is so good to earn two Italian titles in a row ! I'm overjoyed (in fifty-seven years of my life only three titles) and proud that just few days ago even my FANFULLA LODI (this is off-topic) has been promoted from E Serie to D (fourth tier) serie of the men's Italian National Soccer championships. LODI sugli SCUDI ! Too bad that RINK HOCKEY is not (yet ?!?) an Olympic discipline; shame on FIRS and CIO which allowed Skatboarding and not Rink Hockey and Speed and Artistic Skating ...

Second consecutive ITALIAN TITLE ("scudetto") for my splendid tiny town LODI in RINK HOCKEY (very popular in a at least five Italian regiorns), thanks to the fantastic "en-plein" play-off serie of AMATORI WASKEN LODI against Forte dei Marmi; it's almost unbelievable that a little town like LODI is so good to earn two Italian titles in a row ! I'm overjoyed (in fifty-seven years of my life only three titles) and proud that just few days ago even my FANFULLA LODI (this is off-topic) has been promoted from E Serie to D (fourth tier) serie of the men's Italian National Soccer championships. LODI SUGLI SCUDI !

14/15 for me, due to my old age and the fact that for ten years I have been spending my holidays in the former Yugoslavia. Really unbearable the world's ignorance on these beautiful countries and their slavic languages and only because of the alliteration of the two names ... the world got still a long way to go to improve and how can I be optimistic if there are millions of peoples who mix-up SLO and SVK, Arabic and Persian, Shiites and Sunnites, Spanish and Portuguese, Indoeuropean and Afroasian languages, who still believe that languages and dialects can be clearly distinguished and - last but not the least - still think that the Olympic boycotts were useful (this one is the most painful one for an old Olympics lover ...) and fully plausible because ... "the sports are integrally part of our civil life" ?!?

For me it’s always a horrible day, whenever I read such a comment, imbued with moralistic attitude; I totally disagree; I am 55 years old and it hurts me too much whenever I face some (young?) moralists; provided the world which we live-in and the sport we have inherited, I am very sad that many of the members of this forum still think that the sport must be treated in the same way of other social phenomenons; in my opinion, provided the professional sport we have inherited , all our beloved sports disciplines should be considered as a world apart, a world where there is still the hope that more than one Guinean or one Malagasy or one Bhutanese can participate to the Olympic Games and arguably not thru the hideous qualification system ! Considering that this site and its threads unintentionally contradict this dream and stick to the cruel reality of contemplating the EXCLUSION of an incredible amount of athletes (maybe it’s the young average which leads this forum’s members to believe there is always a future Olympiad or a future chance !), I dare saying that moralism and exclusion get along well. Few things I know,but one is that I would like to INCLUDE all the athletes (even the “assholes”): this does not mean EVERY supposed athlete of the world (there is an evident difference between a “couch potato” like me and a real athlete, it’s just a matter of using common sense); it means MANY MORE athletes and their Nations and autonomous Territories (even Bonaire, Sint Maarten and Saba !) into the Olympic Games and according to the ancient wise rules (please do not say that now it’s impossibile or the Countries’ number has greatly increased ! Without corruption, it would be easily possible; with common sense nobody would claim that the first Moussambani or the Afghan girl who “walked” the 100 m. in 18:37 at the Paris 2003 WC – I was there –, can make the Olympic squad ! But there should be a place for for-the-time-being-excluded Kyrghyz wrestlers or for the two or three Central African wrestlers or for a dozen of Venezuelan track-and-field athlets just barely missing the Olympic minima, or even for Valentina Vezzali and Alice Volpi in foil, shouldn’t be ? ); I would like to INCLUDE the former disqualified athletes ( for doping or other “real” crimes – remember the New Zealander boxer who was a former convict and perhaps killer ? –); somebody would find-out that the invoked thoroughly clean atletes could dramatically decrease in number, if only some serious investigations could be made. How many hundreds of GDR and USSR doped athletes still hold an Olympic medal ? How many USA and European sportsmen one could discover among the “gedopt” ? Are you sure that Enith Brigitha, Ria Stalman, Hennie Kuiper and the magnificent Dafne Schippers (how much I’d like she could repeat the achievements of the Flying Mom Fanny Blankers-Koen !) were/are not doped ? Am I sure that some of my heros were thoroughly clean ? I guess the answer is always NO, we cannot be sure ! So, if this is the sports situation, with an extremely high ratio of athletes of all the disciplines using prohibited substances, wouldn’t be more … moral to treat the sports without any moralism and EXCLUSION ? Wouldn’t be fairer to consider the sport a world apart and leave the moralism aside, at least until we can reach some certainties about the now failing controlling system ? I am not ingenuous and I am not stating that there must not be rules in this world; I am not supporting anarchy but the sport – in my opinion, of course – must be maintained apart! Thanks to the moralist hypocrites stating that … “the sport is integrally part of life”, I have been witnessing (and I cried even when I was an adult) 4 boycotts from 1976 to 1988 ! Isn’t it indeed for this nasty mixture of politics and sport that some members sometimes discuss about Kosovo and other geographical entities (I would not long to see Lombardy or Sicily independent ,but I would try to see it as an opportunity to INCLUDE). As far as doping is concerned, there are NO sure things (“what is really doping for each of us ?”,wrote the greatest Italian sport writer Gianni Brera, after the Ben Johnson scandal), are we sure we can thoroughly define what is really dangerous ? Do we really believe in WADA ? Many years ago, when I was a subscriber of “Track & Field News”, a great biochemist wrote that he could NOT scientifically demonstrate to the athletes that the doping was absolutely (not probably, absolutely) dangerous.In future couldn’t we consider morally rejectable even athletes who smoke or atlete who drink beer or Gatorade or athletes who are … porn-consumers ? It hurts me too much to read in the Italian sports … Bible (the pink “La Gazzetta dello Sport” – by the way, congratulations to the Dutch Peoples for being so nice towards the “Giro d’Italia” –) a young guy’s statement: “If I steal, I am fired; so, Schwazer had to be life banned”. I believe it’s a real shame to compare Schwazer to a thieve ! With all the terrible problems we face, with all the bandits, terrorists, pedophiles, politicians and supposed managers we stand ? Schwazer must be life banned ? If he is despicable (maybe even”asshole” seems inappropriate), how can we define those above ? Must we have recourse to Dante Alighieri and his “Inferno” to classify their crimes ? Who are the “victims”of Schwazer ? Tallent or Diniz(I am still wondering how he was able to walk 3:32)? Bernard Hinault (and the first Lance Armstrong) stated that doped cyclists steal somebody else’s bread ! Hinault (he seemed a motorcycle in the mountains) and Armstrong ? And Pantani and Merckx ? What about Carl Lewis receiving reprimand for stimulants (only?) from his own federation? I was personally at the 1991 Tokyo WC and he (still the best athlete of the history for me) had his body structure altered and his face heavily pockmarked and he was already 30 years old. My post is too long but I hope it can be considered NOT a pompous speech; I am too sad when I see all these EXCLUSIONS and (young ?) persons who wish to EXCLUDE and to sentence to death (life-ban is death for an atlete). All the opinions can be expressed but some of them must be disputed. Ciao, Fabio Majocchi