phelps

only 3 titles up for grabs Yesterday in the first day of the pool swimming competitions Vivien Jackl easily won the women's 400m IM, meanwhile won both men and women's 4*100m Free Relays (the men dominating, thanks also to the presence of the next Olympian Carlos D'Ambrosio; the women just edging out by 1/100 of a second the French girls) next Olympian D'Ambrosio and Alessandro Ragaini, instead, just gave up on the individual gold & silver over the individual 200m Free, Ragaini by not even bothering to show up in the qualifiers, D'Ambrosio swimming a shameful 1.50.x, which made him only the 3rd Italian and leaving him out of the semis p.s. someone sooner or later would explain to me why those 2 guys are swimming at the junior Europeans right now, less than a month before the Olympics?

Michele Gallo's gold medal in the men's Individual Sabre at the recent European Champs forced our coaches to change the Olympic team, switching position between Gallo himself and Pietro Torre now Gallo is back among the 3 starters in both the Individual and Team competition, meanwhile Torre becomes the alternate/reserve man for the Team event only

Jacques Freitag (2003 HJ world champion) found dead (at the age of 42, likely victim of a murder) https://athleticsweekly.com/athletics-news/jacques-freitag-2003-world-high-jump-champion-found-dead-in-south-africa-1039989153/

once again, the official start is in Europe ( Prague, to be precise) with a couple of NJ Devils vs Buffalo Sabres matchups on October 4th & 5th Dallas and Florida will also play twice in Tampere at the beginning of November

it's gonna be a fierce battle between and my pick is because they are more competitive in Show Jumping and in the Team Dressage and can keep up with GBR in the Eventing individually, I think someone from is going to win the Eventing competition, someone from the Show Jumping and probably someone from the Dressage tournament...not following closely enough to make names, though

need some reasearch for other sports... but the individual events in swimming and athletics that have the highest chances to repeat in Paris, imho are: swimming - women's 800m freestyle (Ledecky-Titmus-Quadarella) swimming - men's 100m fly (Dressel-Milàk-Ponti) athletics - men's 1500m (Ingebritsen-Tim Cheruyot-Kerr) athletics - men's 400m HS (Warholm-Benjamin-Dos Santos) athletics - men's shot put (Crouser-Kovacs-Walsh) I hope not!!! athletics - women's discus throw (Allman-Pudenz-Perez)

1. copy & paste the previous answers (on the couch, with many snacks and devices, from early morning to late night) 2. and my neighbours...if I just have to choose a 3rd Country, I'd say some random Caribbean paradise island (maybe , you know, for their banking beauties )

they're coming home

tell me a name (outside Donnarumma) who deserves better opinion? surely, not those who are part of this patetic "team"

way better no seed at all those pairings are a farce (even if I appreciate that La Cruz is not going vs Mouhiidine until the GMM...you know, the old lion might still be dangerous, especially when still fresh in the early rounds)

boxing and rowing, I'd say gymnastics is always a guess, there's no safe prediction in that sport

like the good, old Trump said: I don't understand what's the Italian tactics...and I think Spalletti doesn't know it, too p.s. here I say it...Italy are not gonna qualify for the 2026 world champs, we simply don't have good football players anymore it's a shame, but if this is the prize to pay to see our Olympic medal records broken Games after Games, just tell me where I have to put my signature

1. over is a lock, probably the asians will even double up the German total medal tally 2. over purely based on superstition/jinx 3. over is quite obvious, they have a lock gold with Garnbret and solid chances in slalom canoeing and athletics that should easily give them the edge 4. over once again, for quite a while have been, are and will be the top European Nation, too many sports with solid gold medal chance to come home with a modest score 5. I took over but I guess I highly underestimated the Irish medal chances in Gymnastics, Rowing, Boxing and Golf (I don't think they're gonna get any gold in athletics, swimming...medals, yes, gold, no -taekwondo is not even close, imho), meanwhile I might have overestimated India's chances in Shooting, Archery and maybe Wrestling and Boxing

the team is done and dusted, we're not gonna add anybody (even if WA would give us the chance), since those 2 girls are rested (Cusinato) or completely out of shape (Gastaldi)

I haven't watched today's match, so I can't say anything looking at the score, they might have played way better than yesterday, but as I wrote, the score doesn't necessarily reflect all that happened on the court we'll see...I still think and are the great favourites for the Olympic medals, but who knows? sports are beautiful also because nothing is written in stone and things may be overturned big time on any given day

just more failed tests on the river Seine... but now it comes up a plan B, according to the newspaper Nice Matin https://www.nicematin.com/jeux-olympiques/debit-trop-fort-et-bacteries-fecales-la-seine-encore-trop-polluee-a-un-mois-de-louverture-des-jo-2024-930525 https://www.nicematin.com/jeux-olympiques/jo-2024-et-si-nice-recuperait-les-epreuves-de-triathlon-929936

nobody is denying that and actually, my hope is that he's not so "built up" like the guys in the 80s, who set those insane records (and no, they were not within the rules of that time, as the many DQs are there to show ), because I really like him but unfortunately, I'm old enough to have lived the times of Seoul 1988 and the following years, up to one of my all time favorites, Ilya Ilin, who proved to be one of the greatest cheaters of all time so, I'm still here watching weightlifting, but I'm not so naive to trust the sport with closed eyes

not enough, if he's still here to play beach volleyball at the Olympics in his prime age

really looking forward for Valentina Gottardi, above all

grandissima prestazione dei giovani azzurri nei quarti di finale di VNL, successo sfiorato contro quei simpaticoni correttissimi dei francesi nonostante l'enorme differenza di esperienza internazionale tra le 2 formazioni peccato per il cedimento finale, ma dopo una serata così, ora sappiamo che abbiamo dei "rincalzi" che tanto rincalzi non sono (Porro ha un talento disumano...dategli spazio e diventerà un fenomeno assoluto) e che possono tranquillamente fare il salto di qualità e garantire un successo sempre luminoso al nostro volley maschile

presumo sia il thread sbagliato

non ci giurerei... io continuo a pensare che per Chamizo l'avversario peggiore sia Salkazanov e cmq non sottovaluterei l'iraniano Emami (che potrebbe soffrire moltissimo Frank, ma per contro ha uno stile che potrebbe mettere in enorme difficoltà sia lo slovacco che l'americano) in ogni caso, mi basta che Valiev e Bayramov non vadano sul podio (e Frank sì, anche solo con un piccolo, grande bronzo come a Rio) se sentirete un urlo belluino al momento giusto, sappiate che sarò stato io per il godimento...

no, Bayramov sicuro

both players rejected + invited players not showing up = a few changes in the projected seeds, too especially, Teddy Riner would benefit from Russia's absence in terms of seeding but also in terms of degree of difficulty of the entire tournament (the men's 100kg and 73kg also lose guys who could have seriously fought for gold) good for Lombardo, as Lavrentiev would have been one of the strongest opponents for him (and he wouldn't be seeded, so, even more dangerous for all the medal candidates)

let's be honest, if he ever comes even close to that, since we all know how that record was obtained, it could only mean that he's also "under treatment" like those people in the Eighties... I like to think he's just phenomenal, without having to follow those bad, old patterns and therefore he doesn't improve that much anymore