phelps

It's max 9 qualifying races (done) + max 7 Final Series races (3 today, 3 tomorrow, 1 on Friday) + 1 Medal Race (on Friday)... Racing Format and Daily Schedule can be found on the Attachments C and D respectively of the Sailing Instructions... https://www.lanzarotewinterseries.com/international/files/documentos/1616172276-sislanzarotequalifier_final.pdf All possible last minute changes can be found when available on the Notice Board of the Official Website... https://www.lanzarotewinterseries.com/international/documentos.php

what a comeback by Marco Fichera in the final assault of the Gold Medal match against Ukraine! after killing the Russians at the OT hit, he started 39-32 down against Anatoly Herey and he finally led our team to a 44-43 win... meanwhile among the girls, Poland just destroyed the Koreans by a score of 45-24 in the Gold Medal match... both Bronze medals (M + W) went to China...

looking at the qualification table right now, JPN have "only" 1 team qualified for the Home Games, but they also have 1 man/woman already qualified as individual in all the remaining 5 weapons, which means that they could potentially raise their participation to 5 full teams (they have 8 wild cards to manage, if I remember correctly) by adding 2 athletes in 4 different disciplines... so, I guess that we would eventually have 5 weapons with a 9-team draw at the Olympics (and only 1 with the basic 8-team start list)... my pick is that Men's Team Sabre will be the only 8-team tournament...

Oh, yes...I miscalculated the points for a 4th place...you're absolutely right... and I also miscalculated Ukraine's score...because they have an awful 8 to discard, so today's 23 points are to be taken into account and so they go to 212 and France have to be at least 4th to overtake UKR...

well, it's still an important match because it would eventually determine the quarterfinal's pairing in Tokyo... so, for us losing to Korea could potentially mean that we have to face POL or even RUS in the olympic quarterfinal match (the Koreans still need to make the Gold Medal match tomorrow to overtake ITA in the overall ranking), meanwhile defeating the Asians would lock the ITA vs USA quarterfinal pairing at the Games (which is a lot better than facing another European team for us)... not to mention how we could put France (or Ukraine) back in contention if we are 3rd (or better) and sneak in into the top 4 overall (fact that would break the Canadian hearts, I guess)

it's more complicated than that... provided Italy won't finish the ranking among the top 4 overall (we need to beat the Koreans in the quarterfinal match and then finish at least 3rd tomorrow to overtake the USA), you need to score 22 points more than Estonia (who also are among the top 8 in Kazan and have the edge in case of a tie)... but if ITA end up in the top 4 of the overall ranking, then you suddenly are qualified even if you end up tomorrow's event in 8th place (the worst case scenario)... talking of women's Epee, of course, as in the men's event both you and us are already qualified with the full team quota...

USA b. EGY 45-39 in the men's event...now it's very complicated for EGY...they need almost a miracle to save their qualification spot... among the girls, JPN are 39-29 ahead right now...a comeback is really improbable...

It looks that the Egyptian dream among the women is almost over... Japan have a comfortable 28-19 lead right now... and in the men's division things are going to get complicated as well...USA have a 43-37 lead over EGY right now, so the Africans only have the 13th place as an option...they'd need 2 wins against DEN first and the loser of the HUN vs ISR matchup then...very, very difficult to achieve, I fear...

The rule talks of "placing", so I think we should look at the actual position in the rankings and not at the number points scored (which may be different only because of a different coefficient for the single competitions)... But I'm not sure at 100%...only FIE could solve the doubt if they wrote the tie-breaking criteria with more detailes... However, in today's case it's quite clear that Egypt have the edge in their tie-breakers... Still, among the women they have to beat Japan and among the men they have to end up at least in 13th place...otherwise, all our posts are useless...

first of all, no quota was added to the Fencing program, as the team events have been added without adding new quota to those who were already there for the Individual event...they just adjusted the distribution of those spots... second, Fencing is the most historical discipline of the Games together with Athletics and Artistic Gymnastics...so, it was time to make up for that enormous injustice that the was the rotation of 4 out of 6 team events (and we're still talking of a sport with 12 competitions all together, when there are some other sports giving away tons of medals to the same athlete or tons of medals in general without having a true diversification between their disciplines)... I'm really tired of new sports without tradition and/or special features replacing the core of the Games I've always loved and I still love... it's absolutely a nonsense... third, team events in Fencing are not just the addition of some individual performance (like many other sports), therefore, if there are 2 sports where team events have their own nature and must be saved, those are Fencing (and Archery)... p.s. Compound Archery doesn't have anything to do with the true art of Archery, which has always been and always will be only the naked Archery (the current olympic event)...

yes, if ROU beat MNE by 6+ goals...

Norway also almost qualified for the OGs... with today's +5, however, only a win by ROU over MNE with a 5 goal margin and scoring at least 30 goals could deny the Norwegian girls the qualification...

on the uww website there's the mat and match number of each bout still to be wrestled... https://uww.org/event/european-og-qualifier?tab=results

because the ranking is showing the total number of points without any discard, meanwhile the table with the provisionally qualified teams takes into account also 1 discarded results (and with that in mind, Russia is virtually ahead of KOR and HKG in the standings)... next week I'll try to post a more detailed analysis with all the possible combinations of results that could happen in the last event of the season...

US double in the first 2 events in New Delhi... Lucas Kozeniesky (men) and Mary Carolynn Tucker (women) won the Air Rifle competitions...

Naaa... +5 is a very good score that almost locks their qualification up... Meanwhile Serbia were back to -1, but then Russia started a 5 goal break that basically closed the game... Now Russia have a 4 goal lead with less than 5 mini tour be played...

meanwhile, in another group, Russia leading Serbia by 4 with 22 mins still to be played...

it's over...Montenegro win against Norway... I just can't imagine the Olympic Games without Norway...

I think it's about 50-50... surely, there's a new policy by our NF (recently a new board has been elected, even if the federation's president is always the same man), but also they got a bit more money from our NOC than in the past... as said, they manage also Judo and Karate, and all the success we had recently in those 2 sports (also at youth level, even in wrestling we got a few global junior and cadet medals, like Freni, Piroddu and some girls) led our NOC to give them more money... meanwhile, those youth medals, convinced our federation to give those guys a few opportunities to see if they can translate that early success into senior medals one day or the other... and of course we're also taking advantage from those foreign wrestlers often training in Italy that nowadays sometimes also decide to switch to our NF (like Conyedo, Kakhelashvili and others to come*)... *Chamizo is a different story, as he got married with Dalma Caneva when still living between Cuba and New York after he was left out of the Cuban team in 2012 and so he decided to come and wrestle for our Country, even if the Cubans tried to get him back in their team (but it was too late and he's too proud to forget the 2012 disrespect they had for him)... now we have to see how things develop after this pandemic, because our "small" sports have been hit hard and there's a chance we're going to lose many youngster among those practicing those disciplines (I mean, swimming pools and gyms are still closed here in Italy and "contact" sports are only authorized at olympic level, but they're still stopped for what concerns all the amateur and youth activity, which are the craddle where to find athletes for the future of our National teams)...

a Covid cluster with 30+ positive people has been recorded after the Sabre events in Budapest... Japan look to be the team paying the highest prize with 5+ positive members of their staff (athletes, coaches, trainers and officials)... this could potentially lead to another stoppage of the international activity and cancellation of the next events on the calendar... the news in French: https://www.lequipe.fr/Escrime/Actualites/Cluster-a-budapest-lors-de-la-manche-de-coupe-du-monde-de-sabre/1233476

only the semifinals will have a good coverage on many tv networks around the Continent (some of them, viewable through their website or on satellite)... p.s. @Giovanni Gianni Cattaneo sky Italia has the tv rights here in Italy, but there will be only a delayed broadcast @ 9.30 p.m. (all 3 days: today, tomorrow and saturday) on skysport Arena HD...

looking at the FS draw, I see quite a few very unbalanced sides in almost each weight class... in the -57kg, Vangelov has almost a freeway on his side of the draw, in the bottom half there are more trustable candidates, my pick however is Harutyunyan... in the -65kg, Aliyev just can't miss such easy chance in the top half of the draw, in the bottom half instead there are once again more candidates, my pick is Khinchegashvili... in the -74kg, the top half should be a question between Kuramagomedov and Gadzhiyev, meanwhile in the bottom half my pick is Demirtas, even if he won't have an easy route to the final... in the -86kg, once again the top half of the draw is a lot easier than the lower side...I'd be very surprised if someone not being Shabanau or Ianulov would eventually qualify, in the bottom half there's more competition, but I still think Aminashvili would finally prevail (this is quite a kamikaze guess, I suppose )... in the -97kg, the top half should be a question between Ruano Conyedo and Hushtyn, but I'm too biased and I support "my" former Cuban guy...in the bottom half my pick is Karadeniz (another kamikaze guess, however I strongly support the guy, Scherrer, despite he isn't among the favourites at all)... in the -125kg class, finally, my pick are Magomedov (basically a free pass for him) in the top half and one between Sharipov or Kramiankou in the bottom half...

that's good news for Italy... I'd never think Lanzi could make it, but it looks she's lucky enough to sneak in thanks to reallocations... the more athletes we qualify, the better it is for our very "tormented" sport right now...

The 10km FINA/CNSG Marathon Swim World Series 2021 has started last Saturday in Doha (QAT)... Marc Antoine Olivier (men) and Ana Marcela Cunha (women) are the winners of the race that opened the season... more details, here: https://www.fina.org/news/2064946/golden-olivier-fra-and-cunha-bra-on-the-return-of-marathon-swimming-action

on FINA's website, the adjusted Waterpolo Schedule is available (even if they haven't posted on the Tokyo 2020 official website yet)... https://www.fina.org/competitions/5/olympic-games-tokyo-2020/results?discipline=WP&disciplines=