phelps

in the end, I think Turkey would eventually choose 67kg and 73kg (Ismaylov is a lock, if he's eligible)...

and finally we have the first champions of a top tier league in Europe... EC-KAC becomes Champion of BET-AT-HOME ICE HOCKEY LEAGUE 2020/21 The "Rotjacken" triumphed in game #5 of the Finals by a score of 5:3 and won the best-of-7 series against Bolzano/Bozen 4 games to 1. Klagengenfurt lifted the Karl Nedwed Trophy for the second time in a row and claimed the 6th title since the league was founded. HCB Südtirol Alperia headed into game five of the "best-of-7" final series against EC-KAC trailing 1:3 and were able to score with their first chance: Angelo Miceli won the one-on-one battle behind the goal, got the puck into the high slot to Luca Frigo (6.) for the lead. Until the middle of the first period, Bolzano was closer to another goal than the KAC was to an equalizer. But the guests from Klagenfurt then found their way into the game better and better and continuously established themselves in the offensive zone. In the 18th minute Martin Schumnig got the puck towards the goal, it came to Nick Petersen and the playoff MVP slid in for the equalizer. At the beginning of the second period Mike Halmo took the first penalty of the game for interference - and the KAC promptly turned the game in the first power play: Petersen with the one-timer, Rok Ticar pushed the rebound from Leland Irving to Matt Fraser (22./PP1) and he put the guests in the lead for the first time. And with the second powerplay goal, the "Rotjacken" immediately followed up when Ticar (27./PP1) lifted a rebound over Irving. But the "Foxes" did not give up and also rewarded themselves on the power play: Dustin Gazley (34./PP1) put the puck perfectly past Dahm into the net. Bolzano got a boost and pushed for the equalizer, but Gazley missed a top chance. In the final period, the visitors from Klagenfurt found themselves in a double powerplay occasion early on - after penalties against Daniel Catenacci and Nick Plastino - and doubled up. Matt Fraser (42./PP2) was again on the spot in the slot and scored. Once again the "Foxes" fought back and halved through Brett Findlay (49./PP1) also on the power play. From then on, Bolzano didn't let up, looked for chances, but couldn't score again against the cleverly defending Klagenfurt team - and then had to accept a technical goal by Manuel Geier, who had the empty net goal in sight and was stopped by Daniel Cantenacci. Game #5 stats: https://www.ice.hockey/en/stats-facts/gamestats?gameId=e0e74931-23b3-4a9c-9476-f180981b3ed5&divisionId=8259 Game #5 Highlights: https://www.puls24.at/video/highlights-5-finalspiel-ec-kac-hcb-suedtirol-alperia/short Credits: www.ice.hockey and www.puls24.at

KHL, Final Series, Game #2 35 mins of very tactical and close game, with the teams showing more fear to get a goal against than trying to score one by themselves... then, suddenly, Maxim Shalunov found an opening in the Avangard's defence and scored the go-ahead-goal on power play for CSKA... and since then, it was a one-side match, with CSKA widening their lead at the beginning of the 3rd period on quick a counter and then easily controlling the rest of the game until the final whistle... so, the series is now tied at 1-1... game #3 is scheduled for next Thursday, April 22nd, at 7.30 p.m. local time (6.30 p.m. CET) in Balashikha (Avangard's home ice)... game #2 recap CSKA Moscow - Avangard Omsk 3-0 (series tied 1-1) stats: https://en.khl.ru/game/1046/877122/protocol/ highlights

lucky draw for the Netherlands (if compared to the other Europeans)...

group B is a farce... 2 very poor teams are sure to make the quarters, meanwhile group A will be really complicated for the top 3 Nations (1 would eventually go out too early)...RSA are just "cosmetic", there...

my pick: Japan (because it's the Host Nation and most likely the only one who's gonna take this tournament seriously), Argentina (because of their tradition in Olympic football and because the Country is always in my heart) and Mexico (I don't really know why...I just like them)...

Extraliga, Final, Game #2 once again HC Oceláři Třinec took advantage of the home ice and despite the game was a lot closer than the 1st one, they still managed to edge Liberec by a score of 3-1, so now they lead the best-of-7 series 2-0... Game #3 is scheduled for Thursday, April 22nd at 6.30 p.m. CET, this time in Liberec... Game #2 stats: https://hokej.cz/zapas/2894220 Highlights

I hope 0, but it would be too optimistic...just picked a random 15-21... btw, I prefer polls based on the sports program...

I'm sorry, but it's expected, as you have a team in the league and a powerful tv network owns the media rights... sometimes living in a Country like Italy with no connections to high level hockey is an advantage, so we can easily access the free stuff all around the hockey world... sometimes, instead, it's a shame, as we can't access certain stuff in any way (and the Finnish Liiga is the worst example of them all...we can't even watch the 2-min highlights of those games )...

and while Russia and Czech republic just played the first game of their final series, the Austrian "open" ICE Hockey League is almost ready to proclame their champions, as the Final series between HC Klagenfurt and HC Bolzano/Bozen is already on the score of 3 games to 1 in favour of the Austrians... here's a recap of the first 4 games... Game #1, Bolzano/Bozen - Klagenfurt 0-6 stats: https://www.ice.hockey/en/stats-facts/gamestats?gameId=97e17134-a5ce-4ece-bd84-9b5588b4c22f&divisionId=8259 highlights: https://www.puls24.at/video/highlights-1-finalspiel-hcb-suedtirol-alperia-ec-kac/short Game #2, Klagenfurt - Bolzano/Bozen 5-4 stats: https://www.ice.hockey/en/stats-facts/gamestats?gameId=e6965e80-4719-4a9e-9fdf-60f8c27b260e&divisionId=8259 highlights: https://www.puls24.at/video/highlights-2-finalspiel-ec-kac-hcb-suedtirol-alperia/short Game #3, Bolzano/Bozen - Klagenfurt 2-0 stats: https://www.ice.hockey/en/stats-facts/gamestats?gameId=df37aea4-5ddb-44f0-94e2-ef47fc9cb69d&divisionId=8259 highlights: https://www.puls24.at/video/highlights-3-finalspiel-hcb-suedtirol-alperia-ec-kac/short Game #4, Klagenfurt - Bolzano/Bozen 2-1 (OT, game winning goal scored at 63.25) stats: https://www.ice.hockey/en/stats-facts/gamestats?gameId=e2e00e25-46b9-44aa-9b30-532e85183614&divisionId=8259 highlights: https://www.puls24.at/video/highlights-4-finalspiel-ec-kac-hcb-suedtirol-alperia/short

Spring usually means the climax of all European Leagues... this year we are a bit late with the season end in most of the traditional Hockey Nation, but Russia (KHL) and Czech republic (Extraliga) have finally reached their respective Final Series, which started just yesterday... in the KHL, it's a battle between CSKA Moscow and Avangard Omsk... and game #1 already gave us a surprising outcome, thaks to the 4-1 road win by Avangard in Moscow... but the result is surprising only for those who didn't watch the game, as Avangard dominated from the beginning to the end, leaving no chance to the players of the Red Army, not even when they closed the distance to 1-2 at the start of the 3rd period... it took a while in fact to Omsk to earn a power play and score the 3-1 with a perfect execution of a well designed set play... here are the stats and the recap of this match... https://en.khl.ru/game/1046/877121/protocol/ in the Czech Extraliga, instead, the Final Series is an affair between HC Oceláři Třinec and Bílí Tygři Liberec, both coming off tight semifinals who went to the decisive game #7... Game #1 wasn't as excited as expected and Třinec dominated the whole match, taking a strong early lead (3-0 already after 20 mins) and then controlling the rest of the contest...final score, 6-2 for Oceláři... stats and highlights, here: https://hokej.cz/zapas/2894219

I picked Bulgaria (because it looks they are truly the best, reading news and comments of the last few competitions), Russia (because they are the mafia boss of this artistic show) and Japan (because when it comes down to personal taste and other kind of interest of biased and/or corrupted judges, the home team always gets special regards if they are at least decent...and because Italy have a long tradition of being robbed of deserved medals)... in the Individual event, I think it will be 2 Russians and Ashram (ISR) to make the podium... p.s. why is this artistic show still in the Olympic program after the IOC made themselves a joke in the name of the socalled gender equality?

British Trials, Day #5 Highlights - men's 1500m Free: Daniel Jervis, 14.51.49 (OQS) - women's 100m Breast: Sarah Vasey, 1.06.37 edging out Molly Renshaw, 1.06.72 (both OQS) - men's 200m Back: Luke Greenbank, 1.56.70 (OQS) - men's 200m Free: Duncan Scott, 1.44.47, followed by Thomas Dean, 1.44.58; Matthew Richards, 1.45.77; James Guy, 1.46.04

thanks for the info... don't underestimate the Russian shooting school...they can always pull the rabbit out of the hat when it really matters... in any case, it's just an option among many others...

I picked "Any other Athlete", having in mind the second Chinese woman (whoever they might choose), the Russians, the Iranians (especially Khedmati), Laura Coman (ROU) and even Snjezana Pejcic (CRO, even if she's more a 50m 3-position specialist) more than a truly surpring and totally unexpected name... for what concerns the men's 10m Air Pistol, I'd rather pick Saurabh (IND) and Chernousov (RUS) as locked medals...then I think in this case we will see a truly unexpected man also on the podium (p.s. I'm not going to guess the exact medals, though)

no, problem...

British Trials, Day #4 Highlights - women's 100m Free: 1st, Freya Anderson, 53.40; 2nd, Anna Hopkin, 53.49 (both OQS, 3rd and 4th ranked in the 54s) - men's 50m Free: Benjamin Proud, 21.42 (OQS) - women's 200m Back: Kathleen Dawson, 2.08.14 (OQS) - men's 100m Fly: James Guy, 51.44 (OQS, swum also by the 2nd ranked, Jacob Peters, with 51.65) - women's 200m IM: Abbie Wood, 2.09.23 edging out Alicia Wilson, 2.09.61 (both OQS)

so, do you mean 12.32?

Sydney 2000 because of the atmosphere around the competitions and because that period was one of the best stints of my life... unfortunately I've never attended to any Olympic event on site...but I hope to make up for that in 2026*, with all the Hockey and Short Track Speedskating action taking place in my hometown, Milan... *I know, it's the Winter Games, but I usually make no distinction...the Olympics are the Olympics in any circumstance and in any season...

the real problem is that BTF did nothing to change the system... olympic boxing is still heavily corrupted...at the qualifiers held so far we've seen the usual shameful judging as ever...sometimes they only changed the favoured Nations, sometimes it's the same old story... this farce named olympic boxing has nothing to do with any sport and should be thrown out of the Games immediately (actually, it should have been done many, many years ago)...

unfortunately I can't find any...the only video about that race is this one, but it's impossible to watch because of the poor quality (and it doesn't show the full drama of the last 2/300m of the running section, there's just the last 20m sprint finish)...

yes... I thought they were not available in Italy...and instead I can watch that without any restriction... p.s. I expected a slightly better picture quality (in Italy we can only see the NFL Thursday Night Football among the top sport events for now -next year we're going to have also the Soccer European Champions League...it will be a good test for our broadband connection system)... I mean, it's quite good, but not so spectacular as it might (should) be... p.s. I read that Swimming Australia have signed a 2-year contract with Amazon...so, also next year we're going to watch this event on APV...

well, today I've seen a lot of dubious calls... the worst of them all I think it was the quarterfinal decisive shido against the spaniard Gaitero against the home hero Crisostomo, who should have got the 3rd shido at least 10 times before they absolutely turned the decisive call around... also Pupp benefited from very permissive refereeing (other than the bronze medal match outcome, in the quarterfinal match against Giuffrida it took 6 mins before the ref started to call some shido against her -and then he gave her 3 in a couple of mins, which is painful, even if deserved in her case)... in general, I saw a very much different idea of refereeing compared to the IJF's grand prix and grand slam tournament...defensive, passive and destructive judo has been a lot more tolerated than normal, today... under this circumstance, Amandine Bouchard and Manuel Lombardo's performances must be highlighted...they put a show on all day long with flashy ippons all over their unlucky opponents... they really looked in Olympic shape...

also underway this week are the Australian Swimming Championships... here you can find all prelims and finals results in full: http://liveresults.swimming.org.au/SAL/2021OPEN/ among the already completed races, some are worth to be mentioned: - women's 200m Free: Ariarne Titmus, 1.55.43 (followed by Madison Wilson, 1.56.26 and 3 more girls at 1.57.X) - men's 200m Free: Kyle Chalmers, 1.47.03 (with 3 more guys at 1.47.X, among them Elijah Winnington) - women's 200m Fly: Brianna Throssel, 2.07.20 (followed by the 16 year young Elizabeth Dekkers with 2.07.82) - women's 100m Free: Emma McKeon, 52.49 (followed by Cate Campbell with 52.85 and 3 more girls at 53.X) - men's 100m Free: Kyle Chalmers, 48.04 (followed by Jack Cartwright at 48.81 as the only other sub-49 clocking) - women's 100m Back: Kaylee McKeown, 58.60 (followed by Emily Seebohm with 59.22) n.b. the highly expected Elijah Winnington didn't swim the men's 800m Free (won by Thomas Neill in a modest 7.51.X)...

British Trials, Day #3 Highlights - Max Litchfield, men's 400 IM, 4.12.67 (OQS, swum also by the 2nd ranked, Brodie Williams, with 4.12.95) - Alys Thomas, women's 200m Fly, 2.08.09 (OQS) - men's 100m Free: 1st: Duncan Scott, 47.87 (OQS); 2nd: Matthew Richards, 48.23; 3rd: Thomas Dean, 48.51; 4th: Jacob Whittle, 48.76 - James Wilby, men's 200m Breast, 2.08.06 (already previously qualified); 2nd: Ross Murdoch, 2.08.98 (OQS)