phelps

thanks... I guess it's not enough for my hardcore fans friends (still they decided to renew their trackpass subscription)... fortunately, I'm not a motorsports (and nascar in particular) fan, otherwise I'd get mad with trackpass malfunction as they described to me... p.s. all TV networks had to stop their broadcasting on Sunday night, the US TV also stopped their live broadcast at a certain point (I read quite a few comments on the web...and many fans are not happy at all with Fox USA)...

yes, basically they had 2 separate rankings for those who did race on the red course and those who did race on the blue course... the top 8 in each of those 2 rankings would qualify for the knockout stage (crossing format: 1st red vs 8th blue and so on, with the faster of the 2 skiers of each pairing entitled to choose the course in the next stage)...

ps I have a question for you... Is Ziggo showing all Nascar races (included Truck and Infinity series)? in such circumstance, Is the original language available? because I have a couple of friends experiencing a lot of troubles with the Track Pass and maybe I could suggest them to opt for a Dutch subs instead of the Track Pass (it's a bit more expensive, but at least they could easily subscribe from Italy at no extra-cost)...

3/4 seconds on 2-run/50 secs slaloms (not mentioning the start bib, normally very low for the top skiers, #31 and above for Brignone)... in combined events it's a bit different...1 single very short and easy slalom run with Brignone starting with no.1...there's no way she loses more than a second even from the top specialists unless she straddles or make any big mistake... imho today she's gonna end up 4th, maybe 5th (unless big mistakes happen), but still ahead of Holdener...

yes, the race started again after a long delay... including the stoppages (1 because a lightning hit the center of the raceway), it's been a 7-hour racenight... and the post above yours, is a full spoiler of what happened after the 1st break at lap #14...

if the slalom course is what our broadcasters said, there's no chance for Holdener to make up more than half a second on the big 3 (and even 1 second on Brignone)...

so, with all the big 3 (Shiffrin, Gisin, Vlhova) just a few hundreds behind, no chance for Brignone unless 1 of them goes out (which is highly unlikely)...

and remember...in the slalom race it will be from 1st in the super-G to last... so, the super-G winner will have a big advantage starting 1st on an easy & flat but very icy course... and we're going to have all the hype (if there's any hype for this race) gone after 5 minutes...

it's because of the slope...it's the same final part of the Tofana track...it's basically flat and our girls have always been in trouble when skiing on flat courses... I think Shiffrin and the Swiss girls (Gut and Gisin) are the true favourite here with Bassino and Worley only in the outsider's role despite being the 2 best GS skiers in the world by far... meanwhile I don't know what to think about Vlhova...this year she doesn't look too good in GS, it looks she has more chances to win gold in slalom and alpine combined...

naaa...they will find somehow the way to throw everything away... they wouldn't be the "modern Sbornaja" otherwise...

on that slope it would take a miracle for her to get on the podium... Cortina is the worst location for the Italian skiers except Kostner in the past and Goggia right now... unfortunately, Sofia is at home with her broken leg...

men's alpine skiing is scheduled to be in Bormio on the Stelvio course... but we must say that that course in February is not the same we're used to see in December...it's well possible that at that time of the year there won't be the same icy conditions, which would change a lot of things for many skiers (the Italians more than any other...just look at the results of the last world champs held there)...

Since there are so many "Italians" all around the world (especially in the American continent and Australia, but not only there) and so many "foreigners" adopted by Italy, I think it would be almost impossible to make a list for my Country...

the true raising stars in Italy are Linda Zingerle (she's gonna be even better than the best Wierer one day, as she's a better natural skier) among the girls and Bionaz and Giacomel among the men (they are the only 2 guys born in 2000 and beyond to have already got WC points so far)... Giacomel is one of the only 3 guys in the recent history of the world cup to get WC points in his very first race (J. Boe and Dale are the only other 2) last year...and he's always been among the top skiers in the youth/junior ranks...give him some more time to develop (this year he had covid until just before Christmas, he didn't have the chance to make a proper pre-season training and he's already among the top 30/40 in most of the races he run) and you'll see... other great prospects are Rebecca Passler and Hanna Auchentaller among the girls (but we have to admit that Lardschneider, Trabucchi and the same Auchentaller will never be good enough in the ski section to become serial winners)... but with one of them and Vittozzi (if she gets back to her best shape of 2 years ago), Zingerle and Passler we're going to have a very good team for years among the girls... p.s. and don't take for granted that Wierer is going to retire after Beijing's Olympics...the next Games will be in her own garden, Anterselva/Antholz...our NF/NOC would do all it takes to keep her within their ranks until 2026...

the women run on the classic Tofana course, the men on the new Vertigine...the slopes are just one beside the other and the finish stright is the same for both tracks...

all the world cup/world champs races are live and ondemand in crystal clear HD on Youtube...so, they have full time exposure like all the other wintersports athletes (FIS and ISU events are on Eurosport Player, IBSF is on YT, FIL is on their own website)... oh, wait...German TV networks are geoblocking all this stuff to protect their 5-min summaries...

by the way, those mini-lockdowns of few days are highly ineffective...if you want to get a decent and durable result you have to lock everybody down for at least a couple of months... otherwise it's just a useless farce...

with all respect, Australia are only lucky because they are a big island with very few people spread around millions of square miles... and moreover, they have 11 months a year of very favourable climate... try and come here (or in the American continent) with our density of population and many months a year of cold weather with any sort of flu and similar virus going on all Winter... sometimes you just can't handle things like you'd do in other circumstance...

all Wintersport World Cup events scheduled for the next weeks in Norway have been cancelled, from Alpine to Cross-Country Skiing, from Ski-Jumping to Nordic Combined... and even if there's not official news yet, also Biathlon will be axed soon... hopefully, a few of them will be rescheduled elsewhere, but I fear many others won't... https://www.fis-ski.com/en/alpine-skiing/alpine-news-multimedia/news-multimedia/news/winter-2020-21/all-remaining-fis-world-cups-in-norway-cancelled

all Wintersport World Cup events scheduled for the next weeks in Norway have been cancelled, from Alpine to Cross-Country Skiing, from Ski-Jumping to Nordic Combined... and even if there's not official news yet, also Biathlon will be axed soon... hopefully, a few of them will be rescheduled elsewhere, but I fear many others won't... https://www.fis-ski.com/en/alpine-skiing/alpine-news-multimedia/news-multimedia/news/winter-2020-21/all-remaining-fis-world-cups-in-norway-cancelled

all Wintersport World Cup events scheduled for the next weeks in Norway have been cancelled, from Alpine to Cross-Country Skiing, from Ski-Jumping to Nordic Combined... and even if there's not official news yet, also Biathlon will be axed soon... hopefully, a few of them will be rescheduled elsewhere, but I fear many others won't... https://www.fis-ski.com/en/alpine-skiing/alpine-news-multimedia/news-multimedia/news/winter-2020-21/all-remaining-fis-world-cups-in-norway-cancelled

Eurosport Player has it all... in France it's also live on TV (and streaming) on L'Equipe21 (which is available worldwide with a vpn)...

Didier Bionaz will kick our mixed relay off instead of the supposed Dominik Windisch tomorrow...

sure, so to have the skier starting with bib #1 winning gold, the no.2 winning silver, the no.3 winning bronze, the no.4 ending up in 4th place and so on...at least if you hold the world champs on the Alps (or in Are, just like it happened in 2019)... thanks to the climate change, there's no room for regular races in March in Europe anymore (except maybe for Kvittfjell, that's the only place in Europe where you can still find cold enough weather at that time of the year)... on the other hand, I agree about getting rid of some races like AC and Team Event (meanwhile Parallel Slalom could be an entertaining discipline, it's only a question of using the right slope and the right course setting so to have fair races on both courses)...

Leon Spinks, Montreal 1976 Boxing Olympic Champion in the Light Heavyweight class and former Pro Heavyweight undisputed world champion, dies at 67 because of a cancer... https://www.cbssports.com/boxing/news/former-heavyweight-champion-leon-spinks-dies-at-67-after-lengthy-cancer-battle/ R.I.P.