phelps

by the way, they could come down the toboga in swimsuit...currently it's +6°C in Koenigssee...

Loch only 4th! no Germans on the podium (and no italians, but that was expected on this track), triumph of the Gleirscher family... now let's see what happens in the doubles' race...

yeah, that's better...so, the SWR timetable was definitely wrong (senseless)... all the action that counts is between 8 and 10 p.m. CET...

that's wonderful... but I have a different timetable for today's meet... on the German SWR TV, they start their live stream (also via Youtube) already at 6.35 p.m. CET (and they say it's a 3-hour stream)... so, on the BBC Red Button it's only a partial live broadcast (I guess it's like for the DL meets, with the international feed not including some of the early events -the 60m heats, for instance)...

they didn't change their mind... it's the government that approved a new "law" that follows the IOC's recommendation before resigning this morning... it's a bit different...

as usual, at the last second... what a shitty politicians we have...

25 Russia, 10 Italy, 5 Belarus...and you get 40 (which is very much a realistic preview)... if you add 2/3 more for each Country (more optimistic preview) you go even beyond 50... Russia in Rio was excluded from many events where they could win medals (and the entire delegation was a bit shaky because of the whole mess regarding their status)...this time they have the chance to win a lot more gold medals than 4 years ago...

Yes... also Ivano Brugnetti won the 20km race walk in Athens and Alex Schwazer the 50km race walk in Beijing...going back, Gelindo Bordin won the Seoul 1988 Marathon in white... as I wrote, the white one is the regular outfit for distance runners and race walkers...

yes, it's a technical point that could be fixed in 10 minutes... but... tomorrow morning our Prime Minister is going to the Presidential House to resign, so the current government can't take any further action and therefore we are in the middle of nowhere... moreover, behind that there's a political plot by those who tried to make this "reform" just to put all the money reserved for the NOC and its "armchairs" under their control... this is why no agreement has been reached in these months...most political parties here don't care about sport at all, they just want more money and power under their control and that's it... I'm pretty sure we're going to fix this question sooner or later (maybe even before the Tokyo olympics), but we will have to get the humiliation of being sanctioned like the last of dictatorships before we do anything...typical of this class of politicians we have right now...

it's the Italian outfit in athletics, we have both a white or a blue shirt with a small national flag close to the heart... normally the white shirt is used by the long distance runners and race walkers, but there's no strict rule about it...also the other athletes can use it... however, this is the Moscow 1980 final over 200m and Mennea is wearing our usual blue shirt (as you might notice, in that particular case there's no Flag on it)... on the other hand, Sara Simeoni has the Flag on her blue shirt... as I wrote, basically our authorities supported those boycotting the Games, but they didn't actually stop our sports institutions to take part into the Olympics (except for the Military system, which was in practice forced to do it as part of the NATO)...

32-19 with 12 mins still to be played... CRO are basically out...

no, in 1980 Italy competed under our own Flag, but all the athletes enrolled in the Military corpse didn't participate at all... it was one of our usual compromises, the State as an insitution (and therefore all the Military athletes) boycotted the Games, the private citizens (so, all the other athletes) were given the chance to choose... our NOC, as a private institution, could use our Flag and Anthem... this would be the first time ever we don't have our National symbols...and it would be because of a sanction, not on a voluntary basis, which is quite different in terms of public perception...

not only Fencing...adding together Russia, Belarus and Italy, there's a high risk that between 40 and 50 gold medals would be awarded under the IOC Flag and Anthem instead of the proper ones... most likely we're going to have 2 Nations in the top 10 (1 in the top 5) of the medal table that couldn't even be named...

it's on all kind of media, except those that only consider as sports football and formula 1/Valentino Rossi... so, no rai (servant of this and all the fuckin' governments in our history), of course... even on Gazzetta 3000 (once known as the most respectable newspaper in Italy, now a parody of a gossip magazine*) and on the enemy par excellence of any true sport Corsera, they have an article about that (still, a farce of an article and well down on the bottom of their website, but they have it)... *may the poor souls of Candido Cannavò and Angelo Rizzoli find peace one day...

yeah, that wasn't exactly a smart move, to say the least...especially in a sport where every single second of the race is watched and watched again by a full panel of judges assisted by top tier technology...

oh, sorry...also in Italy it was on Eurosport Player, but YT is not geoblocked in any case...we're luckier...

by the way, Suzanne Schulting dominated the event among the women, winning also the 1000m distance ahead of teammate Selma Poutsma and Anna Seidel... that was enough to mathematically secure the Overall Title, too, despite she ended up with a DSQ in the 3000m Superfinal, which was won by Sofia Prosvirnova... in the men's division, Semen Elistratov won the 1000m distance and the Overall Title, meanwhile the young Italian Pietro Sighel surprisingly won the 3000m Superfinal, which led him to win also the Overall Silver medal, breaking somehow the Russian/Dutch domination... in the Relays, we already said of the unexpected French success among the women, while the men's event was won by the Netherlands ahead of Italy and Russia...

full replay of women's Relay's Final...

surgical first drive by the Bucs...

yeah, the Russians did throw down ITA and NED, so they were DQed and FRA took advantage of the other 2 teams being well behind after the fall...

c'mon, man! today you just played against a group of zombies... I hope our NF would eventually fire all these girls and rebuild everything starting with the youngsters that won junior world and european medals 2 years ago... this group hasn't got anything left in the tank...

game over...if it wasn't over since an hour or so, yet...

don't waste your optimism for those girls...

so, now it looks that we still have a game... but I wouldn't bet a single cent on Italy in any case...I'm pretty sure they sooner or later find the way to waste it all... p.s. refs are depressing, though...

ready? steady? go! and we are 0-3 down, 0/4 with the man advantage and 2 missed penalty shots... those girls are just a waste of time... I'm so disappointed and frustrated...because it's not that they can't play...they're just mentally lost, a bunch of losers...