phelps

grand slam tournament in Budapest just came to an end a couple of hours ago... a few things to remember... as expected, Japan are still the owners of this game...they did show up with a very strong team (with a few Olympic champions) and won 8 of the 14 gold medals up for grabs... for the joy of my dear friend @MHSN Saeid Mollaei can still deliver after the new "Mercenary for justice" episode...ops...I mean...the new change of Nationality to Azerbaijan...this time he was second, beaten only in the gold medal fight by the Brazilian Guilherme Schmidt... Italy was surprisingly good, taking home 1 gold medal (Alice Bellandi in the women's -78kg, the only athlete in the whole tournament to win against the Japanese representative, nothing less than the Olympic champion Shori Hamada), 2 silver medals (the amazing 17 years young Giulia Carnà in the women's -52kg and Christian Parlati in the men's -90kg, losing his final in a very controversial way against the Japanese Murao) and 1 bronze medal (Antonio Esposito in the men's -81kg)... it was quite some time that we didn't get such kind of success in a grand slam tournament... the new set of rules and interpretation about the shido sucks big time and the refs this week have been too inconsistent in applying them, having too much of a bad influence on many bouts... finally, we can easily avoid wasting time to set up the men's +100kg class in Paris...the true Teddy Riner is back...and he's a man on a mission... never seen him so fit and focused in a "normal" tournament... he was simply devastating, destroying his opponents as he used to do in his prime... I'd never thought he could be back in this kind of shape after his performance in Tokyo...chapeu to one of the greatest athletes in the whole world of sport... here you can find the full set of results of the Budapest event: https://live.ijf.org/gs_hun2022/results

well, not that this edition was extremely interesting (2 CR in total, 1 among the boys, 1 among the girls)... Popovici (ROU) and Galossi (ITA) swimming good times to dominate their respective events, but not going even close to their best clockings after having already performed in Budapest among the seniors... the only expected champion to improve himself was the Polish Masiuk in the 50/100/200 backstroke... among the teams, Poland have surely the best results, with Romania showing more than just Popovici (a cery interesting Stancu in the freestyle middle/long distances) and Italy struggling to keep in touch (if it wasn't for Galossi)... also among the girls there was no wow! effect... Hungary as always looks to have the most and best talents, especially Padar, but it's still too early to say what's the future ahead of these girls (the best youngsters aged 15/17 are not from Europe and already have their place on the senior stage)... among those expected to good results, Jefimova (EST) dominated the breastroke with ease, but not so impressive times (same situation of Popovici & co.)... Pudar (BIH) lost the 100m fly, but won the 50 and 200, but always with not so impressive times Turkey are also high in the medal table thanks to their controversial middle distance specialists (Merve Tuncel above all), but I'm sure they won't become true stars at the top level...

Swings is getting closer and closer to Chad Hedrick and Derek Parra in the list of the best inline skaters of all time... maybe he's already ahead of them... definitely, it's not a surprise looking at him trolling the rest of the field...

is there a chance to watch Softball somewhere in the world wide web? Italy are leading 4-3 against Canada (they were 4-0 up...our pitchers are starting to struggle closing to the finish line, unfortuantely)... it would be an amazing success (and quite an upset, especially considering that we don't even have our best pitcher in this tournament)...

for what concerns Italy, some disappointing results among the men, but 2 great gold medals in the women's divisions (Elena Borghi's in the U23 C1 is surely the most important in perspective, as she's already an established paddler at senior level)... p.s. Ivrea's course is still one of the best in the world, technically and in terms of landscape (unfortunately tv/streaming pictures in this occasion didn't make it justice)...

since we speak of age groups, Joan Verdu won the bronze medal at the last youth Olympics (men's Giant Slalom), before having a great breakout at the "real" Olympics in Beijing last February (unfortunately, just outside the medals)... hopefully both Verdu and Villarubla would eventually get a medal also among the seniors, sooner or later...

@MHSN Saeid Mollaei just made it through to the gold medal match in the Budapest grand slam tournament... He's still somehow competitive also after the new change of Flag to Azerbaijan...

I think this is the easiest choice among all the polls we had so far... all the events are a no brainer, as they include the best specialists ever by quite some margin (always imho, of course)... so, I'm just gonna make a quick list (without further explainations)... Athletics, men's 400m... Michael Johnson Athletics, women's Long Jump... Heike Drechsler Canoe Sprint, women's K1 500m... Birgit Fischer Diving, men's 3m Springboard... Greg Louganis Fencing, women's Individual Foil... Valentina Vezzali

Olympic Channel coverage sucks big time! basically, it's only powerlifting a few more events... poor picture quality, only live broadcast (no chance of catch-up at all)... add some technical issues and weather delays and I'm done, I already lost my (very little) interest in following this thing...just going to read the final results on the Italian websites (the official website is also something to be ashamed of)... p.s. to be precise: I'm talking of the android TV app (I don't like watching sports/movies on my pc screen...I refuse to do it -it can only happen as a secondary option in particular cases)...

She has stopped inline skating in 2021 to dedicate herself to the olympic speedskating on ice before Beijing 2022... And it paid off quite well, I guess...

It's 1 gold and 1 silver to start the Games for Italy Better than expected...

let's hope media coverage would eventually be at least decent... normally, tournaments in Egypt have a lot of issues in that sense...

ps @hckošice I told you...I'm so envious of your Country's dedication to Hockey... now, more than ever!

wow! what a night for Slovakia and for Hockey... never expected Nemec to go up to no.2, but, missing on Slaf, that's a really smart call by the Devils...they already have quite some talent on offense (especially at center), now they're building a solid defense (last year they picked Luke Hughes, who's also expected to have some impact in the NHL sooner rather than later)... they just miss a top goalie to become a force in the Eastern Conference... I also appreciated MTL's move on Kirby Dach, a good, strong young center that could be a long time partner for Slaf (I'd really like to see them playing in the same line)... on the other hand, I really don't understand the Blackhawks...they gave up the 2 players to rebuild the team on (Dach and DeBrincat) to keep the 2 dinosaurs (Kane and Toews) that are one of the reasons for which they're one of the worst teams in the Western Conference...OK being grateful to the guys that won so much for them, but I feel that's too much (and what's really bad, it's compromising their future not only on short terms, but also on medium terms...at least)... big loser of the night, Shane Wright, who went in a few minutes from the expected no.1 overall with his hometown team to no.4 with expected long time losing tribe in Seattle... last words for Washington...classy (and truly confident) move in calling Miroshchenko at the first round, considering that he's being treated for cancer in Russia right now... good luck to the guy first of all...and to the Caps, too...

2 words: GHB party (not saying at all that she was conscious of that, rather that she was victim of it)... her symptoms (especially the few hours blackout) go straight in that direction...

the Olympic Channel app (at least here in Italy) has already a few streams ready for tomorrow (Roller Speedskating, Powerlifting and a few Lacrosse matches)... I don't know if they will add more?

OMG! I remember Patrick Montel (and Jean Paul Ollivier, Gerard Holtz, Patrick Chene, rugby-man Pierre Salviac and that guy with the heavy pink lipstick) since the times of Barcelona 1992, when there was still the analogue tv and France2 (at that time still Antenne 2) could be watched also here in the whole north-west of Italy because of the overspill of their signal...

espn player will also air that for us not enjoying our life in the Hockey Heaven but in the sad Soccer Hell...

absolutely amazing!

did you take the lovely cat of the gymnastics venue home with you?

Track Cycling, men's Omnium...this is a no brainer... Elia Viviani and his amazing winning fight against Mark Cavendish (and Lasse Norman Hansen) in Rio is the highest point the discipline has ever reached and probably it will always be. Shooting, men's Trap...this is more difficult, especially because the format changes in the last years... however, reasonably it's a battle between Luciano Giovannetti and Michael Diamond, arguably the 2 best specialists ever... since I'm extremely biased, I go with Luciano Giovannetti. Shooting, women's Trap...this is very easy, instead... Jessica Rossi is my pick...the way she dominated the field in London, with a record that will never be broken (also because of the format change, but not only) is the most dominant performance ever in this event. Athletics, men's 3000m Steeplechase...given that the best specialist in the history of the discipline never won an Olympic title, I go with the only man capable to win twice in the modern era (and with some years' space between the 2 gold medals), Ezekiel Kemboi (even if El Bakkali's win in Tokyo was probably more exciting than all the Kenian gold medals in the last 50 years). Golf, women's Individual...despite having 2 true champions as the Olympic Gold medallists so far, I think the event is too young to give a safe vote on this...therefore, I pass on this event.

I call all of this, paving the way for France to win Gold in all team sports that matter to them... First dangerous opponent to miss out on Paris 2024, Mexico in men's football (now I expect some surprising results also in the South American and European qualifiers)...

Cannella should end up in a gulag! people just can't miss a penalty twice! by the way, congrats to Spain...well deserved title for them...

p.s. tbh, Spain have been the best team through the whole championship...if we steal this, we can claim ourselves very lucky...

what a comeback by Italy!!! now, the worst way to choose the world champions...the penalty shootout... not sure my heart can manage all this...