phelps

women's Individual 10m Air Rifle Gold: Oceane Muller Silver: Anastasiia Galashina Bronze: Alison Marie Weisz Full Results page: https://www.issf-sports.org/competitions/venue/csevent.ashx?cseventid=15755

here we go! stage #1 in Egypt has started... and it's started with a bang! for Italy, as Danilo Dennis Sollazzo won the first competition with the new (dumb and fan-enemy, to say the least) format... men's Individual 10m Air Rifle Gold: Danilo Dennis Sollazzo Silver: Patrik Jany @hckošice Bronze: Jiri Privratsky Full Results page: https://www.issf-sports.org/competitions/venue/csevent.ashx?cseventid=15750 the women's Individual Air Rifle is also scheduled for today (finals underway right now)... all the finals, as usual, are available for free on the ISSF media partners (Yotube, Livestream and Facebook)... https://www.issf-sports.org/competitions/venue/finalslivebroadcastschedule.ashx?cshipid=3024

more to come, as the European Champs are also underway...

in the meantime, the Asian Zone Champs have completed the Cadets stint of the tournament... 2022 Cadets & Juniors Asian Championships ( Tashkent) Cadets Results Women's Individual Epee: Chen Hailin Women's Individual Foil: Marjona Osmonova Women's Individual Sabre: Luisa Fernanda Herrera Lara @mrv86!!! Men's Individual Epee: Bogdan Lukin Men's Individual Foil: Cheng Tit Nam Men's Individual Sabre: Islambek Abdazov Women's Team Epee: Uzbekistan Women's Team Foil: Hong Kong Women's Team Sabre: Uzbekistan Men's Team Epee: Kazakhstan Men's Team Foil: Hong Kong Men's Team Sabre: Uzbekistan Cadets only Medal Table UZB 6 - 7 - 2 HKG 4 - 1 - 4 KAZ 2 - 0 - 4 IND 0 - 1 - 4 IRI 0 - 1 - 1 SGP 0 - 1 - 1 THA 0 - 1 - 1 KUW 0 - 0 - 3 AUS 0 - 0 - 1 MAS 0 - 0 - 1 MGL 0 - 0 - 1 QAT 0 - 0 - 1 as expected, the Host Nation dominated the side, taking advantage also by the absence of the 3 continental powerhouses, CHN, KOR and JPN... very good outcome also for Hong Kong... and despite the starting field being easier than usual, it's nice to see a good number of different countries (some of them not really known for their fencing tradition) being capable of winning at least a medal...

Winter is going, Spring is coming...and traditionally, this means that's time for the Youth Zone Championships... so far, the African Cadets & Junior Champs are the only to be already done and dusted... here's a quick recap... 2022 Cadets & Juniors African Championships ( Lagos) Cadets Results Women's Individual Epee: Maya Shalash Women's Individual Foil: Jana Ehab Women's Individual Sabre: Renad Adel Eldoksh Men's Individual Epee: Mahmoud Elsayed Men's Individual Foil: Dani-Adam Fellah Men's Individual Sabre: Ahmed Elsedawy Juniors Results Women's Individual Epee: Maroua Gueham Women's Individual Foil: Lojain Khaled Women's Individual Sabre: Zeina Saleh Men's Individual Epee: Mohamed Elsayed Men's Individual Foil: Yahia Mady Men's Individual Sabre: Ahmed Elsedawy Women's Team Epee: Egypt Women's Team Foil: Egypt Women's Team Sabre: Egypt Men's Team Epee: Egypt Men's Team Foil: Egypt Men's Team Sabre: Egypt Final Medal Table EGY 16 - 10 - 15 ALG 2 - 7 - 9 LBA 0 - 1 - 1 SEN 0 - 0 - 3 NGR 0 - 0 - 2 as usual, it's been a one-side show, with Egypt winning basically every event (only Algeria could stop them from an unbelievable clean sweep by taking a couple of individual gold medals home)... to be noticed, except for the Bronze medal won by Lybia, all of the individual honors went to Egypt and/or Algeria...the silver won by Lybia and all the bronze medals won by Senegal and Nigeria came from the team events...and just because there was a free spot to be taken on third step of the podium...

2021/2022 Fencing World Cup Women's Team Foil ( Guadalajara) Gold: United States Silver: Italy Bronze: Russia Semifinals Italy b. France 45-18 USA b. Russia 45-38 Bronze Medal Match Russia b. France by Match DNF (No idea if it was a boycott or just a question of injuries) Gold Medal Match USA b. Italy 45-40 Full Ranking & Results https://engarde-service.com/index.php?lang=en&Organisme=federacionmexicanadeesgrima&Event=world_cup_ff_gdl_2022&Compe=wc_fft_gdl_2022

it looks that Italy are going to buy a few more 7th tier Russians... in Istanbul, Danila Semerikov (Greco-Roman, 130kg) and Shamil Omarov (men's Freestyle, -61kg) competed under the Italian Flag (even if I think it's only because they wrestle for some Italian clubs, at least for now...not sure they can wrestle at the global champs for us yet)...

I don't follow enough the Equestrian Sports to give a qualified opinion on this poll... so, I only voted for Mark Todd because it's the name I read/heard more about in the very few occasions I watched Eventing competitions (Olympics and WEG only, basically)...

I guess it's more complicated than that...

yes, Jokerit officially pulled out of the KHL playoffs... it's on their official website, on their Twitter account and even on the official KHL website... https://www.jokerit.com/jokereiden-kausi-ohi https://en.khl.ru/news/2022/02/25/496618.html

At the Italian Indoor Nationals in Ancona, Marcell Jacobs won the men's 60m in a modest (for his recent standards) 6.55, followed by Giovanni Galbieri in 6.62... pretty disappointing race, to say the least... In the women's 60m, instead, Zeynab Dosso improved herself once again and this time finally got the new Italian Record all by herself: 7.16 her new best mark... pretty disappointing competition also in the men's shot put, with Nick Ponzio winning in 21.34m and both Leonardo Fabbri (national record holder) and Zane Weir (5th at the last Olympics) below the 21m mark... most exciting race of the championships, for sure the women's 800m, with Gaia Sabbatini imposing herself over Elena Bellò after a tough battle (2.01.07 vs 2.01.45)... p.s. Gianmarco Tamberi (men's high jump Olympic Champion) wasn't at the start after his appearance at the Celebrity Game of the NBA All Star Weekend 8 days ago... in the meantime, at the Naples Half Marathon, Yemane Crippa won the race and set the new Italian record over the distance in 59 mins and 26 secs, first Italian runner to go under the 60 min-mark and second best European clocking in the history of the Half Marathon behind the 59:13 by the Swiss Julien Wanders, who got beaten badly in today's race -he was 7th with 60:28)...

Breaking News: Italy are through to the Gold Medal bout in the women's team foil event in Guadalajara (MEX)... they are going to face the winner of the USA vs Russia matchup in the other semifinal...

2021/2022 Fencing World Cup Men's Team Foil ( Cairo) Gold: United States Silver: Russia Bronze: Italy Semifinals Russia b. South Korea 45-33 USA b. Italy 45-42 Bronze Medal Match Italy b. South Korea 45-29 Gold Medal Match USA b. Russia 45-34 Full Ranking & Results https://www.fencingtimelive.com/events/results/93BF59CAA188456C93076C8F7FCA5ADF

by the way, with Cerioni back on the driving seat, Volpi is absolutely on fire...3 wins out of 3 events this season so far...

Euphemism...big euphemism...

2021/2022 Fencing World Cup Women's Individual Foil ( Guadalajara) Gold: Alice Volpi Silver: Lee Kiefer Bronze: Olga Rachele Calissi & Eleanor Harvey Semifinals Volpi b. Calissi 15-3 Kiefer b. Harvey 15-9 Final Volpi b. Kiefer 15-14 Full Ranking & Results https://fie.org/competitions/2022/129

I don't think they will do it... If they withdraw in the earlier rounds, then they will get a DNF classification... however, I think that in the end this tournament won't be validated, since most Nations did withdrew before the beginning... we'll see what FIE does in the next few days (there's also a chance that someone will ask president Usmanov to resign...it's not to be excluded)...

p.s. not going to post anything about that farce gone on stage in Sochi (RUS), where a women's World Cup tournament was supposed to be held this weekend...

as usual, no live coverage and the regular media not working, when an international event is held in Cairo (EGY)...

2021/2022 Fencing World Cup Men's Individual Foil ( Cairo) Gold: Anton Borodachev Silver: Vladislav Mylnikov Bronze: Davide Filippi & Takahiro Shikine Semifinals Borodachev b. Filippi 15-11 Mylnikov b. Shikine 15-9 Final Borodachev b. Mylnikov 15-6 Full Ranking & Results https://fie.org/competitions/2022/138

because someone has to go that low... I think from number #3 through #5 man could even give a tie, since all of those athletes have reached the immortal goal of winning the Olympic Games, but I also took into consideration their full career, and Nagy was less consistent than the other 2 in the other circuits (world cup, world champs), at least in the individual events (she won a lot of gold medals, but often in the team event)... still, it's always my personal opinion...I do not pretend anybody to agree...and surely I'm not the "revealed truth" at all...

however, all of them competed yesterday in the preliminary pool's round... and they all went to Sochi... I see a lot of hypocracy and confusion here...

Jokerit Helsinki pull out from the KHL with immediate effect https://lastwordonsports.com/hockey/2022/02/24/jokerit-helsinki-quits-khl/

my respect to the skicross riders... on the other hand, in Fencing there's a World Cup stage in Sochi (women's Epee), which is normally underway without any sort of boycott (I see Italian, French, German, Japanese, even Estonian athletes competing)... I think IOC should at least say something about it, we can't have International Federations doing whatever they want (FIE is basically owned by Alisher Usmanov, one of the Russian Oligarchs close to "Uncle Vlad"...obviously they won't do anything if someone doesn't force them to)...

Laura Flessel, of course... never been a fan of her, but I must admit she's by far the best specialist ever...when she was at her best, she was just unbeatable... p.s. my full ranking among the nominees... 1. Laura Flessel 2. Emese Szasz 3. Britta Heidemann 4. Sun Yiwen 5. Timea Nagy 6. Yana Shemyakina