phelps

just finished my sushi and sashimi dinner (just to get closer to Japan)... now I hope be able to complete my first "straight" in 5 years until tomorrow night (at my age it would be a respectable effort, I guess )... but I don't want to make a detailed Olympic schedule...I just want to follow the feelings of the moment (and the Italian competitors and above all, medal chances)... luckily, this time I have full control of the situation and I can really choose whatever I want in each and every moment of the night (and day)...

the true worry: he might have infected many people of other teams, too... I hope nobody knew about his positive test before the end of this morning's heats...

I have no words...thanks! p.s. my answer to this last poll... might well end up between 11th and 13th place in the final medal table... at least, I hope we won't go down more than that...

it might be the best way for us to send an athlete in the semifinals (I mean, if you can can't win against people like Teodosiu, Ferjani, Apithy you just can't be a true medal candidate)... I wouldn't say this is a completely bad draw for us in the men's sabre... on the other hand, the women's epee could have been a bit more favourable... however, I don't trust our girl in the individual events anymore in any case...if something good will come, it will be a nice surprise to me...

main question: the answer is no, obviously... Japan only acted with great hypocracy and managed all the covid related issues so poorly (not only around the Olympics, in general) that I lost all of my trust in them... A) everything B) no idea...

and Nicoli (women's -60kg) against no.1 Harrington (IRL) in rd.2... we can say we've been very lucky... smelling another humiliating 0 in the boxing medal count...

oh, c'mon, man! Testa (women's -57kg) against Vorontseva (RUS) in the preliminary round and the winner against Walsh (IRL)... basically, 2 of the 3 favourites will be out by the end of the second round... and of course also the no.1 Lin (TPE) and Petrova (BUL) in the same half of the draw... meanwhile in the bottom half they just can save time and put Artingstall (GBR, who's not even in the top 5 of this class in terms of talent) in the Gold Medal match...

- Italy's M4X (Rowing) winning Gold in memory of Filippo Mondelli (who passed away because of cancer a few weeks ago) - Rikako Ikee (JPN, Swimming) winning a medal...as most of you already know her personal story - Everything else going on "naturally", without too many covid cases, with exciting and entertaining competitions and the less corrupted/doped medallists as possible...

if only you'd inform yourself before writing this kind of stupid things... we have 4 american born players on the team out of 15 players... and of those 4, 2 actually have been living and playing in Italy since many years (more than 10, they already played with our junior team when they were young) and 1 has 100% Italian heritage... there's only 1 girl that's actually american who got our passport through marriage... p.s. despite her name, Kotsoyanopoulos is 100% Italian (with Greek father)... p.p.s. and the 2 stars of the team, are not among those "imported" players...actually, Piancastelli has been for years a star in the US college and pro system before returning home...

very sad to know that... the same for me...

yes, the supposed "draw" of the team events is a formality...they will just put the team names in the brackets following the WR... the only real draw (even if it's a marginal draw) is the individual events'...

no, they have a conditional draw... each player can be drawn against 2 possible opponents... for instance, no.1 can face no.15 or 16, not automatically the no.16...the same for no.2, not automatically paired against no.15, but the remaining one between 15 and 16 (and so on for all the remaining pairings)...

just saw the opening night of the new Cricket tournament, The Hundred... it was quite a nice show (the girls can play very good and entertaining cricket, I must say)...I like the new 100-ball format and the new on-screen graphics concept... I think it might be a good think to catch some new spectators also in the non traditional Countries... now we only need an international board that actually wants to try to develop the Game outside the usual places...

the draw of the individual events will be held the day before the actual competition for each weapon... the team events are based on the current world ranking, so you can compile your own draw by looking at that (following the usual scheme, preliminary round: 8th vs 9th ranked among the qualified teams, the quarterfinals: 1st vs winner of prelim. rd., 2nd vs 7th and so on; semis: top half with 1st, 4th, 5th and 8th/9th, bottom half with 2nd, 3rd, 6th and 7th ranked teams)...

France Television don't have the same limit of all the other European National broadcasters because they have the primary rights (even if I think they decided to share something with Canal+)... in France Discovery is not a factor for the Olympics...

yes, and sometimes how it happens can be even tougher because of the feeling of helplessness... however, with time things go better, even if (at least for me) it's impossible to completely forget and / or remove the pain deep in the heart...

1984 it was the rai channels (rai1, 2 and 3...depending on the momento of the day, but never all together)... 1988 it was the rai channels, but also Telemontecarlo (summaries only) and, above all, TV Koper/Capodistria, which was namely the tv channel of the Yugoslav Italian Community, but it was bought by Silvio berlusconi at the beginning of that year and so they had a lot of sports events commentated in italian for the Italian audience... a few years later they broke out of TV Koper and became Tele+, our first pay-tv provider...and so on... p.s. thanks for your words...

tomorrow you'll have 2 live football games...

naaa... I'm pretty sure that Germany 2036 would quickly become a celebration of the 100th anniversary of the greatest Games of the last 100 years, Berlin 1936... they would even ask Leni Riefensthal's heirs to film the official movie...

my "conscious" 10th Summer Games (I should count also the 1980 Olympics, but I was only 6 and frankly I don't remember almost anything of that period, even if I saw most things of those Games later)... definitely the worst of them all, because of the empty stands but above all because it's the first time without my beloved mom (who passed away 4 years ago)... not so sure I'm gonna enjoy the party as I'd like...too many disturbing memories... sorry for the OT...

just watched the weather forecast for the next 14 days in Brisbane... Highs between 20 and 24° C, Lows at night between 8 and 12° C... Imho the proposed dates (July 23rd/August, 8th...just like this year) are a bit too ambitious and risky...better move to late August/early September... and don't tell me that there's no time to do it...it's 11 years from now...

environmental audio and English commentary are available on every feed... More languages only on selected feeds... right now, in Italy we have basic coverage on JPN v AUS and CAN v MEX in Softball and BRA v CHN in Football; then we have also the Italian audio for ITA v USA in Softball and more audio tracks on GBR v CHI (8 plus the field sounds) and USA v SWE (14! likely all the Eusp versions available)...

just swallow a big bottle of chamomile tea...

to me it's a full new sport, even if administered by the same federation of an existing one... however, even if you're right, I'm pretty sure NTL won't be included in the 2026 Games' program...

there should be at least also one male flagbearer, but I have no idea who is going to be...