phelps

Russia (women) and the Netherlands (men) win the Team Sprint titles...as expected...

GBR vs GER for Gold and ITA vs FRA for Bronze...

Denmark!!!!! 3.48.7!!! second fastest time ever!

Ganna! what a man! his front laps literally destroyed Britain's hopes to go for Gold in the men's Team pursuit! amazing match-up, luckily ITA ended up on the right side of the clock... p.s. and what a time also for the Swiss in an earlier heat...

finally, the championship started...and in the first day of competition we had 4 different Nations winning the 4 Gold Medals awarded today... women's -48kg Gold: Wakana Koga Silver: Shirine Boukli Bronze: Jon Su Song & Andrea Stojadinov women's -52kg Gold: Sosorbaram Lkhagvasuren Silver: Hsu Lin Hsuan Bronze: Ayumi Kawada & Larissa Pimenta men's -60kg Gold: Konstantin Simeonidis Silver: Ahmad Yusifov Bronze: Ken Suematsu & Salih Yildiz men's -66kg Gold: Willian Lima Silver: Takeshi Takeoka Bronze: Ibrahim Aliyev & Michael Marcelino Full Results: http://www.ippon.org/wc_jun2019.php

I'm so disappointed with our girls of the Team Pursuit! they just improved marginally during these last 3 years, meanwhile many other Nations are cutting their times down by seconds from championship to championship...now we're far behind the Germans, too... and in Italy someone still talk of them as medal candidates...it will be a great success should they just qualify to the Olympics...

Nats sweep Cards to clinch 1st World Series trip Washington leans on rotation arms to reach 'a beautiful place' Maybe it had to be this way, a reminder of the road they traveled. That first playoff series seven years ago came against the Cardinals, a crushing loss in Game 5 that in retrospect foreshadowed what October would be like for years to come in D.C. All the heartbreak. All the disappointment. All the unfulfilled expectations left throughout this journey. So maybe it was appropriate for the Nationals to officially eradicate those postseason demons this way, catching the breaks other teams always caught against them, and then punishing and pulverizing the Cardinals in cathartic fashion. The Washington Nationals are going to the World Series. Picture saying that on May 24, or at the start of the eighth inning of the NL Wild Card Game, or after falling behind two games to one in the NL Division Series to a 106-win Dodgers team, or in the eighth inning of Game 5 of that same NLDS. But it’s true. The Nationals swept the Cardinals out of the NL Championship Series, clinching the first trip to the World Series in franchise history with an emphatic 7-4 victory on Tuesday night at Nationals Park. "I can’t put this moment in words," manager Dave Martinez said. "I can say this: Often, bumpy roads lead to beautiful places, and this is a beautiful place." On Tuesday night, they weren’t going to give the Cardinals a chance to get off the mat. Patrick Corbin needed 10 pitches to strike out the side in the top of the first. The offense batted around and scored seven runs in the bottom of the first. St. Louis chipped away at the deficit to pull to within striking distance, even loading the bases in the eighth, but Daniel Hudson shut the door with a four-out save. And then the party began at South Capitol Street. “There were other times, couldn’t get over the hump or whatever it was, but really it’s kind of tough to say what’s going to happen in the playoffs,” right-hander Stephen Strasburg said. “You have a great year and you kind of run into a buzzsaw, but maybe this year we’re the buzzsaw.” The sold-out crowd of 43,976 fans erupted with each out recorded, counting down until they could call their team the National League champions for the first time. The World Series is coming to D.C. for the first time since 1933. Eighty-six years have passed since then, two teams have left and another arrived, before the Nats transformed from also-ran into perennial contender. “I took the October heartbreaks as a step in the right direction,” said first baseman Ryan Zimmermann, who has been active for every season in Nationals history. “We had some times here where we knew on April 1 we weren’t going to make the playoffs. We came a long way. And sometimes you’ve got to learn from failure and go through some bad times to get to some good times.” The Nationals have enjoyed these locker-room celebrations a few times now, but even though “wet is wet,” as Martinez joked, he admitted each one gets better. They played the usual hits, Sean Doolittle brought out a lightsaber. Brian Dozier and Yan Gomes lost their shirts. Gerardo Parra danced merengue with Martinez and Strasburg. And they drank from the NL championship trophy, which Martinez carried into a local establishment at the end of the night. These Nationals are going to the World Series. Really. This team. The one that won 93 games, the fewest of their five playoff teams. They’re going to the World Series the year they lost Bryce Harper. The Nationals brought the oldest team in baseball to the dance and a bullpen with one of the worst ERAs in postseason history, and they’re going to the World Series anyway. “It’s hard to win in the playoffs,” Zimmerman said. “Everyone just assumes: You won 97 games, you’re just going to go ahead and win in the playoffs. You’ve got to get some lucky breaks. And more importantly, you’ve got to take advantage of those lucky breaks. This year we definitely got some lucky breaks. But we got some huge hits with two outs. We made our own luck.” The Nationals did not begin this month as the favorite to win the NL, but they are no miracle. Once they got healthy they were one of the best teams in baseball. After May 24, the day they hit their lowest point, they were tied with the Dodgers for the second-best record in baseball, behind only the Astros. Washington rode the arms of a stellar starting rotation -- the four-headed monster of Max Scherzer, Strasburg, Corbin and Aníbal Sánchez -- who imposed their will on the Cardinals for the entire NLCS and rendered their sometimes leaky bullpen an afterthought. Anthony Rendon is an NL MVP Award candidate. Juan Soto is a star who turns 21 on the night of Game 3 of the World Series. They are two of the best and most dangerous hitters in baseball. Trea Turner and Victor Robles are two of the most electric players. Howie Kendrick, the NLCS MVP, has been a breakout star at 36. “I think once you start naming guys that stepped up in different ways, you’ll end up naming everybody on the team,” Doolittle said. “We got so many contributions from different guys who had to embrace new roles. There are so many examples of that up and down this team.” The Nationals will almost certainly not be the favorite over the American League champion, either the Astros or Yankees, when the World Series begins next Tuesday in the AL city, but count out Washington at your own risk. After all, this team nearly buried itself after 50 games, but it rallied. This team stared down a 3-1 deficit in the eighth inning of the Wild Card Game with baseball’s most unhittable reliever, Josh Hader, on the mound and rallied. And then the Nats were down 3-1 in the eighth inning of a winner-take-all Game 5 at Dodger Stadium facing Clayton Kershaw, the best pitcher of his generation, and they still survived. “Because baseball is such a cruel sport sometimes,” Scherzer said. “We played some really good games against some really good teams and we laid it on the line. Those past teams have been really good and we've come up just an inch short so many times. I've been a part of that and been on the losing end, and it's just a gut punch every single time. When we can finally do it, and the way we handled business against the Brewers and the Dodgers and the Cardinals, I mean, just great, great ballclubs in the National League to finally punch through, man, it's just an ultimate feeling that you just can't describe.” All Credits: MLB.com

new update... the Washington Nationals surprisingly (but not so much) swept the St.Louis Cardinals out and earned their first World Series appearance... meanwhile Houston won game #3 in the Bronx by a score of 4-1 and so they took the series lead (2-1) and regained the home field advantage in the American League Championship Series... AMERICAN LEAGUE POST-SEASON BRACKET Wild Card Game* League Division Series** League Championship Series*** A New York Yankees 3 Minnesota Twins 0 New York Yankees 1 Houston Astros 2 Tampa Bay Rays, 5 B Houston Astros 3 Oakland A's, 1 Tampa Bay Rays (AL WCG winners) 2 NATIONAL LEAGUE POST-SEASON BRACKET Wild Card Game League Division Series League Championship Series A Atlanta Braves 2 St.Louis Cardinals 3 St.Louis Cardinals 0 Washington Nationals 4 Milwaukee Brewers, 3 B Los Angeles Dodgers 2 Washington Nationals, 4 Washington Nationals (NL WCG winners) 3 * = Single Game Match-up ** = Best-of-5 Series *** = Best-of-7 Series WORLD SERIES: Winners ALCS vs Washington Nationals, NL Champions (Best-of-7 Series)

quick update on the KBO playoffs series... Kiwoom Heroes won the first 2 games on the road against SK Wyverns and are just 1 win away from reaching the 2019 Korean Series... game #1 was a wonderful pitching duel, involving not only the starters of both teams but also the bullpens...it ended 3-0 after 11 innings! game #2 was more of a slugfest, but still a thrilling and highly entertaing match, ending 8-7 for the road team... game #3 is scheduled for tomorrow @ 6.30 p.m. local time (11.30 a.m. CET)

if only I was rich enough...

Sun Yang's CAS hearing on November 15th will be streamed live! https://www.apnews.com/87f89aedf6de44e9af9b70af8184dcfe

so, why not moving them directly to the Svalbard Islands?

Group Stage Day 6, Part 2 Wednesday 16.10.2019 - Schedule* Group A 18:00 Tappara Tampere (FIN) - Frisk Asker (NOR) Group C 19:30 Bìlì Tygři Liberec (CZE) - Augsburger Panther (GER) Group G 19:45 HC Ambrì-Piotta (SUI) - HC05 Banskà Bystrica (SVK) Group H 17:00 Mountfield HK (CZE) - Graz 99ers (AUT) *All times CET Watch live Check here for details of live TV broadcasts: https://www.championshockeyleague.com/en/fans/where-to-watch All games are also live on the CHL website for free, subject to geo-blocking restrictions in certain countries due to TV rights.

so, after today's games of the final stage of the CHL preliminary round, we already know almost all the teams qualified to the knockout stage (15 out of 16, to be precise)... and if this is obvious for the 4 completed groups, it could/should be different for the 4 groups going to end their campaign tomorrow...but this is not the case, as most verdicts have come earlier than expected... all 8 groups winners have been determined: 3 come from Switzerland (Biel/Bienne, Zug and Lausanne), 3 from Sweden (Luleå, Skellefteå and Frölunda) and 2 from Germany (Mannheim and RB Munich)... this means, of course, that the big losers are the Czech Extraliga and the Finnish Liiga, which didn't see any of their teams topping a single group... moreover, Finland only have 1 single team team going through to the knockout stage, meanwhile Czech Republic at least have 2 safe teams in the top 16 (Pilsen and Mountfield) and 1 still on course (Liberec, that need to win in regulation tomorrow against Augsburg to advance)... Sweden are the big winners, with all of their 5 teams qualified to the knockout stage, followed by Switzerland, with 4 teams going through to the top 16 and only 1 team ("my" Ambrì-Piotta ) leaving the competition already after the preliminary stage... also Germany could make a clean sweep, if tomorrow Augsburg can earn at least 1 point on Liberec's ice (right now, they have 2 group winners out of 2 teams that already completed their campaign in the first round)... finally, the only verdict still open is, as written before, the 2nd place in group C, where tomorrow Liberec (CZE) need to win in regulation to overtake Augsburg (GER)... should instead the Germans earn at least 1 point, they will get the qualifying spot at the expense of the Czechs... p.s. all this, assuming that Frölunda can take home the expected easy win in Cardiff (where the game is not over yet, but the Swedes lead 8-2 after 48 minutes of play...so, I guess it won't be difficult for them to complete the task)... final EDIT: obviously, it all went according to plan...so, all the info posted above are officially confirmed...

Group Stage Day 6, Part 1 Tuesday 15.10.2019 - Results Group A 19:45 EHC Biel/Bienne (SUI) - KAC Klagenfurt (AUT) 4-2 Standing : 1. Biel/Bienne 15 (Q), 2. Tampere 9 (Q), 3. Klagenfurt 9, 4. Asker 0 Group B 17:00 HC Pilsen (CZE) - EV Zug (SUI) 2-1 (SO) 19:30 Rungsted Seier Capital (DEN) - HPK Hämeenlinna (FIN) 3-1 Final Standing : 1. Zug 14 (Q), 2. Pilsen 12 (Q), 3. Hämeenlinna 7, 4. Rungsted 3 Group C 18:00 Luleå Hockey (SWE) - Belfast Giants (GBR) 4-0 Standing : 1. Luleå 14 (Q), 2. Augsburg 9, 3. Liberec 6, 4. Belfast 4 Group D 18:00 Yunost Minsk (BLR) - Lahti Pelicans (FIN) 2-3 (SO) 19:45 Lausanne HC (SUI) - Ocelàři Třinec (CZE) 5-3 Final Standing : 1. Lausanne 12 (Q), 2. Minsk 9 (Q), 3. Třinec 8, 4. Lahti 7 Group E 18:00 Kärpät Oulu (FIN) - Skellefteå AIK (SWE) 5-4 (SO) 19:30 Grenoble (FRA) - SC Bern (SUI) 1-3 Final Standing : 1. Skellefteå 11 (Q), 2. Bern 11 (Q), 3. Oulu 11, 4. Grenoble 3 Group F 19:30 Adler Mannheim (GER) - Djurgården Stockholm (SWE) 2-1 19:30 Vienna Capitals (AUT) - GKS Tychy (POL) 5-2 Final Standing : 1. Mannheim 14 (Q), 2. Djurgården 12 (Q), 3. Vienna 6, 4. Tychy 4 Group G 18:00 Färjestad Karlstad (SWE) - Red Bull Munich (GER) 3-1 Standing : 1. Munich 12 (Q), 2. Färjestad 11 (Q), 3. Ambrì 7, 4. Banskà Bystrica 3 Group H 20:30 Cardiff Devils (GBR) - Frölunda Indians (SWE) 2-9 Standing : 1. Frölunda 13 (Q), 2. Mountfield 9 (Q), 3. Cardiff 8, 4. Graz 3

and he's still great...also on the ice... https://twitter.com/BBCMOTD/status/1183664418690945025

Group Stage Day 6, Part 1 Tuesday 15.10.2019 - Schedule* Group A 19:45 EHC Biel/Bienne (SUI) - KAC Klagenfurt (AUT) Group B 17:00 HC Pilsen (CZE) - EV Zug (SUI) 19:30 Rungsted Seier Capital (DEN) - HPK Hämeenlinna (FIN) Group C 18:00 Luleå Hockey (SWE) - Belfast Giants (GBR) Group D 18:00 Yunost Minsk (BLR) - Lahti Pelicans (FIN) 19:45 Lausanne HC (SUI) - Ocelàři Třinec (CZE) Group E 18:00 Kärpät Oulu (FIN) - Skellefteå AIK (SWE) 19:30 Grenoble (FRA) - SC Bern (SUI) Group F 19:30 Adler Mannheim (GER) - Djurgården Stockholm (SWE) 19:30 Vienna Capitals (AUT) - GKS Tychy (POL) Group G 18:00 Färjestad Karlstad (SWE) - Red Bull Munich (GER) Group H 20:30 Cardiff Devils (GBR) - Frölunda Indians (SWE) *All times CET Watch live Check here for details of live TV broadcasts: https://www.championshockeyleague.com/en/fans/where-to-watch All games are also live on the CHL website for free, subject to geo-blocking restrictions in certain countries due to TV rights.

p.s. and at least until 2024 (included), we will not go to outdoor venues in any case (for the World Champs)... 2020 = Berlin, GER 2021 = Ashgabat, TKM 2022 = Saint Quintin en Yvelines, FRA 2023 = Glasgow, SCO, GBR 2024 = Ballerup, DEN

the last world championships held in a fully outdoor velodrome, however, dates back to 1995 (Bogotà, COL) and 1994 (Palermo, ITA)... the 2014 Worlds, instead, were held in Cali (COL), in a semi-indoor track (a formerly outdoor velodrome, now with a roof, but not with a fully closed structure)...

for sure there are no rules saying that outdoor (nor 333m/400m long) tracks are not allowed... the 2014 Europeans, for instance, were held in Guadalupe, in a 333m long outdoor track... however, I don't think UCI encourages this kind of choice...

I remember this one...really tragic event, especially how it was (badly) managed by all the police forces involved... in Italy at the time they were talking of that case in every news program and they wrote a lot of articles on newspapers...

fun fact...she's not the first top sportsman/woman to take part in those US shows...Italian (sport) climber Stefano Ghisolfi in 2016 won the American Ninja Warrior US TV Show

there are so many velodromes around Europe... just try and go to different places from time to time... being year after year in the same 2/3 places is really boring...

just filled the missing pieces of the puzzle on the Cuban team... p.s. in these weeks I'm watching the NPB playoffs...and naming Despaigne an outfielder is...let's say...a "brave" definition...letting him play the outfield, it's just trying to suicide (right now, he's definitely an old school DH...he's at least 150kg...and I'm very generous with him )

yeah, I saw that Camilla Moroni is the Italian girl competing in Doha...but frankly she's never got great results among the youth classes (yeah, some minor medals here and there, but she's never been considered an ace for the future of our Sport Climbing, like Laura Rogora, who won the Boulder Youth Worlds last year and made the Triple -Boulder, Lead and Combined- this year among the Juniors)... p.s. Laura Rogora should really be considered one of those exceptions like Ondra, as she already achieved results in natual climbing that many athletes never get in their whole life (9a rock walls)...and she only turned 18 last April... she definitely isn't only a sportswoman, she's a real climber at 360 degrees...