phelps

the true raising stars in Italy are Linda Zingerle (she's gonna be even better than the best Wierer one day, as she's a better natural skier) among the girls and Bionaz and Giacomel among the men (they are the only 2 guys born in 2000 and beyond to have already got WC points so far)... Giacomel is one of the only 3 guys in the recent history of the world cup to get WC points in his very first race (J. Boe and Dale are the only other 2) last year...and he's always been among the top skiers in the youth/junior ranks...give him some more time to develop (this year he had covid until just before Christmas, he didn't have the chance to make a proper pre-season training and he's already among the top 30/40 in most of the races he run) and you'll see... other great prospects are Rebecca Passler and Hanna Auchentaller among the girls (but we have to admit that Lardschneider, Trabucchi and the same Auchentaller will never be good enough in the ski section to become serial winners)... but with one of them and Vittozzi (if she gets back to her best shape of 2 years ago), Zingerle and Passler we're going to have a very good team for years among the girls... p.s. and don't take for granted that Wierer is going to retire after Beijing's Olympics...the next Games will be in her own garden, Anterselva/Antholz...our NF/NOC would do all it takes to keep her within their ranks until 2026...

the women run on the classic Tofana course, the men on the new Vertigine...the slopes are just one beside the other and the finish stright is the same for both tracks...

all the world cup/world champs races are live and ondemand in crystal clear HD on Youtube...so, they have full time exposure like all the other wintersports athletes (FIS and ISU events are on Eurosport Player, IBSF is on YT, FIL is on their own website)... oh, wait...German TV networks are geoblocking all this stuff to protect their 5-min summaries...

by the way, those mini-lockdowns of few days are highly ineffective...if you want to get a decent and durable result you have to lock everybody down for at least a couple of months... otherwise it's just a useless farce...

with all respect, Australia are only lucky because they are a big island with very few people spread around millions of square miles... and moreover, they have 11 months a year of very favourable climate... try and come here (or in the American continent) with our density of population and many months a year of cold weather with any sort of flu and similar virus going on all Winter... sometimes you just can't handle things like you'd do in other circumstance...

all Wintersport World Cup events scheduled for the next weeks in Norway have been cancelled, from Alpine to Cross-Country Skiing, from Ski-Jumping to Nordic Combined... and even if there's not official news yet, also Biathlon will be axed soon... hopefully, a few of them will be rescheduled elsewhere, but I fear many others won't... https://www.fis-ski.com/en/alpine-skiing/alpine-news-multimedia/news-multimedia/news/winter-2020-21/all-remaining-fis-world-cups-in-norway-cancelled

all Wintersport World Cup events scheduled for the next weeks in Norway have been cancelled, from Alpine to Cross-Country Skiing, from Ski-Jumping to Nordic Combined... and even if there's not official news yet, also Biathlon will be axed soon... hopefully, a few of them will be rescheduled elsewhere, but I fear many others won't... https://www.fis-ski.com/en/alpine-skiing/alpine-news-multimedia/news-multimedia/news/winter-2020-21/all-remaining-fis-world-cups-in-norway-cancelled

all Wintersport World Cup events scheduled for the next weeks in Norway have been cancelled, from Alpine to Cross-Country Skiing, from Ski-Jumping to Nordic Combined... and even if there's not official news yet, also Biathlon will be axed soon... hopefully, a few of them will be rescheduled elsewhere, but I fear many others won't... https://www.fis-ski.com/en/alpine-skiing/alpine-news-multimedia/news-multimedia/news/winter-2020-21/all-remaining-fis-world-cups-in-norway-cancelled

Eurosport Player has it all... in France it's also live on TV (and streaming) on L'Equipe21 (which is available worldwide with a vpn)...

Didier Bionaz will kick our mixed relay off instead of the supposed Dominik Windisch tomorrow...

sure, so to have the skier starting with bib #1 winning gold, the no.2 winning silver, the no.3 winning bronze, the no.4 ending up in 4th place and so on...at least if you hold the world champs on the Alps (or in Are, just like it happened in 2019)... thanks to the climate change, there's no room for regular races in March in Europe anymore (except maybe for Kvittfjell, that's the only place in Europe where you can still find cold enough weather at that time of the year)... on the other hand, I agree about getting rid of some races like AC and Team Event (meanwhile Parallel Slalom could be an entertaining discipline, it's only a question of using the right slope and the right course setting so to have fair races on both courses)...

Leon Spinks, Montreal 1976 Boxing Olympic Champion in the Light Heavyweight class and former Pro Heavyweight undisputed world champion, dies at 67 because of a cancer... https://www.cbssports.com/boxing/news/former-heavyweight-champion-leon-spinks-dies-at-67-after-lengthy-cancer-battle/ R.I.P.

Larissa Iapichino (18) today recorded 6.70m and 6.75m in the women's Long Jump in her first official outing of the indoor season in Ancona... after the lone star of a 6.80m jump (outdoor, of course) last Summer, she looks more stable and reliable on this kind of measures right now... so far, 6.75m is the second best jump of the indoor world campaign after Mihambo's 6.77m last night in Berlin...

Italy are also mathematically qualified after today's success over Romania (81-66 the final score)...

Italy Men Giovanni Borsotti (GS, ?) Emanuele Buzzi (DH, SG) Luca De Aliprandini (GS, ?) Filippo Della Vite (GS, ?) Giovanni Franzoni (GS, ?) Stefano Gross (SL) Christof Innerhofer (DH, SG, AC?) Matteo Marsaglia (DH?, SG) Manfred Moelgg (SL) Dominik Paris (DH, SG, AC?) Giuliano Razzoli (SL) Florian Schieder (DH?, SG?, ?) Riccardo Tonetti (AC, GS?, ?) Alex Vinatzer (SL, PAR) Women Marta Bassino (DH, SG, AC, GS, PAR, SL?) Federica Brignone (DH, SG, AC, GS, PAR, SL?) Elena Curtoni (DH, SG, AC?, GS?) Irene Curtoni (SL, PAR) Nadia Delago (DH?, SG?) Lara Della Mea (GS?, SL, PAR?) Francesca Marsaglia (DH?, SG?, AC?) Martina Peterlini (SL, PAR?) Laura Pirovano (DH?, SG?, GS?)

Wintersports (Luge, Snowboard, Alpine & Cross-Country Skiing) in the morning and early afternoon Ice Hockey right now (SHL, Linköping vs Färjestad) and tonight (NHL, Montreal @ Ottawa & Arizona @ St.Louis) a bit of Soccer and Basketball in between the Hockey games

it's not a pre-requisite, but it's clear that ISU doesn't want Speedskating to be held outdoor and they make all kind of pressure on the organizers to build an indoor hall... it's the same issue Swimming has with fina and IOC...they push for indoor pools, but if L.A. 2028 says it's gonna be an outdoor baseball stadium turned into a swiming pool they're going to take it... surely, in Italy they have definitely more chances to get want they want at the end of the day (nobody knows the art of compromise and how to pump up the cost of every building like our politicians )......

it's not likely here, as we have different laws (much more conservative) about monuments like that (it's the same for the Colosseo in Rome...there's no chance to use it for anything, it's there just to be watched as it is by the tourists)... as I wrote, Baselga as it is right now (outdoor venue, of course with temporary stands for the big event) or a soulless pavillion in the Expo area of Milan are the only realistic chances for the Speedskating track (the Turin solution is the last chance option, nobody -except the Turin's politicians, who aim at sharing the IOC and government's funding more then anything- really wants it)... meanwhile the only logical option (building a true permanent indoor oval beside the Forum Milanofiori, where the Olympic Fugure Skating and Short Track Speedskating are going to be held and where there's so much space you can build a new town rather than a single sport arena) has never been taken into consideration and probably it will never be...

it's impossible...it's an historical monument that can't be touched in almost all the outside features...the shape, the marble stands (they can't even think to install temporary individual seats), the façade, the socalled "imperial box" (basically, the V.I.P. main stand)... not even a temporary roof is allowed in the park where the stadium is located... it's all protected and disciplined by local and national laws that can't be easily bypassed, as I wrote before...

Ski Mountaineering too... not only because we're good at that, but mainly because of turistical purpose...ski mountaineering on the Dolomites...probably the it would lead to some of the most amazing and iconic pictures ever in the history of the Games...

yeah, except for the fact that's an outdoor stadium (which ISU doesn't like at all), it would be a wonderful place for those events... there's only one problem...that stadium is a public monument, protected by local and national laws... it would be extremely difficult to match all the required features of an Olympic venue (especially in terms of renovating the locker rooms and building the press boxes/places with all the modern technology the OG need)... even the attendance's entrance would be quite complicated in terms of security standards for such kind of event (except for the main stand, there are only "little holes" to get in in the other areas of the stadium, which could be a real problem if you need to get 10,000 people out of the stadium quickly...the Hillsborough effect is not so remote in that kind of venue...that's why it's never used for Football matches...it only hosts some athletics, where no more than 1,000/2,000 people well spread around the building normally come to watch the events)... however, it's only speculation right now...at the moment, the official venue is still the Ice Rink in Baselga di Pinè as described in the bidding book (once again, it's an outdoor arena and ISU doesn't want Olympic speedskating to be contested outside...and the original project to get it covered looks already out of chance because of the excessive costs and logistical issues)... I fear that at the end of an endless discussion, they would eventually end up with a temporary pavillion in the 2015 World Expo area, if not the good old Lingotto pavillion in Turin that already hosted the 2006 Speedskating events (which would be unacceptable to me...Turin must be kept far from these Games as pestis)...

the half-beard look is only for the main events of the season... normal meets don't count so much...

it's extremely odd (actually, it's crazy, a shame if you like)... they could and should have scheduled the Bronze Medal match the day before (if they don't really want it at 9 a.m. local time in the same day), considered that the semifinals are set 2 days earlier...

if the USA don't make the Gold Medal match, there's no problem with their TV as they would never show on TV the national shame of playing for a minor placing...

so, one of the signature sports of the Olympics, full of epic moments and tradition, is going to change its hundreds-of-years-old racing distance and sell its soul for what? a venue a few miles closer to the city center? c'mon! let's go on with this crazy farce that the Olympics have become...