phelps

it's raining records (world, continental, national) in the first day of the ISL Finals in Budapest... "man of the match", not even to be said...Caeleb Dressel... he just destroyed the short course WR in the men's 100m Fly with 47.78...then he massacred his opponents also in the men's 50m Free with 20.16 (Florent Manaudou was second in 20.60) and finally he swam 45.15 in the first leg of the men's 4*100m Free Relay... 15-year young Italian rising star Benedetta Pilato was second to Lilly King (USA) in the women's 50m Breaststroke (28.77 to 28.81), but her clocking tied the short course European record... not to mention, also quite a few national records were established this afternoon... all in all, this ISL "in the bubble" was quite a good show...way better than last year's itinerant format, to be honest...

it looks that today we're going to see a lot of Russia in the men's finals...they have one guy in both the -90kg and the -100kg...and the superheavyweights class is gonna be an all-Russian affair... meanwhile among the girls, my 2 cents go on another French clean sweep...

Aries Susanti Rahayu already broke the 7-second barrier...the previous world record, in fact, was 6.995...

well, women's -57kg in Europe is not that strong at the moment...so also girls like Karakas and veterans like Monteiro can still win a continental Gold... Sterpu is surely good, but I don't think he's anything special...actually, I think yesterday Shavdatuashvili heavily underestimated him before their gold medal fight after he beat Basile quite easily in the semis... the real thing in European Judo is Grigalashvili...pure talent...I hope that poor Georgian management won't cut his career short nor limit his perspective...

no, it was a coach of the Swedish team that tested positive... but because of the Finnish law against covid, that means the whole Swedish team can't make the trip to Finland... they were talking about Swenn-Larsson because Brignone started an argument saying that's unfair, because a girl like Swenn-Larsson, despite being surely negative (5 negative tests in 10 days, as written before) can't start the races and with 2 "zero" is already out of contention for the discipline standings not because of her fault... they were talking of this thing also on the Swiss TV (I'm watching the race on RSI-La2 HD)...

very disappointing day for Italy... Basile started very well, but once he got into the semis, he was dead and gone...he said he wasn't phisically in good shape (understandable...he was just coming off covid-19 quarantine, when obviously he wasn't able to train at all), but I think he also made some capital mistakes under a mental point of view against Shavdatuashvili in their semifinal bout... no comment on the bronze medal bout...he was clearly not even interested in playing that fight... Alice Bellandi had a very strong competition, but she was heavily penalized by the refs in both the semifinal match against Pinot (very generous call the deciding waza-ari in the golden score period) and the bronze medal match (actually, this was a pure robbery by the Hungarian ref, clearly taking all of his decisions against the Italian girl by prejudice)... the other Italian fighters lost too early in the competition...they're just not good enough (and if they were, they didn't show it at all yesterday morning)... in general, yesterday was Georgia's day on the men's side, with the light of the hyper-talent Tato Grigalashivili shining more than anything... watching that guy is pure joy, a Judo clinic every time he's on the mat... meanwhile France swept the field in the women's divisions...but that was quite expected, as Agbegnenou and Gahie are the reigning world champions... at least, Margaux Pinot gifted us with with a nice surprising win (even if it was Van Dijke that had the unexpected win over Gahie in the semifinal)... today is the final day of the individual competitions...the big guys (and girls) are gonna take the center stage...

yesterday's medallists women's -63kg Gold: Clarisse Agbegnenou Silver: Magdalena Krssakova Bronze: Juul Franssen & Martyna Trajdos women's -70kg Gold: Margaux Pinot Silver: Sanne Van Dijke Bronze: Marie Eve Gahie & Madina Taimazova men's -73kg Gold: Victor Sterpu Silver: Lasha Shavdatuashvili Bronze: Tommy Macias & Rustam Orujov men's -81kg Gold: Tato Grigalashvili Silver: Ivaylo Ivanov Bronze: Luka Maisuradze & Matthias Casse

and we're on with those very busy winter weekends... I already saw the 1st heat of the Women's Skeleton World Cup on Youtube... now I'm watching (at the same time, so I'm also getting cross-eyed) the preliminary stages of the Judo EuroChamps on YT on my PC and the Baseball Korean Series (Doosan Bears vs NC Dinos, game #3) thanks to ESPN Player on my flat TV screen... in the afternoon, I'm gonna watch for sure the final block of the Judo EuroChamps on Sky Italia, the 2nd run of the Women's Skeleton World cup debut (plus the men's race) and most likely I'm gonna end the night with some NFL Football (Thursday Night game, delayed) on the NFL GamePass... not sure I have time to add some Hockey, but that's always a chance...

to say that IWF is making a mess of its sport it's an obvious understatement, actually a big euphemism...

yeah, that was one of the most outstanding results from today... it looks that she's a very talented girl and might have a very bright future... by the way, Serbia had quite a few good results today (some of them not really expected), not only Stojadinov's medal...

mixed feelings about today's Italian results... on one side, we should be happy because Odette Giuffrida won our first Gold Medal at the European Champs since 2008 but at the same time we must be very disappointed with all the other results and in particular I'm really worried about Manuel Lombardo, who was competing in "his" -66kg class for the first time in almost a year (last time out, he won the Masters in China in January) and couldn't go beyond the first round (he was unlucky, as he had to face the eventual champion Safarov and actually he didn't even lost on the mat, since he was disqualified for an illegal leverage to the opponent's arm while they were all square)... however, the issue is not his shape or his talent, but the fact that he has a lot of troubles in making the weight, so he has quite a few chances to compete in his Olympic class before Tokyo 2020 (in 2021) and it's a problem if he does waste those chances... by the way, today is history...and I'm loking forward to tomorrow, when our Olympic Champion Fabio Basile should be back on the mat after a lot of injuries to his elbow and the covid positive test a few weeks ago... about the rest of today's finals, as already mentioned, Van Snick and Perez Box won the award for the longest match of the afternoon, but the fight of the day was the Russian derby in the men's -60kg Gold Medal bout without any doubt...high class judo...

today's medallists women's -48kg Gold: Shirine Boukli Silver: Andrea Stojadinov Bronze: Distria Krasniqi & Katharina Menz women's -52kg Gold: Odette Giuffrida Silver: Andreea Chitu Bronze: Estrella Lopez Sheriff & Charline Van Snick women's -57kg Gold: Hedvig Karakas Silver: Telma Monteiro Bronze: Sarah Leonie Cysique & Theresa Stoll men's -60kg Gold: Robert Mshvidobadze Silver: Yago Abuladze Bronze: Francisco Garrigos & Jorre Verstraeten men's -66kg Gold: Orkhan Safarov Silver: Tal Flicker Bronze: Killian Le Blouch & Denis Vieru

Sandra Robatscher injured herself in training at the left shoulder. After having surgery, it was confirmed that she's going to miss the whole 2020/2021 season.

https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/olympic-champ-kipruto-charged-sex-teen-girl-74232222

the complicated life of a Venezuelan Olympic Champion... https://video.repubblica.it/dossier/coronavirus-wuhan-2020/dall-oro-olimpico-alle-consegne-a-domicilio-limardo-il-campione-rider-che-sogna-tokyo/371296/371902?ref=RHTP-BS-I270682269-P5-S3-T1 unfortunately it's all in Italian, but I hope google translate will help all those who can't speak the language...

start lists, results and intermediate times for every race from Yesterday and Today... http://live.skidor.com/

I don't think they will go that far... but still... they could easily win 2 gold medals in Figure Skating, at least 2/3 in Speedskating, not less than 3/4 in Short Track Speedskating, the men's Skeleton and they're surely gonna sweep the Freestyle Aerials... and don't rule out in principle a Curling and a Snowboard Halfpipe Gold, too... I'm pretty sure they they will go double digit in the Gold Medal tally, in any case...

it's because their "gurus" dr. Canova and dr. Rosa now have gone mainly to Uganda (no surprise they're the rising powerhouse)... now the Kenians don't have their "political safety net" in place anymore and get caught like apples from the tree...

thank you...now I understand what kind of race it is...

no, right now I can see the race without any problem... try now, maybe when you tried to watch earlier, there was still the previous program in the EPG and it was blocked because of that...

season opening in Sweden, men and women's Sprint races on Saturday and "korta distans" (frankly, I don't know what kind of race it is in Swedish language) on Sunday... both competition days will be broadcasted live by the Swedish Public TV SVT1 at 9.50 a.m. on Saturday and at 9.10 a.m on Sunday... and, most important thing, the streams will be available worldwide (no geoblocking, which is quite rare for the Swedish TV) live and ondemand (for 1 month from the day of the race)... https://www.svtplay.se/kanaler?date=2020-11-14&range=day https://www.svtplay.se/kanaler?date=2020-11-15&range=day

Motorcycling Andrea Iannone's ban has been extended by CAS to the max penalty, 4 years... https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-motor-motogp-iannone-cas/maniac-iannones-doping-ban-extended-to-four-years-idUKKBN27Q1IQ

CAS extended Iannone's doping ban to the max penalty, 4 years https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-motor-motogp-iannone-cas/maniac-iannones-doping-ban-extended-to-four-years-idUKKBN27Q1IQ

well, I just read that Pfizer is taking charge of all the productive and also the supply chain... apparently they're going to rent a lot of flying spaces from all the main couriers (FedEx, DHL, UPS) and they will produce by themselves both vaccine vials (made of a special thicker glass to avoid unexpected ruptures during travel) and storage cases capable of keeping those vials at -80° C for good 10 days (which should be enough to reach all the destination points and inject the vaccine before it gets useless/even dangerous because of bad storaging)... however, it looks that Pfizer's is the only vaccine with such demanding procedure...Moderna's should be kept at -20° C (still a challenge, but not so extreme), but the others (Oxford/Astra-Zeneca and Johnson & Johnson and those coming from CHN and RUS) wouldn't need anything more than normal fridges (0 - 4° C)... hopefully there will be enough for every people in the world, also for those living in low and middle income Countries...

also Bertazzo and Scartezzini... the Italian team is basically destroyed... and we also have many riders (among the women, too) that were already not named for this championship for other reasons... by the way, we are not the only team participating with second tier athletes...