phelps

Sergio Garcia tested positive to covid-19 and will miss the Masters... it's his first absence in a Major Tournament since 1999, after 84 consecutive starts... https://twitter.com/TheSergioGarcia?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1325823348509696001|twgr^share_3&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.oasport.it%2F2020%2F11%2Fgolf-sergio-garcia-positivo-con-sintomi-al-covid-19-saltera-il-masters-aveva-disputato-84-major-consecutivi%2F

really, big news... they also said it's good for every people between 16 and 85 years old...a very good range (and it looks that it's quite effective already after the first injection, even if the protocol is based on 2 injections, the second about 2 months after the first)... just a small technical problem...it must be kept at -80° C, which will make it quite difficult for many operators...basically, it will be up only to hospitals and very few other vaccine centers to inject it to the people, likely causing delays and/or troubles to quicken the operations...

In Italy all the players from club teams who recorded positive covid tests were not allowed to go and play with their respective National teams by the local Health Authorities... so, our NT is suddenly missing 16 of their named players (and the coach Roberto Mancini, who's also positive to covid at the moment)... luckily, 41 players were called in advance (maybe they were expecting such kind of situation) and the next games don't look in danger of being cancelled (at least for now...but the week just started and it's quite long)...

so, despite all the covid troubles, some International Hockey was on stage in this weekend... the top tier tournament was the traditional Karjala Cup in Helsinki (FIN), where Russia swept the field with 3 wins over Finland, Sweden (this game only at the penalty-shootout) and Czech Republic... the Czechs ended up in 2nd place ahead of the Home Team (FIN), Sweden were dead last with only 1 point in the standings (the PSO loss against RUS)... in Krefeld (GER), instead, a "minor edition" of the also traditional Deutschland Cup was played... unfortunately, many of the invited teams had to withdraw because of the covid situation, so finally it was a 3-team contest between Germany, Top Team Peking (basically, Germany B) and Latvia... the "regular season" ended with Germany on top of the standings ahead of Latvia and Top Team Peking... meanwhile today's "final" saw the Latvians taking their revenge over the Germans (after yesterday's loss 2-0), winning the game 3-2 at the overtime and the tournament... Full Results and Rankings can be found in the Forum's Result Section...

every sport event with no spectators is sad...but it's also true that the classic rivalries are those suffering the most... meanwhile in Helsinki there are quite a few spectators for the Karjala Cup...

p.s. after 15 minutes of play, it doesn't look good for our friend HC Kosice...he's losing 1-0 (but now he has a power play)...

today it's only about Hockey and Football (the real one, the NFL)... just watched Russia vs Czech Republic of the Karjala Cup tournament on the Czech TV... meanwhile now I'm watching our friend HC Kosice playing the "old firm" of the Slovak Extraliga against Slovan Bratislava on the Slovak TV... in a few minutes, however, I'm going to the "zapping mode" to follow also the Karjala Cup last game, the Northern Classic between Sweden and Finland (once again thanks to the Czech public TV)... from 7 p.m. CET on, it's NFL time (Red Zone and Steve Hanson are a true drug ..."7 hours of commercial-free football start now!" ), as always on Sunday nights from September through January...

for what concerns Conyedo, it would have been the same as right now...he got our citizenship at the end of 2019, so he only missed the world champs, but he would have been able to participate to the OQTs even in early 2020... Kakhelashivili is the big winner, as he got the citizenship only a couple of months ago...so, he wouldn't have been able even to try and qualify for the Games if they weren't postponed... Kudiiamagomedov I think is at 0% in any case...the injury he sustained was basically a career-ending one (and in any case right now he hasn't got the Italian passport yet, so he wouldn't be able to start in the OQTs even if he had a miracolous recovery)...

no, it's not like that... both Kakhelashvili and Conyedo now are Italian citizens at 100% and they will be able to take part into the OQTs... Kudiamagomedov hasn't got the Italian citizenship yet, but, as I wrote a few months ago, he's also likely to be done as high level wrestler because of his hip and knee injury, he hasn't fully recovered from and according to our technical director Lucio Caneva, he probably won't recover from anymore - basically they had to rebuild his leg, so bad was the injury)...

Filippo Ganna tested positive to covid and so he'll miss the Track EuroChamps next week... the rest of the Italian team right now is not infected (yet), but they're going to test everybody once again before they travel to Plovdiv...just in case...

of course I was just going extreme on an argument that's quite (in)famous here in the Western world (here in Italy, Lybia and Egypt are on the newspapers' first pages almost every day because of that kind of issue )... and I hope you're right on the fact that it could be a bit of "prevention"...just in case...

most likely, he knows what to expect in those 6 months in jail and also that he won't be the same guy anymore once he gets out (if he gets out at all)... you know, Middle East jails are quite famous for the "treatment" given to their guests...

@hckosice https://www.parabola.cz/zpravicky/33086/joj-group-ziskala-prava-na-ms-v-hokeji-a-dalsi-sporty/

so, after the end of the MLB season, we have still quite some high class Baseball to watch... Yesterday, the KBO (top tier Korean Pro League) ended their Regular Season (full 144 games schedule ) and Today it's already playoff time with the Wild Card series... this is the final RS standing (please, note that in the same page also the daily games' results -with live scoring- are shown): https://mykbostats.com/ the usual Korean playoffs format is quite different from the ones we're used to know, so it's worth a quick recap... 5 teams enter the playoffs table, the 4th and 5th ranked play against each other in a best-of-3 wild card series...the winner of this series plays against the 3rd ranked in a best-of-5 series...then, the winner of this second round plays against the 2nd ranked of the RS in a best-of-7 series and finally, the 3rd round winners face the RS champions (this year: the NC Dinos of Changwon) in the best-of-7 Korean Series... so, this year's wild card series is played by the 4th ranked, LG Twins of Seoul, facing the 5th ranked of the RS (and runner-up of last year's League), the Kiwoom Heroes of Seoul... game #1 was officially rained out and now game #2 (which is actually the first played by the 2 teams) is running... for those interested, here you can watch it live for free (the game is shown also on ESPN in the US and on ESPN Player -paid service- around Europe and the rest of the world...I'm not sure in how many Countries EP is actually available)... https://sports.news.naver.com/tv/index.nhn?uCategory=kbaseball&category=kbo&gameId=44441102WOLG02020

once every while I play the solitary version available on the Microsoft Store for free...the basic entry level, of course...just to waste a few minutes while waiting for something to happen... meanwhile, I've seen on the Japanese TV a few tournaments between pro players, but I don't really understand how they play it on tables of 4 people (actually, I didn't even try to understand, but that's another story)...

https://apnews.com/article/turkey-aegean-sea-earthquakes-istanbul-ebd99da6825d19391bfeb59f6e568aa1

fully agree with the majority of NZ people... it's more and more the place where I'd like to go, if only I could afford to...especially in these depressing days whre in Italy nothing looks to go in the right direction...

I think there's still some time to change those entries... for instance, Italy have expressed their intention to take part in the event...wether it would finally be possible, that's another story (we were forced to withdraw from Budapest Grand Slam because 3 of our athletes tested positive once they came to Hungary)...

yeah, you kinda have to "book" your voting opportunity in days immediately before the elections, since obviously they can't just travel around in search of people not capable of going to the regular voting stations (which normally are located in the school buildings, at least here where I live, but I'm pretty sure it's the same in the whole Country)...

it was in Avignone... surely Charly Hebdo's irreverent cartoons and the fight between Macron and Erdogan have paved the way for many of these attacks by these brainless people who can be easily manipulated with hate speeches on this theme... I also have the feeling that we're gonna see more of this sh*t very soon, unfortunately...

finally, it looks that in Nice we have 3 deaths (1 beheaded) and 1 severely hurt people (plus a few other minor injuries)... the killer was indeed another crazy idiot using Islamic religion to justify his crimes...

same here...you have to go to vote in person...no other system is allowed (there are only special electoral units going to the place of those who just can't move but still are able and capable to vote -either they're at the hospital or at a retirement house)...

yeah...Italian media always report quite carefully the Israeli political fights... "changing not to change"...it looks also the Italian motto when it comes to elections and political affairs... most politicians usually change party, but the individuals in the end are always the same (and so it's the final outcome of their "work")... the main difference seems to be the fact that we don't go to vote as often as you, we've become specialists in "rimpasti" (reshuffles), with parties going from supporting the government to the opposition and viceversa, but always keeping away from the elections (so the members of parliament and senate keep their place and their very generous salary -beyond 10k €/month for parliament and more than 13k €/month for senate + a lot of bonus money if they are part of special committees -there are so many that we lost count of them- investigating on certain big scandals or working to prepare new laws on particulary important/complicated themes)... Italian politics always drive people crazy...but at the same time they are always an interesting subject...

here the press now saying 2 deaths and a few hurt people... Nice Mayor already shouting that's a terrorist attack...

in Italy it's always on Sunday from 7 a.m. to 10/11 p.m. (most times with half day on Monday, 7 a.m. - 2 p.m., added to that)... no chance to take any election mid-week, as no people would get any permission to leave their job place to express their vote (moreover, some people have to vote in a city different from where they usually live during the week because of their jobs...so, it would cost them a full day of work to go, vote and get back)... that's why our politicians chose to take elections only on Sundays (the addition of a few hours on Monday happened when they discovered that in late May/June -when most of our elections take place- most people prefer to go to the Sea instead of going to vote in the weekend therefore they tried this move to increase the number of people going to vote)...