phelps

total domination by the Netherlands in Poznan with 8 Gold Medals (6 in the Olympic classes)... only other Nation to (almost) keep the pace was Romania with 4 Gold Medals (all in the Olympic classes)... Denmark, Germany, Ireland and Italy at least saved their faces with 1 Gold medal each in the Olympic classes... Italy however was second overall in the medal standings with 11 medals (the same number of the Netherlands), 4 of them being Gold, thanks to the non-Olympic events...so, not a bad outcome for our team despite the many training problems of this year caused by a few injuries and by the covid protocol limitations...

still, a bunch of amateurs... I still remember (I was there) the epic brawl between HC Milano and VSV Villach in the last (senseless, the rankings were already established) match of the regular season of the Alpenliga 1991... they all came together in the pre-game warm-up... and since the refs and stewards were not on the ice yet, it took the police to step up and try to stop that brawl (which actually went on for quite a while...a good quarter of a hour at least)... how much I miss those glorious days!

an amazing performance by Jordan Sarrou completed today's clean sweep for France: women's U-23, senior women and senior men: they won all the races, leaving the rest of the world only a few crumbs... another bitter 4th place for Italy, thanks to Luca Braidot... good race for the young Colledani, finally 8th...meanwhile the expected Kerschbaumer ended up only in 17th place...hopefully he'll be more competitive next season... to be noticed...after 9 consecutive years, the great Nino Schurter missed the podium for the first time (he was only 9th)...

Men's Olympic Cross-Country Race Gold: Jordan Sarrou Silver: Mathias Flueckiger Bronze: Titouan Carod Full Result: https://www.tissottiming.com/File/0003120001010401FFFFFFFFFFFFFF04

wow! that's a surprising result! what a sprint finish by Eva Lechner... this is one of the most unexpected medals Italy has ever won at the MTB worlds... Women's Olympic Cross-Country Race Gold: Pauline Ferrand-Prevot Silver: Eva Lechner Bronze: Rebecca McConnell Full Result: https://www.tissottiming.com/File/0003120001020401FFFFFFFFFFFFFF04 p.s earlier this morning: Women's Under-23 Cross-Country Race Gold: Loana Lecomte Silver: Kata Blanka Vas Bronze: Ceylin Del Carmen Alvarado Full Result: https://www.tissottiming.com/File/0003120001020301FFFFFFFFFFFFFF04

unlucky 4th place for our Simone Avondetto... he was fighting for the Bronze medal when mud made his bycicle's chain drop in the final stint of the competition and so he lost a well deserved medal...

Men's Under-23 Cross-Country Race Gold: Thomas Pidcock Silver: Christopher Blevins Bronze: Joel Roth Full Result: https://www.tissottiming.com/File/0003120001010301FFFFFFFFFFFFFF04

according to some Italian politicians, in such case it would work perfectly, better than a Swiss chronograph...

Women's Junior Cross-Country Race Gold: Mona Mitterwallner Silver: Luisa Daubermann Bronze: Aneta Novotna Full Result: https://www.tissottiming.com/File/0003120001020201FFFFFFFFFFFFFF04 Men's Junior Cross-Country Race Gold: Lennart-Jan Krayer Silver: Janis Baumann Bronze: Luca Martin Full Result: https://www.tissottiming.com/File/0003120001010201FFFFFFFFFFFFFF04

the situation is getting worse and worse very quickly also in Italy... today we recorded 4458 new cases (780 more than yesterday with more or less the same number of tests...today's is the highest number since April...last week we never reached even 2000 new cases a day) and 22 deceased people... we must say that we're also making a lot more tests day after day (except for the weekend)...today 128k tests were made... imho, the biggest mistake was to open the schools again...no true data are available on how many of those cases are related to that, but I fear that spending many hours a day in closed (the unusual very cold weather of the last month or so doesn't help at all), small rooms (most schools only have that kind of places, 30/40square meters for 25/30 students...only the universities have bigger rooma for hundreds of students in each class) is an unnecessary danger... not to mention all the people going to school/work with public transports... I'm against a new lockdown (our already sick economy would be destroyed once and forever), but I think we're taking too many risks and trying to focus on things which actually are not so decisive to stop the spreading of covid around the Country...

let's hope next year everything will go better than this cursed 2020...

this draft is getting more and more a "Caporetto" for Slovak Hockey... I'm a bit distracted (I'm following the MLB playoffs), but if I haven't missed someone, Knazko is the only Slovak picked so far (and we are at no.106 )...

by the way, this is the final result of the Cross-Country Team Relay: Gold: France Silver: Italy Bronze: Switzerland Full Result: https://www.tissottiming.com/2020/mtbwch/en/default/Stage/1/pdf

no coverage, not even by the Austrian TV... the only races covered by Red Bull TV (and many other national networks) are the senior events in both Cross-Country (Saturday) and Downhill (Sunday)...

so far, the only Slovak player selected is Samuel Knazko, picked by the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 3rd round (no.78 overall)... we are currently at no.86 overall (close to the end of round #3)...

and beside the NHL entry Draft, a few more interesting news were disclosed... the most important one is that the NHL is targeting January, 1st 2021 as the start date for the next season... https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-season-start-targeted-for-january-1-2021/c-319322070 in the meantime, the trades between the NHL teams are going on, waiting for the free agents to be available on the market (it will happen in a couple of days)... here's the Trade Tracker, to keep the pace with all the moves made by the NHL teams in this offseason... https://www.nhl.com/news/2020-21-nhl-trades/c-289968698?tid=278542340

Last night the final act of the 2019/2020 season was held... the annual NHL entry Draft saw the New York Rangers name Alexis Lafreniere as the no.1 pick overall... the no.2 pick was Quinton Byfield, chosen by the Los Angeles Kings... he's now the highest pick ever among the black player, going better than Evander Kane (Atlanta Thrashers, 2009) and Seth Jones (Nashville Predators, 2013), who were both picked with the no.4 overall... the 3rd pick overall was Tim Stuetzle (already rookie of the year in the lasr DEL, the top tier German league), chosen by the Ottawa Senators... https://www.nhl.com/news/new-york-rangers-pick-alexis-lafreniere-first-in-nhl-draft/c-319320252?tid=277764372 here's a full recap of the first round of the 2020 NHL entry Draft... https://www.nhl.com/news/2020-nhl-draft-first-round-coverage-and-analysis/c-319315858

Men's Olympic Distance, Race #2 Gold: Henrique Avancini Silver: Milan Vader Bronze: Nino Schurter Full Result: https://chronorace.blob.core.windows.net/webresources/20201002_xco/nome_xco_me_results_y.pdf

Women's Olympic Distance, Race #2 Gold: Pauline Ferrand Prevot Silver: Anne Terpstra Bronze: Loana Lecomte Full Result: https://chronorace.blob.core.windows.net/webresources/20201002_xco/nome_xco_we_results.pdf

and so, we are already done with the new wild card format of the 2020 MLB Playoffs... here's the playoffs table (updated after the end of the WC Series, the LDS start on Monday)... MLB Playoffs 2020 American League World Series National League Wild Card Series LDS LCS LCS LDS Wild Card Series (1) Tampa Bay Rays, 2 (1) L.A. Dodgers, 2 (8) Toronto Blue Jays, 0 (8) Milwaukee Brewers, 0 (1) Tampa Bay Rays, 3 (1) L.A. Dodgers, 3 (5) NY Yankees, 2 (4) San Diego Padres, 0 (4) Cleveland Indians, 0 (4) San Diego Padres, 2 (5) NY Yankees, 2 (5) St.Louis Cardinals, 1 (1) Tampa Bay Rays, 4 (1) Tampa Bay Rays, 2 (1) L.A. Dodgers, 4 (6) Houston Astros, 3 (1) L.A. Dodgers, 4 (2) Atlanta Braves, 3 (3) Minnesota Twins, 0 (3) Chicago Cubs, 0 (6) Houston Astros, 2 (6) Miami Marlins, 2 (6) Houston Astros, 3 (6) Miami Marlins, 0 (2) Oakland A's, 1 (2) Atlanta Braves, 3 (2) Oakland A's, 2 (2) Atlanta Braves, 2 (7) Chicago White Sox, 1 (7) Cincinnati Reds, 0 WC Series = Best-of-3 series; all games to be played on the field of the highest seeded team LDS = Best-of-5 series; all games to be played on neutral soil LDCS = Best-of-7 series; all games to be played on neutral soil World Series = Best-of-7 series; all games to be played on neutral soil

Women's Short Track #2 Gold: Evie Richards Silver: Pauline Ferrand Prevot Bronze: Laura Stigger Full Result: https://chronorace.blob.core.windows.net/webresources/20201002_xco/nome_xcc_we_results_y.pdf Men's Short Track #2 Gold: Henrique Avancini Silver: Thomas Litscher Bronze: Maximilian Brandl Full Result: https://chronorace.blob.core.windows.net/webresources/20201002_xco/nome_xcc_me_results.pdf

I hope Italy is going to get a ban for the Tokyo Games next week (October 7th is the D-day)... if that's the only way to get rid of this stupid minister of sports we have, who's making damages every time he opens his mouth, I'm ready to pay the prize... if they let him stay in charge, he's going to destroy our sport once and forever...

no way... your lockdown was "fresh air" compared to the total lockdown here (and still your rules are crazy shameful...you don't even have mandatory rules about wearing masks everywhere and, above all, positive testing people don't have to go to mandatory quarantine, it's only "suggested"...here you can't even leave your home/quarantine places when you're healthy again if you don't get a double negative test in a few days...with no exception)... and in particular, no Italian athlete (except for the usual footballers, but you know, they are privileged in many things, not only for their salaries and media attention) was allowed even to go to the gym, imagine training properly... for instance, our combat sports athletes (except for a few pro boxers, who can go abroad to avoid our restrictions) are still "quarantined" and no competition of disciplines like Judo, Karate, Taekwondo can be held in Italy (even Fencing is in stand-by until at least the end of the year)... they can just have private individual training like any people in the Country... p.s. just to be precise, our swimmers (mentioned in the artcle above) had to fully stop their activity from February to late May, when the lockdown was partially lifted for the first time... however, I was not talking of the early Spring months, when more or less full lockdowns were in place almost everywhere...I'm talking of the late Spring and Summer months, where our athletes still had a lot of troubles (being enrolled in the Military Corpse, most of them couldn't go abroad for quite a while after the lockdown was lifted)...

Men's Olympic Distance, Race #1 Gold: Simon Andreassen Silver: Maxime Marotte Bronze: Milan Vader Full Results: Coming Soon...