phelps

I think these results were heavily influenced by the chance of having regular training sessions during the last months... the Italian riders, for instance, had to take a long break and surely they're not in top shape right now...hopefully they'll be more competitive when the world champs come... France never took serious measures against covid (and we all see that with their current numbers of daily new cases and deceased people) and their athletes had more chances to keep on training all Spring and Summer long, so now they're in better shape than anybody else... p.s. by the way, an Italian girl won (surprisingly, I must say) the U-23 race...little consolation, at least...

among the girls, basically it was a French championship, with 3 of their women in the top 4 places (only exception, a good 2nd place for Terpstra)... nice to see the young rising star Laura Stigger already competitive at the senior level with an excellent 5th place...

Women's Olympic Distance, Race #1 Gold: Loana Lecomte Silver: Anne Terpstra Bronze: Pauline Ferrand Prevot Full Result: https://chronorace.blob.core.windows.net/webresources/20200929_xco/nome_xco_we_results.pdf

Mountain Bike Cycling UCI World Championships 2020 Leogang (AUT) - 7 October 2020 - 11 October 2020 Official Website Programme Results System Results Database Facebook Page Discussion Thread

and yesterday the first Short Track competition of the year was on stage (the second event of this discipline will be held on Friday, women @ 17.00 CET, men @ 17.45 CET)... Women's Short Track #1 Gold: Evie Richards Silver: Pauline Ferrand Prevot Bronze: Loana Lecomte Full Result: https://chronorace.blob.core.windows.net/webresources/20200929_xco/nome_xcc_we_results_y.pdf Men's Short Track #1 Gold: Josè Gerardo Ulloa Arevalo Silver: Victor Koretzky Bronze: Maxime Marotte Full Result: https://chronorace.blob.core.windows.net/webresources/20200929_xco/nome_xcc_me_results.pdf

First stage of the 2020 World Cup in Nove Mesto 2 races in each discipline will be held in this first meet of the season (which consists of only 3 stages, by the way), first tomorrow (women @ 12.20 CET, men @ 15.50 CET) and then on Sunday (women @ 11.50 CET, men @ 15.20 CET)...

Mountain Bike Cycling UCI World Cup 2020 Multi-Stage Event - 29 September 2020 - 1 November 2020 Official Website Programme Results System Results Database Facebook Page Discussion Thread

well, last year he won the world bronze in a 50+ kms ITT (if I remember well the race's lenght)... if he decides to prepare at his best for that kind of race, he can be very competitive also over longer stints (he's also a good road rider, not only a short TT specialist - a couple of years ago he did even win the U23 Paris-Roubaix, which is not a race you can cope with if you don't have good endurance)...

it's not a question of lenght of the race (it's gonna be 44.2 kms), he doesn't have a chance because of the course profile...too much climb for him to be really a threat for the medals... however, knowing what's his bread and butter, I don't think he's going to ride the road ITT, I guess he's going to focus on the track events only...

I agree with your prediction for the road ITT (but I think Italy with Viviani in his best shape and Milan growin'up another year could really go for the gold medal in the team pursuit...Denmark is not out of reach)... I hope Ganna will focus only on the Track events, but trying to ride also the Madison race with Viviani (obviously he needs to gain experience in that race and I'm not sure he wants to do it) and not only the Team Pursuit...

Filippoooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!

CAS should be abandoned...they're just a bunch of corrupted idiots... they just can't do their job...

welcome to the Italian system... here the vast majority of people always vote only against someone (normally, those who were in charge in the last stint, who had to increase taxes and take unpopular decisions just to save the Country from bankruptcy), never in favour of someone (or some ideas) because it's the best choice (or because they just trust those principles)...

I'm officially in mourning...

however, from any perspective you look at this story, it's a really sad one...

I don't understand why USGA is always stuck with this kind of courses... watching pros struggling to make the par, having a +700 total after 2 days is NOT good golf, it's not an entertaining show... by the way, I think the tournament is still open to the current top 7, up to Rory...Wolff should struggle to have a decent round, DeChambeau is very dangerous, but I do really hope he's not going to win it all...it would be the worst possible advertising for golf... my pick (more a heart's pick rather than a true prediction) is one between Rory and Matsuyama...

yes, but after the elections he can't choose a Supreme Court judge anymore, he can only keep the "ordinary administration" (unless the US enter an official war...in that case he mantains his "commander in chief" role with full power) with no more chance to sign "special acts" like that... at least, this is what I read on the Italian newspapers about this question...

by the way, she's been very, very selfish... she could have resigned a few years ago (when Obama suggested her to do it, as she was already really compromised with her disease) to leave gher place to a younger judge with her same ideas, but she didn't even consider that... and now you're going to face Trump's possible "blitz" to hire a new far-right member to the Supreme Court (however I just read that the average time to confirm a new SC judge is 2 months and Trump only has 6 weeks time to put his candidate on, so there's a chance to save the world with proper time wasting tactics by the Dems)... p.s. imho, the role of the Supreme Court judges in the US is too important to have them nominated just by the President's will (and basically automatically ratified by the Senate)... you should just change the election rules, so to have a list of candidates named by both sides and then voted by the Senate/whole Parliament, with the one gathering the most votes being elected, but only if he/she reaches at least the 66.6% + 1 vote... this would be a lot better than now...

the 2020 Fencing season is officially over... FIE confirmed that there will be no competitions anymore this year... they also changed a few things in their health protocol, in order to be ready at least to try and restart the game from next January, but it's still to be seen if this will be possible... another bad news for FIE is that they lost their sponsorship/cooperation agreement with the Swiss brand Tissot, which was the company running also the technical issues (scoring system and timing) for them...

quite interesting DL meet tonight in Rome, even if they're using the smaller stadium with empty seats (which would take a lot off the atmosphere, as it would do the start earlier than usual...I like night meets more than those with the day light still on)... international feed starts at 6.40 p.m. CET

imho, that's pure bullshit... in a season where the NL had to play with the AL rules (DH) all year long despite not having rosters built for that, they're only trying to find an excuse for when they're going to be thrashed out only because NL teams are stronger...

not a big fan of passion fruit (I like the smell, but its taste doesn't impress me much)... my favourite exotic fruit (from Italian perspective, of course) is mango...followed by pineapple, papaya and of course bananas (but I'm not sure we can even call them "exotic" nowadays...I mean, you can find them everywhere and all year long, which makes them basically just an ordinary fruit like all those regularly grown in Italy, like apples or peaches or grapes and so on)...

it's all about politics... in Western Europe these European Games are considered just an Eastern European "affair", a showcase to show Russia's superpower among the European Nations (which was absolutely true for the Baku and Minsk editions, from the choice of the sports lineup to the judged sports cheats)... moreover, the main federations (who have enough media attention by their own and don't need a multi-sport event help to gain space on the media by putting many different comnpetitions all together under the same umbrella and gain strenght by this collective work) see those Games as an attempt to steal part of the income coming from their continental champs and therefore decided to boycott the event as much as they can... for what concerns LEN, until Paolo Barelli is their president and has a solid majority of counsellors in his board, there's no chance that Swimming Europeans and European Games would match... Western Europe-oriented federations rather sustain the Multi-Sport European champs (they should happen once again between Munich and Rome -Swimming only, I think- in 2022) as direct competitors of the EGs...

wow! those photos are quite scary...I thought here in Italy (and especially in Milan, Rome and Naples) we had some of the most scary blocks where living is a true nightmare, but this looks also a God's punishment as well...

here's a good summary about the history of the "sex verification" issue... and it has quite some obscure and dark sides, too... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_verification_in_sports#:~:text=Chromosome testing was introduced by,during the 1968 Summer Olympics.&text=A resolution was passed at,verification during the Olympic Games". meanwhile this is the full document about the current IOC rules about female hyperandrogenism (which is previous to the last WA rules)... https://stillmed.olympic.org/Documents/Commissions_PDFfiles/Medical_commission/2012-06-22-IOC-Regulations-on-Female-Hyperandrogenism-eng.pdf