phelps

and surprise, surprise...it's Wayde Van Niekerk himself to be tested positive to covid-19... no news have been disclosed about his conditions, if he has symptoms or not and in case which symptoms? as a consequence, no South Africans in Trieste today (the meet is underway as expected, however)...

super-Saturday, they call it...but to me, it's not so super... however, from my personal perspective, not to be missed: Swimming (women's 200m Backstroke and 800m Free especially, because of Italian medal chances), Athletics (men's Discus and above all, women's 100m), Fencing (women's Team Sabre, maybe a new medal chance for Italy), Shooting (the "new" Trap Mixed Team event and the women's 3-position Rifle...the first one also with potential medal chances for us), Archery (men's Individual...definitely with Italian medal chances) and RS:X finals in Sailing (once again, an event where we expect our guys to do well)... a bit behind those events named above, it's "moving day" in the men's Golf tournament, the Mixed Relay in Triathlon, the Badminton final of the day...and everything else happening "today"...

it looks that it's not Van Niekerk himself to have covid-19, but one of the members of the small South African team training in Gemona (near Trieste) in this period... therefore, it's well possible that all the SA athletes announced at the start of today's meet won't be able to participate (even if they're desperately trying to save at least Van niekerk's presence, by isolating him from the rest of the team and making him a second test this morning after the one he sustained last night (no news about the result of that one, yet)... by the way, today on one of the main Italian newspapers (La Repubblica), they published a beautiful interview with Van Niekerk... of course it's in Italian, but google translate should do a decent work also for those who don't speak our language, though... https://www.repubblica.it/sport/vari/2020/07/31/news/intervista_van_niekerk-263377058/?ref=RHPPTP-BS-I263367605-C12-P12-S2.4-T1 back to today's meet in Trieste, this is the schedule of events (all times CET, in UK -1 hour, in the US East Coast, -6 hours) with the most notable athletes on paper in each event: 17.35: Women's 100m (Heats) - Tatjana Pinto (GER) 18.05: Men's 100m (Heats) - Marcell Jacobs (ITA), Sean Safi-Antwo (GHA) 18.15: Men's Triple Jump - Pablo Torrijos (ESP) 18.25: Men's Pole Vault - Thiago Braz (BRA) 18.40: Men's Shot Put - Leonardo Fabbri (ITA) 18.50: Men's 110HS - Andrew Pozzi (GBR) and all the best Italians (Lorenzo Perini, Hassane Fofana, Paolo Dal Molin) 19:00: Women's 100HS - Luminosa Bogliolo & Elisa Di Lazzaro (ITA), Katharina Johnson-Thompson (GBR) 19:00: Women's High Jump - Elena Vallortigara & Alessia Trost (ITA) 19.10: Women's 800m - Laura Muir & Jemma Reekie (GBR), Renelle Lamote (FRA), Selina Buechel (SUI) 19.25: Men's Long Jump - Filippo Randazzo (ITA) 19.25: Men's 100m (Final) 19.35: Women's 100m (Final) 19.45: Women's 400m - Raphaela Lukudo (ITA) 20.00: Men's 400m - Luka Janezic (SLO), Samuel Garcia (ESP) and waiting news about Van Niekerk and the other South Africans and their covid-19 tests...

from Today on, it's only about MLB, NBA, NHL (and a bit of Golf)... mainly NHL, of course... it's quite funny...outside we have 35+ degrees...and I just want to watch a lot of Ice Hockey, typical (hot) Summer sport...

yeah, my idea would be to hold CC races as the first medal event of the Games, on the first Saturday morning...especially when it's almost impossible to have the Marathon run as the final event because of weather conditions...

yeah, definitely better to locate a Cross-Country race on the Eventing and/or Golf course... or even a big City Park could be an option...I remember one of the best CC courses at the world champs happened to be in Turin city centre, at the Park of Valentino... and I'm pretty sure that a place like Hyde Park in London or Central Park in New York (just to name a couple of the most famous city parks in the world) would be able to host a memorable CC (Olympic) race...

that's pure sh*t! c'mon, man! how can they even think about this? I wouldn't like it the same, but frankly I'd be more OK with the men and women's Individual Cross-Country events replacing the 10,000m on the Track, rather than another senseless mixed gender farce like this... they are really trying to ruin the Olympics...we must stop those idiots once and forever...

day #7... my personal highlights are surely Fencing (men's Epee, maybe the only solid medal chance for Italy in the whole day), Slalom Canoeing (an outside medal chance, here...but we would need a lot of luck), Archery, Shooting, Judo, Swimming and Rowing... also interesting ( = not to be missed) are BMX Racing (tbh, I hope to see someone not from NED and/or FRA on top of the podiums), Table Tennis and of course the first Athletics events... here many of you might disagree, but I do really hope not to see at all people like Farah, Hassan and the many more NOP cheaters...hoping that they will be banned before the start of the Games and not having to wait many years and a few re-tests to have their results cancelled...

well, a few (better, many) years ago it was quite known also in Italy...it even used to have some space on our national tv networks... nowadays, it's completely forgotten by our media (obviously, we don't have any good rider anymore), but I think it has quite a decent base of followers that could be back if one day it's covered decently again by our media (here, world circuit races always have a good attendance on site, despite all)...

very busy day under Italian perspective (and my personal taste, too)... surely, I can't miss Fencing (the Italian event "par excellence", Women's Team Foil), Swimming (men's 800m Free -with big medal hopes for us- and "the race", the men's 100m Free), Rowing (especially the men's LW Double sculls for Italy) and Shooting (M + W Trap, time to make our medal table richer and richer)... after that, I also can't miss Judo and Slalom Canoeing because I like them so much... then, there's so much more to watch (Table Tennis is also high on my personal list) that as usual 2/3 tv screens at the same time couldn't be enough...

me too... but you know, there's so much to watch that sometimes you have to make a priority list...and put something aside for a while, to be recovered with time... at the Summer Games it's really impossible to watch everything live, even with 2/3 tv screens working at the same time...

time for the canonization of Federica "la divina"*, the true Queen of Swimming...what else? and then, of course, a lot of Fencing (will finally someone be able to stop the mighty Koreans in the men's team sabre?), Rowing (men's Four above all) and Judo... plus something from the other finals of the day (Cycling, Weightlifting mainly) and from the preliminary rounds in the remaining disciplines, especially Slalom Canoeing, Sailing and Team sports... *p.s. by the way, today is the 11th anniversary of her amazing race at the world championships in Rome, when she won gold with big margin and with a world record time (1.52.98) that's still unbeaten... actually, her 200m free world record is the oldest among the 50m pool "classic" distances (only China's Liu Zige over 200m Fly has a world record set in the same year -2009- but a few months later and in an event a lot more obscure -the Chinese National Games)... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_swimming

I don't agree either...Federica is the miracle woman...I just can't imagine she's not gonna end her swimming career in style with an amazing performance (and the Gold medal, obviously) in her race... about Pilato...we must say that last weekend she improved from 1.08.21 to 1.07.06 in her first minor meet ofthe year (the Puglia regional champs)... it looks she's really going to adjust her swimming style to the 100m distance and we all expect her to storm close (if not below) the current Italian record held by Martina Carraro (1.06.36, the time she swam to win the bronze medal last year in Kwangju) at the next Settecolli meet in Rome (August 11th-13th)... I'm still convinced in Tokyo a 1.05 low (if not below 1.05) would be required to medal at the Olympics and that this time isn't in her range yet, but if it happens...I'm gonna be the happiest man in the world...

my usual Fencing, Judo, the end of the Taekwondo program, Swimming, Shooting, Triathlon, MTB, Slalom Canoeing and the first Rowing Finals (the men's Quadruple sculls more than anything, as it's one of the Highlights of the Games from an Italian point of view)... after all that, if I still can find some time, I'm going also for the Softball final... very busy day, as always...

tbh, I don't like the Rhine-Ruhr bid at all, even if it's still a billion times better than Qatar... from now to 2025 (when they should vote for the 2032 Games) covid-19 will be only a bad memory, I hope...

there's no luge program in AUS in any case...Ferlazzo is using his AUS passport to participate in the luge world events, but "professionally" he grew up in Park City, where he trasferred in 2010 at the age of 15 to start training in ATL... as far as I know, however, there are a few more AUS kids (and also from other "exotic" Nations) trying Luge in North America...sooner or later we might see them on the world circuit, who knows?

well, NTL is propedeutical to ATL... most of theItalian ATL lugers (Armin Zoeggeler himself, too) when they were childern started their career with NTL, since we don't have an Artificial Track (except for the few years when the Olympic Track in cesana was active, but still, that's more than 400kms away from the cradle of Italian Luge, which is obviously South Tyrol)... only when they grow up and are allowed by their parents to travel to Innsbruck/Igls they start to practice in ATL (that's why we have so many NTL specialists and only few ATL's)... and also many Austrian lugers started their career as NTL specialists before switching to ATL, even if they have one of the world's iconic tracks available... said that, I agree with you on the point that many among the older ATL specialists won't be able to switch successfully to NTL and therefore they likely won't even try...especially those who have never tried a NTL slide in their life, even when they were children (and I fear that many Germans are in this situation, especially those coming from the former DDR regions...in Bavaria it's different...most likely, they already have some kind of experience, even if they never competed in NTL official races)...

NTL "tracks" don't exist, actually... you only need a downhill mountain road covered with snow and ice with water (and other new chemical products, to make it easier) and a few wooden boards at the side in the curves and the most technical/dangerous passages of the "track"... basically, if weather is cold enough, every place with a downhill curvy road is good for NTL... p.s. by the way, among the Nations named before, Canada, Slovakia and Sweden normally participate in woirld cup and world champs...if the last time they weren't at the start (but SVK and SWE were, only CAN wasn't), it's purely coincidental...

Minor League's season has already been cancelled a few months ago... and now, the problem it's not only the Marlins, but also the Phillies, who played the Marlins last weekend...it's highly unlikely that they don't have any positive test now (and in fact tonight's game between Yankees and Phillies has also been cancelled, waiting for Phila's test results)...

hopefully, we already have a serious bid (Gold Coast)...

Fencing as always (especially men's Foil), but also M + W Skeet in Shotgun Shooting (we have 2 gold and 1 silver medal to defend in those 2 events), Judo (Fabio Basile trying to win back-to-back Gold medals in 2 different weight classes, this time in the -73kg), Taekwondo (hoping that our world champion Simone Alessio could qualify and then also win a medal), Men's Team event in Archery (where we have great tradition, who forgot the London 2012 Gold medal?), obviously Swimming and finally the men's race in Mountain Bike (with Kerschbaumer ready to upset the 2 main favourites)... most likely, this is the day with the most medal chances on paper for Italy of the entire Games...

more or less, but there's not such a big difference as someone might think... those are the numbers from the last world champs in both sports (and please, consider that NTL at the moment is not an Olympic discipline and at that time -January 2019, date of the last worlds- it wasn't even supposed to be)... Men's Singles: NTL = 52 sliders from 21 Nations; ATL = 34 sliders from 14 Nations (therefore, in this event we even have more participants in the NTL worlds than in the Olympic event) Women's Singles: NTL = 25 sliders from 14 Nations; ATL = 29 sliders from 19 Nations Doubles (and Team Relays): NTL = 12 pairs from 7 Nations (and 7 teams in the Relay event); ATL = 19 pair from 11 Nations (and 11 teams in the Relay event) so, with a new boost from the Olympic status, NTL potentially could involve very soon more Nations than ATL (currently the weakest event is the Doubles competition -and consequently the Team Relay, but with Olympic medals up for grabs there will be many more Nations trying to form a team for the main event...I'm sure)... and considering that in NTL money and technology count a lot less than in ATL, I'm also convinced that once the sport gets the Olympic status, also the current Italian/Austrian (with marginal Russian appearances) domination would eventually be heavily reduced, if not ended at all...while the German reign over ATL (with some Russian participation) will be more and more relevant in the years to come...

well, maybe not my true wet dream, but for sure I strongly hope to see NTL among the Olympic disciplines in 2026...

oh, man! it's obvious that you always need some consolation when someone from your family has gone...