phelps

men's Skeet shooters qualified to the Final Eduard Yechshenko, 123 Nicolas Lejeune, 123 Maksym Piven, 123 Marcus Svensson, 123 (SWE already have 2 OQPs) Usman Chand, 123 Peeter Juerisson, 122

women's Skeet shooters qualified to the Final Victoria Larsson, 122 Francisca Crovetto Chadid, 121 (already qualified to the OGs) Assem Orynbay, 121 Maheshwari Chauhan, 121 Regina Meftakhetdinova, 120 Jiang Yiting, 119 ( Already have 2 OQPs)

NLA Playoffs Finals (Best-of-7 Series) Game #6, Saturday, April 27th, 8 p.m. CET, Lausanne HC vs ZSC Lions Zürich 5-3 (1-0, 4-1, 0-2) Series is tied 3-3 and will be decided in game #7 Game #7 is scheduled for Tuesday, April 30th, 8 p.m. CET, ZSC Lions Zürich vs Lausanne HC

Mixed Team Event Gold Medal Match: vs Bronze Medal Matches: vs and vs

gold is Agbegnenou's to lose, then the main outsiders are and (Beauchemin-Pinard) after those 3, it's a coin flip...the draw will decide a lot

no, they both ran 10.11 (with a 3/1000 advantage for Bromell at the photofinish) 10.14 is the time of the 3rd ranked, Xie Zhenye

you can find the video of the 100m race on X (twitter), "atletica italiana" account however, reasonable 10.11 by Marcel Jacobs, basically tied with Bromell (just 3/1000 at the photofinish the difference in favor of the American)...not the best start, but very good in the last 30/40 meters let's see what happens next...

yes bronze medal are good 350 points in the OQR

meanwhile, in the NLA, we're really close to go to a decisive game #7 (next Tuesday) in the Final Series Lausanne HC, in fact, are leading 5-1 over ZSC Lions after 2 periods of play in game #6 (ZSC are leading the series 3-2)

SHL Playoffs Finals (Best-of-7 Series) Game #4: Saturday, April 27th, 3.15 p.m. CET, Rögle vs Skellefteå 1-2 OT (0-0, 1-1, 0-0, 0-1) Skellefteå lead Series 3-1 and are 1 win away from their 3rd SHL Title after the 2013 & 2014 back-to-back triumphs Game #5 is scheduled for Monday, April 29th, 7.30 p.m. CET, Skellefteå vs Rögle

last day of action in the individual competition... women's -78kg Gold: Audrey Tcheumeo Silver: Anna-Maria Wagner Bronze: Aline Boehm & Inbar Lanir women's +78kg Gold: Raz Hershko Silver: Julia Tolofua Bronze: Lea Fontaine & Kayra Ozdemir men's -90kg Gold: Eljan Hajiyev Silver: Krisztian Toth Bronze: Lasha Bekauri & Alex Cret men's -100kg Gold: (RUS) Matvey Kanikovskiy Silver: Ilia Sulamanidze Bronze: Michael Korrel & Gennaro Pirelli men's +100kg Gold: (RUS) Inal Tasoev Silver: Guram Tushishvili Bronze: (RUS) Tamerlan Bashaev & Marius Fizel @hckošice

no, I think it would be a huge upset, if she medals in Paris yesterday she was smart and lucky to win the quarterfinal fight vs Russo in only 18 seconds...should the bout go the distance, I don't think she would have won that she's definitely a good player, but not that good (but in judo anything can happen, especially in this -63kg class, which is one of the most unpredictable behind the 2/3 big favourites...so, don't rule anything out)

men's Skeet provisional ranking after 100/125 targets Usman Chand, 99 Nicolas Lejeune, 99 Luis Raul Gallardo Oliveros, 98 Marcus Svensson, 98 (SWE already have 2 OQPs) Dustan Taylor, 98 (USA already have 2 OQPs) Eduard Yechshenko, 98 Vincent Haaga, 98 Imam Haroon, 98 Shotaro Toguchi, 98 Maksym Piven, 98 Tilo Schreier, 98 followed by 12 shooters with 97/100 (5 of them NOT eligible for an OQP)

Chinese Nationals, Day #9 (Final) women's 50m Freestyle 1.Wu Qingfeng, 24.22 2.Zhang Yufei, 24.30 men's 1500m Freestyle 1.Fei Liwei, 14.49.30 2.Zhang Zhanshuo, 15.04.00 Medley Relays remarkable times men Xu Jiayu, 52.74 (men's back, 1st leg) Qin Haiyang, 59.21 (2nd leg, the fastest male breaststroker) Shen Jihao, 51.34 (3rd leg, the fastest fly stint) Wang Changhai, 51.49 (3rd leg, 2nd fastest fly stint) Xu Fang, 51.59 (3rd leg, 3rd best fly stint) and nobody went below 48 secs in the freestyle legs women Wan Lotte, 59.02 (1st leg, fastest backstroke stint) Tang Qianting, 1.05.11 (2nd leg, top breaststroke stint) Zhang Yufei, 56.39 (3rd leg, top fly stint) Yang Junxuan, 53.24 and Li Bingjie, 53.27 (4th leg, fastest 2 freestyle stints)

women's Skeet provisional ranking after 100/125 targets Maheshwari Chauhan, 98 Francesca Crovetto Chadid, 97 (already qualified to the OGs) Assem Orynbay, 97 Victoria Larsson, 97 Barbora Sumova, 96 Marjut Heinonen, 95 Jiang Yiting, 95 ( already have 2 OQPs) Regina Meftakhetdinova, 95 Diana Bacosi, 95 ( already have 2 OQPs) followed by 6 shooters with 94/100 (only 1 of them still eligible to qualify)

DEL Playoffs Finals (Best-of-7 Series) Game #5, Friday, April 26th, 7.30 p.m. CET, Pinguins Bremerhaven vs Eisbären Berlin 0-2 (0-0, 0-0, 0-2) Eisbären Berlin win Series 4-1 and are 2023/2024 DEL Champions!

IOC, FIFA & co. are sooooo predictable

black & white, good & less good notes for so far... what's good: - Odette Giuffrida winning silver and going close to beat Krasniqi once again, just another demonstration of efficiency by our "veteran", doing what she has to do and not giving up in front of the super-top class opponents - Savita Russo, 1st global medal among the seniors for our 18-year young rising star (reigning jr. European Champion in the -63kg class), especially important because this is a weight class where we didn't have any significant result since Maria Centracchio's surprising bronze in Tokyo (and unfortunately she had to retire after that success because of sickness) - Elios Manzi winning a very important bronze medal, which should seal the deal for in terms of Olympic qualification in this weight class (still, the fight between Manzi and Piras to earn the final spot for the Games is on and very, very tight) - Antonio Esposito having another good performance in the men's -81kg class, showing he can be there with the top players in that weight category, even if he always finds the way to ruin his tournament when the going gets tough what's not good: - the girls in the -70kg class not performing as expected and, above all, why not giving Kim Polling the chance to make her debut for the Italian team? it would have been important for her under a psychological point of view and also to earn a few points in the OQR and seal the deal of her qualification to Paris, which is not mathematical yet - the guys in the -60kg...after a promising start of the Olympic campaign back in 2022, Pantano had a disappointing outing after another and Carlino, back from a controversial doping ban, has never shown to be really competitive at the top level...result: we won't qualify anybody in this class - in general, why so many of our best fighters aren't even here? this was a perfect tournament to improve their ranking towards the Olympics and collect some medals...

action so far... women's -48kg Gold: (RUS) Kristina Dudina Silver: Blandine Pont Bronze: Catarina Costa & Tamar Malca women's -52kg Gold: Distria Krasniqi Silver: Odette Giuffrida Bronze: Ariane Toro Soler & Reka Pupp women's -57kg Gold: Daria Bilodid Silver: Kaja Kajzer Bronze: Timna Nelson Levy & Eteri Liparteliani women's -63kg Gold: Renata Zachova Silver: Joanne Van Lieshout Bronze: Savita Russo & Andreja Leski women's -70kg Gold: Barbara Matic Silver: Elisavet Teltsidou Bronze: Lara Cvjetko & Ai Tsunoda Roustant men's -60kg Gold: Francisco Garrigos Silver: Balabay Aghayev Bronze: Salih Yildiz & Cedric Revol men's -66kg Gold: Vazha Margvelashvili Silver: Muhammed Demirel Bronze: Bence Pongracz & Elios Manzi men's -73kg Gold: Hidayat Heydarov Silver: (RUS) Danil Lavrentev Bronze: Lasha Shavdatuashvili & Joan-Benjamin Gaba men's -81kg Gold: Tato Grigalashvili Silver: Frank De Wit Bronze: Vedat Albayrak & Shamil Borchashvili

Liiga Playoffs Finals (Best-of-7 Series) Game #4, Friday, April 26th, 5.30 p.m. CET, Pelicans vs Tappara 3-4 OT (2-0, 0-0, 1-3, 0-1) Tappara lead Series 3-1 and it's just 1 win away from back-to-back-to-back Titles Game #5 is scheduled for Sunday, April 28th, 4 p.m. CET, Tappara vs Pelicans

Extraliga Playoffs Finals (Best-of-7 Series) Game #6, Friday, April 26th, 5 p.m. CET, HC Ocelàři Třinec vs HC Dynamo Pardubice 4-1 (2-0, 1-0, 1-1) Series is tied 3-3 and will be decided on the last game on Sunday Game #6 is scheduled for Sunday, April 28th, 7 p.m. CET, HC Dynamo Pardubice vs HC Ocelàři Třinec

men's Skeet provisional ranking after 50/125 targets Nicolas Lejeune, 50 Charalambos Chalkiadakis, 50 (GRE already have 2 OQPs) Jorgen Engen, 50 Timi Vallioniemi, 50 Mohamed Ahmad, 50 Tilo Schreier, 50 Sven Korte, 50 followed by 13 shooters with 49/50 (3 of them NOT eligible for the qualification to the OGs)

women's Skeet provisional ranking after 50/125 targets Dania Jo Vizzi, 49 ( already have 2 OQPs) Diana Bacosi, 49 ( already have 2 OQPs) Victoria Larsson, 49 Anastasia Eleftheriou, 49 Barbora Sumova, 48 Maheshwari Chauan, 48 Emily Jane Hibbs, 48 Anna Maria Markantonaki, 48 Daria Turulo, 48 Assem Orynbay, 48 Wei Meng, 48 ( already have 2 OQPs) Arina Kuznetsova, 48 Nurlana Jafarova, 48 Francisca Crovetto Chadid, 48 (already qualified to the OGs)

Chinese Nationals, Day #8 men's 100m Fly 1.Wang Changhao, 51.20 2.Sun Jiajun, 51.54 women's 200m IM 1.Yu Yiting, 2.09.73 2.Zheng Huiyu, 2.11.87 women's 800m Freestyle 1.Li Bingjie, 8.25.43 2.Gao Weizhong, 8.27.97 women's 50m Freestyle semis Wu Qingfeng, 24.27 Zhang Yufei, 24.31 Cheng Yujie, 24.56 Yang Junxuan, 24.75 Mixed Medley Relay remarkable times Xu Jiayu, 52.69 (1st leg, men's back) Qin Haiyang, 59.25 (2nd leg, 3rd fastest among the men in the breaststroke leg) Pan Zhanle, 46.72 (4th leg, men's free) Zhang Yufei, 56.55 (3rd leg, women's fly)

lucky...and undeserved last spot great for our sailing federation, that will see their funding raise after this "success" (but i'd rather wait for the actual Olympic races, where less than 3 medals -1 gold- and at least 6 top 10 finish should be considered a flop)