phelps

well, actually Paltrinieri's result is very good... in Italy most people thought he could easily miss out on the olympic quota, as he's not in good shape (after the injury he sustained at the US champs -where he dominated the field, but almost broke his elbow while making the final touch- he had to miss quite a few days of training at home and the whole altitude period with the rest of the National team...and just a few weeks ago in Rome at the Settecolli meet swam 15.10 over the 1500, which is his worst time since 2011)... today after the race he said that he was done and gone with 1 lap of the circuit left and it took of his pride and resilience to keep calm and get at least a top 10 placing at the end of the day... for sure, next year he will start in all the world series events over the 10km to gain the experience he does not have yet (he also said that after today's race)... for what concerns the 1500m, I think he will start in any case, but I expect him not even to make the final...for sure this year he can't win (and not even make the podium)... I'd be really surprised if he can do some magic in the pool...but, as they say, never underestimate the heart of a champion... we'll see what's gonna happen next week... p.s. the real upset for our team is Bridi missing the qualification in the women's race...that really hurts...

unfortunately there are some problems with raiplay website (and I fear it will take quite a long time for them to make up for their mistake)... if you try to watch "as live" through the smart tv or pc app, all of today's videos (even the supposed women's waterpolo match on raisport+ HD at 2.45 a.m.) don't start and send you back to the list of videos from the previous days... it's not the 1st time they have such fails...

guys! there's the full schedule of this championship in the first post of the thread...

Italy already lost a girl (Federica Isola) in the women's Epee preliminary stages... she lost against an unknown Czech fencer, who's 2000 places behind her in the world ranking... meanwhile I see that Luca Curatoli has quite a good draw until the quarterfinals of the men's Sabre event... still, a medal would be really surprising, as he should end up facing the local hero Aron Szilagyi in the quarterfinals...

day #1 of the qualification rounds is over... here are the main table draws of men's individual Sabre and women's individual Epee after today's action... men's individual Sabre https://2019budapestfencing.com/app.php?id=932V2 women's individual Epee https://2019budapestfencing.com/app.php?id=932V1

I did it! I sent IOC a couple of very harsh e-mails... but I guess they didn't even bother to read them...

if they are among the programs for which they have the internet rights, once the live broadcast is over, in a few minutes they should become available (but sometimes there are bugs and problems and in this case most likely they will never be available)... meanwhile, if they are among those programs for which they don't have the internet rights (mainly tv series and movies not on tv for the first time, whose rights are already in the bag of service like amazon prime and/or netflix), then there's no chance for them to become available... however, everything related to the swimming worlds should be available as soon as the live broadcast is over (except for unexpected bugs, as written before)...

I agree on most of that...but for one "activity" (in bold)... breakdancing (and all variants of dancing, tbh) is NOT a sport!

Yasar Dogu Tournament (Istanbul, TUR) Day #4 (Sunday) Champions: Women's Wrestling -72kg: Buse TOSUN -76kg: Erica Elizabeth WIEBE Men's Freestyle -74kg: Jordan BURROUGHS (Chamizo pulled out because of a new injury to the same calf that already prevented him to compete at the recent European games...now I'm really starting to worry in the world champs' perspective) -86kg: Aleksandr GOSTIYEV -92kg: J'Den Michael Tbory COX -97kg: Kyle Frederick SNYDER

Grand Prix (Budapest, HUNN) Tournament Recap New tournament, same story...Japan dominated also the Budapest GP, winning 5 out of the possible 14 Gold Medals (4 among the women and only 1 among the men, though)... Brazil, thanks to Rafaela Silva and Mayra Aguiar's Gold medals, finally got second in this tournament's medal table... Then 7 more Nations won 1 Gold medal each... here are all the 2019 Budapest GP Champions: Women: -48kg: Funa Tonaki -52kg: Chishima Maeda -57kg: Rafaela Silva -63kg: Masako Doi -70kg: Gemma Howell -78kg: Mayra Aguiar +78kg: Wakaba Tomita Men: -60kg: Yeldos Smetov -66kg: Kherlen Ganbold -73kg: Akil Gjakova -81kg: Tato Grigalashvili -90kg: Nikoloz Sherazadishvili -100kg: Aaron Wolf +100kg: Or Sasson Full Results, here: https://live.ijf.org/gp_hun2019/results

as usual, great performance by Italy... most of medals, as expected, came from Artistic Skating, but also many other sports (some of them basically unknown to the 99.99% of the Italian people ) gave their contribution... Speedskating started with an awful campaign on the Track, but then they had some good results on the Road, unfortunately only among the women (Lollobrigida among the senior ranks and Valanzano + Varani among the junior ranks)... still, the overall results in this discipline are not good enough...not even close to where we once were... the black sheep is once again men's Rink Hockey... they started with a lot of expectations, then they first blew the chance to get a relatively easy quarterfinal match losing against France (who are definitely not on the same level of Italy, but we've been capable of make them look good as Portugal) and finally, after playing a great match against the eventual champions Portugal, we threw that very much possible victory away 3 times (we were 2-0 ahead in the first half of regulation, 4-2 ahead in the second half of regulation -and the 4-4 tying goal came in the last minute of the game- and also 5-4 ahead at the overtime's halftime...moreover, during the game we wasted good 4 "direct shots" and 3 powerplays), before being destroyed at the penalty shootout... more in general, as expected, the Colombians were simply amazing in Speedskating...thanks to that sport (and only that one), they almost won the medal table (they ended up just behind Italy, with the same amount of Gold Medals, 21 each...Italy being ahead only because they won 2 more Silver Medals than the South Americans)... Germany also were so high in the Medal Table because they're totally dominant in one sport (Alpine Skating), as it happened for many other Nations, generally having only one or max two very strong disciplines... finally, we must say that these games were very successful in terms of perticipation and the Skating disciplines are really widely spread around the world, since we have 34 Nations coming from all the 5 Continents (6, if you want to keep the artificial separation of North and South America) winning at least a medal (21 winning at least 1 Gold)...

WRG 2019, Final Medal Table https://www.wrg2019.com/medals/

Women's Rink Hockey Bronze Medal Match Chile b. Italy 3-0 Women's Rink Hockey Gold Medal Match Spain b. Argentina 8-5 Men's Rink Hockey Bronze Medal Match Spain b. France 5-0 Men's Rink Hockey Gold Medal Match Portugal b. Argentina 2-1 (PS) Women's Rink Hockey Gold: Spain Silver: Argentina Bronze: Chile Full Tournament Recap http://www.rinkhockey.wrg2019.com/league/27 Men's Rink Hockey Gold: Portugal Silver: Argentina Bronze: Spain Full Tournament Recap http://www.rinkhockey.wrg2019.com/league/26

Women's Roller Derby Gold: United States Silver: Australia Bronze: Spain Full Tournament Results https://www.wrg2019.com/calendar/roller-derby/?widget= Men's Roller Derby Gold: United States Silver: Spain Bronze: Australia Full Tournament Results https://www.wrg2019.com/calendar/roller-derby/?widget=

Inline Freestyle Skating, Junior Women's Battle Slalom Competition Gold: Sofia Bogdanova Silver: Liu Jia Xin Bronze: Anna Smirnova Full Results http://www.worldskate.org/wrg2019/results-wrg2019/category/613-wrg19-inline-freestyle-results.html?download=3837:20190714 result protocols battle junior Inline Freestyle Skating, Junior Men's Battle Slalom Competition Gold: Gleb Velikanov Silver: Gu Kun Qi Bronze: Chou Po-Wei Full Results http://www.worldskate.org/wrg2019/results-wrg2019/category/613-wrg19-inline-freestyle-results.html?download=3837:20190714 result protocols battle junior Inline Freestyle Skating, Women's Battle Slalom Competition Gold: Su Fei Qian Silver: Mika Moritoki Bronze: Vasilisa Maslova Full Results http://www.worldskate.org/wrg2019/results-wrg2019/category/613-wrg19-inline-freestyle-results.html?download=3842:20190714 result protocols battle senior Inline Freestyle Skating, Men's Battle Slalom Competition Gold: Zhang Hao Silver: Lorenzo Guslandi Bronze: Artem Puzanov Full Results http://www.worldskate.org/wrg2019/results-wrg2019/category/613-wrg19-inline-freestyle-results.html?download=3842:20190714 result protocols battle senior

Artistic Skating, Pairs Gold: Rebecca Tarlazzi & Luca Lucaroni Silver: Alice Esposito & Federico Rossi Bronze: Gaia Colucci & Marco Garelli Full Results http://www.worldskate.org/wrg2019/results-wrg2019/category/633-pairs.html?download=3838:14-7-2019-final-pairs-seniores Artistic Skating, Couple Dance Gold: Anna Remondini & Daniel Morandin Silver: Ana Luisa Monteiro Walgode & Pedro Monteiro Walgode Bronze: Silvia Stibilj & Andrea Bassi Full Results Still missing... Artistic Skating, Large Groups Competition Gold: Cepa Girona Silver: CPA Olot Bronze: Diamante Full Results http://www.worldskate.org/wrg2019/results-wrg2019/category/640-groups.html?download=3841:2019-07-14-wrg-artistic-result-large-groups

it's a world cup because there are teams from all around the world...Europe, Asia, Africa, Americas, Oceania... actually, Cricket is one of the few team sports where you can find at least 1 top team from each of the 5 Continents... p.s. maybe the level is not so good as it is in the main Countries of the sport, but Cricket is played regularly also outside the Commonwealth Nations...

their tv schedule (on their website) doesn't show any sign of swimming on tv (nor does ARD), at least until Wednesday, July 24th (then I stopped surfing their site)...

yes, it is... however, Hola works as a VPN (unfortunately the the mediatek says that the video format is not supported...)...

Discovery Media simply refused to pay what FINA asked for, claiming their request was completely out of the market... therefore, no, Eurosport won't broadcast anything from South Korea in the next 15 days... however, DM is in good company...for the same reason, these World Championships are not broadcasted even in Australia (a true swimming powerhouse and a Country where top swimmers are among the most famous people, followed by the media each and every day of the year also outside the competitions), which makes me think that FINA were really asking too much...

CWC 2019, Final Sunday, July 14th, h.11.30 a.m. CET (Lord's, London), England (241/all out in 50 overs, 15/0 in the super-over) b. New Zealand (241/8 in 50 overs, 15/1 in the super-over) at the tie-breaker (most boundaries hit in the entire match)

for sure, they should play at least a second (and maybe even a third) super-over (with mandatory different bowlers and at least one different batsman in the partnership in each of those super-overs)... then, and only then, they can go down to other kind of tie-breakers (and I agree that the most boundaries criteria is probably the best one you can choose)... by the way, now this CWC has gone...those are just ideas for the future... and wow! what a final it's been... I'm exhausted (and my heart is bleeding for the Kiwis)... the Gods of Cricket are certainly from England... NZL didn't have their best offensive inning, but their bowlers were (or, at least, looked) in control for most of the second inning...when zac! 2 of the luckiest sixes ever gave England a chance... and also in the super-over NZL were kind of betrayed by their supposed best bowler, Trent Boult, who gave up 15 runs in 6 balls...probably they should have used Colin de Grandhomme, who today was actually the most effective among the NZL bowlers...

Road Speedskating, Women's Marathon Gold: Francesca Lollobrigida Silver: Johana Viveros Bronze: Sabine Berg Full Results http://www.worldskate.org/wrg2019/results-wrg2019/category/628-marathon.html?download=3835:230 women marathon scratch result Road Speedskating, Men's Marathon Gold: Nolan Beddiaf Silver: Bart Swings Bronze: Felix Rijhnen Full Results http://www.worldskate.org/wrg2019/results-wrg2019/category/628-marathon.html?download=3836:231 men marathon scratch result

Stage #4 (Les Gets, FRA) Women's Cross-Country Race Gold: Kate Courtney  Silver: Jolanda Neff Bronze: Elisabeth Brandau Men's Cross-Country Race Gold: Nino Schurter Silver: Gerhard Kerschbaumer Bronze: Henrique Avancini

it's not through the world ranking, there will be just a single qualification race in Fukuoka (JPN) next year (around the end of may/beginning of june, I think) for the unqualified NOCs... it's all or nothing... one of the most unfair (if not the most unfair) qualification system among all the olympic disciplines...