phelps

really??? so, you don't like peppers and olives, the basics of the mediterranean cuisine? what a huge disappointment...

yellow pepper is still greenish when it's not completely matured... to cook certain dishes it's preferable to completely matured golden yellow ones...

as always, all these dishes looks very tasty...

he's going all out, I guess...

no major surprise in the first event of the 2019 world championships... all the expected stars of the game are there, in the top positions and ready to fight for the medals... just a couple of things...first, the young Korean sensation Seo Chae Hyun is very competitive also in Bouldering (not that it wasn't expected, but it was still to be proven), which means she could be a real threat for Garnbret and the Japanese armada also in the Olympic Combined discipline (her speed skills are still unknown); second, very good team effort by the Swiss girls...and this wasn't so obvious before the start of the competion (yeah, Petra Klinger was among the top climbers, but the other girls didn't have such good reputation as their leader)... finally, some good news also for Italy, with Laura Rogora easily qualifying for the Boulder semis... considering that she's also a very good Lead specialist (last year she narrowly missed the final at the world champs), there's still a reasonable chance she can at least qualify for the Olympic Combined competition at the end of this tournament...

Women's Boulder Climbers qualified to the Semifinal Round 20th, Urska Repusic 19th, Mia Krampl 18th, Anne-Sophie Koller 17th, Zhang Yue Tong 16th, Shauna Coxsey 15th, Miho Nonaka 14th, Luce Douady 13th, Ievgeniia Kazbekova 12th, Sofya Yokoyama 11th, Alannah Yip 10th, Laura Rogora 9th, Kyra Condie 8th, Seo Chae Hyun 7th, Lucka Rakovec 6th, Nanako Kura 5th, Fanny Gibert 4th, Futaba Ito 3rd, Petra Klingler 2nd, Akiyo Noguchi 1st, Janja Garnbret Full Qualifications Results https://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition#!comp=8253&cat=5

Time to Climb This week not only marks the start of the IFSC Climbing World Championships Hachioji 2019 but the first official Olympic qualifying event in the history of Sport Climbing. Over 253 athletes from 39 different countries are registered to compete in the 12-day event that will include lead, bouldering, speed and combined. Bouldering: Garnbret Seeks Another Win The IFSC Bouldering World Cup season might have concluded in June, but the climbers are back at it again for the World Championship title. After sweeping the world cup circuit, all eyes will be on Janja GARNBRET (SLO) to see if she can defend her title from Innsbruck and continue her winning streak. Both Akiyo NOGUCHI (JPN) and Fanny GIBERT (FRA) are expected to compete to try to take the title from her. This will be the first World Championship event for the surprise winner of the Vail World Cup, Yoshiyuki OGATA (JPN). The Bouldering World Championship will also set up a rematch between Adam ONDRA (CZE) and Tomoa NARASAKI (JPN) after their close battle for the 2019 Bouldering Overall Season title. Lead: Reigning Champions vs. Stiff Competition Austria claimed both Lead gold medals at last year’s World Championship and Jessica PILZ and Jakob SCHUBERT are back once again to take on the lead wall. While there have only been three world cup events so far this season, Chaehyun SEO (KOR) is beginning to stand out from the pack with two back-to-back gold medals and a win against GARNBRET, she is a strong contender for the women’s Lead title. ONDRA and this Lead Season’s frontrunner Alexander MEGOS (GER) are expected put the pressure on SCHUBERT for the coveted first place position on the podium in Hachioji after both finished in second and third place respectively in 2018. Speed: Rematches and World Records The Speed World Cup series has featured several different winners and a tight race in the overall rankings. Last year’s podium finishers are back for another chance at a medal, while this season’s top athletes seek to take their place. Innsbruck gold medalist and current men’s world record holder, Reza ALIPOUR (IRI) is up against the current overall leader for the season, Bassa MAWEM (FRA). Russia’s Vladislav DEULIN and Dmitrii TIMOFEEV are also registered to compete. New women’s world record holder, SONG Yi Ling (CHN) is participating in her first World Championship and seems to be the one to beat this year. Will a new world record be set in Hachioji? Combined: The Climb to Tokyo Starts Here History will be made at this year’s World Championships as the top Sport Climbing athletes go toe-to-toe in the first Olympic qualifying event. The best 20 climbers out of the 172 competing in Bouldering, Lead and Speed will fight in the Combined during the final three days of the World Championships. Seven of the highest placed athletes per gender, with a maximum of 2 per country will qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games. As Team Japan continues to dominate the rankings this year, the question of who will represent the host country at the Olympics is about to be determined. Both NARASAKI and NOGUCHI had strong Bouldering seasons and competed in the Lead Finals in Villars, while Miho NONAKA qualified for the Villars Speed Finals. Kai HARADA and Kokoro FUJII are also strong contenders for the men’s combined, finishing in fourth and sixth in last year’s Combined event in Innsbruck, respectively. All Credits to IFSC (ifsc-climbing.org)

Stage #6 (Lenzerheide, SUI) Men's Short Circuit Race Gold: Mathieu Van Der Poel Silver: Henrique Avancini Bronze: Nino Schurter Women's Short Circuit Race Gold: Pauline Ferrand-Prevot Silver: Jolanda Neff Bronze: Jenny Rissveds

point #4 one of the main factors that lead to world disasters is that people never learn from the mistakes of the past...if only they could give a bit of attention to what happened before them, maybe they would learn how to keep far away from the usual repeated errors... point #5 I agree on principles, but not at all in how they're put in practice... not to be forgotten, in many cultures promiscuity is not allowed (I'm not only referring to the well known Religious factors and to the Countries following them strictly)... so, the mixed events are really discriminatory for part of the audience and part of the competitors themselves... and the only way to respect that, is to have equal men and women's events, but please, keep the mixed events in the bag...

mayhem or not, those however are always lovely landscapes... the canals in Utrecht are the absolute top...

the official worldskate olympic qualification ranking (after the last update, 15 days ago) still has Armanto as Finnish (and she's 3rd in the ranking, too)...

shame on Italy...just missed out on the OQ for a short while...

in fact I gave another kind of interpretation for NED and ITA... the question is about the games being well attended in case the Olympic Games were in certain Countries... and I explained that in most cases that's a no brainer, as it happened even in the past in non-baseball related Countries like Greece or China and despite there were no superstars of the game either in those Games... p.s. I'm pretty sure that should NED one day host the Olympics, Baseball (and Softball) would have very good attendance...just because it's the Olympics, no matter the local interest could be in the other 350 days of the year... and the same is for many other Nations...

after they totally dominated the group stage, Canada yesterday got quite a scare against Sweden...let's see if the Russians (who are stronger than SWE, on paper) can upset the North Americans... by the way, I'm always impressed by the skill level these yougsters already have at their age...

no way, you're underestimated a lot Countries...the entire Central America (Cuba and Mexico above all), South Korea, Chinese Taipei, Australia, the Netherlands...in some way even Italy... all places where Baseball is the National sport or close to that or, for Europe and Australia, it's in any case a discipline with good audience (in Sydney the stadiums were full and also in Athens and Beijing they were not playing "in the desert"...and there weren't MLB players in those tournaments)... and don't forget that the Olympics are more about the tv/social media ratings rather than the actual spectators in the arenas...

probably it's the other side of the channel, the one we can't see in the rowing pictures (the only other option is @heywoodu's )...

obviously it's transition between the 2 kinds of landscape... by the way, you can watch by yourself (you only need to watch the first heat to see the entire course)...

the Rowing Junior World Championships are underway in Tokyo, in the same bassin that's scheduled to host next year's Olympic regatta... all infos and results are available, as usual, on worldrowing's official website, along with the full videos (live and on-demand) of the racing sessions... well, I just gave a look to today's races to see how the environment looks like (yeah, I'm always a curious man )... why did I do that? now I'm literally shocked! this is the worst rowing/canoeing bassin I've ever seen... basically, it's an artificial channel within the Tokyo docks! races start under a bridge of the highway going to those docks... the first 900 meters of racing have a backdrop made only by a street with trucks going back and forth and piled containers, piled containers and piled containers again (and at about 650/700 meters from the start there's a passage below another highway bridge)... the last 1000 meters' backdrop is a 10m high grey wall, behind which you can see the same street as before with trucks going back and forth and a small (ugly) hill with a few bushes... even the stands are only placed on one side of the channel, the same of the cameras, so you won't even see the audience enjoying the races... if I think of places like Bled, Lucern...even Milan's Idroscalo...I feel so bad... I just can't believe that the Japanese couldn't find a better place to host their Olympic Rowing/Canoeing events...

yes...

yes, at the Olympic Games they could play, but of course they won't because the owners of the MLB teams won't give them permission to leave and play elsewhere in the middle of their season (nor they have any intention to stop the majors for a couple of weeks or so)...

yes, but this would be the ultimate punishment (not likely to happen)... first there are a lot of steps to be made before getting to such stage... here I explained what's going on between the current Italian Government (which won't last long, however...probably it will go down already in the next few hours/days) and the IOC... https://totallympics.com/index.php?/topic/822-off-topic-politics-thread/&do=findComment&comment=230756

track speedskating needs this kind of track (which is quite expensive, as already mentioned)... p.s. the track can be placed outdoor, but also indoor... road speedskating, of course, is a bit different...

the big problem is that they don't have one...they're just a bunch of opportunistic and stupid people, prone to trust the most improbable fake news... if we just watch at their political actions so far, for sure we can say they're more rightist than leftist (with all the consequence of that orientation)...that's sure... eurosceptist? that's about half of the Country...it's not a question of political parties, rather than social classes...only those who are not touched by the loss of economical power and resources to come to the end of the month with some dignity and something to eat everyday and a few youngsters who are still dreaming instead of living the daily struggles are pro-EU...those who have lost their job or have seen their salary heavily cut because of the European requests to cut the public debt surely can't be pro-EU... their main feature is that they are "against"...they are against progress, they are against any sort of long term investment and against building any new infrastructure, they think all the other political forces are a bunch of corrupted liars and they are the clean side of the Country, but it's well proven that they are worse than any other political party, even Berlusconi's... about macroeconomics, they seem to embrace the degrowth theory by Serge Latouche, but this is only marginally true, they just give their own (wrong even in this case) interpretation of that (which is already something out of this world, imho...and they can even make worse than that)... imho, they are just a disaster...something that I wouldn't wish my worst enemy...where they have some local govern responsibility, everything is falling apart (Rome is the biggest example of that, with no more thrash cleaning from the streets, with public transports not working most of the time and a lot of those malfunctions that make life harder for the people who live in those places)... hopefully, soon this awful experience will end...but who knows what awaits us? we thought that after 20 years of Berlusconi followed by the German slave Monti nothing could be worse, but we got the "5 Stelle"... so, following the old proverb (when you've touched the ground, you can always start digging), I don't really know what to expect for the future...frankly, at the moment I don't see any new political force nor any new politician that could really be an inspiring figure to stand up and get back to the Country we once were...

yeah, but, as I wrote, in Italian (Latin) culture it doesn't have anything to do with racism or offensive thoughts... it's more a joke, something like "hey Japan/China/Korea (put the far east Country you like the most) here we come!" or "this time we won ", depending on situations... but, as inappropriate it could be, it has no offensive meaning at all (there are other ways to offend oriental people here...mostly connected to their "yellow skin" rather than their almond eyes, which actually are appreciated a lot at our latitude, especially when they are not almost closed, but well open and supported by a good make up)...

by the way, in Italy that gesture doesn't have anything to do with racism or trying to offend anybody... on the other hand, if you indicate the number #2 as you normally do in the USA (raising index and little finger like in the horn gesture), it's highly likely that here (especially in the big cities and in the Southern part of the Country) you get a knife in your stomach in less than 1/100 of a second... every place has its own meaning to the same kind of gestures, generalizing is always the worst thing to do (and ignoring that is even worse)...