phelps

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)...

nice final day tomorrow... in both the women and the men's events we're going to have a direct matchup between 2 crews entering the medal race with only 1 point difference (so, basically who ends up in front of the rivals tomorrow wins the title) and also a 3-way fight for the bronze medal (GRE/FRA both stuck at 48 pts and SWE at 52 pts among the men; FRA -64- / ITA -68- and ESP -74 pts- among the women)... for what concerns Italy, definitely some good results...but among the men our duo Ferrari & Calabrò wasted a good medal chance with today's poor performance (twice 19th and 9th) after a very successful week... among the girls, now we have Elena Berta and Bianca Caruso fighting for the medals and also looking to appreciate Enoshima's sailing conditions, meanwhile Benedetta di Salle and Alessandra Dubbini look really in trouble and have never been in contention here in Japan (they are only 17th in the ranking), but those 2 are the pair who won the Olympic quota...troubles incoming for our technical committee...

basically, this is a law that spoils our NOC of its tasks (and independency)... they have "invented" a new "company" with all officials named by the Government to control and manage all the amateur/everyday sports activities, replacing the existing one under the direct responsibility of our NOC (as the Olympic Statute requires)... moreover, it's written in the first chapter that the Government has to/can review and change all the NOC decisions about financial, sport politics and people's nominèes... in practice, the Government takes over all the NOC activities, except for the high level (Olympic) preparation (which depends on public funding already, so they also have control of that "de facto" -but before it was just the total amount of funding given to the NOC and then they could decide how to give it up to the single federations, now all the money would be given through the new company under a stricter control of the Government)... all things contested by the IOC through a letter they sent to our NOC boss Giovanni Malagò, who's been fighting against this Government and this law for quite some time (and he has to face also a lot of internal opposition, because most of the presidents of the Italian Sport Federations are also heavily connected with -when not fully part of- our political parties...to name one among the toughest Malagò rivals, our Swimming Federation's President Paolo Barelli has been a member of our Senate for at least the last 20 years, always with "Forza Italia", Berlusconi's party)... so far, the Government has refused to take into consideration any IOC statement...actually, they said the IOC are wrong and the situation is not like they think, but they're just a bunch of liars... the last chapter (for now) is about a new letter sent by the IOC yesterday, which askes the Italian IOC members, our NOC main officials and our Government representatives (those who wrote that law) to come to Lausanne next September and discuss about this situation, trying to avoid Italy to be sanctioned according to the IOC rules (in perspective, we're going to get the same punishment that Kuwait got for Rio 2016 and most likely the organization of the Winter Games of 2026 will be stripped from Italy if nothing's gonna change in the next few months). now we can only wait and see what's gonna happen, because after yesterday's voting (about another issue, nothing related to sport questions...it was about the High Velocity Train Lane between Lyon (FRA) and Turin (ITA), another complicated situation here in Italy...where a bunch of idiots -unfortunately among them there's the second party of the Government coalition, the socalled "5 Stelle", ideologically opposing anything new, modern and efficient- can take the 80% of the Country as hostage, delaying -if not completely stopping- one of the most important infrastructures that should be built in our Country ) there's a high risk that this Government is going to fall down rather quickly...and in such case we're going to be for months -until a new voting session and the following consultations to make a new Government- without a leadership capable of taking any decision except for the ordinary affairs and administration...

no, because MLB players can't play at the Premier 12 by rule... it's gonna be mainly triple- and double A players, with Japan, Korea and Chinese Taipei using their own main leagues to fill the spots on their respective rosters... still, US depth chart is beyond imagination, so, if Girardi can put on a good staff to help him selecting the right players in the perfect spot, USA can easily be a top contender in any case (like it happened 4 years ago)...

I think he's going to fill the team with big bats, totally forgetting that pitching and defense win the games... oh, wait...is that something he already did with the Yankees?

in Italy all sports are equal by law, but de facto Football is the only National sport of Italy (you can add Valentino Rossi and Ferrari -be careful, not motorsports in general...just those 2 "divinities"- if you like, but their sports are not recognised by IOC)... everything else just flaws by (Panta rei, for those who know a bit of ancient Philosophy) and maybe sometimes hits the news columns when Italy win a European/World/Olympic title (but the first 2 competitions get some consideration only for team sports...in the individual ones, you really have to become Olympic Champion to get a marginal place on TV and newspapers)...

this is history! my friends... Ivan Federico won the men's Park competition and he's the first ever Italian born rider (of any discipline) to win a X-Games event! moreover, he was the only non-Japanese skater to win one of the Skateboarding Olympic events (Yuto Horigome won the men's Street, Aori Nishimura won the women's Street and the 12-year sensation Misugu Okamoto dominated the women's Park, as usual)... here are the medal runs from that epic contest... http://www.xgames.com/video/27322135/medal-runs-men-skateboard-park if we consider this event the real thermometer of this sport, the Olympic medal table in Skateboarding would be something like this: JPN, 3 / 2 / 1 IOP, 1 / 0 / 0* USA, 0 / 2 / 2 FIN, 0 / 0 / 1 *following the latest (very sad and idiotic) development of the Italian political scene (yesterday a law that goes against most of the principles included in the Olympic Statute was approved by our Parliament), there's a very high chance that Italy won't be part of the Games in Tokyo and all the Italian athletes capable of qualifying as individuals will have to live their Olympic dream under the anonymous Olympic Flag (and they will have to listen to the awful Olympic Anthem if they win a Gold medal)...

yeah, but I'm not sure world sailing wants to increase the cost of 2 regatta instead of only 1 (the OQ status means also more participants, more judges, more accomodations, more costs for the whole infrastructure)... let's see what happens...maybe they're lucky enough to complete a regular program already this week in Peru...