phelps

in the Foil events, no, a medal is not enough...actually, a gold medal alone is not enough... in the other weapons, a medal is enough, sometimes it's even "great"...provided you lose against stronger opponents and not because your mind has gone elsewhere in the key moments, wasting chances you normally don't get...

as an Italian fan, I'm more than happy because I didn't expect these girls going so well in this tournament... as a fencing lover, I can't close my eyes and not look at what actually happened on the piste...it's not a question of being positive or negative...it's just analyzing the bout trying not to get influenced by my personal sympathy...

women's team Epee, 9th-16th Placements 9. France 10. Romania 11. Japan 12. Germany 13. Hungary 14. Switzerland 15. Canada 16. Hong Kong

women's team Epee, Quarterfinals Italy b. United States 25-22 China b. South Korea 45-40 Russia b. Estonia 45-35 Ukraine b. Poland 45-38 women's team Epee, Semifinals Italy vs China Russia vs Ukraine

no, it wasn't a perfect assault at all...slow start, both Isola and Clerici great on 2 stints but awful in 1 of the 3 bouts...even Fiamingo making it unnecessarily complicated in the last stint...

a easier win was definitely possible... the USA are highly overestimated in this discipline...all of those girls are absolutely nothing special... CHN, KOR, RUS, ROU, FRA...all of those teams are surely better than them, even if the results have gone differently in the last couple of years... by the way, this is a key win for Italy...if we can make the podium, our chances to qualify for the Olympics definitely improve a lot... even if Ukraine's win over Poland is not a good result for us...

because those are very different kind of races...in world cup races normally there are less participants (a lot less) and most times the top sailors don't show up in those races... World Cup is kinda a second tier event...it could give people a wrong idea about the actual situation of a sailing class...

not necessarily...if they have a deep enough program, some Nations could choose to use different swimmers for the mixed relay, not used in any other relay competition... so, you should consider that just as another race...

12 quota for each relay is correct, as they actually qualify directly to the Games... but you should consider also the mixed freestyle relay, as it's an official Olympic event (and follows the same rules as the other relays, if I remember well)...

Express VPN is always the best solution...

my picks (not that I'm a real expert, tbh)... Santiago Muniz, Lucca Mesinas and Jhony Corzo should be the top male specialists (but surprising results from a few other competitiors are not to be excluded -I don't know anything about the race course, which could be a factor)... among the women, instead, it should be a Brisa Hennessy one-woman show... and in terms of Olympic qualification, since I think Hennessy would eventually qualify through the WSL (as surely will do the American girls), I'd keep an eye especially on Bethany Zelasko and Daniela Rosas...

after some of the big names of the discipline missed out on the decisive act, it was a quite tight final, but at the end of the competition we had an amazing clean sweep by the Japanese climbers... now it's time to see if Janja Garnbret can get back with a revenge and start a new winning streak after last week's fail...

2019 Sport Climbing World Cup, Stage #9 (Briançon, FRA) Men's Lead Gold: Hidemasa Nishida Silver: Hiroto Shimizu Bronze: Shuta Tanaka

so, the individual events are over...with USA, Italy and (on a second row) Japan being the big losers...and, on the opposite side, a lot of surprising and unexpected medallists... for Italy, the stats are devastating...the worst results in about 30 years (last time without a single individual finalist, Lausanne 1987)... hopefully, we could (should) turn things around in the team events, that this year are also a lot more important, as they're the key event on the route to the Olympic qualification...

Today's recap... Women's Individual Sabre Gold: Olga Kharlan Silver: Sofya Velikaya Bronze: Theodora Gkountoura & Bianca Pascu Semifinals Velikaya b. Gkountoura 15-11 Kharlan b. Pascu 15-5 Gold Medal Match Kharlan b. Velikaya 15-14 Full Ranking (and Results) here: https://2019budapestfencing.com/files/hunfencing/2019_wfc_bud/sws-in/index.php?page=clasfinal.htm Men's Individual Foil Gold: Enzo Lefort Silver: Marcus Mepstead Bronze: Son Young Ki & Dmitry Zherebchenko Semifinals Mepstead b. Son 15-12 Lefort b. Zherebchenko 15-7 Gold Medal Match Lefort b. Mepstead 15-6 Full Ranking (and Results) here: https://2019budapestfencing.com/files/hunfencing/2019_wfc_bud/smf-in/index.php?page=clasfinal.htm

with the (relatively new) FIL trend of inventing new farcical events, soon also Luge will be in the mix... and cross-country skiing was also very close last Winter...

as expected, Velikaya and Kharlan made it through to the grand final... at least in women's sabre, we're going to have the best possible gold medal match...actually, women's sabre at its finest...

men's individual Foil, Quarterfinals Marcus Mepstead b. Michal Siess 15-9 Son Young Ki b. Lee Kwang Hyun 15-11 Dmitry Zherebchenko b. Andrea Cassarà 15-6 Enzo Lefort b. Ryan Choi Chun Yin 15-10 men's individual Foil, Semifinals Marcus Mepstead vs Son Young Ki Dmitry Zherebchenko vs Enzo Lefort

and with this one, I'm dead and gone... see you in the other forum's threads...

now we can finally say it: this championship is a total disaster, the worst Italian team since 1995... what a shame! now we only need to compromise the Olympic qualification in a couple of events and make a lot of people happy...

Cassarà

no, it's a huge surprise...she might be no.14 in the WR because of her regularity on an average basis, but she's never been so high even in a normal world cup event...so, I think not even herself expected to go so deep in the tournament...

it's been a crazy day, but at least in women's sabre we're finally heading towards a highly expected new chapter of the Velikaya vs Kharlan saga... in the men's foil, instead, however it goes, we're gonna have a really unexpected outcome...

women's individual Sabre, Quarterfinals Sofya Velikaya b. Anna Marton 15-7 Theodora Gkountoura b. Cecilia Berder 15-13 Bianca Pascu b. Anne-Elizabeth Stone 15-13 Olga Kharlan b. Alina Komashchuk 15-14 women's individual Sabre, Semifinals Sofya Velikaya vs Theodora Gkountoura Bianca Pascu vs Olga Kharlan