phelps

Ueno, Kiefer, Zagidullina and Huo (who just upset Thibus) are the first 4 girls progressing to the quarterfinals...

@heywoodu you'd better stop watching yesterday's stuff for a while and @ around 4.40 p.m. go live on Youtube (Yellow piste)... there's Verwijlen close to the medal zone (unfortunately, he has to face the home hero, who looks quite determined to give the hosts another medal)...

men's individual Epee quarterfinals Yannick Borel vs Andrea Santarelli Gergely Siklosi vs Bas Verwijlen Igor Reizlin vs Ruslan Kurbanov Koki Kano vs Sergey Bida and now, ladies & gentlemen, some magic... did we have fewer Nations than expected in the top 16? sure, we did...but somehow, now we have 8 different Nations in the top 8 places...et voilà, voici la magie du jour!

you should have definitely taken a bye on this one... just to update your infos... http://www.omegatiming.com/2019/18th-fina-world-championships-dv-live-results

because I'm Italian... and Volpi isn't ill nor injured nor focused on Tokyo (she isn't even sure to be in the team by 12 months)...simply, today she wasn't focused enough in her match against Diaz and she hasn't been able to react to the problems the Spaniard gave her and change her attitude through the entire assault, which it's not to be expected from the reigning world champion...

as expected, it's a Japanese clean sweep... in the Park discipline, they're miles ahead of anybody else... another amazing win for the Japanese sensation Okamura...but still, a 12 year young baby shouldn't be allowed to compete in a senior event, imho...

5 Star International Skateboarding Open of Nanjing, Women's Final Gold: Misugu Okamoto Silver: Sakura Yosozumi Bronze: Kisa Nakamura The Full Results of the ISO Park of Nanjing are available in the result section of the WorldSkate website: http://www.worldskate.org/skateboarding/results/category

yes, but for now I only have the women's results...still waiting for worldskate to publish the men's final results (the event should be over right now)... the mistake on the day of the finals happened because of a copy & paste from yesterday's post...

c'mon! the no.1 seeded just can't lose a match like that... it's not me having to relax, it's Volpi who should have been a lot more focused... she was just irritating in the way she lost (you can always lose...but there are quite a few different ways to do it...Volpi chose one of the worst of them all)......

first, you don't have to look only at the medal table, but also at the top 8 (and beyond) and at the total number of Nations qualifying some athletes to the main draw (and in general, at the total number of participants...not only at the world champs, but also at the various world cup stages)... then, as I wrote, the stint I'm considering it's a bit longer (20 years and more)... until the Nineties of the last Century, it was almost impossible to find any Nation outside the usual powerhouses in the medal table, nowadays the situation is really different... on the contrary, we have some sports which are going in the opposite direction...we have always less competitive Nations and 1 of them going for an amazing but unacceptable clean sweep of the events (the first one that comes to my mind is Diving, as we're watching the world champs just this week)...

you're a true fencing expert...

and Santarelli is really lucky...he only has to win the "French championship" to win a medal...

tell me that's just a nightmare...this can't be true...it's just a mistake...it was a fake video, a plot against me... p.s. meanwhile in the men's epee, which is supposed to be the most "open" weapon, with the most athletes and Countries with a chance to shine, we have 3 Frenchmen, 3 Japanese, 2 Hungarians, 2 Ukranians, 2 Kazakhs (and 4 others) in the top 16...only 9 Nations in the round of 16... I've never seen so few Nations represented at this stage of a men's Epee event in the last 20 years or so (and I just wrote that fencing is becoming more and more widely spread at the top level of play)...

yes, very good result for Federico... if he makes the final also at the world champs later this year, he's basically sure to be among the 20 lucky riders that will fight for the Olympic medals (not to mention that a world medal would mean automatic qualification)... p.s. still, I don't know why they put this thing in the Olympic program...

5 Star International Skateboarding Open of Nanjing Men's Semifinals And now we know also the 8 riders advancing to Today's men's Final. Here they are: 1 Alex Sorgente 2 Ivan Federico 3 Luiz Francisco 4 Heimana Raynolds 5 Corey Juneau 6 Jagger Eaton 7 Vincent Matheron 8 Hericles Fagundes Galle The Full Results of the ISO Park of Nanjing are available in the result section of the WorldSkate website: http://www.worldskate.org/skateboarding/results/category

you said it all, I think... no way Jurka and Capek can go as deep as the top 8..it would be a huge, huge surprise...even bigger than the Luxembourg girl yesterday... the same for the men's Team Epee...they can definitely do well (and even upset some better teams), but a medal is a very long shot...

as far as I know, the only Continental Events approved as Olympic Qualifier are the European Games and the Pan-American Games (at least, those are the only 2 named in the official qualification document on the WKF website)... therefore, for Asia, Africa and Oceania the following statement should be considered: "If Continental Games are not approved as a qualification event on a specific continent, then the highest ranked athlete not yet qualified from the Olympic Standing on 6 April 2020 from that specific continent, will obtain the quota place, respecting the maximum quota per NOC." so, this event should give points for the OQR, but shouldn't be among those events giving up direct quota (which will be reallocated to the OQR, also to choose the best male and female for the Continental Quota)... basically, it's quite a mess...they could (and should) definitely have made it a lot simpler, imho...

5 Star International Skateboarding Open of Nanjing Women's Semifinals Today the Results service is working quicker than the previous days, so we already know who are the 8 riders advancing to Today's women's Final. Here they are: 1 Misugu Okamoto 2 Kisa Nakamura 3 Sky Brown 4 Yndiara Asp 5 Bryce Wettstein 6 Poppy Starr Olsen 7 Sakura Yosozumi 8 Isadora Pacheco The Full Results of the ISO Park of Nanjing are available in the result section of the WorldSkate website: http://www.worldskate.org/skateboarding/results/category/571-iso-park-nanjing-2019.html

5 Star International Skateboarding Open of Nanjing Quarterfinals With World Skateboarding Ranking pre seeded skaters joining the best riders from the Qualifiers, the competition shifted gear into the Quarter Finals picking up pace toward the final phases of the contest. Jagger Eaton (USA) had another extraordinary day of skateboarding landing again in the first spot in front of Dani Leon (ESP) and Steven Piniero (PUR). Here are the riders advancing to the Men's Semi Finals: 1 Jagger Eaton 2 Danny Leon 3 Steven Piniero 4 Oskar Rozenberg 5 Karl Berglind 6 Hericles Fagundes Galle 7 Alex Sorgente 8 Ivan Federico 9 Corey Juneau 10 Trey Wood 11 Ayumu Hirano 12 Kieran Woolley 13 Pedro Acosta Carvalho 14 Ethan Copeland In the Women division the field has been dominated by Sky Brown (GBR), preseeded after her good result at the Dew Tour last June. In the top three we have also Amelia Brodka (POL) and Mami Tezuka (JPN). Here are the riders advancing to the Women's Semi Finals: 1 Sky Brown 2 Amelia Brodka 3 Mami Tezuka 4 Jordan Santana 5 Dora Varela 6 Julia Benedetti 7 Charlotte Heath 8 Mei Sugawara 9 Hunter Long 10 Taniah Meyers 11 Amar Hadid 12 Xin Zhang Top 12 Women and top 14 Men of the made the cut Today. Thursday will be the time for the Semifinals, where 8 out of 24 competitors will advance into the Finals. The Full Results of the ISO Park of Nanjing are available in the result section of the WorldSkate website: http://www.worldskate.org/skateboarding/results/category/571-iso-park-nanjing-2019.html

well, Brazil has also a good male fencer (Foil) in Guilherme Toldo, who also made the top 10 in Rio and in a few world cup events... however, on a given day there are so many athletes and Countries that could win a medal, especially in the Epee events... other Countries with a good overall team? Japan first of all then Poland and Estonia have good chances in the women's team epee... Netherlands, Denmark, Cuba and Venezuela in the men's Epee... Egypt in the men's Foil, Tunisia in all the women's events... Canada also have some very good female athletes (and yesterday they were also close to a surprising medal in the men's Sabre)... the same Argentina until 20 years ago couln't even imagine to qualify an athelte for the main draw (last 64) of a world championship...now you have at least 3 or 4 fencers regularly doing the main draw at the global events... a few years ago, you could cry of joy if you had 1 or 2 Nations other than ITA, FRA, HUN, URS and the 2 GER teams in the medal table (actually, in the top 10 of each competition) and 30 Nations at the start of the world champs...nowadays, there are at least 20/25 Countries who have at least an outside chance to win a medal and more than 100 Nations starting at the world champs...yes, Fencing has really grown up a lot in the last 20 years...

OMG! frankly, WKF should take the status of OQR tournament away from this one and force AKF to act properly... something like that it's absolutely unacceptable... and then they cry because they've been axed from the future Olympic Games already before having their official debut... if you allow things like that to happen...

finally, just a few stats... only on day 1, we already have 8 Nations coming from 3 different Continents in the medal table... in the men's Sabre we had 8 men from 8 different Countries in the quarterfinals and in the women's Epee 8 girls from 7 different Countries at the same stage... in both competitions, the no. 1 seed couldn't even make the podium... this shows how the sport of Fencing has grown in the last few years...now we can really say it's a true global discipline and one of the most widely spread all around the world (at least for what concerns the top level of play)... the time when it was the home garden of the usual 4/5 powerhouses has long gone...

Men's Individual Sabre Gold: Oh Sanguk Silver: Andras Szatmari Bronze: Mojtaba Abedini & Luca Curatoli Semifinals Szatmari b. Abedini 15-8 Oh b. Curatoli 15-11 Gold Medal Match Oh b. Szatmari 15-12 Full Ranking (and Results) here: https://2019budapestfencing.com/files/hunfencing/2019_wfc_bud/sms-in/index.php?page=clasfinal.htm

well, she was born in Milan (ITA) in 1985... her dad was the son of the at the time German General Consul in Italy, meanwhile her mom is the fashion designer Valeria Ferlini (Brazilian with clear Italian heritage)... as both her parents were living and working in Milan, she grew up in Italy and she used to be one of our best specialists... with our team she won 1 Gold (team) and 2 Bronze (1 individual and 1 team) medals at the world champs and the same did at the European champs (1 Gold and 1 Silver medal with the team, 1 individual bronze) between 2005 and 2012... after the London Games, she decided to stop her fencing career, but then the Brazilian federation convinced her to come back with their team, as the Rio Olympics were approaching (and since she wasn't anymore in our team, she happily accepted to represent her mom's Country)... with Brazil she immediately won the Pan-American champs in 2015, then she made the quarterfinals at the Rio Games and now it's the apotheosis of her career... currently (since quite a few years) she lives and trains in Paris with the great French maestro Le Vavasseur (the man on the bench behind her in the final assault earlier today)... on a personal side, she's a very lively girl and an artist (just look at her personal website and instagram)... to be noticed, I heard from Youtube's broadcaster that she recently lost her father...so, the emotional scenes after her win are explained (when she took off her glove, I think she was kissing the name of her dad tattoed on her wrist)...

Women's Individual Epee Gold: Nathalie Moellhausen Silver: Lin Sheng Bronze: Olena Kryvytska & Vivian Kong Man Wai Semifinals Lin b. Kryvytska 15-14 Moellhausen b. Kong 15-11 Gold Medal Match Moellhausen b. Lin 13-12 Full Ranking (and Results) here: https://2019budapestfencing.com/files/hunfencing/2019_wfc_bud/swe-in/index.php?page=clasfinal.htm