phelps

2020 Grand Prix (Tel Aviv, ISR) the new Judo season started today in Tel Aviv (ISR), where the first Grand Prix event of the year is on stage... and guess what? the Asian powerhouses dominated the field, with South Korea winning today's 2 men's Gold Medals awarded (Kim Won Jin, -60kg; An Baul, -66kg) and Japan taking 2 out of 3 women's weight classes (Natsumi Tunoda, -48kg; Chishima Maeda, -52kg)... Slovenia's youngster Kaja Kajzer (women's -57kg) saved the European honour by winning the only Gold Medal that didn't fly to Far East... Full Results http://www.ippon.org/gp_isr2020.php Today's Medal Session Replay

it's written in the 2nd paragraph...content only available to US users...

there must be some irony out there... now that paris is out for (at least) the rest of the season, today (W)Innerhofer made his official comeback in the world cup after last year's injury (more or less, the same kind of problem Paris had)... and he wasn't even that bad...16th in the downhill training, only 1.39 off today's leader Jansrud...

do you mean that the virus was spread around by those golfers who need an excuse to pull out of the Olympic tournament?

it's already officially certified that this virus spreads through contact (through saliva, to be precise)... and we have already quite a few cases in Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, Macao, other SEA Nations and the USA...it's only a matter of time that all this becomes pandemic... in China there are at least 9 deceased and hundreds of sick people (officially, probably there are a lot more)... they would be absolutely irresponsible if they don't cancel that tournament and reschedule it far away from those places (once in a lifetime, in this case Qatar or UAE would be a good choice)...

yeah, I know... but you don't need to do that, as you have a comfortable official streaming available that doesn't require any trick to be watched (and it also has better video quality)...

the torture is over... b. 22-2

it's available only in Italy, I think... and in any case, dailymotion videos have a lot better picture quality than rai's... to me that's more than enough not to go with our national broadcaster and their online service (on tv it's a different thing, even if the picture quality is always below decent standards)...

better here (you can watch all the games live and ondemand)... https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x7q8ql6

obviously it's like that...but the players are a bit better than that...they are well established AA/AAA (with a few former MLB) players...

Spain = Venezuela/Dom.Rep. #2 (like Italy = USA #345 and Netherlands = Ned. Antilles #2)... GBR in softball is USA #423... let's be honest...nobody cares about international baseball apart from Japan and Korea... even the Cubans nowadays are a lot more focused on their National League and dream of playing in the MLB rather than in the NT... not to mention all the other Latin American Nations that don't care at all about anything not being the local winter league and/or the MLB...

but when? and for what? because I don't think there was a new draw in between every round... if the draw was just to fill the 1st round pairings, it really didn't have any influence on the race... the initial question was only if the best seeded athlete could pick their favourite course in the 1-run heats (and according to eurosport commentator that happened) or not? obviously, a fair 16 qualified athletes + a 2-run system in each round would be a lot better, but still this wasn't the case (and most likely it won't be also in the near future)... however, with yesterday's format we have: - 1st round: 16*2 = 32 heats - 1/8 finals: 8 heats - QTFs: 4 heats - Semis: 4 heats (because they also keep those senseless -and dangerous for somehow demotivated athletes- 5th/8th place playoffs) - Finals: 4 heats (see above, semis description) Total: 52 heats and more than 90 mins TV time with 16 qualifiers and a permanent 2-run system we have: - 1/8 finals: 8*2 = 16 heats - QTFs: 4*2 = 8 heats - Semis: 2*2 = 4 heats (and get rid of the 5th/8th place playoffs, you can easily rank the skiers eliminated in the QTFs according to their qualification time, as they should do also for the earlier rounds, just to give more sense also to the single placings in the qualification runs) - Finals: 2*2 = 4 heats Total = 32 heats and most likely no more than 50/55 mins TV time (for the happiness of all the international broadcasters and to cope better with the young people's very limited attention span)

today eurosport's broadcaster (Gian mario bonzi) said more than once that the top seed had the chance to pick the course he wanted... therefore I assume it was really that way...

let's not say ***...the highest seeded athlete could pick the course as always... apparently, a few girls however didn't realize that the blue course was faster...

well, in many sports the Asian qualifiers are down to CHN, KOR and JPN... the remaining Nations are not much better than those small Oceanian Countries outside AUS and NZL...

a) team sports: always Oceania and Asia all together... b) individual sports with 20 or less spots per discipline available overall: same as team sports... c) individual sports with more than 20 spots available overall per discipline: AUS and NZL still competing among the Asian Nations and 1 spot for the remaining smaller Oceanian Nations if there are 21 to 32 spots available overall, 2 or 3 spots (depending on the interest and the general competitivness among the other Oceanian Nations...no free spots gifted to the Pitas of this world) if the spots available are 33+ however, the best solution would be no Continental representation at all...the X best teams/athletes in the world in any given discipline should go to the Olympic competition... but I fear that's not an option for anybody...

bad knee injury for Danioth good results for the Italian girls (3rd, 4th and 5th place at the end of the day)... and overall, very entertaining competition with a lot of surprises (if someone did dare to bet on a gold medal clash between Direz and Moerzinger, probably right now he/she'd be preparing his/her luggage to fly to the Caribbean for the rest of his/her life)... p.s. first ever WC podium for both the finalists...

Los Cocodrilos de Matanzas are the new Cuban Champions, as they won the Grand Final of the 59th Cuban National Series, the top level baseball tournament on the Isle... This is an amazing surprise and a great turnaround, as last year they were dead last among the 16 teams of the Cuban Major League...meanwhile 12 months later they're just enjoying their first ever win in the SNC (the acronim with which the Cuban National series is known)... The losing side of this final series are Los Toros de la Llanura de Camagüey, that entered the final series as the big favourites, but their pitching staff couldn't handle the hot bats of the most classical sports "Cinderella" and they had to surrender in 6 games... 59th Cuban National Series, the Grand Final Coodrilos de Matanzas b. Toros de la Llanura Camagüey 4-2 (5-3; 0-8; 6-1; 5-3; 6-9; 11-2) All about Cuban Baseball (in Cuban slang Spanish)... http://www.beisbolencuba.com/ Match Replays Game #1 Game #2 Game #3 Game #4 Game #5 Game #6

should they race consistently year aftyer year in Lillehammer and Sigulda, we would likely see more races with no Germans on the podium (and hoping that soon also Cortina becomes one of those tracks)...

yeah, but that area was also the main cradle of the Resistence against Napoleon and actually the Italian Flag as all the people know nowadays was created in Reggio Emilia on January 7th, 1797, in open opposition to all those who wanted to adopt the French Tricouleur following Napoleon's will...

Matteo Pellicone Tournament (Ostia, ITA) Final Day Recap men's Freestyle Wrestling -57kg Gold: Thomas Patrick Gilman Silver: Joseph Daniel Colon Bronze: Liu Minghu & Stevan Andria Micic -61kg (Round Robin tournament, only 4 starters) Gold: Kumar Ravi Silver: Nurislam Sanayev Bronze: Nurbolat Abdualiyev -65kg Gold: Bajrang Silver: John Michael Oliver Bronze: Selahattin Kilicsallayan & Zain Allen Retherford -74kg Gold: Kyle Douglas Dake Silver: Soner Demirtas Bronze: Fazli Eryilmaz & Daniyar Kaisanov -79kg (Round Robin tournament, only 3 starters) Gold: Vasyl Mykhailov Silver: Ahmedkhan Tembotov Bronze: Carmelo Lumia -86kg Gold: Zahid Valencia Silver: Alexander David Dieringer Bronze: James Patrick Downey III & Fatih Erdin -70kg and -92kg not contested

we have a dedicated thread for both the men and women's Pro League...

you're lucky...the Italian Anthem is never played in the full version... you can either listen to the short summary (first stanza + refrain) or the long summary (first stanza + refrain + sixth and last stanza + refrain once again)... but there's no way they're going to play the entire Anthem (which consists of 6 stanza with the refrain in the middle of any of them and as the "gran finale")... p.s. and there's no way that any Italian knows the Anthem in full...normally they teach only the "long summary" (1st and 6th stanza + refrain) even at school (when they teach it, because it's not mandatory and many teachers don't want their students to learn it because they believe it's a political thing connected to the righties )... and people are still trying to understand why Italy is just a "mere geographical expression" (cit. Prince Klemens von Metternich, Congress of Vienna, 1814/1815) and a bunch of selfish idiots living in the same area and not a Country with the Capital "C" and there's no way to put the Italians all together to make an effort to improve the critical situations in the whole Nation...

Matteo Pellicone Tournament (Ostia, ITA) Day #3 Recap women's Wrestling -50kg Gold: Sarah Ann Hildebrandt Silver: Emilia Alina Vuc Bronze: Oksana Livach & Victoria Lacey Anthony -53kg Gold: Vinesh Silver: Luisa Elizabeth Valverde Melendres Bronze: Katherine Grace Shai & Pang Qianyu -55kg (Round Robin tournament, 4 starters only) Gold: Vanesa Kaladzinskaya Silver: Iryna Husyak Bronze: Stalvira Orshush -59kg (Round Robin tournament, 4 starters only) Gold: Anhelina Lysak Silver: Yuliya Pisarenka Bronze: Eman Essam Guda Ebrahim -65kg (Round Robin tournament, 3 starters only) Gold: Inna Trazhukova Silver: Oksana Kukhta Herhel Bronze: Pai Hsin Ping -72kg (Round Robin tournament, 4 starters only) Gold: Maria Selmaier Silver: Anastasiya Zimiankova Bronze: Nadine Weinauge men's Freestyle Wrestling -97kg Gold: Mohammad Mohammadian Silver: Aliaksandr Hushtyn Bronze: Kyle Frederick Snyder & Murazi Mchedlidze -125kg Gold: Amir Zare Silver: Bilial Makhov Bronze: Amarveer Dhesi & Yusup Batirmurzaev

Frank Chamizo pulls out of tomorrow's -74kg tournament in Ostia because he hasn't fully recovered from a knee injury yet... He said that the situation is not worrying at all, but he prefers to take a little bit more rest and focus on the upcoming European Championships...