phelps

Women's Team Epee Final Results Gold: United States Silver: Brazil Bronze: Canada Semifinals: USA b. Argentina 45-17 Brazil b. Canada 45-38 Bronze Medal Match: Canada b. Argentina 45-40 Gold Medal Match: USA b. Brazil 44-33  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: https://fie.org/competitions/2019/803

if they qualify (which isn't an easy task, but not impossible), maybe you have some chances in Karate (men's -67, Mario Hodzic; men's +75kg, Nikola Malovic & women's +61kg, Marina Rakovic)... they are outside/remote chances, but especially Hodzic on a given day could be a threat for all the competitors (look at his very good performance at the recent European Games)... Gojkovic is very, very good, but I fear she'll be another victim of the (in)famous Boxing spoil system...it will be very hard for her even to qualify (given also the very few spots available)...

a shitload of ignorants! definitely not to be admired and/or rewarded for that...

I read it carefully...and I quote @MHSN 's post as an answer...

doping in weightlifting is just an opinion? corruption in Boxing is "my fantasy"? considering having 12/13 years young kids together with adults and under the spotlight of any sort of media operator immoral is only "an opinion"? yes, maybe this is just an opinion...but I do really believe that this is the only acceptable one... on this question I'm more than a Nazi... and as I wrote many times in the past, I don't consider AS, RG and so on "true sports" only because their results are determined only on the basis of personal taste of biased (when not fully corrupted) people named "judges", without any objective parameter, not because I don't like them (which is not even completely true for some of them)... and frankly, I'm pretty tired to repeat myself every once in a while on that...

ok, if you don't know and/or don't like Karate, it's your taste...it's OK and should not be commented... but denigrating it with false interpretation is not elegant at all and shouldn't be an option...

well, that's your more than respectable opinion... but still, it's only an opinion... and decisions about being part of the Olympic program or not should be taken on the basis of facts and numbers, not opinions... p.s. and if we consider breakdancing (and any other similar activity), they just have nothing to do with sport and with the Olympic Games for objective reasons... moreover, putting 12 years young kids together with adult people and letting them competing one against the others is simply DISGUSTING and IMMORAL!!!!!! those who just thought about such a shame should spend the rest of their lives in jail!

actually, I find it the most stupid decision ever... Karate is one of the most universal sport in the world, usually at the world champs we have all the 5 Continents (6 sub-Continents, if you want to keep North and South America as 2 separate entities), 4 of them making the podium... many weight classes have more than 100 starters (with the usual limitation to 1 per NOC! )... but they decided to give them just 10 spots per class and they didn't even allowed all 6 classes per gender to be in Tokyo...and then...bang! they killed the sport and its athletes for what? breakdancing! a non-sport activity played by a bunch of babies with street (often criminal) culture as their main background... the same for skateboarding, BMX freestyle...and all the other sports where you have always the usual 5/6 participating Countries and only the usual 3 Nations winning (almost) all the medals... and let's not talk about corrupted or doping inflated sports (do you know Boxing and Weightlifting?), always under threat to be dropped and actually never really in danger... or what about sports where only the 2nd/3rd tier athletes are participating to the Games (any reference to men's Football and Baseball is purely intentional)... moreover...they threatened to drop many sports because they're male-only oriented (causing abominable monsters like women's boxing to be included in the Olympic schedule), but they keep Artistic Swimming and Rhythmic Gymnastics well stuck into the program (and they even forbid those few men practicing Artistic Swimming to dream about an Olympic medal keeping the Mixed Duo -now an established event at the world champs- far away from the Olympics)... dropping that sh*t would be an excellent decision...not dropping one of the most wide spread sport in the world...

and since I haven't anything more exciting to do this afternoon here's a quick recap of the newest WKF Olympic Qualification Ranking (updated at June 1st, 2019)... Important Notes: 1. Japan have 1 spot already sure in each class as the Host Nation of the Olympic Games 2. In the Olympic Categories where 2 of the "WKF Kumite regular weight classes" are combined together, only the top 2 athletes in each of said WKF Kumite regular weights can qualify 3. Only 1 spot per NOC is available in each (weight) class men's Kata (1. Ryo Kiyuna, 6630 Pts)* 2. Damian Hugo Quintero Capdevila, 5977.5 Pts 3. Alì Sofuoglu, 3742.5 Pts 4. Antonio Diaz, 3015 Pts 5. Mattia Busato, 3000 Pts ---First OUT--- (6. & 7. Kazumasa Moto & Issei Shimbaba)* 8. Ilja Smorguner, 1980 Pts men's Kumite, -67kg (-67kg when not indicated) 1. Darkhan Assadilov (-60kg), 5287.5 Pts 2. Steven Dacosta, 5250 Pts 3. Angelo Crescenzo (-60kg), 5160 Pts 4. Alì Elsawy, 4072.5 Pts ---First OUT--- 5. Eray Samdan (-60kg), 3922.5 Pts 6. Vinicius Figueira, 3652.5 Pts men's Kumite, -75kg 1. Bahman Askari, 4537.5 Pts 2. Luigi Busà, 4350 Pts (3. Ken Nishimura, 3922.5 Pts)* 4. Rafael Aghayev, 3825 Pts 5. Thomas Scott, 3547.5 Pts ---First OUT--- 6. Stanislav Horuna, 3187.5 Pts (currently 1st in line to get a Continental spot after the European Games in Minsk) 7. Dastonbek Otabolaev, 2310 Pts men's Kumite, +75kg (+84kg when not indicated) 1. Ugur Aktas (-84kg), 6712.5 Pts 2. Jonathan Horne, 5137.5 Pts 3. Sajad Ganjzadeh, 4942.5 Pts 4. Ivan Kvesic (-84kg), 4507.5 Pts ---First OUT--- (5. Alparslan Yamanoglu, 3682.5 Pts)** (6. Zabiollah Poorshab, -84kg, 3495 Pts)** (7. Saleh Abazari, 3427.5 Pts)** 8. Valerii Chobotar (-84kg), 3225 Pts (9. Anton Isakau, -84kg, 2955 Pts) (10. Ryutaro Araga, -84kg, 2850 Pts)* 11. Gogita Arkania, 2745 Pts women's Kata 1. Sandra Sanchez Jaime, 7282.5 Pts (2. Kiyou Shimizu, 6382.5 Pts)* 3. Viviana Bottaro, 4395 Pts 4. Grace Lau Mo Sheung, 3825 Pts 5. Sakura Kokumai, 2797.5 Pts ---First OUT--- (6. Hikaru Ono, 2752.5 Pts)* 7. Maria Dimitrova, 2175 Pts women's Kumite, -55kg (-55kg when not indicated) 1. Serap Ozcelik Arapoglu (-50kg), 6802.5 Pts 2. Anzhelika Terliuga, 4732.5 Pts 3. Wen Tzu-Yun, 4425 Pts (4. Miho Miyahara, -50kg, 3945 Pts)* 5. Bettina Plank (-50kg), 3727.5 Pts ---First OUT--- 6. Dorota Banaszczyk, 3292.5 Pts (7. Tuba Yakan, 3187.5 Pts)** (8. Jana Bitsch, 3067.5 Pts) 9. Shara Hubrich (-50kg), 2767.5 Pts women's Kumite, -61kg 1. Yin Xiaoyan, 5655 Pts 2. Giana Lofty, 4380 Pts 3. Jovana Prekovic, 3832.5 Pts 4. Merve Coban, 3817.5 Pts ---First OUT--- 5. Gwendoline Philippe, 3000 Pts women's Kumite, +61kg (+68kg when not indicated) 1. Elena Quirici (-68kg), 4470 Pts (2. Ayumi Uekusa, 3900 Pts)* 3. Irina Zaretska (-68kg), 3727.5 Pts (4. Kayo Someya, -68kg, 3697.5 Pts)* 5. Eleni Chatziliadou, 3450 Pts 6. Alizèe Agier, -68kg, 3330 Pts 7. Hamideh Abbasali, 3172.5 Pts (8. Silvia Semeraro, -68kg, 2940 Pts - currently 1st in line to get a Continental spot after the European Games in Minsk) (9. Halyna Melnyk, -68kg, 2917.5 Pts) 10. Meltem Hocaoglu, 2797.5 Pts in BOLD the athletes currently qualified to the Olympic Games through the Olympic Qualification Ranking (OQR) * NOT to be considered because of the "Japan rule" (note #1) ** NOT to be considered because there's at least 1 teammate in the same Olympic Class ahead of him in the OQR (note #2 and/or #3)

Semeraro and Horuna (especially the Ukranin guy), however, now are still very close to qualify through the OQR...so, the fight is still well underway and anything can still happen...

it's plot! the entire world is against me! by the way, this is the updated provisional situation... women's EG champions Kata: Sandra Sanchez Jaime* (WKF Rank in "Olympic" Kata: 1st, 7282.5 Pts) Kumite, -50kg: Bettina Plank* (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -55kg: 5th, 3727.5 Pts) Kumite, -55kg: Ivet Goranova (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -55kg: 11th, 2580 Pts) Kumite, -61kg: Anita Serogina (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -61kg: 15th, 1432.5 Pts) Kumite, -68kg: Silvia Semeraro (WKF Rank in "Olympic" +61kg: 8th, 2940 Pts) Kumite, +68kg: Laura Palacio Gonzalez (WKF Rank in "Olympic" +61kg: 19th, 2017.5 Pts) * Currently already qualified through OQR men's EG champions Kata: Damian Hugo Quintero Capdevila* (WKF Rank in "Olympic" Kata: 2nd, 5977.5 Pts) Kumite, -60kg: Kalvis Kalnins (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -67kg: 36th, 1395 Pts) Kumite, -67kg: Luca Maresca** (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -67kg: 17th, 2145 Pts) Kumite, -75kg: Stanislav Horuna (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -75kg: 6th, 3187.5 Pts) Kumite, -84kg: Ivan Kvesic* (WKF Rank in "Olympic" +75kg: 4th, 4507.5 Pts) Kumite, +84kg: Asiman Gurbanli (WKF Rank in "Olympic" +75kg: 29th, 1387.5 Pts) * Currently already qualified through OQR ** Basically NOT Eligible to qualify, as another Italian Athlete is currently already qualified through OQR in his class based on these results and rankings (still very provisional, as people might imagine), Silvia Semeraro (women) and Stanislav Horuna (men) would be the 2 lucky Europeans getting a Continental spot for the Olympic Games in Tokyo...

hopefully... but still, we have always less "expected" medal contenders and always more risky "outsiders"... so, with a bit of luck we can still performas usual, but we just can't really expect it will happen for sure... our motto should be: "living dangerously" or "living on the edge"...

for sure you know cricket and IND vs PAK relationships way better than me... and I trust you when you explain all those things... but still, in the back of my mind there's always a little voice telling me that IND maybe didn't lose on purpose in a blatant way, but at least they didn't give it all on the court as if it was a semifinal/final match... that said, I don't really want to put on a case for this thing...time will tell if this loss will hurt India / Pakistan / both of them or if it won't change anything towards the expected IND vs AUS final showdown... my only expectation is to watch some exciting games in the tournament's Final Four...

Men's Team Sabre Final Results Gold: United States Silver: Canada Bronze: Argentina Semifinals: USA b. Argentina 45-21 Canada b. Colombia 45-29 Bronze Medal Match: Argentina b. Colombia 45-35 Gold Medal Match: USA b. Canada 45-37  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: https://fie.org/competitions/2019/808

Women's Team Foil Final Results Gold: United States Silver: Canada Bronze: Chile Semifinals: USA b. Chile 45-19 Canada b. Brazil 45-18 Bronze Medal Match: Chile b. Brazil 45-37 Gold Medal Match: USA b. Canada 45-42  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: https://fie.org/competitions/2019/805

the more the Olympics get closer, less and less medals, I expect from Italy!

yeah, with Klosterhalfen right behind her (and she too, below the old ER by Gabi Szabo)... ah, those Salazar magics!

ah! ah! I expected some reaction against what I wrote... c'mon, guys! there's nothing wrong in losing a match on purpose (and I'm more than convinced that India yesterday had all the interest in doing that), if it takes you to reach 2 goals instead of only 1... and please, don't tell me that nobody thought about it in your Country, as you would look really naive (and I know you are not)... p.s. England were struggling lately and I'm pretty sure they would have been relegated to 5th place if they couldn't win all of their remaining matches, that one vs IND included...

in Italy, we call it "biscotto" (biscuit)... meanwhile in English, "match fixing" is a good definition for what happened earlier today... being India already sure to be among the 4 semifinalists, India's bowlers let England score the amazing amount of 337 runs in 50 overs and basically didn't give themselves a chance when batting...they still managed to score 306 runs, but it clearly wasn't enough (and it was intended not to be enough)... finally, England won by 31 runs and almost certainly saved their asses, earning a spot among the top 4 (without this result, Pakistan's charge in the standings could have been a real threat)... with this result, instead, India made it almost impossible for their rivals to reach the semifinals...

so, the European Games are over...and in a normal world, today we would know who are the European athletes qualified to the Olympic Games through the Continental pathway... but no, in a degenerated sports world, we have to wait until next April and then start calculating and comparing results from different categories to sort it out! by the way, here's a recap of what happened in Minsk and of what should be the situation if the OQP was already over (p.s. the OQR is still missing the points from earned by the fighters in the last K1PL and Serie A events, in Shanghai and Montreal respectively)... women's EG champions Kata: Sandra Sanchez Jaime* (WKF Rank in "Olympic" Kata: 1st, 6412.5 Pts) Kumite, -50kg: Bettina Plank* (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -55kg: 5th, 3292.5 Pts) Kumite, -55kg: Ivet Goranova (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -55kg: 7th, 2580 Pts) Kumite, -61kg: Anita Serogina (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -61kg: 14th, 1432.5 Pts) Kumite, -68kg: Silvia Semeraro (WKF Rank in "Olympic" +61kg: 16th, 1995 Pts) Kumite, +68kg: Laura Palacio Gonzalez (WKF Rank in "Olympic" +61kg: 19th, 1747.5 Pts) * Currently already qualified through OQR men's EG champions Kata: Damian Hugo Quintero Capdevila* (WKF Rank in "Olympic" Kata: 2nd, 5287.5 Pts) Kumite, -60kg: Kalvis Kalnins (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -67kg: 27th, 1395 Pts) Kumite, -67kg: Luca Maresca** (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -67kg: 18th, 1740 Pts) Kumite, -75kg: Stanislav Horuna* (WKF Rank in "Olympic" -75kg: 5th, 3037.5 Pts) Kumite, -84kg: Ivan Kvesic* (WKF Rank in "Olympic" +75kg: 3rd, 3757.5 Pts) Kumite, +84kg: Asiman Gurbanli (WKF Rank in "Olympic" +75kg: 29th, 1297.5 Pts) * Currently already qualified through OQR ** Basically NOT Eligible to qualify, as another Italian Athlete is currently already qualified through OQR in his class based on these results and rankings (still very provisional, as people might imagine), Ivet Goranova (women) and Kalvis Kalnins (men) would be the 2 lucky Europeans getting a Continental spot for the Olympic Games in Tokyo...

the world is full of idiots!

so, the Games are finally over... I must admit that generally it wasn't anything exciting, but still I've been pleased to watch some really entertaining competitions... the final medal table of course is the most meaningless thing of the Games, as the schedule was built without most significant sports and too many Nations didn't take it seriously in any case... Italy did...and we ended up with a lot of medals (the vast majority of them coming from archery -1 week after the epic fail at the world champs- and shotgun shooting -just ahead of their world champs, so nothing to cheer about too much), behind only the 3 former Soviet Countries that were expected to dominate the field (RUS, BLR and UKR)... despite all those medals, the only thing to save is Boari's Olympic Quota in archery and, only if it becomes another Olympic Quota (we have to wait until next April to know that ), Semeraro's Gold Medal in Karate... hopefully, next time round (in 4 years, in Krakow, POL) it will be better...

Men's 400m Davide Re, 44.77 - New NR (La Chaux-de-Fonds, SUI) https://www.oasport.it/2019/06/atletica-davide-re-indemoniato-record-italiano-sui-400-metri-super-44-77-primo-azzurro-sotto-i-45/

I know that fascism is quite strong in Italy right now, but I didn't really expect to see a "Badoglio" again in the news columns... p.s. she actually is Luminosa Bogliolo

Men's Individual Epee Final Results Gold: Ruben Limardo Gascon Silver: Jesùs Limardo Bronze: Josè Felix Dominguez & Yunior Reytor Venet Semifinals: Limardo Gascon b. Reytor Venet 15-8 Limardo b. Dominguez 15-12 Gold Medal Match: Limardo Gascon b. Limardo 15-14  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: https://fie.org/competitions/2019/799