phelps

for those who want to make their own idea of this (wonderful) place, here you can watch a lot of pictures and videos of this year's WSL event held there... https://www.worldsurfleague.com/events/2019/mct/2919/tahiti-pro-teahupoo

World Masters (Qingdao, CHN) Day #1 Recap time for the last big tournament of the year...and what a tournament it is! it's the second most important of the whole season (at least in terms of World and Olympic Qualification Ranking points awarded), the World Masters, reserved to the best 36 fighters of the world ranking in each class... and as expected, despite a few of their stars being absent, Japan topped the medal table after the first day of competition, when 5 weight classes have been completed... the world leading Judo Nation won in fact 2 out of 5 available Gold Medals, thanks to Ryuju Nagayama (men's -60kg) and Ai Shishime (women's -52kg)... today's remaining Gold Medals went to Italy (Manuel Lombardo, men's -66kg), Kosovo (Distria Krasniqi, women's -48kg) and North Korea (Kim Jin A, women's -57kg, 3rd win out of 3 IJF World Tour tournaments for her)... Full Results, here: http://www.ippon.org/masters2019.php Day #1, Final Block replay

what a wonderful landscape! and it's also it's perfectly paired with the Tokyo Docks rowing & canoeing venue...I just can't choose which one I like the most...

no, and you know that... it's dropping from the Rio bonanza (and the undeserved gold at the following worlds in Hamburg)...

the truth is that they know they won't win a single match without their usual corrupted judges to protect them... with all the officials from Rio 2016 out of contention, I expect also KAZ, UZB and FRA (at least) to drop their usual medal number dramatically...

yes, he is...

Swedish domination once again in the Champions Hockey League... 3 teams out of 4 semifinalists come from the Scandinavian powerhouse, with Mountfield Hradec Kralovè being the only flagbearer of the rest of the Continent... bitter night for the Swiss teams, all 3 losing game and qualification, even if Bienne/Biel got really close to send the reigning European champions out (it was the only match-up going to the OT)... Semifinal Pairings (7-8 & 14-15 January 2020) Luleå Hockey vs Frölunda Indians Mountfield HK vs Djurgården Stockholm

Knockout Stage Quarterfinals, Second Leg Tuesday 10.12.2019 - Results 18:00 Luleå Hockey (SWE) - Lausanne HC (SUI) 5-2 (7-3 on Aggregate) 19:45 EV Zug (SUI) - Mountfield HK (CZE) 0-4 (1-5 on Aggregate) 19:45 EHC Biel/Bienne (SUI) - Frölunda Indians (SWE) 3-5 (OT) (6-7 on Aggregate) 20:00 Red Bull Munich (GER) - Djurgården Stockholm (SWE) 0-3 (1-8 on Aggregate)

my favourite tracks are all those where German lugers don't win (or at least don't do it always)... long live Sigulda! and those where the Italians normally do well... Trebevic (Sarajevo), Lillehammer, Park City and Cesana forever in my heart!

naaa, maybe just not fully updated... according to the Italian website OA (our main sports website), Ngapeth's hearing was held earlier today (in the Brazilian morning, our late afternoon)...

he's been released after paying a 50,000 reais (around 11,000 euro) bail... he's also free to fly back to Russia with his team tomorrow...

Pyeongchang isn't that hard, but has 2 very tricky turns that helped building quite a few dramatic races (in cooperation with the unreliable weather conditions)... this one doesn't have any tricky passage (at least, looking at that picture...maybe the actual track has it)...it's more a new "Sochi" (likely the worst/most boring luge competitions ever), rather than a new "Pyeongchang"...

no technical turns, not much speed to carry on, that long flat final turn with a long finishing straight (that looks also slightly uphill)... I fear it won't be favourable to our lugers at all... our only chance might be a very, very cold temperature...otherwise it looks the classic German sweep track (Nagano rules)...

Knockout Stage Quarterfinals, Second Leg Tuesday 10.12.2019 - Schedule* 18:00 Luleå Hockey (SWE) - Lausanne HC (SUI) 19:45 EV Zug (SUI) - Mountfield HK (CZE) 19:45 EHC Biel/Bienne (SUI) - Frölunda Indians (SWE) 20:00 Red Bull Munich (GER) - Djurgården Stockholm (SWE) *All times CET Watch live Check here for details of live TV broadcasts: https://www.championshockeyleague.com/en/fans/where-to-watch All games are also live on the CHL website for free, subject to geo-blocking restrictions in certain countries due to TV rights.

it's the whole point #8 of the .pdf file (pages 23 and 24)... first they say: "When Continental Games (CG) are used for qualification, all gold medalists in the CG will be first considered. The quota will be allocated to the highest ranked gold medalist in the Olympic Standing as long as there is still an available place in their corresponding Olympic category, always respecting the maximum of one representative per NOC, per category." then: "To determine (here I'm pretty sure they have forgotten to write the word: priority) between the highest-ranked Kumite gold medallist and the highest-ranked Kata gold medallist, the points obtained in the Standing will not be used as criteria for resolution. The following criteria is to be applied: and here they start with the WKF rules we reported earlier). Finally, they further mess things up with this. "When the CG are not used for qualification, a sequence of selection processes take place, continent by continent, and qualification is determined based on the Olympic Standing of the athletes from the applicable continent". obviously, this is just my interpretation...and trust me, I can't really intend them in a different way than I wrote in today's posts...but I'm absolutely not sure at 100%, I fear that, if they want, there's always a chance to have a different interpretation of those "obscure" lines... we'll see (hoping that at the end of the OQP there are no controversial situations and everything's gonna flow "naturally")...

it's always the best position in the OQR... but there are some rules to follow (for Europe and the Americas you have to consider the European Games and Panamerican Games champions only, there's an order to follow to pick the quota -you can find it in a post at page #8 of this thread- there's a quota limit of 2 per class and among the continental spots, a single Country can add max 1 male and 1 female quota)... then, in case of a tie, there are some tie-breaking criteria (you can find them on the .pdf document attached in the previous posts)... as we wrote before, it's always a mess...

yes, you're right... I've checked it out and I found out the subsequential changes (not as many as I thought initially, however)... now it should be all fixed... for what concerns the other question, it's explained in the following page...first they look at their position in the OQR in the various classes (which remains the main criteria), then the tie breaking criteria for athletes in the same position in different classes will be a) the final placing at the 2018 world champs in their respective event, b) the best final placing at their respective continental championship and so on, as indicated at page #24 of the qualification rulebook (even if at the end of the chapter, they say that basically only the point a) is for every continent, meanwhile those who didn't use the continental Games as a qualification event, they'll go down to the OQR)... the usual WKF mess!

Olympic Qualification through OQR and Continental Spots Simulation, situation after the end of the 2019 season... Men Kata: + 67kg: + 75kg: + +75kg: + Women Kata: + 55kg: + 61kg: + +61kg: + not many changes following the last big event of the year, the K1PL final stage in Madrid... the most notable changes are: Thomas Scott replacing Stanislav Horuna in the top 4 of the men's -75kg and Gong Li losing her continental spot in the women's +61kg in favour of Rozita Alipour in the women's -61kg... another change concerns Morocco switching their Continental spots from women's -61kg to men's Kata... that place going to Australia (and it's a 99.9 safe place until the end of the OQP) has really an enormous influence over the whole Continental Spots distribution... in addition to the previous simulation, we can also add that the spots for men's Kata, men's +75kg, women's +61kg and women's Kata should go to the Tripartite Commission Invited Nations... according to the rule stating that only the top 50 in the world ranking can be considered for an invitation and to the list of Nations that can apply for those places, at the moment we only have the following Nations in good position in those 4 categories: men's +75kg: (they have 2 fighters in the same position -21st- in 2 different classes merged for Olympic purpose, men's -84kg and men's +84kg becoming the Olympic men's +75kg class) men's Kata: women's +61kg: women's Kata:

luge is on the FIL website (also ondemand, in case you miss the live action)... https://video.fil-luge.org/index.html meanwhile Bobsleigh and Skeleton races can be watched on Youtube (once again, also ondemand if you can't get them live)... https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkr7c8lwpup_LfDV7hOQWsg

well, if (and it's a big if) this is the case, they must publish that list immediately (and fu*k all the privacy rules...the question goes well beyond that and it's a lot more important)... all the sports fans in the world have all the rights to know who's a cheater and who's not... p.s. and imho, 2 or more positive tests within a team = no team sport in Tokyo... at the same time, stop this OAR/ANA or whatever they want to name it farce!!! if there are some clean athletes who have been capable of qualifying, they should compete under the Russian Flag (and be able to listen and sing their National Anthem in case they win a gold medal)... IOC should have all the interest to show that nobody is discriminated and all the clean athletes are more than welcome to the OGs, also the clean Russians...

Kenian and Ethiopian system are exactly State-managed doping... don't look at the Italian and Spanish coaches/managers and doctors operating for their athletes...in those Nations nothing happens unless their sport minister/authorities allow that to happen... we can say whatever we want about East vs West and all the anti-Russian feeling many people have, but we should look at things for what they really are... and also situations like NOP or BALCO, even if technically are just private right institutions that put them on, they were/are acting exactly as a National doping system for the Countries benefitting for that sh*t...

well, I'd define myself as a true "Westener", but I don think and I don't feel like I won anything...really... tbh, I feel like I lost a piece of myself, having my favourite entertainment (sports in general and the Olympic Games in a special way) broken, destroyed because of this decision...

sure...that's perfectly understandable... but then, if you really can prove a whole system is corrupted from the head, then you can put on a farce like OAR and say: "OK...no Flag, no Anthem, but we let those people play just because we can get them personally"... if they decided Russia must go as a whole Nation/system, they must not allow anybody from that Nation to participate under any circumstance (and even not allow them to change Nationality for any reason for the next X years)... still, if you have to take such a Draconian decision, you gotta do it for all those who are in the same situation...not just one single side of the medal... and once again, in any case, guilty or not, the fact itself that we came down to a point like this, it's the saddest moment of the Olympic history just because of it happening...

I agree at 100%... and I don't like also the subtle meaning of this kind of "competitions"... we always see headlines about "people -and women in particular- treated like objects", but this is exactly one way to do that, especially when the contestants are very young girls/boys who normally are not there because of their own will...

from any point of view people might look at it, today is just another very sad day for Sports... we have one of the hardest sentence ever taken against a whole Country, theoretically and morally producing enormous damages but in practice being another farce, not really sweeping Russian sport movement and authorities away... moreover, we have a political trial producing a political result against only 1 of those "big cheaters" clearly caught cheating, but the other guilty parts are still there (Salazar? NOP? they are not competing...athletes are..and people like all those who dominated middle distance running in the last few years are still there and still are the only medal candidates for the Tokyo Games...and of course this is only one of those major scandals that should have had a different exposure and countermeasures)... so, we can't even think for a while: "justice is done", because that's not true at all... really, just a very sad day bringing on injustice rather than justice...