phelps

2019 World Cup, Stage #3 (Al Ain, UAE) Men's Individual Trap Gold: Josip Glasnovic Silver: Savate Sresthaporn Bronze: Paul Pigorsch Olympic Quota: Croatia, Thailand

Rio 2016 Olympic Champion, Josip Glasnovic, finally gets the gold...

if any Italian can't get a quota, it could be difficult for him also to earn the ranking spot... but I hope we don't have to wait until that to earn our 2 spots...

wow! we have a shoot-off for gold!

and Pigorsch misses out narrowly once again... small consolation, he gets the bronze medal in this WC event... quota for CRO and THA...

China 4th...now it's time for the medals (and quota) showdown...

but also for skeet competitions... however, the worst thing is that damn second shot in the preliminaries... when you have no chance to make the final by missing only 2 out 125 shots, I think it's time to change these rules...make the qualification longer and, above all, more difficult, more selective... making the final or missing out on it only because 1 or 2 missed targets, it's only about luck...a wind gust at the wrong moment and you're done and gone...that's not fair to me...give the shooters the chance to make up for 1 or 2 mistakes... p.s. in the meantime, it's THA, CRO and GER for 2 Olympic spots...and it looks that once again will be GER on the unlucky side...

meh...easy but still not fully convincing win (5-0 "only") for Frank... p.s. by the way, that "new" San Marino guy (Myles Nazem Amine) in the 86kg class! he won easily against Ivar Samusonoks and then he beat also Sandro Aminashvili! now he's in the quarterfinals against Vladislav Valiev... I wonder what he could do with an easier draw... let's go SMR!

and he lost to Egzon Shala in the preliminary round! (Pinned when 13-9 down, according to UWW's website)... meanwhile, Frank Chamizo won 3-0 against Timur Bizhoev his opening bout... now he has to face Miroslav Kirov in the quarterfinals...

KHL Conference Finals Eastern Conference: well, what to say about game #6 of this series? I thought they were supposed to play hockey, not running an ultra-Marathon... but basically it's what they did yesterday, when it took half of the 3rd OT to score the lone goal of the game, the series winner for Avangard Omsk... the summary of the game, however, is very simple...moving players always more and more tired skating around like zombies and goalies absolutely on top of their game, almost unbeatable... but at 9.18 of the 3rd OT, a shot from the blue line by Alexei Bondarev was unluckily deflected by a Salavat player into his own net and therefore Omsk won the game 1-0 and the series 4-2... now they wait for today's showdown in the Western Conference to know who's gonna be their opponents in the Gagarin Cup Finals, set to start in the weekend... game #6 highlights

but it's Avangard travelling 2700kms to play home games, not Salavat... p.s. and if Ufa's fans are hot, well...their wags are even better!

I'd say 15 guys still in contention to get to the final of men's trap... Josip Glasnovic is already at 100/100, so he can afford even a miss in the last series, I think (actually, there's a mathematical chance for other 6 guys to make it to 124, but it's highly unlikely they all hit 25/25 and/or 50/50 in the remaining series for them)... for what concerns Italy, our only hope is Prosperi...he's one of those in the second group of shooters (with 123 as their maximum target), who need 50/50 and someone else among the chasing pack to make some mistakes...basically, he needs to be very lucky...

2019 World Cup, Stage #3 (Al Ain, UAE) Women's Individual Trap Gold: Carole Cormenier Silver: Kirsty Barr Bronze: Silvana Stanco Olympic Quota: France, Great Britain

Tomorrow's Gold Medal matches 57kg: Suleyman ATLI vs Muslim SADULAEV 65kg: Haji ALIYEV vs Selahattin KILICSALLAYAN 70kg: Mustafa KAYA vs Aghahuseyn MUSTAFAYEV 79kg: Jabrayil HASANOV vs Akhmed GADZHIMAGOMEDOV 97kg: Abdulrashid SADULAEV vs Aliaksandr HUSHTYN

Grand Prix (Antalya, TUR) Event Recap 14 weight classes between men and women, 14 different Nations coming home with a Gold Medal... basically, the perfect tournament... Women's Champions -48kg: Distria Krasniqi -52kg: Andreea Chitu -57kg: Julia Kowalczyk -63kg: Maylin Del Toro Carvajal -70kg: Elisavet Teltsidou -78kg: Anna Maria Wagner +78kg: Iryna Kindzerska Men's Champions -60kg: Yeldos Smetov -66kg: Denis Vieru -73kg: An Chang Rim -81kg: Luka Maisuradze -90kg: Mikail Ozerler -100kg: Alexandre Iddir +100kg: Roy Meyer Full Results and Rankings here: https://live.ijf.org/gp_tur2019/results

Italy confirmed their superiority in men's sabre by winning also the team event...and we also got another precious medal among the girls, where Hungary won the team gold as expected and Germany repeated themselves after the surprising medal at the junior Europeans a few weeks ago...

Men's (Cadet &) Junior Team Sabre Final Results Gold: Italy Silver: Russia Bronze: United States Semifinals: Italy b. France 45-43 Russia b. USA 45-42 Bronze Medal Match: USA b. France 45-40 Gold Medal Match: Italy b. Russia 45-39 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2019/234/results/rank

Women's (Cadet &) Junior Team Sabre Final Results Gold: Hungary Silver: Germany Bronze: Italy Semifinals: Hungary b. USA 45-44 Germany b. Italy 45-43 Bronze Medal Match: Italy b. USA 45-34 Gold Medal Match: Hungary b. Germany 45-43 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2019/233/results/rank

Australian Swimming Championships, Day #2 men's 200m breaststroke Matthew Wilson, 2.07.16 Zac Stubbley-Cook, 2.08.38 women's 100m fly Emma McKeown, 56.85 Brianna Throssel, 57.52 men's 100m freestyle Kyle Chalmers, 47.48 Cameron McEvoy, 49.07 Clyde Lewis, 49.29 James Roberts, 49.35 women's 400m IM Kylee McKeown, 4.40.25 Calypso Sheridan, 4.41.40 men's 50m fly William Yang, 23.23 Cameron Jones, 23.63 men's 800m freestyle Jack McLoughlin, 7.58.66 Joshua Parris, 7.59.83

Australian Swimming Championships, Day #1 men's 100m backstroke Mitchell Larkin, 53.51 William Yang, 53.59 men's 400m freestyle Elijah Winnington (18 y.o.), 3.44.68 Jack McLoughlin, 3.48.96 women's 100m freestyle Cate Campbell, 52.35 Emma McKeown, 52.84 Shayna Jack, 53.20 Brianna Throssel, 53.80 Bronte Campbell, 53.81 men's 100m fly Kyle Chalmers, 52.07 Matthew Temple, 52.16 women's 100m breaststroke Abbey Harkin, 1.07.02 Jessica Hansen, 1.07.45 women's 800m freestyle Ariarne Titmus, 8.18.61 Kia Melverton, 8.27.72

good for Italy that we have 2 girls in the final, but we already have our Olympic quota in this discipline... the real disaster is the men's trap, where we don't have any quota yet, and also in this competition we are already almost out of contention (only the less experienced and expected of our 3 shooters is within 1 hit target of the 11-man leading pack after day #1 of the qualification round, meanwhile Pellielo and Frasca are shamefully at the bottom of the ranking)...

Women's Trap, Shooters qualified to the Final Laetisha Scanlan* Silvana Stanco* Ray Bassil Carole Cormenier Jessica Rossi* Kirsty Barr * = already earned their Olympic Quota

this is, instead, how the playoffs look like: Eastern Conference, 1st Round (best-of-7 series) Tampa Bay Lightning (Atl. #1) vs Columbus Blue Jackets (WC #2) Boston Bruins (Atl. #2) vs Toronto Maple Leafs (Atl. #3) Washington Capitals (Met. #1) vs Carolina Hurricanes (WC #1) New York Islanders (Met. #2) vs Pittsburgh Penguins (Met. #3) Western Conference, 1st Round (best-of-7 series) Nashville Predators (Ctrl. #1) vs Dallas Stars (WC #2) Winnipeg Jets (Ctrl. #) vs St.Louis Blues (Ctrl. #3) Calgary Flames (Pac. #1) vs Colorado Avalanche (WC #1) San Josè Sharks (Pac. #2) vs Vegas Golden Knights (Pac. #3) and this is the full playoffs 1st round schedule: https://www.nhl.com/news/nhl-playoffs-round-1-schedule/c-280159064?tid=287339198

it was a long season...as usual, it took 82 games... but here we are...the RS is over and the most exciting event in the world is ready to start... here they come...the NHL playoffs!!! but first, a quick recap of the Regular Season... as expected, the Eastern Conference was an open book...the usual suspects are at the top of the table and the usual bunch of losers are at the bottom of the rankings... the only real surprise is the excellent season played by the New York Islanders, that were not expected to have such a good RS after losing their superstar of the past 10 years... Tampa Bay dominating the Conference (and the entire league) was the most obvious fact of the year...let's see if this time it's the good one to confirm their superiority also when it matters the most... the Washington Capitals were also under the spotlight, after winning their first Cup ever and at the same time losing their mastermind, coach Barry Trotz...and they showed that the talent is there and they're still hungry by winning the Metropolitan Division... meanwhile, when I wrote "the usual bunch of losers", I obviously thought mainly about the New York Rangers, once again out of the playoffs despite tradition, money and good players... the Western conference, on the other side, was a lot more balanced and "deep" in good teams... here some surprising results have been recorded, compared to the East... first of all, the Conference Champions are totally unexpected...raise his hand who thought at the beginning of the season that the Calgary Flames could get the best record out West! but despite all the not so friendly previews, they did it...and quite in style, with a 6-point margin over the highly expected San Josè Sharks... meanwhile the Central Division came down to an amazing 3-way race, which ended only in the last day of the RS...and finally the Nashville Predators (100 points) just edged out by a single point after 82 games the Winnipeg Jets and the St.Louis Blues, who both ended up 1 point shy of the 100 mark... Last year's sensation, Vagas, confirmed themselves as high caliber team and did reach the playoffs also in their second season in the league, meanwhile Chicago, the L.A. area teams and Connor McDavid & Leon Draisaitl's Edmonton were definitely the big losers of 2019, especially Edmonton, that couldn't make the playoffs for the second year in a row, despite having 2 of the most amazing (and productive) forwards of the entire NHL... here are the Final Standings of the 2018/2019 Regular Season of the NHL in full: https://www.nhl.com/standings/2018/division

Stage #1, Quiksilver Pro (Gold Coast, AUS) Gold: Italo Ferreira Silver: Kolohe Andino Bronze: Jordy Smith & John John Florence Full Ranking: http://www.worldsurfleague.com/events/2019/mct/2908/quiksilver-pro-gold-coast/results?resultsType=prizes