phelps

and here we go... as usual, the first competition of the weekend is the women's Individual Kata... and guess who's made the Gold Medal match? yes, guys! you're all right! it's Kiyou Shimizu vs Sandra Sanchez Jaime and the Bronze Medal matches, of course, feature another bunch of Japanese players and Viviana Bottaro... I'm just asking myself why should they take the disturb of helding the preliminary stages of this discipline? wherever you go, whoever is participating, whatever they're doing...the outcome is always the same!

Karate stars ready to take on #Karate1Dubai Dubai (UAE) hosts the second stop of the 2019 Karate 1-Premier League this weekend. After the successful opening event in Paris (France), the best karatekas in the world are gathering in Dubai from February 15 to 17 to continue the quest to make their Olympic dreams come true. Nearly 800 competitors from 86 countries are registered to participate at the 2019 Karate 1-Premier League Dubai. The universality of the sport and the growing interest of Karate’s major events are once again showcased as karatekas compete for the points to improve their position in the ranking and for the glory of becoming the best Karate athletes in the world. The Karate 1-Premier League Dubai will be another clash between top favourites and the new names in the sport. At the opening event in Paris, five of the current Grand Winners managed to demonstrate their superiority with impressive victories. Serap Ozcelik of Turkey, Gwendoline Philippe and Steven Dacosta of France, and Ayumi Uekusa and Ryo Kiyuna of Japan used their Grand Winners status to reach the top of the podium in Paris. The list of gold medallists in #Karate1Paris was completed with a blend of established stars and upcoming new names. Two-time World champion Kiyou Shimizu of Japan, former Grand Winner Anzhelika Terliuga of Ukraine, and promising karatekas Elena Quirici of Switzerland and Ken Nishimura of Japan were among the big winners in Paris. Now karatekas are hoping to extend their success in Dubai. The last edition of the event was highlighted by the domination of the new Grand Winners. Spain’s Sandra Sanchez, Turkey’s Serap Ozcelik and Eray Samdan, Italy’s Sara Cardin, France’s Alizee Agier, Japan’s Ayumi Uekusa and Azerbaijan’s Rafael Aghayev were the Grand Winners succeeding last year in Dubai. The event is scheduled to start on Friday, February 15 at 09.00 (local time). All the medal bouts will take place on Sunday, February 17 from 10:00 to 16:30 (local times). The last day of competition will be available to a worldwide viewing audience LIVE on karateworld.tv

it's geoblocked...some Irish Basketball Premier League is instead on right now... actually, it's also explained that the event is geoblocked...there's the "é" (= Ireland territory only) symbol on the title of this broadcast...

thanks, fixed...

President's Cup 2019 (G2 tournament, Antalya, TUR) men's Gold Medallists -54kg: Vladimir Gritsenko -58kg: Jesus Tortosa Cabrera -63kg: Lovre Brecic -68kg: Bradley Sinden -74kg: Ahmad Abughaush -80kg: Maksim Khramtcov -87kg: Rafael Kamalov +87kg: Mahama Cho women's Gold Medallists -46kg: Ruhat Akalin -49kg: Merve Dincel -53kg: Tijana Bogdanovic -57kg: Hatice Kubra Ilgun -62kg: Irem Yaman -67kg: Lauren Williams -73kg: Milica Mandic +73kg: Bianca Walkden

aaaargh! my mistake...epic misreading! sorry, guys...

at the moment he's playing in the new Spring league (AAF) that started last week...

https://apnews.com/4f20994bb07140fdab3ce6ebee137ece?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_medium=AP_Sports&utm_source=Twitter I really hope for her and her family that she "only" has one of those types of leukemia which allow a full recovery and long-term perspectives...

Maura Viceconte died yesterday at the age of only 51... in the last few years she was fighting against breast cancer and yesterday she committed suicide at her home near Turin... no further details have been released... she has been for a while the Marathon Italian Record holder (in this discipline she was 12th in Sydney 2000 and she won the Individual Bronze and Team Silver at the 1998 Europeans in Budapest), meanwhile, desòpite not winning any major international medal, she's still our National Record holder in the 10,000m on the Track (31.05.57 her PB/NR)...

no, every Continent have their own Championships... therefore, the non-European Countries are actually favoured by that, as they can record a lot more points than many European teams... USA, for example, would get 1st or 2nd place in any competitions (which means always 64 or 52 points), unless something surprising happens...

no, the combined event basically doesn't exist...it's a compromise between IFSC and IOC to find a place for Sport Climbing at the Olympic Games, but at senior level it's not present in any other competition apart from the World Championships (and this year there are no world champs) and the Olympic Qualifier (late november in France)... of course there will be some minor competitions and National Champs in most Countries to practice and find out who's most reliable in that kind of event, but it's not scheduled in any other major competition...

well, FIE will only publish the regular 12-month based ranking as usual... so, if you want to keep track of the OQP only, you have to do your calculation by yourself (it's obvious that at the end of the period you'll see the results from the 12 months between April 2019 and April 2020 only, but in between all the provisional ranking will be "contaminated" with results which eventually will not be part of the final OQR)...

as a consequence, the teams qualified for the Relays at the 2019 World Championships are: Women RUSSIA NETHERLANDS SOUTH KOREA CANADA ITALY JAPAN KAZAKHSTAN CHINA Men HUNGARY CANADA JAPAN NETHERLANDS CHINA RUSSIA ITALY SOUTH KOREA

yes, they are... from the general ISU Rules about Short Track: 'ISU Members who qualify amongst the best eight (8) Relay Teams from the World Cup Relay Classification Ladies/Men (see Rule 286, paragraph 8) may enter a Team in the respective category in the Relay competition. If the host country is not ranked amongst the top eight (8) Teams of the World Cup Relay Classification they will replace the lowest ranked Team.'

*most events are still listed as "Provisional", but I think the definitive version won't be different from this one...

yes, from April on it's OQP...

unfortunately (or not...it depends on your point of view ), we're gonna have a true & tricky slalom run (the course setter is from FRA)... no chance for the speed specialists... if they don't make any big mistake, Schwarz and Pinturault are the clear favourites to take Gold and Silver...then maybe we're gonna have an interesting battle for Bronze, but I still think that the Paris/Inner/Janka of this world don't have any chance, despite the good downhill results...

Men's Team Epee (Vancouver, CAN) Final Results Gold: Russia Silver: Israel Bronze: France Semifinals: Israel b. Denmark 45-42 Russia b. France 45-33 Bronze Medal Match: France b. Denmark 45-32 Gold Medal Match: Russia b. Israel 45-36 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2019/454/results/rank

Italy lost to the Czech Republic in the round of last 16 in the men's Team Epee world cup in Vancouver...that's a bad, bad (and dangerous in perspective) bounce back from the last outing...

Grand Slam (Paris, FRA) Day #2 Recap Today it was South Korea to take the center stage at the Paris Tournament, being the only Nation to win 2 Gold Medals (Gwak Dong Han in the men's -90kg and Kim Sung Min in the men's +100kg)... meanwhile Japan (Yoko Ono in the women's -70kg), France (Madeleine Malonga in the women's -78kg), Cuba (Idalys Ortiz in the women's +78kg), Germany (Dominic Ressel in the men's -81kg) and Georgia (Vadim Liparteliani in the men's -100kg) won 1 Gold Medal each... Therefore, Japan won the overall medal table with 5 Gold Medals, followed by South Korea and the host Nation, France, with 2 each and 5 more Countries (Moldova, Canada, Cuba, Germany and Georgia) sharing 1 Gold medal each... Full Results here: https://live.ijf.org/gs_fra2019/results

@hckosice hey, man! today it was really close to get a gold for your Nation... overall, it was quite a good championship for you...if only you could get that gold... hope next time it will be the good one...

34 Nations winning at least a medal, 15 winning at least 1 Gold Medal... these championships have shown once again how well developed and well spread Karate is also in Europe, especially if compared with other Fight Sports... for Italy, scary flop among the Cadets (not even a single medal), good performance among the Juniors and the Sub-21 athletes, but still not even close to last year's results (10 medals overall instead of 15, 4 Gold medals instead of 5)... not really good that all the Kumite Gold medals came from the lower weight classes, with potential internal conflicts in these classes and problems to be foreseen in the heavy weights in the next few years...

Karate Cadet, Junior & U-21 European Championships 2019, Final Overall Medal Table TUR, 6 / 3 / 5 RUS, 5 / 1 / 6 ITA, 4 / 4 / 2 FRA, 3 / 2 / 4 ESP, 3 / 2 / 3 MKD, 2 / 2 / 0 AZE, 2 / 0 / 0 HUN, 1 / 2 / 0 LAT, 1 / 1 / 1 AUT, 1 / 0 / 3 POR, 1 / 0 / 3 GRE, 1 / 0 / 2 AZE, 1 / 0 / 1 DEN, 1 / 0 / 1 IRL, 1 / 0 / 0 GER, 0 / 2 / 4 SVK, 0 / 2 / 4 BEL, 0 / 2 / 2 GEO, 0 / 2 / 1 SUI, 0 / 1 / 4 BLR, 0 / 1 / 3 UKR, 0 / 1 / 2 CZE, 0 / 1 / 1 KOS, 0 / 1 / 1 MNE, 0 / 1 / 1 NED, 0 / 1 / 1 SCO, 0 / 1 / 0 CRO, 0 / 0 / 3 POL, 0 / 0 / 3 BIH, 0 / 0 / 1 BUL, 0 / 0 / 1 ENG, 0 / 0 / 1 EST, 0 / 0 / 1 SRB, 0 / 0 / 1

Day #3 Recap women's U-21 Individual Kumite, -50kg Gold: Nicole Murabito Silver: Gulsen Demirturk Bronze: Ines Grdenic & Valeriya Sergeeva women's U-21 Individual Kumite, -55kg Gold: Veronica Brunori Silver: Sara Heurtault Bronze: Maya Schaerer & Albulena Gervalla women's U-21 Individual Kumite, -61kg Gold: Anna Rodina Silver: Alessandra Mangiacapra Bronze: Sara Elwart & Nina Radjenovic women's U-21 Individual Kumite, -68kg Gold: Lea Avazeri Silver: Victoria Isaeva Bronze: Madeleine Schroeter & Maryia Aliakseyeva women's U-21 Individual Kumite, +68kg Gold: Ana Rita Oliveira Silver: Eda Eltemur Bronze: Kinga Harast & Sarah Lina Mimouni men's U-21 Individual Kumite, -60kg Gold: Christos-Stefanos Xenos Silver: Alejandro Ortiz Fernandez Bronze: Nenad Dulovic & Yassine Boucharaouf men's U-21 Individual Kumite, -67kg Gold: Muratcan Deniz Silver: Valentyn Naida Bronze: Devid Nhuyen & Daniel Martin Guirado men's U-21 Individual Kumite, -75kg Gold: Doan Osmani Silver: Nikita Belyavsky Bronze: Mads Viberg Larsen & Dimitrios Rigas men's U-21 Individual Kumite, -84kg Gold: Petar Spasenovski Silver: Adi Gyurik Bronze: Hamza Cajic & Maxime Relifox men's U-21 Individual Kumite, +84kg Gold: Murad Hajizade Silver: Babacar Seck Sakho Bronze: Dorde Tesanovic & Brandon Carr U-21 Class only, Final Medal Table ITA, 2 / 1 / 0 MKD, 2 / 0 / 0 TUR, 1 / 2 / 0 FRA, 1 / 1 / 1 RUS, 1 / 1 / 1 GRE, 1 / 0 / 1 AZE, 1 / 0 / 0 POR, 1 / 0 / 0 ESP, 0 / 2 / 1 GEO, 0 / 1 / 0 SVK, 0 / 1 / 0 UKR, 0 / 1 / 0 BLR, 0 / 0 / 2 GER, 0 / 0 / 2 POL, 0 / 0 / 2 SUI, 0 / 0 / 2 BEL, 0 / 0 / 1 BIH, 0 / 0 / 1 CRO, 0 / 0 / 1 DEN, 0 / 0 / 1 ENG, 0 / 0 / 1 KOS, 0 / 0 / 1 MNE, 0 / 0 / 1 SRB, 0 / 0 / 1

quite an interesting women's tournament... it looked that we were almost back to the good old times when Italy used to be untouchable... very happy for Palumbo, who this time finally has been able to win an assault against queen Deriglazova... among the boys, well...it's quite clear that at the moment Foconi and Imboden are well above the rest of the field...shame that they had to face each other before the Gold Medal bout...