phelps

game, set & match! sweep completed! Italy totally dominated the Home World Champs like never before... 4 competitions, 4 world titles! Team Event, Medallists Recap Gold: Italy Silver: Austria Bronze: Russia Full Results: https://www.fil-luge.org/cdn/uploads/team-ergebnisliste-3.pdf

but it still helps, in the sense that being higher in the ranking will give you a better draw in the next events (when it will count for the OQR)...

yesssss!!! great win for Martina! World Cup, Stage #4 (Dresden, GER) women's 500m, Final Results Gold: Martina VALCEPINA Silver: Lara VAN RUIJVEN Bronze: Natalia MALISZEWSKA

and it's 3 out of 3 for the Home Nation! Men's Singles, Medallists Recap Gold: Alex Gruber Silver: Thomas Kammerlander Bronze: Michael Scheikl Full Results: https://www.fil-luge.org/cdn/uploads/finale-herren-ergebnisliste.pdf

Women's Singles, Medallists Recap Gold: Evelin Lanthaler Silver: Greta Pinggera Bronze: Tina Unterberger Full Results: https://www.fil-luge.org/cdn/uploads/finale-damen-ergebnisliste.pdf

and the clean sweep is closer and closer... right now, it's 2 out of 2 for Italy... and Alex Gruber is leading (with some margin) in the men's Singles after 2 out of 3 runs...waiting for the Team Event, too...

today Cynthia Mascitto won't be able to repeat herself and make the podium once again in the 2nd run of the women's 1000m... she was dead last in the first semifinal heat and therefore she's relegated only to the "B" Final (which until yesterday would have been a great result...but, you know...once you start tasting the flavour of the top of the rankings, it's always tough to get back to reality)... but today we still have a great chance to make the podium with Martina Valcepina, who easily qualified for the big Final of the women's 500m...

wow! surprise loss by South Korea in the quarterfinals (vs France, 42-45)... big chance for Italy...hope they're not gonna miss out on this one...

Men's Team Sabre (Warsaw, POL) Final Results Gold: Italy Silver: France Bronze: Russia Semifinals: France b. Russia 45-38 Italy b. Hungary 45-37 Bronze Medal Match: Russia b. Hungary 45-36 Gold Medal Match: Italy b. France 45-44 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2019/569/results/rank

yes, first world cup win since February 11th, 1996 (when Gerda won in Sankt Moritz)... fun fact...in the 1997/1998 season, Gerda won the overall world cup without a single race victory... then she shifted to Bobleigh...

that is a serious threat! by the way, I wouldn't be so proud of a win like this...it's more than a farce...

no way...she's gonna start last in the second run... so, she won't have any advantage over the other girls who normally are well in front of her... Geisenberger is still in pole position to win another race...

Kovalev easily won the bout on points (unanimous decision, 2 judges with 4-point margin, the 3rd one, who clearly saw another fight, with a crazy 120-108 score for the Russian)... Commey destroyed in only 2 rounds (actually, less than 2 rounds) his opponent...and he's probably earned a chance to take a boxing lesson by Vasyl Lomachenko next time round... but the top of the night happened just after Valdez finished to demolish Tommasone (TKO in 7, the Italian went to the floor 4 times...and he wanted to have more, as he was definitely unhappy about the ref stopping the fight in the seventh round)... in fact, probably while under the effect of the hevy shots taken from the Mexican, Tommasone after the match went down to his knee and with the traditional ring in his hands asked her fiancèe if she wanted to get married with him... and for the joy of all those who like romance and happy endings (hey, don't look for hidden meanings ), she said "YES!"... p.s. I've always said that boxing is a really dangerous sport...

Hempel World Cup Series, Round #2 (Miami, USA) Medallists Recap (Part #1) women's RS:X, Final Result Gold: Lu Yunxiu Silver: Katy Spichakov Bronze: Charline Picon men's RS:X Gold: Bing Ye Silver: Radoslaw Furmanski Bronze: Pierre Le Coq women's 49er FX Gold: Martine Soffiatti Grael & Kahena Kunze Silver: Alexandra Maloney & Molly Meech Bronze: Charlotte Dobson & Saskia Tidey men's 49er Gold: Erik Heil & Thomas Ploessel Silver: Dylan Fletcher-Scott & Stuart Bithell Bronze: Sime Fantela & Mihovil Fantela mixed Nacra 17 Gold: Jason Waterhouse & Lisa Darmanin Silver: Samuel Albrecht & Gabriela Nicolino De Sà Bronze: Santiago Lange & Cecilia Carranza Saroli Full Results: http://sailing.org/worldcup/results/index.php

wow! great final rush by Curatoli... down 10-13 he changed gear and landed 4 consecutive attacks... then, after Hartung tied the bout at 14, he didn't lost his mind and scored the winning hit with style...

Men's Individual Sabre (Warsaw, POL) Final Results Gold: Eli Dershwitz Silver: Luca Curatoli Bronze: Max Hartung & Oh Sanguk Semifinals: Curatoli b. Hartung 15-14 Dershwitz b. Oh 15-14 Gold Medal Match: Dershwitz b. Curatoli 15-9  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2019/163/results/rank

the remaining competitions will be completed Tomorrow, but the girls have already completed 2 out of 3 runs in their individual race ( Evelin Lathaler is leading with a big, big margin over the defending world champion Greta Pinggera and Tina Unterberger), meanwhile the men have only 1 out of 3 runs already in their bag (and surprise, surprise...the defending world champion Alex Gruber is leading the competition, with Patrick Pigneter currently in runner up position and Thomas Kammerlander currently 3rd...but this is still close, as they are all 3 within 56/100 of a second, which isn't such a big margin in natural track luge)...

Open Doubles, Medallists Recap Gold: Patrick Pigneter & Florian Clara Silver: Pavel Porshnev & Ivan Lazarev Bronze: Patrick Lambacher & Matthias Lambacher Full Results: https://www.fil-luge.org/cdn/uploads/finale-doppel-ergebnisliste.pdf

the Natural Track Luge world Championships are back in Italy...and the Home Team is out for a clean sweep... Task #1...completed! Patrick Pigneter and Florian Clara are World Champions for the 4th time in the Doubles' competition...

Luge FIL Natural Track World Championships 2019 Latzfons (ITA) - 2 February 2019 - 3 February 2019  Official Website

and the Junior World Champs end with the local team (Austria) winning the Team Relay, thus spoiling the German party and avoiding the clean sweep by the guys from North of the Border... Germany ended up the team race in second place and Russia in 3rd... Italy had another shameful moment when Alex Gufler, already losing a lot of time since the start of his stint, made a big mistake and blew all of our chances away with a depressing DNF... full result, here: https://www.fil-luge.org/cdn/uploads/ergebnis-team-02-02-19.pdf 2019 Junior World Championships Final Medal Table GER, 3 / 1 / 1 AUT, 1 / 1 / 0 RUS, 0 / 1 / 2 ITA, 0 / 1 / 1

end of today's program... very nice surprise for Italy, Cynthis Mascitto's bronze medal (her 1st in the world cup)... on the other side, very irritating wasted chance to make the final for the men's relay... more in general, Korea dominating the field with 3 gold medals out of 4 events, with Russia's Prosvirnova being the only athlete stopping the Asian powerhouse in one of today's events... and very strange outcome for the relays' semifinals, with many top teams failing to reach the final act (even KOR won't be in the men's relay final )...

World Cup, Stage #4 (Dresden, GER) men's 5000m Relay teams qualified to the final China Hungary Canada Japan

what a bunch of morons! being overtaken in that way in the last lap...I'd send them back to Italy kickin' their asses for all the trip...

World Cup, Stage #4 (Dresden, GER) women's 3000m Relay teams qualified to the final Russia South Korea Canada Netherlands