phelps

Men's Elite Cross-Country Gold: Nino Schurter Silver: Gerhard Kerschbaumer Bronze: Mathieu Van Der Poel

what a final! the route looked indeed too difficult (actually, I think it was definitely too difficult...the semifinal heat was way more exciting also for the 3rd through mid-ranking positions), but then Jessica and Janja showed us that no route is really too difficult... their battle for the Gold medal is probably the highlight of the entire championship, even if this is only the first competition to be completed... I'm happy for Jessica, who is now World Champion...and she won in front of the home crowd...but a the same time I'm so sad for Janja, who's my favourite climber and lost just because of those *** 12 seconds (and frankly it's really painful to lose the Gold medal at the tie-breaker after reaching the top of the wall with all the pressure she had on her shoulders once Pilz completed her climb in that way)... pity also for "our" teenage sensation, Laura Rogora, who couldn't repeat herself in the final, after an amazing semifinal climb...but you can't buy experience at the supermarket... and Tomorrow, it's time for the men to earn their honors in the Lead event...I just can't wait (c'mon, Stefano!)... Women's Lead Gold: Jessica Pilz Silver: Janja Garnbret Bronze: Kim Ja In Full Competition Results here: http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition#!comp=1564&cat=2

because Rogora, Schubert and the 2 Japanese girls were all tied for 7th place (44+ their score) and, since the qualification event was held in 2 separate heats, they couldn't go to countback from the qualification round... so, the jury decided that 10 was still a reasonable number of climbers (not impacting too much the lenght of the TV broadcast) and enlarged the field of starters of the final, rather than going through a complicated (and unfair) tie-breaker...

Women's Lead Climbers qualified for the Final Laura Rogora Mei Kotake Hannah Schubert Akiyo Noguchi Mia Krampl Ashima Shiraishi Anak Verhoeven Kim Ja In Jessica Pilz Janja Garnbret

and finally also queen Janja goes top without even struggling...actually, joking with the last (very difficult) passage... looking at what we've seen right now, the final looks very promising and exciting...

after a slow start now things are getting hot and the big names are putting on quite a good show...Verhoeven and Kim did even make the top of the wall... and Pilz did reach the top, too...

Women's Elite Cross-Country Gold: Kate Courtney Silver: Annika Langvad Bronze: Emily Batty

disaster for Langvad...

p.s. by the way, amazing landscape (and great crowd)... despite Neff's flop, the organizers should be very happy in any case...

watching the race on the Swiss TV...it looks like they're broadcasting a State Funeral...

just another day to forget for Italy... this time it really looks we can only win some medals in Junior and/or "abandoned" events... meanwhile, in the events that really matter, amazing final in the women's 25m pistol, where Batsarashkina first wasted a 5-shot advantage midway through the final and then lost to Kostevych after an endless shoot-off... for neutral spectators, these champs are showing so many exciting and really entertaining competitions...almost every day there's at least 1 final to be remembered for the ages, with a lot of drama and turnarounds...

Today's Results Women's Individual 50m 3-Position Rifle Gold: Yulia Karimova Silver: Isabella Straub Bronze: Snjezana Pejcic Olympic Quota: Russia, Germany, Croatia & Great Britain Women's Individual 25m Pistol Gold: Olena Kostevych Silver: Vitalina Batsarashkina Bronze: Doreen Vennekamp Olympic Quota: Ukraine, Russia, Germany & Chinese Taipei Women's Team 25m Pistol Gold: China Silver: South Korea Bronze: Germany Junior Mixed Team Trap Gold: Italy 2 (Erica Sessa & Lorenzo Ferrari) Silver: Italy 1 (Maria Lucia Palmitessa & Matteo Marongiu) Bronze: China 2 (Gao Wendi & Ouyang Yiliu) Women's Junior Individual 25m Pistol Gold: Wang Xiaoyu Silver: Katelyn Morgan Abeln Bronze: Anna Dedova Women's Junior Team 25m Pistol Gold: South Korea Silver: China Bronze: Hungary Men's Individual Double Trap Gold: Ankur Mittal Silver: Yang Yiyang Bronze: Hubert Andrzej Olejnik Men's Team Double Trap Gold: Italy Silver: China Bronze: India Updated Medal Standings here: https://www.issf-sports.org/competitions/venue/schedule.ashx?cshipid=1750

great day for Italy, with the expected Ghisolfi second only to the living legend Adam Ondra in his qualification group, but also with 2 more guys making it through to the semis, Francesco Vettorata and Marcello Bombardi...and that was definitely less expected... but the news of the day is the early elimination of the reigning European Champion (and one of the main favourites here, too), the Frenchman Romain Desgranges... not so good looking the local hero, Jakub Schubert, but still safely through...meanwhile the other big names (Ondra, Skofic, Megos above all) were just as good as expected... Tomorrow the 1st Gold Medal will be awarded, the Women's Lead...semifinals at 1 p.m. CET and the big final at 7 p.m. CET... all the action, as usual, live for free on IFSC's official page on Youtube: Semifinals here: and Finals here: p.s. and for those who can watch it, Live TV broadcast on the Austrian public TV channel ORF Sport+ HD (satellite Astra @ 19.2° East, encrypted...you need an ORF/Austriasat subscription to watch this channel)...

Men's Lead, climbers qualified to the Semifinals Georg Parma Fedir Samoilov Meichi Narasaki Thomas Joannes Hannes Puman Shuta Tanaka Aleksei Rubtsov Kai Harada William Bosi Jakob Schubert Tomoaki Takata Jorg Verhoeven Jakub Konecny Loïc Timmermans Marcello Bombardi Sascha Lehmann Tomoa Narasaki Luka Potocar Max Rudigier Alexander Megos Rudolph Ruana Francesco Vettorata Sean Bailey Stefano Ghisolfi Adam Ondra Domen Skofic

2018 Open Water Junior World Championships (Eilat, ISR) Day 2 Results Women's 10km (18-19 years old Girls) Gold: Paula Ruiz Bravo Silver: Maria A. Bramont-Arias Bronze: Reka Rohacs Men's 10km (18-19 years old Boys) Gold: Micheal Brinegar Silver: Enzo Roldan Munoz Bronze: Kirill Dolgov

1st race without a winner coming from the Alps... Men's Sub-23 Cross-Country Gold: Alan Hatherly Silver: Christopher Blevins Bronze: David Nordemann

to me, this whole qualification procedure is unfair (and a mess)... they should just have X individual events awarding x*2 quota pro-Nation...and the mixed team events -if they just can't get rid of them- should be open to 1 team from all those Countries having at least 1 male and 1 female individually qualified (no way they should have 2 pairs per Nation in those mixed competitions...if a Country then has 2 athletes in the corrspective individual event, the only privilege should be the chance to choose whoever they want between them for the team event)... as simple as it looks...no switches, no swaps, no multiple pathways and so on... p.s. and I also think that they should award a lot more quota at the world champs...at such kind of event, at least all the 8 (or 6, depending on the rules of each competition) finalists should get an Olympic berth, imho (with spots reallocated to the following qualification events in case someone makes the final twice...or more than twice...not going deeper into the rankings among those who missed the final)... I'm for simplifying things, not for complications...but this is just my opinion...

1st medal for Italy! in a race dominated beyond expectations (or not? ) by the Swiss girls, Marika Tovo just won the Bronze medal in the women's U-23 Cross-Country, confirming herself as one of the best riders in this class after the good world cup races and the amazing leg she did in the Team Relay 2 days ago... Women's Sub-23 Cross-Country Gold: Alessandra Keller Silver: Sina Frei Bronze: Marika Tovo

surely there will be a lot of those games...especially in the group stage, blowouts will be the normal rule...close games the exception...

it's perfectly normal for ISSF, since the athletes qualified for the individual events can still qualify the mixed team (and that's what SVK did with Varga & Stefecekova)... basically, with 2 guys they have filled all of their Trap quota... it's unfair, but those are the rules (or, at least, the interpretation given by almost every people so far)...

I think those reserve shooters are only a problem for the team...to me, full quota = the 8 real Olympic competitiors... especially for Italy, having more shooters would mean using all of them, thus having someone who didn't compete individually (= frustrated and maybe even out of shape) in the mixed event...no, thanks...

I agree, but just in case...women's 50km walk is definitely better than the farce named "mixed relay"...

frankly, there's nothing certain...there are still so many events where to earn quota places from (world cups, world champs -in shotgun there are worlds every year- and the last europeans before the Olympics)... OK, we had an awful world champs campaign here, but those are only the first spots awarded...there's still so much time (and chances) that I'm not worried about getting the full sqaud in Tokyo...but I'm a lot more worried about the chances of winning Gold medals in 2 years time (because I always expect nothing less than a full sweep at the Games)...

Today's Results Men's Individual 50m 3-Position Rifle Gold: Tomasz Bartnik Silver: Petar Gorsa Bronze: Michael McPhail Olympic Quota: Poland, United States, Norway & China Mixed Team Trap Gold: Slovakia 1 (Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova & Erik Varga) Silver: Russia 1 (Ekaterina Rabaya & Alexey Alipov) Bronze: Great Britain 1 (Kirsty Barr & Aaron Heading) Olympic Quota: Slovakia & Russia Men's Junior Individual Air Rifle Gold: Hriday Hazarika Silver: Amir Mohammad Nekounam Bronze: Grigorii Shamakov Men's Junior Team Air Rifle Gold: China Silver: Iran Bronze: Russia Women's Junior Individual Air Rifle Gold: Shi Mengyao Silver: Elavenil Valarivan Bronze: Shreya Agrawal Women's Junior Team Air Rifle Gold: India Silver: China Bronze: South Korea Women's Team 50m 3-Position Rifle Gold: Germany Silver: Denmark Bronze: Russia Updated Medal Standings here: https://www.issf-sports.org/competitions/venue/schedule.ashx?cshipid=1750

and it's Gold for SVK once again!