phelps

what an idiot...

drama, big drama for GBR... they had a chance to earn an Olympic spot, but they missed the decisive shot... therefore, it's RUS and SVK with quota places from today's event (with SVK almost sure of getting gold, too)...

good question... since it's possible for an athlete to earn a mixed team quota place and then also an individual one, I interpretate this as a big "yes"...SVK should have 2 men and 2 women qualified after today's event... but I'd wait for confirmation, since this qualification procedure looks like a mess (just as usual)... by the way, Italy have 2 teams in the final and don't get even a medal (not talking of quota places, which were out of any chance already after a few targets)... these championships are a real disaster for us...

if they make the women's 50km walk an Olympic event, I expect the number of competitive girls rapidly increasing...and by much... for sure Italy would quickly find 3 girls way better than that standard time, if only it would make sense to our NOC (our federation is led by people who don't care about anything but their "armchair"...so, I don't count on them for anything)...

naaa, we still have a lot of young talents (and a very wide field of shooters where to choose from) also in Trap... and I'm pretty sure we're gonna get the full set of Olympic spots even if we miss out here in Changwon... Shotgun Shooting is "our" sport (like Fencing)...we can have a bad day, a bad year...even a bad decade...but we always gonna be the team to beat in all of our opponents' mind...

no surprises in the first event of the championships...all the expected protagonists have gone through to the semifinal round and the main favourites already dominated the field in today's exercise... and I'm particularly happy for our young big (very big) hope Laura Rogora (class of 2001), who won the Boulder Youth World Title just a couple of weeks ago and today she's been able to qualify for the semis in the Lead event (which is not supposed to be her forte)... tomorrow, the men's Lead quaifications will be on stage...

Day 1 was dedicated to the Women's Lead Qualification... and those are the 26 women qualified for the Semifinals (listed in reverse order of the qualification result): Margo Hayes Anna Zaikina Ievgeniia Kazbekova Petra Klingler Ekaterina Kipriianova Manon Hily Hélène Janicot Anne-Sophie Koller Mia Krampl Sandra Lettner Heloïse Doumont Sol Sa Katherine Choong Laura Rogora Miho Nonaka Mei Kotake Lucka Rakovec Molly Thompson-Smith Christine Schranz Hannah Schubert Akiyo Noguchi Ashima Shiraishi Anak Verhoeven Ja In Kim Jessica Pilz Janja Garnbret p.s. 5 of those girls were born in the year 2000 (1) or 2001 (4)...

2018 Open Water Junior World Championships (Eilat, ISR) Day 1 Results Women's 5km (14-15 years old Girls) Gold: Iris Menchini Silver: Mira Szimcsak Bronze: Mariah Denigan Men's 5km (14-15 years old Boys) Gold: Aleksandr Stepanov Silver: Ivan Morgun Bronze: David Betlehem Women's 7.5km (16-17 years old Girls) Gold: Chase Travis Silver: Giulia Berton Bronze: Giulia Salin Men's 7.5km (16-17 years old Boys) Gold: Jean-Baptiste Clusman Silver: Danil Nemolochnov Bronze: Zoltan Tabi

Alpine domination in the junior cross-country races... Women's Junior Cross-Country Gold: Laura Stigger Silver: Tereza Saskova Bronze: Harriet Harnden Men's Junior Cross-Country Gold: Alexandre Balmer Silver: Leon Reinhard Kaiser Bronze: Mathis Azzaro

naaa...this time Slovan was very unlucky...they lost just at the last second of OT (after tying the game with less than a minute to go)... but at least they got their 1st point in the standings...better than nothing...

tbh, I liked a lot more last year's... p.s. not a good start of the season for Slovan in the KHL, too... for Slovak hockey, it's definitely not the best moment in its history...

wow! what a pair of finals, today!!! in the men's air pistol, I feel so sorry for Chernousov, who led throughout the entire competition and still had a 4-point margin before the last 4 shots... but Jin's comeback was also something you don't see very often... and the perfect ending was the final shoot-off, even if the momentum was so clearly addressed that it took most of the climax for the last shot away even before the shooters did take it... p.s. no comment on the Italian disaster, which is becoming an annoying refrain to all the pistol & rifle shooting competitions... in the women's Trap, we just had the chance to watch the best competion of the year, which did reach the climax with the really dramatic last shot of regulation, with Stefecekova and Wang fighting for the Gold medal... first an unbelievable and unexpected miss by the Slovak, then the "no bird" on the following target (the last shot for Wang), which probably annoyed her enough to cause her mistake on the successive valid final target... and therefore we went to the shoot-off also in this event, where the advantage of shooting first paid off in favor of Zuzana, who won her 2nd world title... p.p.s. for Italy it was another disappointing day, but at least here we got the consolation prize of a Bronze Medal and of an Olympic spot (hoping that this time, after Rio's shameful behavior, our coaches won't deny Stanco the Olympic dream she deserves after earning her place in the Tokyo competiiton)...

Today's Results Men's Individual Air Pistol Gold: Jin Jong Ho Silver: Artem Chernousov Bronze: Lee Dae Myung Olympic Quota: South Korea, Russia, South Korea & Ukraine Women's Individual Trap Gold: Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova Silver: Wang Xiaojing Bronze: Silvana Stanco Olympic Quota: Slovakia, China, Italy & Australia Men's Team Air Pistol Gold: South Korea Silver: India Bronze: Russia Women's Team Trap Gold: Italy Silver: Spain Bronze: United States Men's Team 50m 3-Position Rifle Gold: Russia Silver: China Bronze: Belarus Men's Junior Individual Trap Gold: Nathan Steven Argiro Silver: Logan Joseph Lucas Bronze: Lorenzo Ferrari Men's Junior Team Trap Gold: Australia Silver: India Bronze: Italy Men's Junior Individual Air Pistol Gold: Chaudhary Saurabh Silver: Lim Ho Jin Bronze: Arjun Singh Cheema Men's Junior Team Air Pistol Gold: South Korea Silver: India Bronze: Russia Men's Individual 50m Running Target Mixed Run Gold: Emil Martinsson Silver: Mikhail Azarenko Bronze: Jesper Nyberg Men's Team 50m Running Target Mixed Run Gold: Sweden Silver: Russia Bronze: North Korea Men's Junior Individual 50m Running Target Mixed Run Gold: Danylo Danilenko Silver: Kris Grossheim Bronze: Andreas Bergstrom Updated Medal Standings here: https://www.issf-sports.org/competitions/venue/schedule.ashx?cshipid=1750

yeah, she was really on a minor tone today...maybe she was sure they would eventually end up winning by just staying with GER (AUS were never really in contention, since everybody knew that they had a junior girl in the last leg) and letting Schurter do all the job, thus saving her legs for Saturady's race... or maybe she just had a bad day...who knows? I guess we have to wait until Saturday for the answer...

Oceania in Fencing goes together with Asia, there's no Continental Confederation... in the past, the Pan-American Championships were also held in the year of the Pan-American Games, too...but there are still no news about a possible 2019 edition, therefore we can suppose that the Pan-Am Games will be also useful as the Continental Champs next year (but with FIE we can't be sure of that, we have to wait until next Spring to have some updated news)...

and Switzerland, as expected, take the 1st Gold of their home World Championships, thanks to a strong last lap by the great Nino Schurter... meanwhile Italy paid the prize of having Eva Lechner in the senior women's leg...she lost so much time that nullified the strong start by Gerhard Kerschbaumer (1st at the opening changeover) and left without any hope the attempt to comeback by Marika Tovo (women's Sub-23...she even had a better time than Jolanda Neff in the 4th leg) and Jury Zanotti (our Sub-23 guy) in the last leg...in the end, it was a bitter 4th place for us... Team Relay Gold: Switzerland Silver: Germany Bronze: Denmark

Combined Event format for the Olympic Games http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/images/World_competitions/Event_regulations/170314_Combined-Olympic-Format.pdf Olympic Qualification Rules http://www.olimpiyatkomitesi.org.tr/Tokyo2020_Branslar/Sportif_Tirmanis.pdf

well, looking at the qualification rules, I think Japan (they only have 1 host Nation quota) will easily earn their 2nd spot at the 2019 World Champs (which will be held in Tokyo)... then "timing" could play a decisive game for some Countries (Iran included)...because if the Continental Champs will be held before the global qualification tournament (towards the end of 2019, but not yet officially scheduled right now), then we could have 1 if not 2 Koreans competing for a single spot, which could prove a problem for your climbers... meanwhile if we have let's say at least 1 Korean qualified through the World Champs and/or the World Cup and the World qualifier held before the Continental Champs, then the chances for athletes from Countries other than KOR and JPN would increase a lot... all this, provided that the Chinese don't start taking Olympic Climbing seriously and, above all, someone from Russia doesn't change his/her Nationality to any of the Asian former Soviet Republics (something like that could change the entire Olympic qualification perspective for the Asian Continent...apart for Japan, of course)... p.s. I just gave a look at the Olympic format...in the final (with 6 climbers), the speed part of the event will be contested with the format: Quarterfinals (#1 vs #6 seed, #2 vs #5 and #3 vs #4), then Semifinals (the 3 winners and the "lucky -best time- loser" of the 3 QTF heats) and 3rd place + 1st place Finals... therefore, I think they will use the same format also in the upcoming Worlds...

yes, normally we give Italian passport to athletes who have a true "love" marriage with an Italian partner, so the vast majority of times they settle here forever (Fiona May and Josefa Idem, for instance, still live here -even if they are not married anymore to the man who led them here, which is May's case)... meanwhile the North and South Americans with Italian heritage generally only stay here for their sporting career (and if we talk of individual sports, often they even stay home during the sport career, too...they just represent Italy at the global events)... of course there are exceptions, but not too many...

Inline Sakting Downhill World Championships (Teolo, ITA) Italy, hosted the 15th edition of the Inline Downhill World Championships. 60 athletes competed in one of the most thrilling circuit around the world reaching 100km/h on the hairpin turns of the Sp43 in the beautiful landscape on the Colli Euganei. With 8 medals on the 12 up for grabs, Italy confirmed its leading role in this discipline. In the Chrono Women, the run for the gold was all between the Italians Claudia Massara and Martina Paciolla. Only third the French Severine Thomas who got the third position also on the overall ranking. Sylvain Behr - France - reached the third step of the podium in the Chrono Men, after Augustin Tussetto - Italy. Gold Medal for the Italian Renato Pennuti. Chrono downhill Women 1- Claudia Massara 2- Martina Paciolla 3- Severine Thomas Chrono downhill Men 1- Renato Pennuti 2- Agustin Tussetto 3- Sylvain Behr In the cross competition Martina Paciolla got the better of both Annalena Rettemberger - Germany, and the other "Azzurra" Claudia Massara. Again Tussetto and Pennuti on the podium of the Chrono Men, but in inverted positions; Bronze medal for Severine Thomas - France. Cross downhill Women 1- Martina Paciolla 2- Annalena Rettemberger 3- Claudia Massara Cross downhill Men 1- Agustin Tussetto 2- Renato Pennuti 3- Sylvain Behr Overall Women 1- Claudia Massara 2- Martina Paciolla 3- Severine Thomas Overall Men 1- Renato Pennuti 2- Agustin Tussetto 3- Sylvain Behr

Roller Skating European Championships (San Miguel Island, POR) Medallists Recap Junior Competitions Women's Junior Compulsory Figures Gold: Alina De Silva Silver: Desirè Cocchi Bronze: Ludovica Riccardo Men's Junior Compulsory Figures Gold: Davide Arminchiardi Silver: Marc Brokelmans Bronze: Matteo Fabris Women's Junior Free Skate - Short Program Gold: Cecilia Marocchi Silver: Nadia Iglesias De Salvador Bronze: Laura Mezzatesta Women's Junior Free Skate - Overall Competition (Short + Long Program) Gold: Cecilia Marocchi Silver: Nadia Iglesias De Salvador Bronze: Laura Mezzatesta Men's Junior Free Skate - Short Program Gold: Diogo Craveiro Silver: Tim Schubert Bronze: Javier Martinez Garcia Picher Men's Junior Free Skate - Overall Competition (Short + Long Program) Gold: Diogo Craveiro Silver: Tim Schubert Bronze: Jorge Canales Rodriguez Women's Junior Solo Dance - Style Dance Gold: Martina Nuti Silver: Natalia Baldizzone Morales Bronze: Rute Freire Women's Junior Solo Dance - Overall Competition (Style + Free Dance) Gold: Natalia Baldizzone Morales Silver: Martina Nuti Bronze: Daniela Dias Men's Junior Solo Dance - Style Dance Gold: Francisco Silva Silver: Nicholas Masiero Bronze: Emanuele Garbolino Men's Junior Solo Dance - Overall Competition (Style + Free Dance) Gold: Francisco Silva Silver: Nicholas Masiero Bronze: Emanuele Garbolino Junior Couples Dance - Style Dance Gold: Francisco Silva/Beatriz Sousa Silver: Daniele Cavallini/Martina Bonera Bronze: Nicholas Masiero/Francesca Semino Junior Couples Dance - Overall Competition (Style + Free Dance) Gold: Francisco Silva/Beatriz Sousa Silver: Daniele Cavallini/Martina Bonera Bronze: Nicholas Masiero/Francesca Semino Junior Pairs - Short Program Gold: Alessandro Liberatore/Arianna Ferrentino Silver: Aldo Rapushi/Gaia Colucci Bronze: Diogo Craveiro/Catarina Craveiro Junior Pairs Free Skate - Overall Competition (Short + Long Program) Gold: Alessandro Liberatore/Arianna Ferrentino Silver: Aldo Rapushi/Gaia Colucci Bronze: Diogo Craveiro/Catarina Craveiro Juniors Medal Table ITA, 6 / 8 / 8 POR, 6 / 0 / 4 ESP, 1 / 3 / 0 GER, 1 / 3 / 2 Senior Competitions Women's Compulsory Figures Gold: Lina Goncharenko Silver: Elena Donadelli Bronze: Chiara Trentini Men's Compulsory Figures Gold: Alessio Gangi Silver: Tim Jendricke Bronze: Aaron Wunder Women's Free Skate - Short Program Gold: Micol Zangoli Silver: Michela Cima Bronze: Daniela Sardinha Women's Free Skate - Overall Competition (Short + Long Program) Gold: Micol Zangoli Silver: Michela Cima Bronze: Carla Escrich Sole Men's Free Skate - Short Program Gold: Pere Marsinyach Torrico Silver: Diogo Silva Bronze: Marco Bisciari Men's Free Skate - Overall Competition (Short + Long Program) Gold: Pere Marsinyach Torrico Silver: Michele Sica Bronze: Giuseppe Marco Giustino Women's Solo Dance - Style Dance Gold: Rachele Campagnol Silver: Ana Wagolde Bronze: Anna Remondini Women's Solo Dance - Overall Competition (Style + Free Dance) Gold: Rachele Campagnol Silver: Ana Wagolde Bronze: Anna Remondini Men's Solo Dance - Style Dance Gold: Ricardo Pinto Silver: Pedro Wagolde Bronze: Andrea Bassi Men's Solo Dance - Overall Competition (Style + Free Dance) Gold: Ricardo Pinto Silver: Pedro Wagolde Bronze: Andrea Bassi Couples Dance - Style Dance Gold: Pedro Wagolde/Ana Wagolde Silver: Josè Cruz/Daniela Dias Bronze: Massimiliano Antonelli/Camilla Barguin Couples Dance - Overall Competition (Style + Free Dance) Gold: Pedro Wagolde Silver: Josè Cruz/Daniela Dias Bronze: Massimiliano Antonelli/Camilla Barguino Pairs - Short Program Gold: Alessandro Fratalocchi/Alessia Gambardella Silver: Thomas Picard/Camellia Cherifi Bronze: Artur Balaguè Guell/Elisenda Prat Celma Pairs Free Skate - Overall Competition (Short + Long Program) Gold: Alessandro Fratalocchi/Alessia Gambardella Silver: Thomas Picard/Camellia Cherifi Bronze: Artur Balaguè Guell/Elisenda Prat Celma Seniors Medal Table ITA, 7 / 4 / 9 POR, 4 / 7 / 1 ESP, 2 / 0 / 3 GER, 1 / 1 / 1 FRA, 0 / 2 / 0 Overall Medal Table ITA, 13 / 12 / 17 POR, 10 / 7 / 5 ESP, 3 / 3 / 3 GER, 2 / 4 / 3 FRA, 0 / 2 / 0

great... since Italian TV networks don't even know that there's a sport named Mountain Bike, most of the Italian fans will really appreciate this (don't look at me...I'm just outside the italian standard in fact of resources )...

at the moment we have a questionable federation and basically no more kids practicing wrestling... so, not that this makes me happy at all, but I guess this is one of the few circumstances in which we have to go shopping or just close down this sport at the highest level... because I think that also our decent juniors who won a few medals at the recent youth European Champs won't become anything close to world class athletes...

thanks for the explaination about Reza's name... at the World Champs, the combined event final (with the 6 best athletes according to the summary of the 3 individual events qualifications) will have speed as the 1st event, then Boulder and finally Lead...so, I think there won't be a knockout system in the Speed phase, but I'm not sure about anything, since this is the 1st time it will be contested at the World Champs)... however, this is not a premiere overall, since last year we had the European Champs in this same combined event (held separately from any other competition) and we also had the Junior Worlds a couple of weeks ago... in lead, boulder and probably combined event Asian climbers are very good, I'd say dominant if we look at the Japanese men and women... then there's also the Korean Kim Ja In among the girls... meanwhile Chinese and Indonesians (+ Alipour) are pure speed specialists, so, as I wrote in the general thread, I don't think they have a real chance to make it to the Olympics (especially because we're going to have only 20 starters in both men and women's Olympic competitions -with max 2 climbers per Nation- which is a very small number if you think that lead and boulder events in world cup stages normally have more than 100 starters -even if the powerhouses generally start up to 10 athletes each), since the format heavily favors the lead & boulder specialists... the only hope could be the fact that this event, being totally new to every climber, can develop in the most unexpected way in a very short time... as I wrote above, I'm really curious to see how this thing's going to work out in Innsbruck (and in the next couple of years)...

Oilers bring back old blue jersey to celebrate 40th anniversary... https://www.nhl.com/news/oilers-celebrate-40th-anniversary-with-blue-jerseys/c-299942208?tid=281396148 Chara, Krug won't play pre-season's China exhibition games for the Bruins... https://www.nhl.com/news/zdeno-chara-torey-krug-wont-join-bruins-in-china/c-299935226