phelps

yeah, why waste your time that way? let's all go working in a mine...that's the real aim of everybody's life...

OK, why don't we get rid of the whole Track & Field? After all, it's only a bunch of doped guys running here and there or doing even stranger things...

don't remind me of those stupid changes to the shooting Olympic program...I could really make some voodoo rituals to ISSF and IOC officials...

I'd rather take Fencing back to the Middle Age...duels with big swords...and, of course, up to the last man standing... and I'd also like the Sharks Pursuit Surfing and the Crocodile Pursuit Canoeing... finally, I want the Food Eating Contests (with various categories: Hot Dogs, Pasta, Rice, T-Bone Steaks, Chicken Thighs and 2 very different kinds of Fish at least) to be an Olympic sport...and in this case I'm not joking at all...

if there was some hypocracy in my post over the mixed events in the European Shooting Champs thread, here we have the perfect sublimation of fair play, instead...

but they've not been counted in the official results for now (I just checked them before posting my daily recap)... probably they're sub-iudice because someone made an appeal...or they will just wait for the same amount of races being sailed in every fleet of each class before putting them into the official ranking... in any case, my recap only reports the official results...

day #5 recap because of the poor wind, many races have been postponed, therefore this is quite a short update *Men's Laser (6 races): Sam Meech 9 pts, Luke Elliott & Matthew Wearn tied with 13 pts *Women's Laser Radial (6 races): Marie Rindom 13 pts, Line Flem Host 20 pts, Paige Riley 22 pts *Finn (6 races): Ed Wright 22 pts, Max Salminen 22 pts, Nicholas Heiner 22 pts Men's 470 (7 races): Anton Dahlberg/Fredrik Bergstrom 21 pts, Mathew Belcher/William Ryan 22 pts, Jordi Xammar Hernandez/Nicolas Rodriguez Garcia-Paz 28 pts *Women's 470 (6 races): Ai Kondo Yoshida/Miho Yoshioka 17 pts, Hannah Mills/Eilidh McIntyre 19 pts, Camille Lecointre/Aloise Retornaz 27 pts Men's 49er (6 races): Lucas Rual/Emile Amoros 14 pts, Logan Dunning Beck/Oscar Gunn 22 pts, Tim Fischer/Fabian Graf 23 pts *Women's 49er FX (5 races): Ida Marie Baad Nielsen/Marie Thusgaard Olsen 11 pts, Charlotte Dobson/Saskia Tidey 13 pts, Jena Hansen/Katja Slskov-Iversen 15 pts Men's RS:X (3 races): Louis Giard & Daniele Benedetti tied with 2 pts, Kiran Badloe & Dorian Van Rijsselberge tied with 3 pts Women's RS:X (3 races): Zofia Noceti-Klepacka 4 pts, Lucie Belbeoch, Saskia Sills & Lu Yunxia tied with 5 pts *Mixed Nacra 17 (3 races): Ruggero Tita/Caterina Marianna Banti 2 pts, Thomas Zajac/Barbara Matz 3 pts, Santiago Lange/Cecilia Carranza Saroli & Vittorio Bissaro/Maelle Frascari tied with 4 pts * = No races Today Not Olympic classes... *Men's Kiteboard (6 races): N. Parlier 5 pts, T. De Ramecourt 7 pts, O.Bridge 8 pts **Women's Kiteboard (4 races): D. Moroz 4 pts, E. Kalinina 6 pts, A. Fancelli & S. Bridge 12 pts ** = 2 of yesterday's races have been taken away from the rankings...I don't know why?

quite a good day for Italy...

Women's Double Trap Gold: Claudia De Luca Silver: Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova Bronze: Sofia Maglio Men's Double Trap Gold: Antonino Barillà Silver: Artem Nekrasov Bronze: Hubert Andrzej Olejnik Men's Team Double Trap Gold: Italy Silver: Russia Bronze: Austria Men's Junior Double Trap Gold: Jacopo Duprè De Foresta Silver: Eraldo Apolloni Bronze: Nicolò Liceti Mixed Team Double Trap Gold: Slovakia (Hubert Andrzej Olejnik & Zuzana Rehak Stefecekova) Silver: Italy 2 (Antonino Barillà & Claudia De Luca) Bronze: Italy 1 (Ignazio Maria Tronca & Sofia Maglio)

I know I'm going back in time, but I still have in my eyes the lights of Van Den Hoogenband and Thorpe...so, to me it's well possible to manage both distances at the same time (even if the trend right now is to consider the 100m a pure sprint race and the 200m something for the quickest middle distance swimmers)... now we can only wait and see if someone's going to take a serious chance to the 100-200m double...however, I don't think Miressi would eventually do it...he'll stay put over the pure sprinting, I'm pretty sure...

well, Paltrinieri yesterday had gastroenteritis (more than one guy has it in our team this week, Pirozzi is another one, for instance) and over 38° fever at the moment of the race...so, don't take yesterday's performance as really indicative...

no, no...I only like one kind of "mixed event"...and it's not properly a sports discipline, even if somebody refers to it as to a kind of "gymnastics"...

Miressi has already a 1.48.5 from 3 years ago (when he was just at the beginning of his junior period)... I do really think he has the potential to become the man to beat in this distance (his body is made for that...he's 2.02 tall, with long arms and his muscles has yet to be developed...probably, if he works on that, he has more chances to win the Olympic Gold in the 200m than in the 100m free...the main problem is that he seems to be a new Mgnini-kind of guy...he only wants to swim and excel in the 100m, which possibly would lead him to swim just a few relay fractions in the 4*200 in the furure, but without a specific training for that distance)... of course I hope that someone among our coaching staff will eventually push him to explore his full potential also outside "his home garden", but I'm not fully convinced it will happen...at least in a short while... I agree on Burdisso...he's probably the first Italian guy with a chance to excel in the senior 200m Fly...I don't know why? but we've always been so bad at this discipline in the senior ranks (among the juniors we've had some european and world medals in the past)...

I know...but as we say: "al cuor non si comanda..."

no, never...my urticaria has reached levels never recorded in the past... but still, when I see the Italian Flag on top, my heart also reaches improbable rates...and I'm ready to close my eyes on the "mixed" question...

no, I think they're not... the race through the forest is so spectacular... however I don't understand why this sport is not at the Olympics yet...they already have in their program that so beloved by the IOC mixed relay that should turn Bach and his friends on more than a full store of viagra pills...

they are...it would take a miracle for Italy to beat them when it really matters (unless we go shopping in the US and build a team beyond imagination for the other European contenders...but this is highly unlikely...actually, basically impossible, since our "new" policy in this sport is to play with Italian born girls only as much as possible)...

rischio...ma alla fine le nostre ragazze sono ancora vive... ora ci giochiamo tutto contro le Cinesi, direi...e che la fortuna ci assista...

some fresh news... William Karlsson, one of the revelation players from last season, avoid arbitration hearing and signs a 5.25 million US $, 1-year deal with Vegas... https://www.nhl.com/news/william-karlsson-signs-contract-with-vegas-golden-knights/c-299302978?tid=281072352 meanwhile, goalie John Gibson signs a 8-year contract extension (financial terms undisclosed) with the Anaheim Ducks... https://www.nhl.com/news/anaheim-signs-john-gibson-to-contract-extension/c-299674724?tid=281072352 on the gossip side, the troll duo of the Summer is once again on the covers... https://www.nhl.com/news/pk-subban-lindsey-vonn-enjoy-some-cliff-diving/c-299678622?tid=281396148 will someone able to stop them? I don't think so...

but this time our 2 "flagbearers" in shooting sport finally won the gold...

day #4 recap Men's Laser (6 races): Sam Meech 9 pts, Luke Elliott & Matthew Wearn tied with 13 pts Women's Laser Radial (6 races): Marie Rindom 13 pts, Line Flem Host 20 pts, Paige Riley 22 pts *Finn (6 races): Ed Wright 22 pts, Max Salminen 22 pts, Nicholas Heiner 22 pts *Men's 470 (6 races): Anton Dahlberg/Fredrik Bergstrom 15 pts, Keiju Okada/Jumpei Okazono 20 pts, Tetsuya Isozaki/Akira Takayanagi & Mathew Belcher/William Ryan tied with 21 pts *Women's 470 (6 races): Ai Kondo Yoshida/Miho Yoshioka 17 pts, Hannah Mills/Eilidh McIntyre 19 pts, Camille Lecointre/Aloise Retornaz 27 pts Men's 49er (5 races): Lucas Rual/Emile Amoros 9 pts, Logan Dunning Beck/Oscar Gunn 13 pts, Josh Porebski/Trent Rippey 14 pts Women's 49er FX (5 races): Ida Marie Baad Nielsen/Marie Thusgaard Olsen 11 pts, Charlotte Dobson/Saskia Tidey 13 pts, Jena Hansen/Katja Slskov-Iversen 15 pts Men's RS:X (2 races): Louis Giard & Daniele Benedetti tied with 2 pts, Kiran Badloe & Dorian Van Rijsselberge tied with 3 pts Women's RS:X (2 races): Saskia Sills 5 pts, Lilian De Geus 7 pts, Marta Maggetti & Maja Dziarnowska tied with 8 pts Mixed Nacra 17 (3 races): Ruggero Tita/Caterina Marianna Banti 2 pts, Thomas Zajac/Barbara Matz 3 pts, Santiago Lange/Cecilia Carranza Saroli & Vittorio Bissaro/Maelle Frascari tied with 4 pts * = No races today Not Olympic classes... Men's Kiteboard (6 races): N. Parlier 5 pts, T. De Ramecourt 7 pts, O.Bridge 8 pts Women's Kiteboard (6 races): D. Moroz 4 pts, S.Bridge 13 pts, A.M. Desjardins 14 pts

nice that we don't have the usual Asian sweep in a women's event...

wow! Armenia was really on fire in the FS events...only the mighty Russia did better than them... p.s. @MHSN what about the Georgian freestyler Urtashvili? he destroyed every opponent he faced this week...is it because they were not so good or is he really so impressive?

I've always known that...but still, there's a math formula to compare performances in the individual events and in the internal fractions of a relay... of course every day is different and "normal" athletes just can't clock the same exact time everytime they jump into the water... today the really important thing for Miressi and the whole Italian team was trying to understand how he could cope with the big pressure our media put on him...well, he responded better than the most optimistic preview and won with some margin the gold medal (and also set his new PB, which is always great in such kind of event...the fact that overall his leg in the previous days' relay was slightly better is just marginal, just a small detail to keep in mind for the future...but nothing so important for today)... by the way, the most beautiful surprises come at the end of the day...Burdisso and the men's 4*200 free relay did really make something nobody believed it was possible until a couple of hours ago... and Burdisso's young age and the fact that we were missing Detti (and in the next future also Miressi, who could become a really strong 200m free specialist...he already has a 1.43 in short course from almost a year ago) could be seen as really encouraging in perspective in both these events...