phelps

of course she was joking... people could see all of her teeth while she was speaking with our national tv interviewer...

luckily it didn't happen... so, there's a good chance we see Pellegrini swimming the anchor leg in tonight's final (she said it's a global plot against her...everybody wants to force her to swim again that distance)...

whenever I hear/read the word "mixed" I get urticaria...

when you're not among the strongest teams entering an event, you always need some luck/good draw... they've been able to take advantage of the other teams' mistakes (England was supposed to dominate their group in the 1st stage and be where Ireland is now, but they didn't...so, we have this nice Irish tale)... however, I also think they won't be among the top 4 in Tokyo...actually, I think they won't even qualify for the Olympics (where I guess there will be only 4, max 5 European teams -NED, GER, GBR, BEL and maybe ESP- no ITA nor IRL, I fear)...

congrats to Ireland...great achievement for them... I think we can even name it a Cinderella story...

not generally speaking, but they have good tradition in 470 class, especially on the women's side... Ai Kondo is a longtime medal contender in this class and I had no doubt she would get even better now that she has the chance to sail the Olympic regatta at home (probably Tokyo 2020 will be her last outing in this class, too)... the male crew is more a surprise at this level, but not a Cinderella story like Ireland at the hockey world cup, just to make an example...

no, it's just lack of time... if someone wants to make up for that, it's more than welcome... otherwise, you have to wait until Monday or Tuesday, when I have more time and can update this thread with all the medallists (women and men's FS included)...

and finally we're playing with just one non-Italian born girl (which is amazing, based on how low is the total number of girls playing softball in our Country)... however, we were not counting on those 2 wins against CAN and AUS (even if now we can say that we just wasted 2 very big chances to get some unexpected glory)... our target is to beat CHN and VEN and make the top 4 in the preliminary group... now let's see if our girls can perform when it really matters...

boom!!! Danil Lysenko "Neutral Status" revoked for not showing up at out-of-competition tests... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/athletics/45060111 I can't believe that...they just can't stay out of troubles...

yes, they have a very close PB... still, I hope that Quadarella can improve by a good margin tomorrow (and then what comes out of that would be OK in any case)...

the high school results of each student are evaluated with a final score (votes is not the correct word in English, it's just the direct translation of "voto/voti", but I shouldn't have used that word)... and she got 100 out of 100... of course that score is based on the results of your previous career in that kind of school and of the scores of the various steps of the final examination (3 written tasks and the final oral coversation about all the disciplines you've studied in the last year)...

I mean she has had particularly good results also in her studies...2 months ago she had the maximum votes in her final examination at the end of her high school career... p.s. and Condorelli...I'm sure he'll get better than he was in Rio (and there, he got 4th in the 100m free)... Martinenghi, instead, has really big troubles with his injury...I hope he will not have his career compromised by that...

don't you think that Romanchuk has any chance in the longer distances?

well, I'm not blaming her for being happy (it's her 1st long course international medal, she's a 10-star student, she's a nice girl)... I'm blaming coaches and media here in Italy who totally forgot that she did better than today just 1 month ago (which is not a good thing, it's just another case when Italian athletes don't give their best in the most important race of the year)... so, it's a good result for her, but still somehow disappointing (and nobody seems to express this kind of feeling here)... p.s. she's also supposed to be our strongest woman after Pellegrini's era, so, it's quite normal to have high expectations about her...

2 silver medal for Italy today, but I can't be satisfied with that...Cusinato didn't improve from the Settecolli meet last month and therefore she missed out on gold, rather than winning silver (in Italy all the people are happy, but to me that's only losing mentality)... and the men's relay definitely underperformed for 3 legs out of 4...only the anchor leg by Miressi (46.99 for him) is a flesh of light in today's action... tomorrow Paltrinieri will start his campaign and in the afternoon we'll see if Quadarella is really ready to improve herself by a lot and become the no.2 in the world on the 800m free (I'm a big fan of her...and I hope that sooner or later she's gonna be the fastest woman in the world in the middle distance races behind the untouchable Ledecky...but I'm not sure she's already that good, probably not yet)...

not a good day for Italy in Aarhus...in the 470 class, Ferrari & Calabrò have gone down to the 13th place among the men, meanwhile the girls are lost in the rankings Coccoluto in the men's Laser has won a race, but then he has had only an 18th place in the second one... no comment on the performances in the other 2 classes racing today... as I feared before the start of this event, I guess that only Nacra and RS:X would eventually give us some satisfaction...

day #2 recap Men's Laser (2 races): Sam Meech 2 pts, Kaarle Tapper 4 pts, Nick Thompson 5 pts Women's Laser Radial (2 races): Vasileia Karachaliou 3 pts, Paige Riley 3 pts, Marit Bouwmeester 5 pts, Line Flem Host 5 pts Finn (4 races): Pieter-Jan Postma 7 pts, Tom Ramshaw 12 pts, Josip Olujic 12 pts Men's 470 (4 races): Kazuto Doi/Naoya Kimura 9 pts, Anton Dahlberg/Fredrik Bergstrom 9 pts, Jordi Xammar Hernandez/Nicolàs Rodrìguez Garcìa-Paz 11 pts Women's 470 (4 races): Ai Kondo Yoshida/Miho Yoshioka 10 pts, Hannah Mills/Eilidh McIntyre 11 pts, Camille Lecointre/Aloise Retornaz 12 pts

we all hope that...but it's gonna be really difficult, especially if our politicians can't fix the Montichiari Velodrome question (it's fresh news that our NOC would eventually pay 1.8 million euro to repair the coverage and run the activity in the next 2 seasons, but until the burocracy makes its course -and it could take months- it's only words, not facts)... our quartets, for instance, to prepare this championship trained in the last week 2 days in Fiorenzuola (near Piacenza), then they went 3 days in Pordenone (which is towards Triest and Udine) and finally 2 days in Milan at the old Vigorelli velodrome (and all those tracks are outdoor and 400m long...moreover, Fiorenzuola and Pordenone are made by concrete...at least Milan is a wooden track)... with this kind of training it's just a miracle what they did last night (which still is not even close to their best times)... but if all things are fixed, then there's a chance to get a couple of Olympic medals (especially in the women's event, since our girls are still very young and not so experienced...so, I guess they have more margin to improve than the boys, who are all veterans -even Ganna, despite his young age overall)... p.s. no idea about Viviani's teeth...

it looks her knee has gone once again... and basically all the girls got injured...I don't know what our coaches did to prepare this championship...

first results... Women's Junior Trap Gold: Erica Sessa Silver: Daria Semianova Bronze: Rebecca Aimee Fergusson Men's Junior Trap Gold: Murat Ilbilgi Silver: Clement Francis Andrè Borgue Bronze: Fabio Beccari (no, it's not a mistake)

interesting trade last night... Jeff Skinner goes to Buffalo for forward prospect Cliff Pu and 3 picks between the 2019 and 2020 drafts (Skinner can become an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season)... https://www.nhl.com/news/jeff-skinner-traded-to-sabres-by-hurricanes/c-299664646?tid=278542340

for sure they will (not all races, obviously...it's the same also at the Olympics, unfortunately...there's always only one TV course and many more not covered by live pictures)... Nacra are often really spectacular, but they need some wind, otherwise they just can't raise above the water and literally fly (which is their most spectacular feature)...

thanks... very good, then...I'm not against transfers (of course, Italy has always so many players with National heritage but grown up and trained abroad in so many sport) and I like global integration, but I'm even happier when a sport movement can develop its own players by itself...it's a signal that things work good in that Country (in that specific sector, obviously)...

4.19.330 for GBR, 4.21.928 for Italy...no way we can win Gold here... by the way, the semis will be ITA vs GER (4.25 in the heats for them) and GBR vs FRA (4.27 for them)... ITA and GBR way better than the rest of the field...

by the way, the leaders after today's races in each class are: Finn (1 race): Jorge Zarif (Yellow Fleet) & Josip Olujic (Blue Fleet), 1 pt Men's 470 (1 race): Panagiotis Mantis/Pavlos Kagialis (Blue Fleet) & Anton Dahlberg/Fredrik Bergstrom (Yellow Fleet), 1 pt Women's 470 (2 races): 1st, Camille Lecointre/Aloise Retornaz (8 pts), 2nd Ai Kondo-Yoshida/Miho Yoshioka (13 pts), 3rd Linda Fahrni/Maja Siegenthaler (14 pts)