phelps

so, at his first World Final, Alì Farag wins his first Gold Medal, meanwhile Nour El Sherbini wins her 3rd title in 5 Final appearances (4th in a row)... congrats to the new champions...

2019 PSA Squash World Championships (Chicago, USA) Men Gold Medal Match Alì Farag b. Tarek Momen 3-1 (11-5, 11-13, 13-11, 11-3; 79m)

2019 PSA Squash World Championships (Chicago, USA) Women Gold Medal Match Nour El Sherbini vs Nour El Tayeb 3-1 (11-6, 11-5, 10-12, 15-13; 57m)

nice clip right now on the BBC...Henrik Ingebritsen inteviewing Chris O'Hare...

you know, Italian students are known to skip Geography lessons at school... it's soooo boring...

Silver, Silver and Silver once again... definitely too much Silver added to our collection today...it's almost annoying...

because the Madison race is the history of track cycling, the race that decides all the action in the most traditional (and lucrative) events of this sport (the socalled "6 Days")... and it used to be the second most prestigious title of them all (just behind the king of the track, the individual sprint champion)... this before UCI almost destroyed the sport in the last 15/20 years or so... the main problem with the Madison race is that it's always been reserved only to the men, the women have never even tried to compete at this game before a couple of years ago, when the IOC forced the UCI to "invent" the women's Madison if only they wanted the men's race back at the Games... and UCI couldn't do otherwise...but the truth is that the girls are not ready at all to ride such kind of race (and I also think that the women's race is too long, they should cut at least 20 laps/5km and have only half the current number of intermediate sprints, trying to make the girls going for the lap gain instead of just gifting medals to those who can only win a bunch of intermediate sprints, which isn't the essence of this race)...

Men's Individual Foil (Cairo, EGY) Final Results Gold: Daniele Garozzo Silver: Erwann Le Pechoux Bronze: Alexander Massialas & Giorgio Avola Semifinals: Le Pechoux b. Massialas 15-10 Garozzo b. Avola 15-10 Gold Medal Match: Garozzo b. Le Pechoux 15-13  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2019/138/results/rank

Women's Individual Foil (Cairo, EGY) Final Results Gold: Inna Deriglazova Silver: Alice Volpi Bronze: Sumire Tsuji & Lee Kiefer Semifinals: Volpi b. Kiefer 15-13 Deriglazova b. Tsuji 15-10 Gold Medal Match: Deriglazova b. Volpi 15-7  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2019/129/results/rank

I hope he's not, but I wouldn't be surprised if they catch him... let's say that I don't trust some sports (and CC skiing is one of those) at 100%...

I bet on another police raid tomorrow (early, very early) morning...

Volpi, Errigo, Mancini and Batini all in the same "quarter" of the draw...I just can't believe it really happened...

Men's Junior Team Foil Final Results Gold: Russia Silver: Italy Bronze: France Semifinals: Italy b. France 45-39 Russia b. Poland 45-21 Bronze Medal Match: France b. Poland 45-36 Gold Medal Match: Russia b. Italy 45-36  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: https://www.fencingtimelive.com/events/results/EAF613BBED2843CAB76284A40B3C9C9A

Women's Junior Team Sabre Final Results Gold: Germany Silver: Italy Bronze: Hungary Semifinals: Italy b. Hungary 45-44 Germany b. Turkey 45-44 Bronze Medal Match: Hungary b. Turkey 45-37 Gold Medal Match: Germany b. Italy 45-40  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: https://www.fencingtimelive.com/tableaus/scores/E0ACDB81F874497AB65399797B8D4853/239539C64E6A41E4AE023B9EC1D92CEF

Women's Junior Team Epee Final Results Gold: Russia Silver: Italy Bronze: France Semifinals: Italy b. Romania 45-37 Russia b. France 45-38 Bronze Medal Match: France b. Romania 45-34 Gold Medal Match: Russia b. Italy 45-42  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: https://www.fencingtimelive.com/events/results/C38E035D4252472CBA7E5AA1942B22F4

so, Egypt will retain both of their titles, but we're going to have a new World Champion among the girls as among the men, since both Mohamed El Shorbagy and Raneem El Welily lost in the semifinals... and we also have the final medal table set before the finals, with Egypt destroying the field with 2 Gold, 2 Silver and 2 Bronze medals and France and Germany sharing the remaining 2 Bronze medals...

2019 PSA Squash World Championships (Chicago, USA) Men Semifinals Tarek Momen b. Mohamed El Shorbagy 3-2 (8-11, 11-6, 8-11, 11-4, 11-8; 97m) Alì Farag b. Simon Rösner 3-0 (11-2, 11-9, 11-4; 46m) Gold Medal match Tarek Momen vs Alì Farag

2019 PSA Squash World Championships (Chicago, USA) Women Semifinals Nour El Tayeb b. Raneem El Welily 3-2 (6-11, 11-6, 11-8, 7-11, 12-10; 64m) Nour El Sherbini b. Camille Serme 3-2 (11-8, 11-6, 6-11, 5-11, 11-6; 59m) Gold Medal match Nour El Tayeb vs Nour El Sherbini

no impressive results at the Città di Milano meet, day #1 yesterday... only major international competitors were Laszlo Cseh and Katinka Hosszu...the first one was totally out of shape (1.51.80 over 200m freestyle), Katinka just had a training-alike race over the 200m fly (but still she managed to win it in 2.09.09)... among the Italian swimmers, instead, the only decent results came from guess who? Federica Pellegrini (she won the women's 200m free in 1.57.19), Simona Quadarella (1st over the women's 1500m free in 16.06) and surprisingly also from Francesca Fangio, who swam a good (for the Italian standard) 2.25 over the women's 200m breaststroke... Paltrinieri and Detti, instead were stopped by flu-alike symptoms and didn't take part in any race...

thanks, but if it's like last week's sabre events...

and even if it looked close, the sad truth is that Paternoster didn't have anything left in the tank in the final 20 laps and Wild just had to score a couple of points in the forelast sprint to win another Gold Medal... we didn't even have a final sprint showdown between the 2 main contenders... by the way, congrats to Wild...

well, tbh tonight we have a great battle between Paternoster and Wild, but this is not normally the case, with the Dutch overlapping all of of her opponents in the previous couple of years... and in any case, I'm not a fan of this competition...I rather prefer standalone Points Race and Elimination Race (not to say that not having the individual pursuit at the Games is just insulting towards the history of track cycling)...

surprising loss by Di Veroli and Favaretto... good for Italy that at least the girls' gold medal went to another of our representatives, Serena Rossini...

Filippooooo!!! 3rd world title for him...and he's only 22 (not to mention he did ride 4.07 twice in 5 hours or so)... p.s. and what a point race! definitely one of the most exciting ever, full of action from start to finish with all the riders not trying to save energy at all... well done, boys! and congrats to Van Schip, who dominated the race by winning a lot of sprints and gaining good 3 laps (which rarely happens)... but all the show we just saw, it won't happen in Tokyo, thanks to the geniuses running UCI and IOC, who think that those 2 events don't deserve the Olympic stage (meanwhile we will see amazing events like team sprint and omnium)...

Women's Junior Individual Foil Final Results Gold: Serena Rossini Silver: Anna Udovichenko Bronze: Martina Favaretto & Adelina Bikbulatova Semifinals: Rossini b. Favaretto 12-11 Udovichenko b. Bikbulatova 10-4 Gold Medal Match: Rossini b. Udovichenko 15-11  Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: https://www.fencingtimelive.com/events/results/C8B889879782439A996F4C415242B182