phelps

men's foil quarters are: Foconi vs Lefort Garozzo vs Heo Jun Kruse vs Davis Avola vs Llavador

their sabre girls saved the face, at least... they have 3 women among the 4 medallists... meanwhile in the men's foil they are all already out before the last 8 (where there are 3 Italians, 2 Britons and no Americans, by the way)

but tonight he didn't do anything wrong... we can't even blame him...we just deserved to lose. point.

it's obvious that this team has a lot of troubles under many points of view...they always take bad shooting decisions (giving up too many favourable chances because they're afraid to make a mistake), they lack shooting power (they should spend many more hours in the gym, imho), they're too slow in swimming skills for the small size they have if compared to most of their opponents (except for Palmieri, I guess, who is in any case too much overweight) and they're always so inconsistent (you can't go from 2 up to 2 down then again 2 up and finally lose missing the decisive penalty-shot with 5 seconds on the clock in just a period of play)... you just can't win with a team like that...

yes, nothing to say about them... they surely didn't have any influence on the final result... the only thing, if just we want to be precise, is that they had quite a different style of interpretation...Stavridis used to let the game flow a bit more, meanwhile his French collegue used to whistle a bit too much to my taste...but they were both right on all the main decisions...and that's enough...

well, I decided to go with my "traditional" 5 (Fencing, Judo, Wrestling, Swimming and Field Hockey), but it doesn't make justice to my real addiction to most of the Olympic sports (and not only them)... I also considered the idea to vote for Golf and Baseball, but actually the Olympics are the less interesting event for those sports, so I gave up the idea... more recently, I also appreciate Sport Climbing a lot among the newcomers at the Games, but once again, the Olympic event format is so stupid and senseless that I left that choice out, too... however, apart from what I call non-sports (Rhythmic Gymnastics, Trampoline, Artistic Swimming, Surfing and so on), I always say that I love all the sports in the world...just I prefer some of those to some others...

naaaa...I have a full medical exemption for a very long list of medicines and treatments... I bet on (I hope) Ledecky...

great win for Volpi (perfectly directed by Giovanna Trillini on the bench)... I have to admit that I didn't expect her to reach this level of fencing, after watching her for years in the junior ranks first and then in the early seasons of her senior career... I'm very happy I made such a mistake...she might not be the brightest talent in the world, but she's the perfect example that the Italian Foil school is the best in the world and can build a champion in any moment... no comment on the (expected) shameful outing of our male epee specialists...it's so sad watching a group of guys that just a couple of years ago was second only to France and now they just can't get beyod the second round of the direct elimination draw... now I think it's time to change everything in this class of our fencing, before it's too late and they get to watch Tokyo 2020 on TV...

and France makes it 2 finals out of 2 competitions, today...

and also the table draws for the women's epee and the men's sabre team events are out... Italy will have to face GER in the round of 16 and possibly CHN in the quarterfinals in the women's team epee, meanwhile we're gonna have a big clash against RUS in the quarters of the men's team sabre... so, I guess we won't see any of those 2 Italian teams among the medallists...

whaaaatttt? but why should we get such a national TV??????? just to let everybody know...they stopped live broadcasting from Fencing WC to air a senseless sports news show filled with "old" stuff (because yesterday's events are already old stuff)... well, at least today Eurosport is still live with fencing...

and Limardo's magic is back...Nikishin totally confused and out...

Men's Individual Epee Final Results: Gold: Yannick Borel (FRA) Silver: Ruben Limardo Gascon (VEN) Bronze: Bogdan Nikishin (UKR) & Roman Svichkar (UKR) Semifinals: Limardo Gascon b. Nikishin 7-4 Borel b. Svichkar 15-11 Gold Medal Match: Borel b. Limardo Gascon 15-4 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2018/242/results/rank

Women's Individual Foil Final Results: Gold: Alice Volpi (ITA) Silver: Ysaora Thibus (FRA) Bronze: Arianna Errigo (ITA) & Ines Boubakri (TUN) Semifinals: Thibus b. Errigo 15-2 Volpi b. Boubakri 15-7 Gold Medal Match: Volpi b. Thibus 15-12 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2018/243/results/rank

WTF is happening in women's foil??? I just can't believe what I've seen so far... at least Volpi is in the final (and Errigo didn't lose to any no name girl, even if the semifinal bout against Thibus was more than shocking...in a negative way, of course)...

European Championships 2018 men's semifinals Smedins/Samoilovs 2-0 Semenov/Leshukov Herrera/Gavira 0-2 Mol/Sorum men's Bronze Medal match Herrera/Gavira 2-1 Semenov/Leshukov men's Gold Medal match Smedins/Samoilovs 0 - 2 (17-21, 13-21) Mol/Sorum

davvero una bellissima giornata... e possiamo aggiungere anche Jakob Weger oro mondiale giovanile nella canoa slalom (K1 under-23) e Marta Bertoncelli argento (C1 junior)... nonchè gli Azzurrini under-19 del calcio che conquistano la semifinale dell'europeo di categoria e la conseguente qualificazione al mondiale under 20 del prossimo anno... peccato solo per il disastro agli europei di Beach Volley...con una medaglia lì avremmo centrato un pokerissimo "da paura"... p.s. precisiamo che Molinari il mese scorso ha vinto il suo primo titolo sul PGA Americano, perchè in quello Europeo aveva già vinto diversi tornei (oltre a 2 Ryder Cup, una Coppa del Mondo e a un torneo del WGC)...praticamente ora, eccezion fatta per le Olimpiadi, può dire di aver vinto almeno un torneo in tutte le categorie che contano (Majors, WGC, PGA USA, PGA Europeo, tornei "particolari" a squadre)... davvero un grandissimo atleta che non avrà mai abbastanza celebrazioni per ciò che ha dato e che dà allo sport Azzurro... p.p.s. e mo' li voglio proprio sentire tutti i troll anti-golf che popolano il nostro Paese e i webeti nostrani... p.p.p.s. oggi tra Navarria, Vallortigara, le ragazze dell'hockey prato e Molinari mi sto consumando gli occhi dalle lacrime (per Chicco ho persino rischiato le dita, immergendole nell'olio bollente mentre preparavo la cena...fortunatamente ormai le ho d'amianto come i cuochi professionisti e non ho avuto danni particolari )...

Rink Hockey Men's European Championships 2018 Gold Medal match Spain b. Portugal 6-3 (17th title for Spain) Bronze Medal match Italy b. France 5-2 5th Place match Switzerland b. Andorra 5-3 7th Place Match Germany b. England 12-6 9th Place Round Robin Final Standings 9th, Austria 10th, Netherlands 11th, Belgium

29th Haarlem Baseball Week Gold Medal Match JPN b. TPE 5-0 Final Standings Gold: Japan Silver: Chinese Taipei Bronze: The Kingdom of the Netherlands 4th, Cuba 5th, Italy 6th, Germany

at the same time, after a few troubles, now Hassan is improving race after race, after she established herself in the Salazar group in Oregon... sorry pal, I couldn't keep myself away from those usual plot theories...

she really deserves some success...among the youth and junior classes she was there with Trost and Kuchina/Lasistskene (well, just behind them), then she had so many injuries that would have led most people to retirement, but she refused to surrender to bad luck and now she's back where she was expected/supposed to be when she was just a young prospect... I really hope that now she can consolidate her perormance at this level and keep herself healty for enough time to take some satisfaction in this sport...

I think Mara was in a slightly better physical shape, which allowed her to be a little more reactive in the final stretch of the assault, being able to land some solo hits and force the double hits when she was in trouble, meanwhile Popescu couldn't do the same... technically I also saw Popescu made a couple of beginners' mistakes not covering very well her feet (Navarria had 2 hits down there) and her left shoulder when trying to land her hits (and in fact Navarria was almost always ready to force the double hit by targeting that area)... add these 2 aspects and you find the small difference between the 2 girls in today's match... that's my point of view...but I'm not a technician, so, if someone (somehow really qualified) has more (or different) issues to explain and discuss, he/she's more than welcome...

Chiccoooooooooooooooo!!!!! what an amazing afternoon...I just can't stop crying... this is one of the highest point of the Italian sport history and Molinari now is by right one of the best Italian athletes ever... this is a weekend we'll never forget...thanks, Chicco... when the wind comes, Carnoustie becomes Carnasty...and the Americans start having troubles (and the British players start shining)... and this time Molinari looked like a native Briton, remaining the only player in the field without a single bogey in the final 2 rounds, which led him to win The Open #147 with a 2-stroke margin over his immediate followers, Justin Rose, Rory McIlroy, Kevin Kisner and Xander Schauffele... Tiger Woods played very well in the first 10 holes (he was leading the field at that moment), but then he had a bad finish and ended up "only" in 6th place (tied with 2 other players), 3 strokes behind Molinari... here is the historical full final leaderboard: https://www.theopen.com/Leaderboard#!/traditional

you can find the link in the second post (sorry for not adding it earlier) of this thread... and a quick medal recap in the previous page (I normally post it once the semifinalists are know and then I update it once I've watched the finals)...

ops...sorry... probably it's me turning 44 in a few days that confused my mind...