phelps

I think that here in Europe, at least 98% of the fans would love to see Ovi lift the Cup... personally, I've always said that if "my" LA Kings can't win, my choice is and always will be Ovi's team (wherever he ends up playing)... meanwhile normally I don't care about Italian players if and when they don't wear our Blue Team jersey, even if this time we have the only Italian-born in the history of the NHL* playing for Las Vegas... *Luca Sbisa, in fact, despite playing normally for the Swiss National team, was born in Italy (in Ozieri, Sardinia, to be precise)...then his family went to work in SUI (in Zug), where he became a hockey player and at the age of 17 he did fly to North America to play his hockey, first in the WHL (Western Hockey League), then in the NHL (he played his first NHL games with the Philadelphia Flyers when he was only 18 years young)...

è in occasioni come queste che ringrazio la TV Svizzera di esistere (e il mio impianto sat "di notevole flessibilità")... p.s. comunque mi risulta che raisport inizierà la diretta già alle 19 con la trasmissione delle serie "minori" di alcune delle gare in programma e i primi concorsi... certo, poi rimane il buco tra le 20.25 e le 21 "e rotti", perchè la diretta di rai2 è impossibile stabilire con precisione a che ora partirà (e dubito che saranno puntuali alle 21.05, senza contare che la infarciranno di pubblicità)... a meno che su rai2 non vadano di differita integrale "time-shifted" da dove interromperanno su raisport (visto che tireranno fino alle 22.30 è anche questa una concreta possibilità, dato che la riunione finisce alle 22, salvo concorsi -asta, principalmente- che sforino)...

back to basics...and back to success... this time the Caps didn't allow Vegas to play their run and gun style of hockey, they got back to the hard checking in the neutral zone and kept them under control from start to finish... despite that, Vegas still managed to score first, to shoot 39 times on WSH net and with less than 2 minutes to go and only a Holtby's pure magic saved the Caps' win... Holtby, who redeemed himself from game #1 and he was definitely the hero of the Caps last night with 37 saves, some of those really amazing... always on the Caps side, last night we did watch the first Ovi goal in a Stanley Cup final... now the series is tied at 1 apiece and moves to the US Capital, where game #3 and #4 are scheduled (game #3 is set for Saturday night @ 8 p.m. ET, which means the night between Saturday and Sunday @ 2 a.m. for the fans in Central Europe)...

dovrebbe esserci anche lo streaming free sulla pagina Youtube della Federazione Italiana... domani lo scopriremo...

naaa...I don't like those showers without any individual cabin...and if a bar of soap slips through someone's hands and fall down, who's gonna try and catch it? I definitely don't... meanwhile I like the Jacuzzi...

Clamoroso colpo della FISI, che ingaggia come nuovo allenatore del tiro (a tutto tondo, quindi allenamento tecnico specifico, ma anche supporto psicologico/motivazionale) per tutte le nostre Nazionali del Biathlon (giovani inclusi) nientepopodimenochè l'immenso Niccolò Campriani... Se adesso tutti i nostri ragazzi non diventano dei cecchini infallibili, allora non so proprio cosa si possa fare di più con loro...

big, big news for Italian Biathlon... our National Federation hired a new shooting coach for our guys...and he's nothing less than Niccolò Campriani! I don't think I have to explain who he is, especially on this forum... he's going to be the man in charge of all shooting activities (specific training, but also for psychological/motivational support) for all of our teams (senior M + F and juniors, too)... if they don't improve their shooting skills with him, I don't really know what else can our federation do...

definitely not your classic (nor "average") Stanley Cup Finals start... actually, not even a "beautiful" nor "well played" game from both sides... but surely an exciting one, full of episodes of any kind (freaky thrashy opening before the real game got started, great goals, great saves, big mistakes, dirty hits...we got them all)... my absolute highlight of night...Micheal Buffer's classic "let's get ready to rrrrrrrrrumbleeeeeee"... what definitley turned me down last night...Lars Eller's open-net miss (I don't think McNabb's play was decisive enough to justify Eller's mistake) with less than 40 seconds to go, who killed any residual hope for the Caps... what I didn't like at all...the cleary illegal Vegas goal that tied the game at 4 at the beginning of the 3rd period and, above all, the really late (dirty) hit by Tom Wilson over Jonathan Marchessault, also in the final period of the match (fortunately, Marchessault could return to the ice a few minutes later)...

they're working exclusively on their home Worlds... I guess they will shine when it really matters...

so, also the last World Cup stage of this season for Rifle and Pistol is over... and once again it was China topping the medal table with 3 Gold medals... Ukraine won 3 Gold medals, too...but less Silver and Bronze than China, so they ended up in second place... finally, 4 more Countries (BLR, IRI, RUS, TPE) won at least 1 Gold medal, meanwhile the number of Nations with 1 or more medals (even without Gold) are in total 12... full medal table (and results recap) is here: https://www.issf-sports.org/competitions/venue.ashx?cshipid=2393

World Cup, Stage #4 (Munich, GER) 10m Air Pistol Mixed Team Event Gold: Ukraine-2 (Olena Kostevych & Oleh Omelchuk) Silver: Serbia-1 (Zorana Arunovic & Damir MIkec) Bronze: China-2 (Xiong Yaxuan & Pu Qifeng)

World Cup, Stage #4 (Munich, GER) 10m Air Rifle Mixed Team Event Gold: Russia-1 (Anastasiia Galashina & Sergey Kamenskiy) Silver: China-1 (Wu Mingyang & Song Buhan) Bronze: China-2 (Wang Luyao & Yu Haonan)

ops...my mistake, obviously... I'm gonna fix it immediately... p.s. however, it would be nice, considering our current scary situation...

First podium finish for one of our most promising youngsters, Federica Isola among the girls, meanwhile second shameful performance in a row for the boys (no one beyond the round of 32)... I'm really scared of what's happening to our men's Epee team, after they did so well in the recent past (Rio 2016 team Silver above all)... Next weekend (women's Sabre in Tunisia) will be the last World Cup weekend in the 2017/2018 season...not to be missed, especially the Individual Finals on Saturday night (21.30 local time, 22.30 CET) @ the wonderful Roman Theatre in Carthage...

Men's Individual Epee (Cali, COL) Final Results: Gold: Yannick Borel (FRA) Silver: Jung Byeung Chan (KOR) Bronze: Park Sang Young (KOR) & Daniel Jerent (FRA) Semifinals: Borel b. Park 15-14 Jung b. Jerent 15-11 Gold Medal Match: Borel b. Jung 15-10 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Yesterday's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2018/113/results/rank

Women's Individual Epee (Cali, COL) Final Results: Gold: Emese Szasz-Kovacs (HUN) Silver: Courtney Hurley (USA) Bronze: Federica Isola (ITA) & Auriane Mallo (FRA) Semifinals: Szasz-Kovacs b. Isola 15-10 Hurley b. Mallo 15-9 Gold Medal Match: Szasz-Kovacs b. Hurley 15-11 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Yesterday's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2018/95/results/rank

poor day #2 for Thiam in Götzis...she still won with big margin (almost 400 pts) over Anouk Vetter (NED), but "only" managed to score 6806 points at the end of the weekend (more than 200 less than her PB and even more from the declared target of Carolina Kluft's European record)...

World Cup, Stage #4 (Munich, GER) Men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol Gold: Lin Junmin Silver: Oliver Geis Bronze: Jorge Alvarez No second medal in the home world cup stage for Christian Reitz...he entered the final with the second qualification score (behind the Chinese LIn, eventual winner), but in the last act he had an awful 4th series and only managed to end up in 6th (last) place...

I just watched the Euro Hockey League final... and I must say that I really DO NOT LIKE this stupid new scoring system with the field goals giving 2 points and the goals coming off penalty corners giving just 1 point... c'mon, man! this is not basketball with free throws, 2-pointers and 3-pointers...this is Hockey...and a goal is a goal...STOP! p.s. however, HC Bloemendaal (NED) won the European Club title once again (today, they won 8-2 [4-1, with the "old", traditional scoring system] against HC Kampong, also from NED)...

they should keep the 1000m as the only "Olympic distance" (like 2000m is the olympic distance in Rowing) and have 12 Olympic races (K1, K2, K4, C1, C2, C4 for both men and women) over that length... but I'm not the IOC...

Chiccooooooo!!!!! Finally, Francesco Molinari wins a big tournament (the European PGA @ Wentworth) after a very long time, thanks to a bogey-free 3rd and final round (1st player to do it since Colin Montgomery in 1999)... but McIlroy got very close to turn things around at the last hole, when he missed an eagle shot which could have put enormous pressure on Molinari before his last par shot by just a couple of inches... Molinari is only the 3rd Italian player to win this historical European tournament after Costantino Rocca (1996) and Matteo Manassero (2013)...

well, in the women's lightest weights it's not the first time we have some very young talents (Ryoko Tamura came up when she was only 16, just to name one of the most famous of all times)...meanwhile in the heaviest categories normally people need more time to complete their physical growth and also to earn a bit more experience to succeed (that's why Akira Sone has more "good press" and she's seen more as a "phenomenon" than her lighter collegues with the same age)... on the other hand, I don't see Bilodid last that long in her current weight class...as a Caucasian woman, he's gonna grow up that much to force her to jump to a superior weight class (which would put her in the same category of Abe)... and I don't see those girls dominate for an age...maybe a couple of Olympic cycles, but not more than that... different situation, instead, is Akira Sone's...she's really a candidate to become eponymous of this age in the hevyweights (even if there's always a chance that a new younger star would eventually come up in the next few years and put her reign at risk)... however, at the moment I don't see anybody stopping her to win Tokyo's Gold medal...then...who knows?

World Cup, Stage #4 (Munich, GER) Women's 10m Air Pistol Gold: Olena Kostevych Silver: Wang Qian Bronze: Kim Min Jung and finally, Olena got her revenge over the Chinese shooters, who beat her in the 25m pistol 2 days ago... only 6th place for Anna Korakaki who entered the final with the best score by far in the qualification round...

3rd and last day @ the Chinese Grand Prix, as usual dedicated to the heaviest classes... and Japan renewed their lead in the medal table with 2 more Gold medals (both among the women, Ruika Sato in the -78kg and teenage wonder Akira Sone in the +78kg)... on the men's side, instead, it was mainly a Korean day, with 2 fully successful campaigns (Gwak Dong Han, -90kg and Cho Gu Ham, -100kg)... finally, the last of the men's event, the +100kg class, went to Mongolia (Tuvshinbayar Naidan, Olympic Gold medallist in the -100kg class in 2008 and Silver medallist in the same weight in 2012)... so, in this weekend Japan showed their supremacy once again with 7 Gold medals, then South Korea following with 3 and Canada, Kazakhstan, Mongolia and the Netherlands all ending up with "just" 1 Gold medal each...

World Cup, Stage #4 (Munich, GER) Women's 50m 3-Position Rifle Gold: Elaheh Ahmadi Silver: Chen Dongqi Bronze: Zhang Binbin great success for the Iranian woman, who entered the final as the last qualified shooter, but then changed gear and won the gold medal with some margin... meanwhile, disaster for Petra Zublasing (34th place, not even the best Italian), who's not having the early part of the season everybody would expect from her...