phelps

World Cup, Stage #4 (Munich, GER) Men's 10m Air Rifle Gold: Illia Charheika Silver: Vladimir Maslennikov Bronze: Lu Shao-Chuan

Day #2 @ the Chinese Grand Prix and Japan still on top of the medal table thanks to 2 more gold medals (Takeshi Sasaki, men's -81kg and Aimi Nouchi, women's -63kg)... the other gold medals from today's action went to South Korea (An Changrim, men's -73kg) and the Netherlands (Sanne Van Dijke, women's -70kg)... tomorrow the last 5 weight classes will be on stage...

yeah...it means that he's really a talented guy, not just a "machine"...

EPO = minor doping offence? really? p.s. that's the most they can be sanctioned with for this kind of infraction (based on the MLB Players Association CBA)... CBA = Collective Bargaining Agreement

just another Black Friday for Sport in general (and Cycling in particular)... and I'm not talking of Amazon-alike Black Fridays...but the Stock Exchange-alike ones...

I know that... however, she officially represents Canada...so, it's 3 gold for JPN and 1 for KAZ and CAN (and not 4 for JPN)...

World Cup, Stage #4 (Munich, GER) Men's 10m Air Pistol Gold: Oleh Omelchuk Silver: Christian Reitz Bronze: Pu Qifeng Women's 25m Pistol Gold: Xiong Yaxuan Silver: Yao Yushi Bronze: Olena Kostevych

Japan took 3 gold medals in day #1 of the Chinese Grand Prix, thanks to Ami Kondo (women's -48kg), Uta Abe (women's -52kg) and Joshiro Maruyama (men's -66kg)... the remaining titles from today's action went to Kazakhstan (Yeldos Smetov, men's -60kg) and Canada (Christa Deguchi, women's -57kg)... very disappointing performance by the few Italian judo players starting today (I'm especially upset about poor Elios Manzi's comeback after a long pause due to a bad knee injury)...

finally, a medal for Italy in a rifle/pistol discipline (after a fierce battle between De Nicolo and Stefanovic, SRB, who tried a late comeback but got just short in the final standing shots)... however, Yang and Kamenskiy were just a class apart... in general, not such an exciting final, except for the bronze medal race...

World Cup, Stage #4 (Munich, GER) Men's 50m 3-Position Rifle Gold: Yang Haoran Silver: Sergey Kamenskiy Bronze: Marco De Nicolo

470 Open European Championships 2018 (Bourgas, BUL) Men's 470 Gold: Anton Dahlberg & Fredrik Bergstroem (SWE), 39 Pts Silver: Panagiotis Mantis & Pavlos Kagialis (GRE), 72 Pts Bronze: Malte Winckel & Matti Cipra (GER), 91 Pts Regatta Overall Ranking 1st, Anton Dahlberg & Fredrik Bergstroem (SWE), 39 Pts 2nd, Stuart McNay & David Hughes (USA), 71 Pts 3rd, Panagiotis Mantis & Pavlos Kagialis (GRE), 72 Pts Women's 470 Gold: Tina Mrak & Veronika Macarol (SLO), 58 Pts Silver: Frederike Loewe & Anna Markfort (GER), 78 Pts Bronze: Nadine Boehm & Ann-Christin Goliass (GER), 82 Pts Regatta Overall Ranking 1st, Tina Mrak & Veronika Macarol (SLO), 58 Pts 2nd, Frederike Loewe & Anna Markfort (GER), 78 Pts 3rd, Nadine Boehm & Ann-Christin Goliass (GER), 82 Pts Full News and Results here: http://2018europeans.470.org/en/default/races/race

I'm so, so happy that the Caps won the Eastern Conference... and now, in the LA Kings' absence, I hope they can also make the last step and give Ovi the chance to win at least 1 Stanley Cup...go Caps! game #1 is scheduled for next Monday, May 28th @ 8 p.m. ET (2 a.m. CET in the night between Monday 28th and Tuesday 29th)... full Stanley Cup Finals schedule here: https://www.nhl.com/stanley-cup-playoffs

World Cup, Stage #4 (Munich, GER) Women's 10m Air Rifle Gold: Lin Ying-Shin Silver: Wu Mingyang Bronze: Rikke Maeng Ibsen to be noticed...the Italian girls who officially competed this morning have been an absolute disaster (as usual...and as expected), meanwhile our best shooter, the reigning World Champion in this discipline, Petra Zublasing, started only in the MQS Extra Series and had a score which would have allowed her to dominate the qualification round of the actual world cup event (2 points better than the Korean Jung, who won the early round, but finally ended up only in 7th place)... I just can't understand our coaches' choice...

baseball is already a big thing (actually, the National sport) in Japan (and also in Korea and Chinese Taipei)... and also for them, their own leagues and the North-American MLB are the most important thing, sometimes the only that really matters... and in the other Central-American Countries (where Baseball is the main sport) we have the same situation: the MLB has basically all the attention of the media... even here in Italy, we have quite a good number of games (drawing a reasonable attention) on our main pay-tv (Sky Italia) of the MLB, but no network following carefully our National league nor the National team games (normally we only have the final series of our league or the European Champs final, if we make it, on our tv networks)... so, in the end, I don't see any chance for Baseball to change things in the future...especially because the main protagonists themselves are not interested in doing it...

secondo me invece sui 200 c'è ampio margine (tra centisti stanchi e/o mezzi infortunati dopo la gara principale e assenze varie -che ci sono sempre) anche a livello Olimpico (ovviamente a patto di arrivare almeno sui tempi di Mennea anche su quella distanza)... sui 400m invece non c'è speranza...per andare a medaglia alle Olimpiadi, con gente come Van Niekerk, Gardiner e magari qualche nuovo fenomeno Giamaicano e/o Americano che sicuramente arriverà da qui al 2020, bisogna correre 3 volte in 44 netti, 43 e mezzo e 43 basso in 4 giorni... escludo che un "bianco" possa farlo senza doparsi e/o senza rischiare di infortunarsi dopo la prima stagione in cui ci prova... su Tamberi...beh, per me la questione è personale e va persino oltre la ragionevolezza...proprio non lo sopporto...mi disgusta come "omuncolo" prima ancora che non piacermi come atleta... quindi prendete con le molle ogni mio giudizio su di lui (fermo restando che per ora di medaglie mondiali outdoor e/o Olimpiche non ne ha effettivamente vinta alcuna)...

some interesting results earlier today in Italy... this afternoon, in Savona Filippo Tortu (19 years young) ran the 100m dash in 10.03 and Marcell Jacobs followed him in 10.07 (wind +0.7)... in the semifinals, Jacobs ran 10.04 (but with wind beyond limits @ +3.0), meanwhile Tortu had a "regular" 10.09 (wind +1.2)... those times are not extremely impressive at global level, but for sure they are very good at "our" continental level (and this year the main event are "only" the European Champs)...

i tempi di queste riunioni minori con cronometri e anemometri betabloccati (quando non anche piste più corte) non fanno testo (vedi i vari Collio, Boccarini etc.)... e non è neanche settimana prossima che deve correre forte (anche se farlo in un meeting di DL saebbe già un buon segnale)... fino a quando non porterà a casa medaglie mondiali (quelli "veri", all'aperto, non la buffonata indoor) e Olimpiche, rimarrà sempre una "speranza" (e se da ora in poi arriveranno un paio di fallimenti nei "grandi eventi", pure una speranza mal riposta...come un certo pagliaccio ben noto dell'atletica Azzurra attuale, che gli infortuni hanno solo salvato da figuracce epiche )... p.s. e, prima di esaltarci troppo, ricordiamoci che un tempo sopra i 10 secondi a livello internazionale non vale quasi nulla...le medaglie stanno a 9.80 (e anche meno)...

meanwhile in the Eastern Conference we're gonna have a wonderful game #7 and I really hope that Ovi can do it, this time...it's a real shame if he can't get at least a Stanley Cup in his amazing career...he definitely is the player that has given to me the most excitement in the last 10 years...

è uno scandalo...annunciato, per di più... e questo fa ancora più male... vorrei prendere tutti i responsabili di questo scempio a mazzate con tanto di mazza ferrata medievale...

they could switch CAN and RUS and everybody would be happy, I guess... p.s. for Italy these groups (RUS or CAN doesn't make any difference) are better than expected...having AUT and NOR in our group, gives us a more than slim chance to avoid relegation...honestly, those 2 teams are the only ones we can play with thinking that we can get a positive result against them... p.p.s. I remember going to the Worlds here in Milan in 1994...it was an amazing and unforgettable experience...so, enjoy this opportunity as much as you can...

after our little religious divagation, back to Hockey (my real Religion)... and I must admit that, as an Italian living quite close to the Border and long time follower of their hockey, I'm so envious of this Swiss campaign...and at the same time I must also say that my heart got broken when SWE won last night... despite being against any reasonable thought, I really hoped that the Swiss guys could do the miracle (in particular, when they went to the shootout, I started to believe that Genoni had a great chance to outclass Nilsson)... hopefully, it won't take another 5 years to see Switzerland entering another World final...hopp Schwiiiitz!!!

no, they're not Corpus Christi (or Corpus Domini) is a liturgical celebration only scheduled in Italy, the Catholic Swiss Cantons, Brazil, Spain, Croatia, Poland, Germany, Ireland, Austria and San Marino it's related with Christ's Last Dinner and rememeber the presence of Christ in the Eucharist... it's scheduled for the first Thursday after the Pentecost (or, in the Countries where it's just a religious celebration but not a civil Holiday -like here in Italy, it's set on the second Sunday after the Pentecost)... meanwhile Pentecost is the Holy Spirit descent on the Faithfuls and it's celebrated 50 days after Easter... for most Catholic Countries, Italy included (except for South Tyrol, where they follow the German Countries and still have the Holiday Monday), the Holiday has only a religious matter and it's celebrated only on the given Sunday, meanwhile the Monday's rest has been abolished more than 100 years ago by Pope Pius X... the only Nations having this privilege (Monday's rest, I mean) are Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, France, Belgium, Luxembourg (and the Italian region of South Tyrol, as written before)...

Swimming Marathon World Cup stage #2 (Seychelles) Italy took their revenge on the first stage winners... and our female team is finding always new faces year after year... here are the Full Results: Women http://www.fina.org/competition-detailed-results/151752/34653 Men http://www.fina.org/competition-detailed-results/150654/34653

probably that's the sad truth...

Hungary, New Zealand and Spain on top of the medal table of the Szeged (HUN) World Cup Stage... all Races and Results* here: http://szegedcanoe2018.com/results Medal Table* here: http://szegedcanoe2018.com/medals-table *Para-Canoe included