phelps

today's results so far... Men's -73kg Semifinals: Ferdinand Karapetian (ARM) vs Tommy Macias (SWE) Vadzim Shoka (BLR) vs Hidayat Heydarov (AZE) p.s. in this class, the Italian Olympic Champion (@ 66kg), Fabio Basile, shamefully lost to unknown Bilal Ciloglu (TUR) in round #2... Men's -81kg Semifinals: Antonio Esposito (ITA) vs Sami Chouchi (BEL) Aslan Lappinagov (RUS) vs Sagi Muki (ISR) Women's -63kg Semifinals: Clarisse Agbegnenou (FRA) vs Martyna Trjdos (GER) Tina Trstenjak (SLO) vs Alice Schlesinger (GBR) Women's -70kg Semifinals: Gemma Howell (GBR) vs Kim Polling (NED) Barbara Matic (CRO) vs Sally Conway (GBR)

last pistol/rifle competition of this world cup stage... Chinese Wang Zeru wins the women's 50m 3-position rifle ahead of Austria's Franziska Peer and Slovenia's Ziva Dvorsak. Therefore China put some distance between them and Russia in the medal table, with no major changes in the lower rankings... Italy's Petra Zublasing still totally out of shape...

it's a terrible rule only because of the distance discrimination... but it's good in terms that it finally states that those people have an advantage over biologically "normal" women... by the way, even as bad as it is, it applies to all known cases like Semenya's (Nyonsaba and Wambui among the most famous...also Pamela Jelimo if we think about the recent past...but potentially also to the Kenian girls who dominated last year's women's 800m at the junior Worlds in Nairobi)... there are many cases ready to jump to most people's attention...and IAAF had to do something before getting into a lot more troubles than just the current women's 800m situation... hopefully, CAS would only lift the distance discrimination from this rule and not stop it entirely (which would be worse than leaving it as it stands right now)...

and today it's time to... also in Germany and Finland... In the Finnish Liiga, infact, Kärpät Oulu just won another title thanks to a goal scored with only 4:28 minutes still to be played in regulation of the 6th game of the series. 1-0 the score of today's match in Tampere and 4-2 the final score of the final series for Kärpät. On the other side, in the German DEL a sprint start (4-1 after the 1st period, 6-3 the final score) in the decisive game #7 secured Red Bull Munich the second success in a row. Nothing could do all the efforts of the Eisbären Berlin to try and comeback also in today's match. And tomorrow (20.15 CET) in Lugano there will be another decisive game #7, this time in the Swiss NLA, which is (unusually for them) the last of the main European leagues to come to a close this year... I just can't wait for my personal 5th game #7 in just over 3 days...

OK, thanks... I don't follow that much the YOG situation, so I didn't know exactly how the distribution of places is organized...

it should be, but I also read that Italy only had La Piana qualified fro this tournament and not both our god medallists... so, probably it's only 1 per NOC (we already another qualified girl from previous events), even in case of gold...

and it's over! the young Czechs have done it! CAN are out!

game over (USA-RUS 5-1) in Chelyabinsk... 18 seconds to complete the miracle for the Czech guys (timeout, right now)...

and let's make it 5-1 for the USA with 7 secs on the clock... meanwhile CAN couldn't take advantage of their power play and now they have the goalie on the bench with just over a minute to go...

4-1 with an empty netter for the US boys...game over for the hosts...

now's coming some troubles, though...power play for CAN with 4 mins still on the clock... p.s. USA almost through...3-1 lead over RUS and just a minute to play...

and Kosovo takes the last class of the day, the women's -57kg, thanks to Nora Gjakova, who defeated the German Theresa Stoll... Bronze medals in this category go to Monteiro (POR) and Konkina (RUS)... tomorrow's program will be about the women's -63kg and -70kg and the men's -73kg and -81kg...

I don't think Italy will send their top guys at the mediterranean games (and in any case in this class we have some depth, so Medves, whose result from today is a true surprise, couldn't even make the team next time round)...

and the first non-Russian Gold medal goes to Slovenia, thanks to Adrian Gomboc, who won the men's -66kg final against Matteo Medves of Italy... the 2 Bronze medals go to Shershan (BLR) and local man Tal Flicker (ISR)... good result for Italy in this class and in general, especially considered the fact that last year we got a supreme total of 0 medals overall...

and it's 3 out of 3 for the Russians... Kuziutina just launched Krasniqi at the beginning of the Golden Score time and won the Gold medal in the women's -52kg... Bronzes go to Tscopp (SUI) and the 18-year young local hero Gefen Primo (ISR)... luckily, there are no more Russians in the Gold medal finals...

yeah, I saw during the Extraliga final they've taken the bad attitude of the Italian networks to put announcements on the screen...they already have the countdown to the Worlds since a few days... and since I can watch Czech, Slovak, German, Austrian and Swiss TV, I guess I won't miss any match I want not to miss... p.s. about the online streaming, here in Italy we don't have almost any tv coverage (probably only the semis and the final, but it's not official yet), but at least we have all the 64 games working on the IIHF Youtube channels...so, I'm OK also with that... p.p.s. earlier today I watched Zdeno Chara's Boston Bruins in the amazing game #7 of the NHL playoffs round #1 against Toronto...one of the best matches of the playoffs so far...

second Gold medal for Russia... Isam Yashuev wins the men's -60kg final against Gerchev of Bulgaria in the Golden Score time (with a wonderful uchi-mata technique, though)... Bronze medals go to McKenzie (GBR) and Mudranov (RUS)...

Finland (5-2 over Belarus) and Sweden (6-1 over Slovakia...sorry, @hckosice ) are first 2 teams qualified for the semifinals... meanwhile Switzerland won 5-2 against France in game #1 of the relegation playoff... in the other semis, after 1st period, USA are leading 1-0 over Russia and the Czechs are leading with the same score over the Canadians...but there's still a lot of hockey to be played in these 2 games...

first Gold goes to Russia, with Dolgova, who beat Csernoviczki in the women's -48kg final... the other deciders are Gerchev vs Yashuev (men's -60kg), Medves vs Gomboc (men's -66kg), Kuziutina vs Krasniqi (women's -52kg) and Gjakova vs Stoll (women's -57kg)... Kosovo on fire, with 2 girls on the "big" finals (however, Russia still on top of the rankings, with 3 finalists...and 1 already won it)...

oh, man! he got so close... I'm talking of Marco De Nicolo, the Italian veteran rifle specialist, who was second in the Men's 3-Position Rifle this morning. The winner was Sergey Kamenskiy (RUS). Meanwhile the other competition from today (the Pistol Mixed Team event) was won by the Chinese pair of Ji Xiaojing and Wu Jaiyu. Therefore Russia and China are always on top of the medal table, now with 3 Gold medals apiece. No changes in the lower ranks.

as promised, let's write a couple of words about the Swiss NLA Finals, game #6... first of all, we have to say that it was a really exciting game...very tight...and we have to say also that we're going to have a wonderful (in perspective, at least) game #7, since yesterday Lugano won it on the road by a score of 3-2 and tied the series, which means that any decision is posponed to tomorrow night in Lugano (puck drop @ 20.15 CET). Last night's game did see Lugano taking the lead once...and twice...but Zurich always came back... finally, with a bit more than 3 minutes to play, a relentless action by Lugano's checking line put Maxime Lapierre (who was double shifting through most of the game) in condition to strike the game winner with a diabolic deflection in front of Flueler's cage... the last 3 minutes were a pure demonstration of pride and bravery by Lugano players (those stil able to play, since the team is heavily plagued by injuries), who were able to stop Zurich's desperate final assault with empty net... to be mentioned, because it could have a lot of reflections on game #7, the horrendous and infamous check to the head and neck area suffered by HCL top scorer of the playoffs and absolute locker room leader, Maxime Lapierre, by the Swedish star and top goal scorer of the Zurich Lions, Fredrik Pettersson... should Lapierre miss the decisive game of the season and the Swedish guy still be allowed to play, it would be one of the major scandals in the Swiss hockey history... I really hope that Mad Max can play tomorrow and Pettersson gets disqualified, because hockey is a rude sport, but those coward attempts to deliberately get the best player of the opposing team injured can't be accepted at any level, anywhere and at any time...

results so far... Men's -60kg Semifinals: Yanislav Gerchev (BUL) vs Artem Lesyuk (UKR) Amiran Papinashvili (GEO) vs Islam Yashuev (RUS) Men's -66kg Semifinals: Matteo Medves (ITA) vs Marko Gusic (MNE) Adrian Gomboc (SLO) vs Orkhan Safarov (AZE) Women's -48kg Semifinals: Irina Dolgova (RUS) vs Melanie Clement (FRA) Milica Nikolic (SRB) vs Eva Csernoviczki (HUN) Women's -52kg Semifinals: Natalia Kuziutina (RUS) vs Evelyne Tschopp (SUI) Irem Korkmaz (TUR) vs Distria Krasniqi (KOS) Women's -57kg: Sarah Leonie Cysique (FRA) vs Theresa Stoll (GER) Anastasiia Konkina (RUS) vs Nora Gjakova (KOS)

started this morning... Live Scoring: http://www.ippon.org/eju_sen2018.php Live Streaming:

Judo EJU European Championships 2018 Tel Aviv (ISR) - 26 April 2018 - 28 April 2018 Official Website

and only a disapponting 5th place for Italy... by the way, success also for Viktoria Chaika (BLR, women's Air Pistol) and for local hero Kim Junhong (KOR, Men's 25m Rapid Fire Pistol), in this case also with a stunning finals world record, in the remaining competitions from today... China and Russia still the only 2 Countries with more than 1 Gold medal...meanwhile now there are 6 Nations with just 1 Gold and 20 with at least a medal (those with no gold included)...