phelps

actually Poliak was up by waza-ari...but then he tried an attack from an unbalanced position and the other guy could counter Poliak's move and find an unexpected victory... I saw that match this morning...and after Loforte's ippon, Poliak was really shocked...he didn't really expect that counter move...but it was all his fault, he should have never tried to attack from that position...he should have gone down in defensive position and force the ref to call "matè"...

I don't know which schedule you've seen, but here we've always known that the individual events were from Sept. 20th through Sept. 26th and the team events will be held on Sept. 27th (maybe you miread the "7" of 27 with a "1")...

women's -52kg Gold: Uta Abe Silver: Ai Shishime Bronze: Erika Miranda & Amandine Bouchard men's -66kg Gold: Hifumi Abe Silver: Yerlan Serikzhanov Bronze: An Baul & Georgii Zantaraia

actually they have 3 mats for the preliminaries and then they use just 1 for the finals, exactly as they do at the Olympics (and as they should do in every competition)... it's done to allow the fans to watch all the most important fights (semifinals and finals) without losing anything that really matters... but you only want to watch Algerians...you're not interested in sports...

yes, but I know for sure that the autograph was thrown away when we did some heavy renovation works (basically now we only have the same walls as 20 years ago)...

I've never been collecting autographs... but I used to have 1 of which I was very proud...the legend himself, the mastermind and coach of the greatest Hockey machine ever seen on the ice, the real Red Army and the Soviet Union of the late Seventies/early Eighties: the Soviet Army Colonel Viktor Tikhonov it was taken at the 1994 World Championships in Milan (during an interval of the SWE vs ITA quarterfinal match), but unfortunately it's gone lost in the mess of my house and I don't have it anymore...

and right now...the Opening Ceremony with Al Bano (Al Bano!!!!! ) as the main star... for all the masochists in the world...

quick recap, part #2... men's -66kg semifinals Tal Flicker vs Yerlan Serikzhanov Hifumi Abe vs An Baul repechage Kherlen Ganbold vs Daniel Cargnin (winner to the Bronze Medal match vs loser of Abe / An) Mikhail Puliaev vs Georgii Zantaraia (winner to the Bronze Medal match vs loser of Flicker / Serikzhanov)

and it's Kherlen Ganbold scoring the winning waza-ari with just 2 seconds still to go in regulation... therefore, in the men's -66kg the pool B final is vs

meanwhile the pool B final will be between Yerlan Serikzhanov and the winner of the match Kherlen Ganbold vs Nathan Burns...

men's -66kg pool A final will be between Tal Flicker and Daniel Cargnin...

quick recap, part #1... women's -52kg semifinals Amandine Bouchard vs Uta Abe Ai Shishime vs Erika Miranda repechage Gefen Primo vs Jessica Pereira (winner to the Bronze Medal match vs loser of Shishime / Miranda) Natalia Kuziutina vs Charline Van Snick (winner to the Bronze Medal match vs loser of Bouchard / Abe)

Hifumi Abe is a monster...he's just unstoppable...he just eat Zantaraia alive in about 50 seconds in the final of the pool C of the men's -66kg... therefore, in the bottom half of the draw we're going to have Abe vs An in the semifinal match...that's gonna be great (an early final, I guess)...

Erika Miranda will be the opponent of Ai Shishime in the semifinal match of the bottom half of the draw in the women's -52kg, since she beat Charlene Van Snick quite easily...

and Ai Shishime is also through to the semifinals...all Japanese final is coming, I fear... meanwhile An Baul just destroyed Puliaev in the pool D final in the men's -66kg class...

Uta Abe wins the pool B in the women's -52kg and now she's going to face Bouchard in the semifinal of the top half of the draw...

men's -66kg pool finals C: Abe vs Zantaraia, D: Puliaev vs An Baul (A & B pool finalists have not been determined yet)...

and Amandine Bouchard is the first girl who made it through to the semifinals, by beating Gefen Primo...

women's -52kg pool finals... A: Bouchard vs Primo, B: Abe vs Pereira, C: Kuziutina vs Shishime, D: Miranda vs Van Snick

and just another day of shame for the Italian squad... in the men's -66kg, Medves somehow managed to win a pair of matches (but struggling a lot more than he was supposed to do against very modest opponents), but then he was humiliated by Abe (it was like watching a real man against a 12-year old kid), who literally threw him left, right and over as he wanted, until he scored the decisive ippon... meanwhile Giuffrida (the luckiest Olympic Silver medal ever) had basically already won against Primo (ISR) in her first match, but she lost focus for a while and the Israeli girl scored a flashy ippon with very few seconds to go (actually it looked that giuffrida didn't even understand what happened in the final action)... shame...shame...shame on that team...and fire Murakami!!!!!

imho, Zheng was really robbed by Lee in their semifinal match...the Korean scored at least 10 points by punches that landed evrywhere but in the places they're supposed to be to score points... and also the ref (the same blonde woman from SLO that tried to make Jade Jones lose by accumulating 10 warnings in Rome) was always penalizing the Chinese girl for shin stops when it was the Korean grabbing her opponent... those matches just drive me crazy...I just can't stand that kind of biased refereeing (and judging)... p.s. and I also can't stand matches like the Tortosa vs Artamonov or Yaman vs Asemani, where literally nothing happened for 3 rounds...sometimes TKD can be soooo boring...

that's great...more than great, enormous... but still, our main target was to make the top 6 with the team...and of course we failed big time (even if we have to say that we've been very unlucky with the injuries...first Zorzi in the week before the world champs, then Gaudiano yesterday)...

and as usual Italy wasted a 7-5 lead (giving up 2 solo homers) in the 9th inning and an 8-7 advantage in the top of the 10th and finally lost once again against their arch-rival from the Netherlands...

Day #4 (Women's Wrestling) Finals -53kg Gold: vs Bronze: vs / / & vs / -57kg Gold: vs Bronze: vs / & vs / -62kg Gold: vs Bronze: vs / & vs / -65kg Gold: vs Bronze: vs / & vs / -72kg Gold: vs Bronze: vs / & vs /

Day #3 (Women's Wrestling) Medallists -50kg Gold: Yui Susaki Silver: Ellen Riesterer Bronze: Marina Zakshevskaya & Veronika Gurskaya -55kg Gold: Saki Igarashi Silver: Khaliunaa Bayaraa Bronze: Ekaterina Verbina & Hou Jiajing -59kg Gold: Anastasia Nichita Silver: Sae Nanjo Bronze: Tetiana Rizhko & Anshu Anshu -68kg Gold: Khanum Velieva Silver: Macey Ellen Kilty Bronze: Miwa Morikawa & Alina Rudnytska Levytska -76kg Gold: Huang Yuanyuan Silver: Elmira Khalaeva Bronze: Yasuha Matsuyuki & Denise Sabina Makota Stroem