phelps

it's not the track itself (still, I don't like it at all in general...but this is just personal taste)...it's the weather condition that destroys the competition...

what a farce this week's races are gonna be! c'mon, man! after 10 sleds the track has already gone...even the worst alpine skiing slopes in the history didn't get such an unfair race... as I wrote last week, it's impossible to stage a WC race in southern/central Europe before Christmas (and beyond the end of January)...

no comment on the Italian disaster in the team relay...we could have easily got a podium place and we have just thrown it away by choosing the clearly wrong female member of the squad...

I'm absolutely in favor of the individual qualification (instead of a team ranking) for any single lifter, but I'm totally against anything else they've come up with in this meeting... in particular, I really don't see the need to have the same amount of weight classes for men and women and I hate those limit to only 4 athletes per NOC if they're going to have 7 weight classes (I'm not even convinced of the 1 lifter per NOC per category, yet...but this is something that could be more acceptable in the end than the other silly options)...

they should enter in the relay events the 9th ranked in each of the relay rankings (France among the girls and Kazakhstan among the boys)... but I don't think we can be sure of that until it happens (if it happens)...

women's relay (full team, 5 skaters) KOR CHN CAN RUS NED ITA JPN HUN men's relay (full team, 5 skaters) CAN KOR USA CHN NED JPN RUS HUN for the individual spots, I leave the honor to make all the maths to someone else...

very good result by Ghiotto...good 8 seconds better than his old PB (13.01, when he was 5th in the World Champs in Gangneung last Spring)... not bad also the 13.05 by Giovannini and to be noticed also the 1min13secs improvement by Bugari (this is his first season of real committment to speedskating on the ice, he comes from roller skating as almost all our guys)...

no major mistake...it was a question of blades...it was quite "hot" (relatively speaking, of course) and there was a light snowfall going on, so, as usual in this condition, our sleds were not so good... that's why I wrote that Igls can't be a site good for WC competition so early in the season...it's quite unfair to the whole pack of lugers... however, you can watch by yourself all the runs (D-Fisch starts his second run at 1h02min in the video)... https://video.fil-luge.org/index.html

"non dire gatto..." and you know the remaining part... awful second run by D-Fisch, going down in the final ranking from 1st to 6th... at least, the final win didn't go to a German luger, since it was the Russian Pavlichenko to get the highest place on the podium... second was the local hero and reigning World Champion, Wolfgang Kindl, after a very good comeback and 3rd, despite 2 ordinary runs, was Felix Loch, who doesn't seem to have started the season with his best shape (and sled)... for Italy, the second best in the team was Kevin Fischnaller; decent 8th place at the end of the day for him... not so good, on the other hand, Emanuel Rieder and Theo Gruber's races (only 21st and 18th, respectively)... to be honest, I expected a lot more from our guys on this track, where they train very often... p.s. I still think that a day race can't be scheduled in Igls at this time of the year...or the competitions are held after 9 p.m. or this entire event should just be scheduled for late December/early January... right now, we can only watch unfair and "crazy" races...and this is not good for the sport and respectful for the athletes... however...now, let's see how the team relay go...

Women's Mass Start, Final Results 1 OLSBU Marte NOR (1 0 0 0) 36:45.5 2 BESCOND Anais FRA (1 1 0 0) +25.0 3 SOLEMDAL Synnøve NOR (0 0 0 0) +31.6 4 TACHIZAKI Fuyuko JPN (0 0 0 0) +48.7 5 SEMERENKO Vita UKR (2 0 1 0) +49.9 6 HOJNISZ Monika POL (1 0 1 0) +1:01.5 7 FENNE Hilde NOR (1 1 1 1) +1:22.0 8 FURUYA Sari JPN (0 0 0 1) +1:28.8 9 CHEVALIER Anais FRA (0 1 1 0) +1:30.7 10 KALKENBERG Emilie NOR (0 0 0 1) +1:33.2 11 VARVYNETS Irina UKR (0 0 0 1) +1:33.8 12 AYMONIER Celia FRA (1 0 1 3) +1:53.9 13 MERKUSHINA Anastasija UKR (0 0 0 2) +1:56.5 14 TANDREVOLD Ingrid NOR (1 0 2 1) +1:57.5 15 NOWAKOSKA Weronika POL (0 2 1 0) +1:57.7 16 GUZIK Krystyna POL (3 0 0 0) +1:59.0 17 DORIN HABERT Marie FRA (0 1 1 1) +2:04.7 p.s. I won't be online later today...if someone could post the men's results, it would be a nice thing...

Men's Individual Epee (Legnano, ITA) Final Results: Gold: Andras Redli (HUN) Silver: Daniel Berta (HUN) Bronze: Ruslan Kurbanov (KAZ) & Max Heinzer (SUI) Semifinals: Redli b. Kurbanov 13-12 Berta b. Heinzer 15-7 Gold Medal Match: Redli b. Berta 15-6 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2018/108/results/rank

Men's Sprint, Final Results 1 FOURCADE Martin FRA 24:20.6 (0+0) 2 BJØNTEGAARD Erlend NOR 24:33.8 +13.2 (0+0) 3 BOE Johannes Thingnes NOR 24:48.2 +27.6 (1+1) 4 HOFER Lukas ITA 24:51.0 +30.4 (0+0) 5 BOE Tarjei NOR 25:05.4 +44.8 (0+1) 6 DOLL Benedikt GER 25:18.8 +58.2 (1+0) 7 BIRKELAND Lars NOR 25:21.7 +1:01.1 (0+1) 8 GJESBAKK Fredrik NOR 25:30.7 +1:10.1 (1+1) 9 KÜHN Johannes GER 25:33.7 +1:13.1 (1+1) 10 LESSER Erik GER 25:34.5 +1:13.9 (0+0) 11 WINDISCH Dominik ITA 25:35.0 +1:14.4 (1+0) ... 17 SHIPULIN Anton RUS 25:53.9 +1:33.3 (1+0)

Women's Individual Sabre (St.Nicholas, BEL) Final Results: Gold: Olga Kharlan (UKR) Silver: Rossella Gregorio (ITA) Bronze: Yana Egorian (RUS) & Irene Vecchi (ITA) Semifinals: Gregorio b. Vecchi 15-13 Kharlan b. Egorian 15-5 Gold Medal Match: Kharlan b. Gregorio 15-6 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2018/470/results/rank

This weekend's World Cup events are on stage in Legnano, ITA (Men's Epee) and St. Nicholas, BEL (Women's Sabre) and we already know the top 4 athletes in the individual events being held today... in men's Epee, the semifinals (17 CET) are Daniel Berta (HUN) vs Max Heinzer (SUI) & Ruslan Kurbanov (KAZ) vs Andras Redli (HUN) Free Streaming here (no guarantee of getting it work)... http://www.federscherma.it/trofeo-carroccio-2017/streaming-video.html in Women's Sabre, today's tournament is already over... You can watch all the action also on-demand here: http://kabcom.fr/livestreaming/

well, nothing changed in the second run of the men's doubles (despite a couple of mistakes by Wendl/Arlt and Penz/Fischler... so, it was another German win (2 out of 2, today) thanks to Eggert/Benecken...and Germany took also the bronze medal with Wendl/Arlt, leaving the Silver medal won by Rieder/Rastner (ITA) as the only podium place for all the rest of the world... hopefully, tomorrow we won't see such a boring domination by Germany...

First women's race of the season...and not encouraging results at all... despite a promising first run, at the end it was the usual German clean sweep, with Natalie Geisenberger on top thanks to Tatjana Hufner's big mistake in the first part (then she had the best time in the second run, but it wasn't enough to overtake Geisenberger and Eitberger, who also made a big mistake in the first run, but not as big as Hufner's)... best of the rest, Alex Gough (CAN) in 4th place... Erin Hamlin (USA) was second after the first run, but made a capital mistake in the second part and finished 21st... Russians, Austrians and Latvians were never a factor... for Italy, great 6th place finish for Andrea Voetter, finally landing in an area of the rankings where she should have come years ago... and very good 15th and 17th final position respectively for the 16-year youngsters Nina Zoeggeler and Verena Hofer, both having 2 solid runs without any notable mistake... now let's wait and see what happens in the men's doubles, where after the first run we have the usual suspects Eggert/Benecken (GER) and Wendl/Arlt (GER) in 1st and 3rd position... but we also have a surprising provisional second-place pair, the Italians Rieder/Rastner, who are only 33/1000 of a second far away from the top of the ranking... home heroes Penz/Fischler are 4th at the moment, but quite far behind the medal positions (especially on a short track like Igls)... fingers crossed for our guys...

Women's Sprint, Final Results 1 HERMANN Denise GER 20:52.1 (0+1) 2 SKARDINO Nadezhda BLR 21:00.8 +8.7 (0+0) 3 KRYUKO Iryna BLR 21:14.7 +22.6 (0+0) 4 BESCOND Anais FRA 21:15.6 +23.5 (0+1) 5 FENNE Hilde NOR 21:18.5 +26.4 (0+1) 6 ZHURAVOK Julia UKR 21:18.7 +26.6 (0+0) 7 DOMRACHEVA Darya BLR 21:20.8 +28.7 (0+1) 8 SEMERENKO Valentina UKR 21:28.6 +36.5 (0+1) 9 PIDRUSHNA Olena UKR 21:32.3 +40.2 (1+0) 10 VITTOZZI Lisa ITA 21:41.0 +48.9 (0+0) ... 12 WIERER Dorothea ITA 21:46.8 +54.7 (1+0) ... 16 ECKHOFF Tiril NOR 21:56.0 +1:03.9 (1+2) ... 20 DORIN HABERT Marie FRA 22:12.0 +1:19.9 (0+0)

in fact I didn't write that's something previously unheard...I only underlined her new "home" and I just noticed that she was the last qualified athlete... and yeah, I forgot Viktoriia Demchenko among the "famous daughters"...however, she's a lot more experienced of Hannah and Nina...the real "rivalry" for now can only be this one, including the Russian in this comparison at the moment would be unfair to the other 2... in a few years, instead, it's truly gonna be "a 3-head monster" (and maybe more...who knows?)...

some news from today's Nations Cup... first, I'm very happy with the fact that Florian Gruber's injury wasn't as bad as it looked when it happened... he's already back in competition, even if his duo with Simon Kainzwalder didn't have an easy start in the first WC stage... second, I'm quite surprised by how good were our girls, with Andrea Voetter dominating the NC run... but even more encouraging was the result by the 16-year young Nina Zoeggeler, daughter of the great Armin, who was 9th and did qualify for the actual WC race at her first attempt among the "real women" (and moreover, she did beat Hannah Prock...their fathers have been rival for so many years and now the fight will get new boost with these 2 young girls...I can only imagine their daddies' reaction week after week in the coming years )... to be noticed, the 14th ranked and last qualified for the WC race is Aileen Frisch, who's now sliding for the Olympic Games hosts, South Korea, instead of her native Germany...

la "fortuna" delle nostre compagini degli sport invernali continua...anche Elena Curtoni fuori per tutta la stagione causa rottura del crociato della gamba destra avvenuta ieri in allenamento sulle nevi del Colorado... se va avanti così, non avremo neanche un numero sufficiente di atleti da mandare alle Olimpiadi...

It's just nothing, if compared to Poisson's tragedy... but in any case it's some news to be reported... Italian "lucky period" in this Olympic season continues... Elena Curtoni out for the rest of the year with ACL gone in her right leg (it happened yesterday, while she was training in GS in Colorado with our team)...

Men's Team Foil (Tokyo, JPN) Gold: United States Silver: South Korea Bronze: Japan Semifinals Results: USA b. Japan 45-38 South Korea b. Denmark 45-37 Bronze Medal Match Result: Japan b. Denmark 45-25 Gold Medal Match Result: USA b. South Korea 45-34 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2018/206/results/rank

well, Francesca would be even better if those idiots of the ISU and IOC adopted the Dutch Marathon Cup format...the races would be a billion times more exciting (and fair to the better athletes)... when they skate in the traditional 400m ovals, they normally make 80 laps (32km)...and of course there are no silly (and senseless) intermediate sprints... p.s. the boys usually skate over 125 laps (50km)

Nice to see Cassarà having a good day...despite getting older, he can still deliver once every while... and even nicer to see Luperi back where he should have been on regular bases, according to the early expectations according to the talent he did show when he was still a kid... unfortunately, his career didn't go as most people would have wanted until now, but he's still young and he can easily bounce back from all the injuries, failures and deceptions he had in the last couple of years...

Men's Individual Foil (Tokyo, JPN) Final Results: Gold: Erwann Le Pechoux (FRA) Silver: Andrea Cassarà (ITA) Bronze: Edoardo Luperi (ITA) & Gerek Meinhardt (USA) Semifinals: Cassarà b. Meinhardt 15-11 Le Pechoux b. Luperi 15-8 Gold Medal Match: Le Pechoux b. Cassarà 15-14 Here is the Full Final Ranking (and Results) from Today's competition: http://fie.org/competitions/2018/137/results/rank