phelps

and today we can't say that we have watched a poor session or that we didn't have any major surprise... this afternoon finally it's been a geat show with many upsets, starting with the elimination of Jernej Kruder, Adam Ondra, Aleksei Rubtsov, Jan Hojer and Mickael Mawem...all of them true medal candidates and all of them destroyed by the really inspired Asian climbers... let's see what the technical commission is gonna do with the final's route...hoping that they won't build anything crazy, which would end up ruin the show (like they did yesterday with the girls and in the men's Lead final)...

Men's Boulder, climbers qualified to the Final Kokoro Fujii Chon Jong Won Gregor Vezonik Kai Harada Keita Watabe Nathan Phillips Full Results of the Semifinals: http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition#!comp=1564&cat=6&route=2

p.s. the men's boulder semis have just been completed...and it was a great session* (this afternoon we could have got drunk big time if we renovated yesterday's night bet )... *I'm not writing anything more than that...I just don't want to make any spoiler to those who might want to watch it later...

no, they're counting them, as we know for sure that 1 of the missing finals is the LM2X, where Ireland won the Gold medal ahead of Italy...

not only...if I did count correctly, they're still missing 4 of today's finals (at the end of the day 21 A-Finals have been completed and I only see 17 Gold Medal listed in their table)... I guess they're still banqueting...there's not much hurry to get back working on a Saturday afternoon...

Recap of today's races: http://www.worldrowing.com/news/close-finishes-for-world-rowing-championship-titles Updated Medal Table: http://www.worldrowing.com/events/2018-world-rowing-championships/medals

well, 1 Gold and 2 Silver medals in the Olympic classes is not "awful", but not exceptional, too... tbh, the men's classes have been great in the long boats (waiting for the men's Eight, but even just making the final is a good result), good but not outstanding in the Lightweight Double Sculls (it's not a secret that Oppo & Ruta should have won Gold to "fill their contract" after dominating world cup and europeans), but a real disaster in the short boats (and in men's Pairs we were the defending champions, even if with a different crew)... meanwhile, once again, the women's division is not less than shameful (the women's Pairs were 4th, but 15 seconds behind the top 2, only because most big names weren't at the start...the others couldn't even make the A-Final)... we definitely should do better than this...

and the USA win the women's Fours over the super-favourite Australians, who got "only" the silver medal, meanwhile Russia with a very strong last stint earn their bronze medal just a fraction behind AUS... in any case, very entertaining race in this discipline...and it wasn't expected...

worldrowing.com

and Ireland win the LM2X quite easily...too strong their last 500/600m..congrats to them! however, good Silver medal for Italy and Bronze for Belgium, who had a really strong finish... and now it's time for the women and men's Fours...

good start for Italy, but Ireland now are flying...I fear they're gonna beat us in the final stint...

and now it's time for our guys to raise their game... by the way, we have the advantage of Norway missing their star Brun, who had to withdraw (and being substituted) just a few minutes before the final because of an injury...

and finally Romania retain their LW2X world title after a beautiful race...silver to the USA (too little, too late their comeback attempt) and bronze to the Netherlands, just a fraction behind the Americans...

the Olympic events Finals have started... and Canada won a wonderful battle against New Zealand in the Women's Pair...they just rowed another race compared to the rest of the field, in fact Spain edged out Italy for the Bronze Medal, but good 14 seconds behind the eventual winners... in the men's Pairs, instead, it's a one-boat show by the Sinkovic brothers, with ROU and FRA fighting hard for Silver and Bronze...and it's Romania that edge out France for the second place...Canada and New Zealand, who had a strong start, then literally burned out and ended up well behind the medal winners... next up, the Lightweight Double Sculls (ladies first, of course )...

confirmed...the 6 girls who did qualify for the Combined event Final are those named above...

however, not the greatest start for the Hungarian teams...it looks they've been massacred by teams that are not even supposed to be the strongest of "your" league...

tonight some of the most important European Leagues started their new season... among those, the Finnish Liiga (JYP lost to HIFK in OT and Tappara lost to Ilves the Tampere Derby), the German DEL (Red Bull Munich won on the ice of the Eibaren Berlin the re-match of last season's final series), the Czech Tipsport Liga (Plzen destroyed Liberec in the most attractive match) and the Slovakian Tipsport Liga (the reigning champions, Banskà Bystrica lost at home on penalties against Liptovky Mikulas their season opener)... tomorrow it's time for the Swedish Hockey League (SHL) to start...

Karate 1 Premier League Stage #6 (Berlin, GER) now we are to a new level, since this is the 1st K1PL stage with points for the Olympic Qualification Ranking up for grabs... and this is a quick recap of what happened today in the first half of the program... Women's Kata Gold Medal Match: Sandra Sanchez Jaime vs Kiyou Shimizu Bronze Medal Match #1: Natsuki Shimizu vs Emiri Iwamoto Bronze Medal Match #2: Mirisa Ohuchi vs Viviana Bottaro Women's Kumite, -50kg Gold Medal Match: Ayaka Tadano vs Serap Ozcelik Arapoglu Bronze Medal Match #1: Radwa Sayed vs Shara Hubrich Bronze Medal Match #2: Kinatsu Endo vs Alexandra Recchia Women's Kumite, -55kg Gold Medal Match: Li Lirisman vs Anzhelika Terliuga Bronze Medal Match #1: Jenna Browwn vs Yassmin Attia Bronze Medal Match #2: Carlota Fernandez Osorio vs Sara Cardin Men's Kumite, -60kg Gold Medal Match: Angelo Crescenzo vs Yugo Kozaki Bronze Medal Match #1: Kaisar Alpysbay vs Firdovsi Farzaliyev Bronze Medal Match #2: Darkhan Assadilov vs Amir Mehdizadeh Men's Kumite, -67kg Gold Medal Match: Vinicius Figueira vs Luca Maresca Bronze Medal Match #1: Hiroto Shinoara vs Dionysios Xenos Bronze Medal Match #2: Steven Da Costa vs Jordan Thomas Men's Kumite, -75kg Gold Medal Match: Yusei Sakiyama vs Rafael Aghayev Bronze Medal Match #1: Ken Nishimura vs Noah Bitsch Bronze Medal Match #2: Erman Eltemur vs Scott Thomas

and the 6 girls that made it through to the Combined Event Final should be: Janja Garnbret Jessica Pilz Akiyo Noguchi Miho Nonaka Petra Klinger Sa Sol but we still need confirmation of that... so, don't take this list for granted...

Women's Boulder Gold: Janja Garnbret Silver: Akiyo Noguchi Bronze: Stasa Gejo Full Competition Results here: http://www.ifsc-climbing.org/index.php/world-competition#!comp=1564&cat=5&route=-1

all the girls in this final should be in Tokyo (with possibly some exceptions in the Japanese team, since they have so many strong girls that Nonaka and Noguchi could well miss out on the internal qualification)...

I still feel my throat very dry, tbh... as usual, they've built a route that's too difficult, thus killing half of the show...

Today the Para-Rowing and the Non-Olympic Boats A-Finals were held in Plovdiv... Here you can find the links to all of today's A-Finals: http://www.worldrowing.com/news/race-for-gold-world-rowing-championships and here's the updated Medal Table (World Rowing put all Rowing and Para-Rowing classes together): http://www.worldrowing.com/events/2018-world-rowing-championships/medals

and what about Israeli athletes in all Muslim Countries?...

at 7 p.m. CET (Live on the usual channels, from Youtube to Eurosport & Eurosport Player to Totallympics TV -and ORF Sport+ on satellite, if you can watch that channel)...