phelps

knowing how certain things (and I'm not necessarily talking about sport...the Italian judiciary chronicles are full of "strange" episodes even worse than this one) usually go here in Italy, probably it's a conspiracy... nobody in the world of sport wanted him back and now they found the way to get rid of him once and forever... of course, I can't prove my idea...but I won't change it unless he spontaneously admits he cheated again... however, this is the situation as it stands (and there are proves of all of these facts): he was tested on January, 1st 2016...and that test was negative... then, they re-tested the same sample on May, 13th (after all the shouting and chaos following his winning comeback, when it was clear that he was going to Rio with very good chances to win the 50km and maybe also bouble it up in the 20km)...and this time, surprise surprise, it looks that he had testosterone values 11 times above the limit in the meantime, in the 5 months between January 1st and May 13th he was tested 15 times (averaging once every 10 days) and all of those 15 tests were absolutely negative, with all the values in line with a clean biological passport (no peaks, no lows, no strange variations between short period of time)... now, everybody can like or dislike him and can think wehatever they want...but I'm never going to trust such a change...to me, it's more than obvious that someone manipulated the original sample and then ordered the re-test just achieve their goal... otherwise, the other option is that any doping test in the world is not reliable at all, because it's simply impossible not to find a value 11 times...11 times!!! not marginal digits...11 times!!! above the limit in the first exhamination and then, good 5 months and many headlines later, magically come up with this results...no way... p.s. I'm not gonna make any further comment on this... I only hope for Alex that this time he didn't do anything wrong...

definitely a better afternoon session for Italy... Cavallaro won easily his bout and now he's only 1 win away from an Olympic berth (just like Picardi)...and he's going to start as the heavy favorite in the next match... on the other hand, Vianello just completed the masterpiece of the day for us, beating the better known Chinese giant Mu... so, we still have 3 chances...if we qualify 2 boxers, we can be happy...

another day to forget as quick as possible for Italy... despite the thrilling success by Errigo, we put ourselves in danger not to have an all-Italian final in Rio in the Women's Foil and the boys with the Epee just performed like amateurs... I really hope that they just decided not to take this Championship very seriously, otherwise in Rio it's gonna be an epic fail for all of our sport...

Fencing European Championships 2016 Provisional Medal Table after Day 2 Russia, 2 - 1 - 1 France, 1 - 1 - 2 Italy , 1 - 0 - 1 Hungary, 0 - 1 - 0 Switzerland, 0 - 1 - 0 Germany, 0 - 0 - 2 Ukraine , 0 - 0 - 2

Fencing European Championships 2016 Men's Individual Epee Gold: Yannick Borel Silver: Max Heinzer Bronze: Jean-Michel Lucenay & Bogdan Nikishin Semifinals Yannick Borel 15 - 8 Bogdan Nikishin Max Heinzer 15 - 12 Jean-Michel Lucenay Final Yannick Borel 15 - 12 Max Heinzer Women's Individual Foil Gold: Arianna Errigo Silver: Aida Shanaeva Bronze: Carolin Golubytskyi & Larisa Korobeynikova Semifinals Aida Shanaeva 15 - 7 Carolin Golubytskyi Arianna Errigo 15 - 10 Larisa Korobeyinikova Final Arianna Errigo 15 - 14 Aida Shanaeva

not a very good morning for Italy... Picardi won his bout in the -52kg class, but Domenico Valentino shamefully ended his Olympic career with an unexpected and very disappointing 3-0 loss against Anvar Yunusov (TJK)... and the Italian hopes are always less (the same Picardi, Cavallaro and maybe Vianello, but he needs almost a miracle, since he has to win the tournament in order to earn a spot at the Games)... Boxing is going to be another one of those disciplines where our participation will be thinner than usual (not to mention the never so remote medal chances we're going to have)...

I can confirm that Francesca Dallapè will only start in the 3m synchro event for Italy, since we already have 2 divers (Tania Cagnotto and Maria Marconi) qualified in the individual 3m springboard... on the other hand, Maicol Verzotto is training with the Olympic team, which means that Italy will surely accept the possible reallocated spot in the Men's 10m Platform, if it's gonna happen...

Fencing European Championships 2016 absolute disaster for Italy...Elisa Di Francisca didn't take advantage of Inna Deriglazova's early elimination and lost the bout that could have avoided her a possible clah against Errigo before the Gold medal final in Rio... now, because of the draw rules, there are 50% chances they will meet too early at the Olympic Games (beacause, despite today's not encouraging performance, I'm sure that in Rio nobody will stop our girls in any case)...and this would be another drama for the forseen bloodless Italian Olympic medal table... Women's Individual Foil Semifinals Aida Shanaeva vs Carolin Golubytskyi Arianna Errigo vs Larisa Korobeynikova

Day 1 is over with a lot of surprises in the Men's Foil and almost no surprise at all in the Women's Sabre... Not a very good day for Italy, saved by the Bronze medal by Avola but with a lot of worrying performances by the other fencers, especially the girls...

Fencing European Championships 2016 Provisional Medal Table after Day 1 Russia, 2 - 0 - 0 France, 0 - 1 - 1 Hungary, 0 - 1 - 0 Germany, 0 - 0 - 1 Italy , 0 - 0 - 1 Ukraine , 0 - 0 - 1

Fencing European Championships 2016 Men's Individual Foil Gold: Timur Safin Silver: Erwan Le Pechoux Bronze: Giorgio Avola & Andre Sanita Semifinals Erwan Le Pechoux 15 - 12 Giorgio Avola Timur Safin 15 - 12 Andre Sanita Final Timur Safin 15 - 9 Erwan Le Pechoux Women's Individual Sabre Gold: Sofya Velikaya Silver: Anna Marton Bronze: Charlotte Lembach & Olga Kharlan Semifinals Sofya Velikaya 15 - 13 Olga Kharlan Anna Marton 15 - 7 Charlotte Lembach Final Sofya Velikaya 15 - 10 Anna Marton

Fencing European Championships 2016 the competition has just started, but there have been already some huge surprises... Men's Individual Foil Semifinals Erwan Le Pechoux vs Giorgio Avola Timur Safin vs Andre Sanita

starting tomorrow in Torùn (POL)... Fencing European Championships 2016 Official website: http://www.efc2016.eu/ Live Scoring: http://www.mask-sport.com/2016/2016-06-20-25/index.htm Live Streaming: https://www.youtube.com/user/FIEvideo/videos?live_view=502&shelf_id=1&view=2&sort=dd The Championships are the last event (together with the ongoing Pan-American Champs) before the Olympic Games where to sum up points good for the World Ranking, which will be used to fill the Table Draws of the Olympic Team Events (and partially for the Individual events, too)...

earlier today: Football, Copa America (last 2 QTF matches) Rowing, last stage of the World Cup in Poznan now: Football, Euro 2016 (mainly FRA-SUI, but with an eye also on ROU-ALB) later: Golf, US Open (final round)

Sad news for Yuan Ping... but at least we have some fresh news (and this is already something "big", knowing FIE & co.)...

Day 2 - Evening Session Results Session 3A http://d152tffy3gbaeg.cloudfront.net/2016/05/C74-C74E05.pdf Session 3B http://d152tffy3gbaeg.cloudfront.net/2016/05/C74-C74E06.pdf Day 3 Schedule http://d152tffy3gbaeg.cloudfront.net/2016/05/C58-C58D0618.pdf once again, no surprising results...today I'm especially looking for Valentino's debut in this competition...this is his Swan's song I guess, so, I hope that everything goes according to plan...

today's afternoon session results are out... http://d152tffy3gbaeg.cloudfront.net/2016/05/C74-C74E03.pdf http://d152tffy3gbaeg.cloudfront.net/2016/05/C74-C74E04.pdf no major surprise yet...maybe just Germany's Hamza Touba's loss against South Korean Kim In Kyu was a bit unexpected...on the other hand, we also had a couple of convincing wins by the US guys (usually not a factor among the AIBA boys in the last few years) and, above all, our Salvatore Cavallaro (-75kg) destroyed the Turkish guy Onder Sipal (which is never to be taken for granted in a boxing meet held in Baku)...

World Qualification Tournament in Baku (AZE) Draw Sheets are out... here you can already find all of them (no need for translation, since you can see the weights by yourself)... http://www.fpi.it/ita-boxing/news/6713-parte-oggi-il-torneo-mondiale-di-qualificazione-olimpica-di-baku,-primi-due-azzurri-in-gara-domani-itaboxing-road2rio-noisiamoenergia.html

yes, I saw that document... by the way, here you can also watch the winning lifts in all the weight categories... http://www.allthingsgym.com/2016-chinese-national-weightlifting-championships/

well, strong wind made it difficult for all teams today... luckily the young Italian girls have been mentally very strong and focused in all of their matches and earned this very, very important Olympic chance... and now they will be very dangerous ousiders also for the medals...

I don't think so...or at least she didn't even show up at the Chinese Nationals (where many unofficial world records were broken), which usually in the Olympic year are one of the most important events for their selections... by the way, Meng Suping's result (140+190=330kg) out there was close to Kashirina's total at the 2015 (and 2013) World Champs (where she got 332 and 333 respectively)... and at last year's Worlds she even got a better lift in Snatch (145)...so, potentially Meng can compete with the Russian (unless Kashirina gets back to her 2014 results...in this case she would be absolutely untouchable - she got almost 350kg in the Olympic Total that year)

yes, these Continental Champs are the last 2 tournaments before the Olympics... so, the team events brackets will be known after the end of them, meanwhile the individual brackets will be established only after the athletes selected for the individual competitions by the Nations which have qualified for the team event will be confirmed... however, we will have the official confirmation of the brackets by FIE only a few days before the start of the Games...

at the moment it looks she hasn't been selected by the NZ Olympic Committee (I just did a quick research on their website and no athletes are indicated in the Fencing section)... the most recent news I could find about her possible participation to the Games are here: http://www.fencing.org.nz/news.php?cat=7

so, congrats to the Pens... but I absolutely don't agree with Crosby winning the Conn Smythe trophy...it should have gone to the Hagelin-Bonino-Kessel line alltogether...and being that "impossible", well, they should have at least recognized the great playoffs run by Bonino, Kessel or Letang... however, it's just a couple of days that we ended the 2015/2016 season, but I can't wait for the start of the new one (luckily we don't have to wait that much...the new CHL season is just around the corner...the start is scheduled for August 16th )...

my picks for the Olympic qualifiers... Men: Ukraine and Japan to the final and Russia and Mexico in the 3rd place play-off for the last spot (hoping that MEX can get this last ticket to Rio)... Women: USA and Italy in the final, with Great Britain and Chinese Taipei to fight for the last spot (my support goes to the Europeans)...