phelps

out all those "artistic" activities like Rhythmic Gymnastics, Trampoline, Artistic Swimming, Surfing, Freestyle BMX and Skateboarding (this one in particular, since the IOC cheated big time with world skate, giving them illusion of putting Inline Speedskating at the Summer Games meanwhile when it came down to the final vote, Skateboarding suddenly became an Olympic discipline...and no, Leticia Buffoni herself is not enough to justify that sh*t )... and you get enough quota for inline speedskating (which of course need some renovation and standardization in its program of races and in its "theatre", which I'd suggest it should be the same venues of the Ice Speedskating...a 400m flat -no matter if indoor or outdoor- track without the ice surface, of course)... p.s. and of course you could also kick out Boxing and Weightlifting (if you need 2 full sports and not only parts of them)...

actually, there's only 1 definition of the word "sport" in any vocabulary (encyclopedia)... and it's the one I posted earlier (even if I also wrote that I don't care too much of definitions...and not only in this specific case)... by the way, to answer your question: no, I don't mind eSports at all (as I don't mind Italy being a powerhouse -or close to that- in sports I don't follow at all, like artistic swimming and/or rhythmic gymnastics)...I'm just not interested in such activity...

it wasn't posted yet when I started to answer... in any case, in motorsports it's the mechanical package that makes the difference...the drivers' skills come out only if and when you have standard equipment for every competitor... and that's why I can accept as a "grey zone" the definition of sport applied to motorsports...

no way...you can be Hamilton or Vettel, but with something like the current Williams you end up dead last every time you finish a race (and more often than not you don't even finish a race)...

it's not a question of "top level" or amateur stuff...the definition is only about what's "sport" and what's not... in cycling the main part of the job is done by the man/woman's legs... for what concerns the animals, I think they should be compared to motorsports...and not to be considered real "sports", but this part is always contested by many people who still consider this kind of activity a sport (because of the competitive nature of the races)...it's definitely a grey zone in this particular question... in any case, as I wrote before, I don't care too much about definitions...

no one of those activities (e-sports, mind games nor motorized vehicle competitions) should be named "sports"... by definition, sport is a combination of mental and physycal skills (e-sports and mind games do NOT have the physycal part of the game, despite some people might start saying the opposite), the outcome of which must be mainly determined by human ability (and this takes also the "motorsports" away, since you can be the best driver in the world, but still you're going to end up dead last if you vehicle is not performing at least very close to those of your opponents)... however, I don't care too much about those definitions taken from vocabolaies and encyclopedia...people can think and say what they want, but if the IOC adds to the Olympic Games schedule anything related to mind games, e-sports and motorsports I'm done with the Olympic Ideal and the Olympic Games once and forever. point.

fun facts... in the men's division, the 5 heaviest classes have the same kind of final bout: RUS vs KAZ... is that a coincidence? OK, if you're convinced of that... p.s. and RUS also have 2 more finalists, for a total of 7 men out of 12 reaching the final act... do you still think of a coincidence? OK...I really appreciate your optimism (and your naive mood)... at least, among the girls there's a bit more balance... IND and the usual RUS have both 4 finalists, meanwhile KAZ have 3 and the very rich Western Countries of GBR and USA have 2...

fighters making the Gold Medal bout... Men's -49kg: Jan Paul RIVERA PIZARRO, Thitisan PANMOD Men's -52kg: Ivan PRICE, Asa STEVENS Men's -56kg: Abdumalik KHALOKOV, Vsevolod SHUMKOV Men's -60kg: Atichai PHOEMSAP, Adriàn Krisztofer ORBÁN Men's -64kg: Idalberto UMARA IRIBAR, Ilia POPOV Men's -69kg: Yermakhan ZHAKPEKOV, Dzhambulat BIZHAMOV Men's -75kg: Daniil TETEREV, Nurbek ORALBAY Men's -81kg: Ruslan KOLESNIKOV, Sagyndyk TOGAMBAY Men's -91kg: Igor FEDOROV, Aibek ORALBAY Men's +91kg: Aleksei DRONOV, Damir TOIBAY

fighters making the Gold Medal bout... Women's -48kg: Nillada MEEKOON, NITU Women's -51kg: Heaven Destiny GARCIA, ANAMIKA Women's -54kg: Iyana VERDUZCO, Aizada YESLYAMGALI Women's -57kg: SAKSHI, Nikolina CACIC Women's -60kg: Caroline Sara DUBOIS, Nune ASATRIAN Women's -64kg: MANISHA, Gemma Paige RICHARDSON Women's -69kg: Angelina KABAKOVA, Charlie CAVANAGH Women's -75kg: Anastasiia SHAMONOVA, Tallya BRILLAUX Women's -81kg: Anastasiia RYBAK, Guzal SADYKOVA Women's +81kg: Mariia LOVCHYNSKA, Dina ISLAMBEKOVA

and I think it's not even the 1st stint as Pakistan NT coach for the Dutch Oltmans... I could be wrong, but if I remember well, he was already in charge there a few years ago, before their autarkic period in the last 5/10 years...

infact I named them "the Olympic Games of the non-Olympic Sports"... however, we can also forget about the World Games...that's not a problem for me...

and if we consider the World Games the Olympics of the non-Olympic sports, we can cancel from the blacklist also Bosnia & Hercegovina, since they won a Gold Medal always in Boules at the 2005 World Games in Duisburg... http://www.wikiwand.com/it/Bocce_ai_Giochi_mondiali

@dcro & @heywoodu Monaco have an official World Gold Medal in Petanque Bouls, however... http://www.wikiwand.com/en/Pétanque_World_Championships

yeah...but luckily the girls normally don't throw that hard...

actually, today England won 3 women's medals (and no men's), just like RUS and USA...the real winners are the girls from India, with 5 medals out of 6 women's classes... then RUS also added 2 men in the semis, making 5 medals...and KAZ had 2 and 2 = 4 medallists... p.s. and looking at yesterday's results, England only have 2 men in the semis overall... It looks you need some extra math lesson... p.p.s. no comment on the Italian team (but 2 of those 5 losses from today are just a farce and nothing less than that)...

fighters qualified for the semifinals (and therefore assured to win at least a Bronze medal) from today's sessions... Men's -91kg: Aibek ORALBAY, Mohamed Amine HACID, Javokhir TOGAYMURODOV, Igor FEDOROV Men's +91kg: Damir TOIBAY, Aleksei DRONOV, Kyrylo STOIANCHEV, Ahmed ELSAWY AWAD ELBAZ Women's -51kg: Heaven Destiny GARCIA, Zhansaya ABDRAIMOVA, Kittiya NAMPAI, ANAMIKA Women's -54kg: Aycan GULDAGI, Iyana VERDUZCO, Aizada YESLYAMGALI, Phonnapa LAPAN Women's -57kg: SAKSHI, Isamary AQUINO, Nikolina CACIC, Sena IRIE Women's -60kg: Caroline Sara DUBOIS, Rebeca SANTOS, Nune ASATRIAN, JONY Women's -64kg: MANISHA, Veronika VILLAS, Anna MALIUGANOVA, Gemma Paige RICHARDSON Women's -75kg: Georgia O´CONNOR, Anastasiia SHAMONOVA, Astha PAHWA, Tallya BRILLAUX

St.Louis Blues go deep into the past for look of Heritage Jersey... https://www.nhl.com/news/short-shifts-st-louis-blues-dip-into-past-for-look-of-heritage-jersey/c-299860678?tid=281396148

I think so...moreover, they never won an Olympic medal at all in their entire history (but at the 2010 YOG they won the men's Football Gold)...

he's good, but overestimated by most people in my opinion...nothing to share with the 3 Ukranians and the German-based Pole... the problem is that in most weight classes, especially the heaviest ones, the average quality of fighters has dropped dramaticaly in the last 20 years...and this happened mainly because nowadays field is made mostly by those boring and ordinary "machines" created by the perverted mechanism forced by the need to win a few matches among the amateur (AIBA) ranks early in their career... p.s. my biggest boxing regret is not to have had the chance of watching more of the Cuban heavyweight Roberto Balado Mendez (especially if he had a chance to defect and turn pro)...he was such a superb show every time he used to get into the ring...

I'm not expert (I'm watching PS for the first time in my life) to judge by myself... even if I had a few suspects because of such dominance by INA (looking at the world champs medal table, in the last few years INA are still the best, but normally they don't win almost every gold medal, which is almost impossible in "normal" circumstances, even when we talk about something that goes beyond the meaning of "Natonal Sport", like PS is for your Country)... p.s. by the way, let's make it 6 for the Indonesian gold medals from today's schedule...

and 3.56.2 is also an international class time... this track must be incredibly fast... actually, it a really beautiful velodrome...if only we had anything close to this here in Italy...

and INA has already got 5 of today's possible 8 gold medals in Pencak Silat... basically, in all the scheduled events, they are only missing 2 of the men's combat finals (not in today's program, though)...

no, you can find videos of other competitions of Pencak Silat on YT and you can clearly see European women not covering their head/hair (did you know that the only gold medal of the 2017 world champs not going to South Eastern Asia went to Belgium -and to a girl with no Asian heritage at all? )... it's only a matter of culture of those Countries competing at the AG (some of them are definitely not Muslims, but probably also in their culture women must somehow cover themselves when going to public places)...

nothing cynical...just facts (and knowledge of the sport)... the only real good (actually, great) boxers coming from Eastern Europe in the last 30 years are Ukranians (the Klichko bros and Lomachenko) or Polish (Dariusz "die Tiger" Michalczewski)... and that's it... all the other people from that area having success it's only because of political interests and corruption... technically, most of them are just schematic and repetitive, they don't have creativity, they can't sustain a fast pace in the ring and they don't have power in their hands...they don't have anything that make an ordinary boxer a great boxer... not to mention KAZ and UZB...they'd better get back to their traditional wrestling styles...that's the only thing they're good at (without cheating both with doping -look at weightlifting, another of their "special disciplines"- and by buying judges)... meanwhile Thailand was one of amateur boxing powerhouses until a few years ago, but then the suddenly fell down into disgrace during the "Taiwanese era" of AIBA... now it looks they're back with vengeance in the last couple of global tournaments...but at least they can say they have "tradition" and some great fighters also among the Pros in the recent past (namely the "Galaxy" brothers, Kaosai and Kaokor...they were damn good)... AIBA is still a disaster for the sport...they're doing nothing, absolutely nothing to change their deeply corrupted soul...that's why I'm for getting rid of this everlasting farce at the Olympics (actually, I'm also for cancellation of Olympic boxing because they're not the best fighters in the world -they can be found only among the Pros nowadays- and, vecause of the nature of Pro boxing itself, they can't build a tournament matching the Olympic needs...but that's another story)...

there are always clear favourites in Rowing... however, I try to make 9/10 crews lists for each event...maybe with some creative/tricky picks, too...