phelps

Breaking News from the "big boys"... Aldo Montano (ITA, Sabre specialist) tomorrow will undergo a not so simple surgery to his shoulder, which he got injured in the early stages of the season (he has not competed anymore since his Padua triumph about 2 months ago)... He's expected to fully recover in time for the Rio Olympics, but he will almost surely miss the upcoming Team World Championships...

Kirill Borodachev today has not been outclassed by Geoffery Tourette, but it's Sylvie Binder that finally gives the USA the Gold Medal in the Cadets Mixed Team event, leading her team to a 60-57 win over the Russians... Italy (beaten by the Russian at the last hit in the semifinals) won the Bronze Medal, outscoring Hungary 60-50... Tomorrow the Juniors make their first appearance in this tournament with the Women's Individual Foil and the Men's Individual Sabre...

so, Italy (3-1-3) top the Medal Table ahead of the USA (2-2-2) at the end of the Cadet competitions (OK...tomorrow there's still the Mixed Team Relay, but I refuse to take that as a serious event, since there is absolutely no technical sense in it)... Same standings in the Nations Cup (244 points for Italy against 210 for the USA), where France (122 pts) are the 3rd team, unlike it happened in the Medal Table... Quite disappointing Russia and France so far, very disappointing the usual Asian powerhouses China and South Korea, replaced by the surprising Singapore as a Gold Medal winner), only decent participation by Hungary among the other expected top Nations... Final words for Geoffrey Tourette, winner today in the Men's Foil...what a talent he is...I just can't wait to see him among the "big boys"...by now, he's definitely the overall MVP of the Cadet Worlds (and I expect him to dominate the Junior event, too)...

2016 World Cadet & Junior Championships - Day 3 Women's Cadets Individual Epee Gold: Alessandra Bozza (ITA) Silver: Tatijana Stewart (USA) Bronze: Beatrice Cagnin (ITA) & Renata Petri (HUN) Men's Cadets Individual Foil Gold: Geoffrey Tourette (USA) Silver: Kirill Borodachev (RUS) Bronze: Luis Klein (GER) & Tommaso Marini (ITA)

2016 World Cadet & Junior Championships - Day 2 Women's Cadets Individual Sabre Gold: Lau Ywen (SIN) Silver: Larissa Eifler (GER) Bronze: Sarah Noutcha (FRA) & Liza Pusztai (HUN) Men's Cadets Individual Epee Gold: Daniel De Mola (ITA) Silver: Gianpaolo Buzzacchino (ITA) Bronze: Jakub Jurka (CZE) & Adrien Thein-Sandler (USA)

2016 World Cadet & Junior Championships - Day 1 Women's Cadets Individual Foil Gold: Sylvie Binder (USA) Silver: Sera Azuma (JPN) Bronze: Lara Bertola (ITA) & Stefani Deschner (USA) Men's Cadets Individual Sabre Gold: Matteo Neri (ITA) Silver: Erwin Cai (USA) Bronze: Vladislav Pozdnyakov (RUS) & Artem Tselyshev (RUS)

starting tomorrow and going through to April 10th, the 2016 World Cadet and Junior Championships... Official Website (with the full schedule and the link to the results and live scoring/streaming pages)... http://bourges2016.com/

that's sure...at least the Apithy brothers have family heritage from Benin...

well, if those people are pro-Italy, I don't even want to think what they could say in an opposite situation... the "Italy get help from refs" issue has a long history beacause of the strong defensive style we play... but what can we do if that's the most effective kind of game for us? I'd really like Italy to play as the Serbian masters do rather than having this reputation, but we just can't...

I think that those people definitely have something against Italy (and probably something that goes well beyond sports)... Yesterday Italy didn't get any help, they just played the best defensive waterpolo as they often do when they win and simply destroyed a very disappointing (and poorly talented) Russian team... our girls are not as big as most of their opponents and they are also not so talented in the offensive part of the game...the only way we have to win matches is to play a strong defensive game, both individually and as a team...and that's what happened yesterday...point... then, if someone thinks that waterpolo is a sport like volleyball, where no physical contact is allowed, well...I guess they don't even have idea of what waterolo is about...

Seoul's Events Women's Sabre Gold: Yana Egorian (RUS) Silver: Ji Yeon Seo (KOR) Bronze: Vassilik Vougiouka (GRE) & Sofya Velikaya (RUS) Men's Sabre Gold: Eli Dershwitz (USA) Silver: Mojtaba Abedini (IRI) Bronze: Diego Occhiuzzi (ITA) & Nikolay Kovalev (RUS)

as we wrote in the past, it's not really Benin...it's France using his relatives' heritage... Geoffrey Apithy in fact is France's Bolade Apithy younger brother...

...

I'd rather say: "thanks to our (your) lack of killer instinct" (let's say so...but we could say also "psychological fragility")... don't forget that you wasted a 4 goal-margin in the last period against the Russians...

for Italy: Boxing: Cammarelle, bronze in Athens, Gold in Beijing and moral Gold in London did retire Open Water Swimming: Martina Grimaldi (bronze in London) didn't qualify Judo: Rosalba Forciniti (bronze in the women's -52kg category) is no longer competing in the world class events because of too many injuries Fencing: Occhiuzzi (individual silver and bronze with the team) must still earn his spot in the men's sabre, where the other team members from London Tarantino (retired) and Samele (not qualified) are already sure to miss the 2016 Games the same for the men's team foil, which qualified for the Games but it will have at least 1 (maybe 2) new faces (Valerio Aspromonte for sure won't be part of the 2016 campaign) and someone already wrote about Vezzali and the 4th member of the women's team foil Men's Archery and Rhytmic Gymnastics: both teams qualified for the Games, but most likely they will have a few new faces among their members (thus meaning that not all the London medallists in those 2 events will be in Rio) Men's Waterpolo: also in this case, the team is still to earn their spot and in any case it won't be exactly the same of 4 years ago and finally it's already been written about shooting and taekwondo (where not only Molfetta missed the qualification, but also Sarmiento - bronze in London and silver in Beijing in the men's -80kg - did retire some time ago)

Time for another update around the main European leagues, since many things happened in the last few days... first of all, the regular season ended also in Sweden and Finland... in the SHL, it was Skellefteå once again to win the first part of the championship, and frankly it's very hard to imagine some other teams stopping them from another SHL triumph also at the end of the PO... the leading candidate to try stopping the multiple defending champions should be the Frölunda Indians (second in the RS), with remote chances also for Linköpings and Luleå (3rd and 4th respectively)... the other teams' participation in the PO is in my opinion just "for the numbers"... in the Finnish Liiga, at the end of a fierce battle it was HIFK Helsinki to get the edge over the usual suspects Kärpät Oulu after the completion of the 60-game RS... and those 2 teams start the PO with all the favors to win the title, but, differently from the "cousins" just beyond the border, all the teams entering the PO have some chances to create big surprises in the early rounds, leaving the Liiga much more unpredictable if compared to the SHL... in particular, CHL semifinalist Lukko Rauma shouldn't be underestimated (despite a modest 6th place in the RS), since they have on of the best goaltenders around Europe (the American Ryan Zapolski)... in Switzerland, instead, the quarterfinals are already over, and as we said in the past days, the possible big surprise actually happened: no. 8 seed SC Bern simply destroyed the RS dominators ZSC Lions Zürich and swept them out of the play-offs (4-0 the final result of the series)... and also Lugano and defending champions Davos swept their respective rivals (Zug and Kloten) to reach the semifinals, as did the Geneve Servette, but "only" in 5 games over the regional rivals Fribourg Gotteron... so, we're going to have HC Davos vs SC Bern and Geneve-Servette vs HC Lugano in the round of last 4 (best-of-7 series, as always)... but the hockey pages of the Swiss newspapers are all about the Kloten Flyers dramatic situation, in fact the historical club is just on the verge of collapsing... more details can be found here: http://www.eurohockey.com/article/4438-comment-on-the-kloten-flyers-situation-by-andreas-reiner.html finally, a couple of quick news: - in the German DEL, the Kölner Haie threw off the Adler Mannheim in the big clash of the preliminary round of the PO (2-1 the series) - in the Austrian EBEL, the PO quarterfinals are also over. The semifinals are: Red Bull Salzburg vs VSV Villach and Orli Znojmo vs EHC Linz - in the MOL League, the finalist are now known: it will be a clash between MAC Budapest and DVTK Jegesmedvék

for what concerns the results, I chose the "medallists as before + non-medallists in a spoiler" option, but I also like the idea of some external links, when available (and especially for events with hundreds of participants)... meanwhile, about the medal tables, I voted for the old format, after every event/competition day in full...

Men's Foil Individual Olympic Qualifiers Having already decided the 8 teams that will be in Rio, this weekend we were able to determine the next 7 individuals that will join them. Yuki OTA (JPN) had qualified at the start of the day, and will be joined by Jun HEO (KOR) who kept distance from Young Ki SON (KOR). Peter Joppich (GER) and Alexander Choupenitch (CZE), who basically have been unchallenged in the last months, are the European qualifiers. Ayoub FERJANI (TUN) qualifies from the African zone, and realistically hasn't been challenged since the cruel injury to Roman DJITLI (ALG) at San Jose earlier this season. No Pan-Am fencers (outside the USA of course) in the L64 meant that the zonal places also stay the same: Max VAN HAASTER (CAN) qualifies with Daniel GOMEZ (MEX). There are 4 more places to be awarded, one from each zone at their qualification competition.

and Gold medal for Richard Kruse (GBR)... decent effort by Cassarà and Avola for Italy, very bad performance by the other guys... among the Women, Errigo is back on top after all the troubles with injuries that partially compromised her results in the second half of last season and in the first half of this one... on the other hand, another inconsistent outing for Elisa Di Francisca...the chance to have the all-Italian clash in the Olympic tournament before the Gold medal bout is always higher...

and as promised, at the end of the European Juniors here we are with the final summary... first of all, the key point of the individual competitions was the unexpected domination of the French team with 3 out of 6 Gold medals... meanwhile in the Team events it was Russia to sweep half of the titles up for grabs... Italy and Hungary confirmed themselves as the usual powerhouses with a couple of Gold medals each and Poland and Germany took the remaining top honors (one each)... so, this is the list of the new Junior European Champions: Men's Individual Epee: Gergely Siklosi, HUN Women's Individual Epee: Nadine Stahlberg, GER Men's Individual Foil: Maximilien Chastanet, FRA Women's Individual Foil: Erica Cipressa, ITA Men's Individual Sabre: Charles Colleau, FRA Women's Individual Sabre: Manon Brunet, FRA Men's Team Epee: Hungary Women's Team Epee: Russia Men's Team Foil: Russia Women's Team Foil: Poland Men's Team Sabre: Italy Women's Team Sabre: Russia and this is the final medal table for the Junior competitions: France 3-2-3 Russia 3-2-3 Italy 2-4-4 Hungary 2-0-1 Poland 1-1-3 Germany 1-1-2 Czech Republic 0-1-1 Israel 0-1-0 Ukraine 0-0-1 finally, this is the overall medal table (Cadets + Juniors): Russia 7-6-6 Italy 6-8-6 Hungary 5-1-2 France 3-3-6 Germany 1-2-4 Israel 1-2-0 Poland 1-1-5 Czech Republic 0-1-1 Romania 0-0-3 Austria 0-0-1 Turkey 0-0-1 Ukraine 0-0-1

yeah, but knowing a bit about Russian habits, I think that things are just not as they stated in the official version of this story... http://www.thehockeynews.com/blog/ilya-kovalchuk-stripped-of-ska-captaincy-benched-for-two-more-games/ by the way, I saw yesterday's game against Dynamo Moscow and he didn't play bad at all (though the SKA's daily hero was for sure the Finnish goalie Koskinen)...

Just an update about the main European leagues... Last weekend saw the final regular season action in Czech Republic, Germany and Slovakia... In the Slovak Republic HC Kosice was the expected king of the RS, leading the final table with a 9-point margin over HK Nitra...the play-offs are set to start on march, 11th with the quarterfinal ronud (best-of-7 series)... But the most notable fact of the year is for sure the sad story of Skalica, thrown off the competition with just few weeks still to go because of heavy financial troubles... Meanwhile, in Germany it was the EHC Red Bull Munich to win the regular season of the local DEL ahead of the usual suspects Eisbären Berlin... the main surprise is maybe the elimination from the play-offs of the Hamburg Freezers, while Adler Mannheim at least could make it into the top 10 despite an underperforming season... the preliminary round of the PO in the DEL is going to start on Wednesday, with the best 6 teams from the RS already waiting for their opponents in the quarterfinal round, set to start next week... the end of the RS also designated 4 of the 6 Champions League qualifiers (Berlin, Krefeld, Ingoldstadt and Mannheim), with the last 2 spots up for grabs in the upcoming play-offs... finally, in the Czech Republic Bily Tigry Liberec and Sparta Prague had a run on their own in the Extraliga 2015/2016 regular season (3rd ranked Mountfield Hradec Kralove ended up 30 points behind Liberec in the final standings)... today start the prelimnary round of the play-offs...and if we don't get to a Liberec vs Sparta showdown in the final series is definitely going to be a huge surprise... but the outstanding upset of the year is for sure the forelast place in the standings achieved by the current champions Verva Litvinov, which now have to play in a very dangerous relegation tournament to avoid the unbelievable descent to the Hell of the second division... last quick news: - PSK Narva won the Estonian title 2016 - Ritten Sport won the regular season of the Italian league - KHL Conference Semifinals start today with the Western Conference match-ups (CSKA Moscow vs Torpedo Nizhni Novgorod and Dynamo Moscow vs SKA St.Petersburg), meanwhile the Eastern Conference Semis will start tomorrow (Avangard Omsk vs Salavat Yulaev Ufa and Metallurg Magnitogorsk vs Sibir Novosibirsk are the match-ups)

The last quick update for today is about the Junior European Championships... The first 4 Individual Gold medals have been awarded and France have been the main protagonists until now, winning 2 of those 4 titles, with Italy and Hungary getting 1 Gold medal each... More details in the next couple of days...

finally, the African Championships... where, as always, it's impossible to find the complete results...this time we have to wait for all the cadets results...maybe by the end of the year we get them...if we are lucky... However, here are the new African Junior Champions for this season (not surprisingly, most of them come from Egypt): African Juniors Men's Individual Epee: Ahmad Elsokkary, EGY Women's Individual Epee: Shirwit Gaber, EGY Men's Individual Foil: Salim Heroui, ALG Women's Individual Foil: Aida Yasser, EGY Men's Individual Sabre: Fares Ferjani, TUN Women's Individual Sabre: Sarah Atrouz, ALG Men's Team Epee: Egypt Women's Team Epee: Egypt Men's Team Foil: Egypt Women's Team Foil: Egypt Men's Team Sabre: Egypt Women's Team Sabre: Algeria Full Results are available on the official FIE website...

and now it's time for the Asian Youth Championships, which went on stage in 2 different Countries, Saudi Arabia and Barhain... p.s. I don't know what do you think about it, but personally, I find shameful and disgusting the fact that they still awarded part of these Champs to Saudi Arabia, despite their refusal to host the Women's events (that's why we have had this tournament splt between 2 Nations)... However, this is the table of the new Asian Youth Champions 2016: Asian Juniors Men's Individual Epee: Wang Zijie, CHN Women's Individual Epee: Miho Yoshimura, JPN Men's Individual Foil: Cheung Ka Long, HKG Women's Individual Foil: Komaki Kikuchi, JPN Men's Individual Sabre: Liang Jianhao, CHN Women's Individual Sabre: Risa Takashima, JPN Men's Team Epee: China Women's Team Epee: China Men's Team Foil: Hong Kong Women's Team Foil: Japan Men's Team Sabre: China Women's Team Sabre: China Asian Cadets Men's Individual Epee: Antoine Elchoueiry, LIB Women's Individual Epee: Tamaki Terayama, JPN Men's Individual Foil: Rui Fujikura, JPN Women's Individual Foil: Amita Berthier, SIN Men's Individual Sabre: Srinualnad Voragun, THA Women's Individual Sabre: Risa Takashima, JPN Men's Team Epee: Japan Women's Team Epee: Kazakhstan Men's Team Foil: Hong Kong Women's Team Foil: Singapore Men's Team Sabre: Hong Kong Women's Team Sabre: NO available Results yet Full Juniors Results are available on the official FIE website and also on the following page (which is also the only one to show the Cadets Full results): http://ajcfc2016.com/index.php/results the 2 main facts about these champs IMHO are the complete absence of South Korea from the Gold medal winners' list (it's obvious that they didn't send their bst youngsters to this tournament) and another champion among the cadets winning also the Junior title (and once again in the Women's Sabre)...