phelps

and, as promised, here I am with some results from the Youth Continental Champs 2016 outside Europe... Let's start with the Panamerican Champs, which have been held in Cancun, MEX a few days ago... These are the new Cadets and Junior Champions for this season: Panamerican Juniors Events Men's Individual Epee: Alexandre Camargo, BRA Women's Individual Epee: Cindy Gao, CAN Men's Individual Foil: Sidarth Kumbla, USA Women's Individual Foil: Gabriela Cecchini, BRA Men's Individual Sabre: Josè Quintero, VEN Women's Individual Sabre: Kara Linder, USA Men's Team Epee: Venezuela Women's Team Epee: Canada Men's Team Foil: United States Women's Team Foil: Brazil Men's Team Sabre: United States Women's Team Sabre: United States Panamerican Cadets Events Men's Individual Epee: Alexandre Camargo, BRA Women's Individual Epee: Sofia Komar, USA Men's Individual Foil: Nick Itkin, USA Women's Individual Foil: Jane Caulfield, CAN Men's Individual Sabre: Hunter Moricz, CAN Women's Individual Sabre: Kara Linder, USA Cadets Team Events NOT contested Here you can find the Links to the Full Results and the Final Medal Table(s)... http://esgrima.info/panamericano-cancun-2016 Interesting to see how 2 individual titles have gone to the same guy in both the Cadets and the Juniors classes... and also nice to see the USA not dominating the field as much as in the past (although they still won the final medal table)...

well, to me the German recent results are not a surprise at all, but still not to find them in any of the Olympic team event is quite shocking... however, I think that apart from the Women's Sabre, you have enough talent, depth and above all a good overall sports system in your Country to get back quite soon among the Fencing powerhouses in the next future...

more news about the European and the other Continental Championships for the youngsters coming up in the next few days...

By the way, this week is entirely dedicated to the Cadets and Juniors Continental Championships... In particular, the European Champs 2016 are running in Novi Sad (SRB) until next Wednesday... Today it was the last day of the Cadets events, meanwhile tomorrow the Junior events are going on stage... In the Individual competitions among the 17 years young boys Italy dominated the field with 3 of the 6 Gold medals (Women's Cadet Foil: Serena Rossini, Women's Cadet Epee: Federica Isola and Men's Cadet Sabre: Matteo Neri), meanwhile Israel (Men's Cadet Epee: Stanislav Galper), Hungary (Women's Cadet Sabre: Lisa Pusztai) and Russia (Men's Cadet Foil: Kirill Borodachev) won 1 Gold medal each... In the Team competitions, instead, it was Russia to win the most Gold medals (3: Men's Foil, Men's Sabre and Women's Foil) with Hungary getting to top placings (Women's Sabre and Men's Epee) and Italy only 1 (Women's Epee)... So, the final medal table of the Cadets competitions looks like this: Country Gold Silver Bronze Russia 4 4 3 Italy 4 4 2 Hungary 3 1 1 Israel 1 1 0 France 0 1 3 Germany 0 1 2 Romania 0 0 3 Poland 0 0 2 Turkey 0 0 1 Austria 0 0 1

The Individual spots will be decided after the last qualifying event, starting from the next weekend (with the men's and women's foil in La Habana) up to the end of March (men's and women's sabre in Seoul)... However, on this Facebook page you can see all the current standings in all the weapons, with just 1 competition left: https://www.facebook.com/FencingRio2016/

as you might notice, there are only 2 Countries (France and Russia) who have been able to qualify for all the 4 Team Events in the Olympic program... the main surprise and disappointment come from Italy, who failed to qualify in the Women's Team Epee despite they started the OQ Period at the top of the World Ranking... but when you miss for an entire season to make a top 4 finish, that's what happens... But the great losers of this qualification period are the Germans, who failed to qualified in all the Team events...and that was totally unexpected... Another Country not performing as it was supposed it's China, who missed to qualify for the Games 2 Teams, meanwhile it has to be considered a great achievement the first qualification for an Olympic Team Tournament of Mexico and Brazil...

Since we're heading towards the end of the Olympic Qualification Period, it's time to make a short Summary of what's has already been determined until now... as many people might know, the time window to qualify for Rio 2016 goes from April 2015 to April 3rd, 2016 but right now, all the Nations qualified for the 4 Team Events have already been decided. They are (in order of Ranking): Men's Team Epee France (World Ranking Top 4) Ukraine (World Ranking Top 4) Italy (World Ranking Top 4) Switzerland (World Ranking Top 4) Russia (European Quota Place) Hungary (Repechage Quota Place since NO African Team ended in the Top 16 of the OQR) South Korea (Asian Quota Place) Venezuela (Panamerican Quota Place) Men's Team Foil Russia (World Ranking Top 4) Italy (World Ranking Top 4) France (World Ranking Top 4) United States (World Ranking Top 4) China (Asian Quota Place) Great Britain (European Quota Place) Egypt (African Quota Place) Brazil (Panamerican Quota Place) Women's Team Epee Romania (World Ranking Top 4) China (World Ranking Top 4) Russia (World Ranking Top 4) Estonia (World Ranking Top 4) South Korea (Asian Quota Place) United States (Panamerican Quota Place) Ukraine (European Quota Place) France (Repechage Quota Place since NO African Team ended in the Top 16 of the OQR) Women's Team Sabre Russia (World Ranking Top 4) Ukraine (World Ranking Top 4) France (World Ranking Top 4) United States (World Ranking Top 4) South Korea (Asian Quota Place) Italy (European Quota Place) Poland (Repechage Quota Place since NO African Team ended in the Top 16 of the OQR) Mexico (Panamerican Quota Place)

we wouldn't have any chance even if we play against the other division B teams...there's no need to involve those top class teams to sweep us out of the Olympics...

from 1st to 4th of September, to be precise... p.s. my 2 cents about those tournaments go on Belarus, Germany and Norway to qualify for the Games...

It's nice to see how this thread started with the most news about the senseless World Cup of Hockey... and right now that we're just arrived to the best moment of the Hockey season...almost everywhere (apart from the NHL, which has a month and a half left in their regular season) it's play-offs time! so, I'd like to take a while to talk about those European Leagues which already ended their regular season... in the KHL, CSKA Moscow and Lokomotiv Yaroslavl dominated the field in the Western Conference and overall, meanwhile in the Eastern Conference Avangard Omsk narrowly beat Sibir Novosibirsk for the eastern title... then, the play-offs started and the first round is also almost done, with CSKA Moscow, Dynamo Moscow, SKA St. Petersburg (disappointing during the RS, but able to defeat the second best team from the RS, Lokomotiv, with a clear result of 4 games to 1) and the surprising Torpedo Nizhni Novgorod (4-2 over the no.2 seed and third best team from the RS, Jokerit Helsinki) advancing through to the Western Conference semifinals; on the other hand, in the East, Avangard Omsk and Sibir Novosibirsk are also through to the Conference semifinals, meanwhile the series Salavat Yulaev Ufa vs AK Bars Kazan and Metallurg Magnitogorsk vs Avtomobilist Ekaterinenburg are not over yet... another Top European League that already ended their Regular Season is the Swiss NLA, with last year's runner-up ZSC Lions (Zürich) earning the honors in the first part of the championship...the play-offs are set to start tonight with a great match up between no.1 seed ZSC Lions and the team with the best attendance in Europe, SC Bern (that despite their super economical budget had another very disappointing RS...once again)... in the Austrian Open league, EBEL, the usual suspect Red Bull Salzburg filled their contract in the RS...now let's see if they can confirm themselves also in the play-offs, which are running right now (round #1 is not over yet)... all the other main European leagues, instead, have still another weekend of regular season to be played, so we will be back to make a summary in the next few days... of course, any comment about the Ice Hockey European leagues is more than welcome...

I'm very happy to see the Forum back... I hope that all the troubles have gone and that we can have a bright future in front of us...