phelps

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)...

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)