phelps

Seriously what a shit sprint course for the Olympics. Medals will be decided based on Skiis.

Getting going with the Indoor Season. (Have already missed a PV meet in )
 
Key dates to look for
 
10 January - First Indoor Tour meet in Sabadell, Catalunya 
25 January - First Indoor Tour Gold meet in Astana 
6-9 March - European Championships from Apeldoorn .
21-23 March - World Championships from Nanjing  (Postponed from 2020 )

Happy New Year 2025 Totallympics and Totallympians !
 
Wish you plenty of joy, health, family well-being, personal and professional successes and May every day of 2025 bring you a new reason to smile
 
but for now Party Time folks ! Cheers !
 

Would love to be a fly on the wall at some of those sessions.
 
I hope they'll find time to compete at a domestic meet during their time in Australia but nationals falls after they leave (April 21-24) and the only other meets in that region between now and then are kinda below their level.
 
Think it's gonna be a bit of a strange year for Australian swimming with quite a few of the athletes looking like they'll not be in anything like top shape.

I'm all in! 

Alberto Razzetti will also join the group from January 2nd through the end of March (Ceccon will be in  from January 10th through April 15th)
 
from January 10th through January 24th also Alberto Burlina (Ceccon's coach) will act as an assistent to the high caliber training group 

my picks...

It's okay to share 

we already have something like that...it's the regular world championships!
 
I mean, if we spread the Games all around the Globe, we completely lose the fascination of a single great multi-disciplinary event in a single place (more or less, given that some sports are always held far away from the actual Olympic City)
 
it's just another thing, it's not the Olympic Games anymore
 
if that's to be the case, I'd rather prefer the single championships to be well spread through the whole year, so to be able to watch the most of them without losing hours of sleep

Official Schedule (UTC+0)
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 20TH
22:00 First Stage Voting Opens

SATURDAY, JANUARY 4th
22:00 First Stage Voting Deadline

SUNDAY, JANUARY 5TH
16:00 Totallympics Awards Nominations
18:00 Second Stage Voting Opens

SATURDAY, JANUARY 11TH
22:00 Second Stage Voting Deadline

SUNDAY, JANUARY 12TH
16:00 Totallympics Awards Ceremony

Reportedly the light was also bad.

Have mercy, I can't last 18 days without sleep.  

Well, we definitely know who should not be elected for President. More so I want him to stand in front of the people and they collectively laugh in his face. 

before the Olympics, all the teams will not have a proper warm up period
 
it's like putting on an all-star team...individuals are called to find the way to play together in the most effective way through the early games of the tournament
 
technically, they're all on the same boat

well, in the last 35 years we've had a lot of seasons where the  singles weren't the best at all (despite Georg Hackl and Jens Mueller winning a few Olympic and World titles in this span)
 
among the men, people like Markus Prock and  Armin Zoeggeler have won tons of races and world cups in the Nienties and 2000's...and they haven't been the only ones
 
actually, there have been more periods with  and/or  dominating the field rather than  
 
among the women, after the  Doris & Angelika Neuner +  Gerda Weissensteiner's runs in the early/mid Nineties, it's really been all  

looking at Today's NHL Rosters, this is a list of player that surely would be eligible to play for  (even if many of them have already played at the World Champs/Olympics for  /  in the past, sometime recent past)
 
Forwards
 
Adam Fantilli (Columbus)
Kyle Palmieri (NY Islanders)
Noel Acciari (Pittsburgh)
Philip Tomasino (Pittsburgh)
Andrew Mangiapane (Washington)
Sonny Milano (Washington)
Joe Veleno (Detroit)
Michael Pezzetta (Montreal)
Michael Amadio (Ottawa)
Anthony Cirelli (Tampa Bay)
Max Domi (Toronto)
Max Pacioretty (Toronto)
Tyler Bertuzzi (Chicago)
Ryan Donato (Chicago)
Nick Foligno (Chicago)
Matt Boldy (Minnesota)
Marcus Foligno (Minnesota)
Luke Evangelista (Nashville)
Michael Carcone (Utah)
Matias Maccelli (Utah)
Alex Iafallo (Winnipeg)
Cole Perfetti (Winnipeg)
Gabriel Vilardi (Winnipeg)
Robby Fabbri (Anaheim)
Frank Vatrano (Anaheim)
Troy Terry (Anaheim) ???
Matt Coronato (Calgary)
Anthony Mantha (Calgary)
Macklin Celebrini (San Josè)
Ty Dellandrea (San Josè)
Tyler Toffoli (San Josè)
 
D-Men
 
Dante Fabbro (Columbus)
Brett Pesce (New Jersey)
Victor Mancini (NY Rangers)
Brandon Carlo (Boston)
Ben Chiarot (Detroit)
Steven Santini (Tampa Bay)
Mathew Dumba (Dallas)
Nick Leddy (St.Louis)
Robert Bortuzzo (Utah)
Sean Durzi (Utah)
Alec Regula (Edmonton)
Cody Ceci (San Josè)
Mario Ferraro (San Josè)
Alex Pietrangelo (Las Vegas)
 
Goalies
 
Drew Commesso (Chicago)
Joel Hofer (St.Louis) ???
 
but I'm pretty sure that there are a few more with Italian heritage coming from their moms and/or wives (Canadiens' Josh Anderson, for instance)...

meanwhile  Gretchen Walsh destroyed another WR (this time, the women's 100m Fly)
 
and she did it with a time that was bettered by just 1 guy after the first 3 heats of the corresponding male competition  

no way! 
 
when I say Basketball, I mean Euroleague first, then NCAA followed by Caitlin Clark
 
NBA RS doesn't even exist (that's not basketball)...NBA playoffs are still at the bottom of my list

Summer
 
1.this is easy...Rio 2016, the last Olympics with my mom still alive (but already sick), very emotional period of my life
2.Barcelona 1992, I was so young...and I had s much enthusiasm and hype (despite  not winning many medals in those years)
3.Sydney 2000, the best Olympic Games ever...and one of the most successful for  
4.Tokyo 2020, the Games of medal record for us and the first time I could actually choose at 100% what to watch and when...incomparable!
5.Atlanta 1996, more or less for the same reason of Tokyo...a lot of medals for  and my first time with satellite TV and the chance to watch (at least partially) many of my favourite sports ignored by the Italian TV
6.Los Angeles 1984...my first Olympic Games, the discover of a new world, the enthusiasm of a very young kid (I was 10 at that time)
7.London 2012...again, a new step ahead in the TV coverage if compared to the previous Games
8.Paris 2024, despite everything that went around
9.Athens 2004, good memories but not so deep into my heart
10.Seoul 1988, the Games of scandals...moreover, I was too young to overcome the time difference and the fact that they were scheduled just when the first couple of weeks at the high school started  but at least I was still very young, enthusiast and hungry to know about sports not so popular in  
11.Beijing 2008, the artificial Games, the disturbing celebration of Chinese power, the lack of a true, genuine international athmosphere around the venues (and not because of lack of spectators)...definitely, my least favourite Games ever (among those I watched, of course)
 
Winter
 
1.Lillehammer 1994, the perfect Games (with a lot of  medals)
2.Torino 2006, despite the not so good  results overall, the Home Games always have a special place in the heart of the sports fans around the World, and I'm not an exception
3.Sarajevo 1984, like the Summer Games in LA, the enthusiasm of a kid, the discover of a new world made all the difference...and, above all, I saw some international high level (Ice) Hockey for the first time 
4.Albertville 1992...Tomba, Compagnoni, Belmondo...
5.Vancouver 2010...disappointing  results, but amazing Games...perfect organization, beautiful venues, entertaining competitions (and for the first time, the chance to watch all the men's Hockey matches of the tournament...a great tournament, probably the best Olympic Hockey tournament ever)
=6.Calgary 1988 / Salt Lake City 2002 / Beijing 2022...nice memories, but for some different reasons, all of those Games have been very difficult to follow and appreciate at 100%
9.Nagano 1998...awful Games...bad weather, penalizing time difference, disappointing  performances...I only save the first ever participation of the NHL players in the Hockey tournament
10.Sochi 2014, a farce...Summer temperatures and results completely compromised by the systematical doping...not to mention the "0 tituli" for  
11.Pyeongchang 2018...as if they weren't even held because of personal reasons...at that time I had absolutely no interest/enthusiasm for anything in my life

Not here.     55 minutes of showboating, 5 minutes actual sport, 2 hours of staff meetings.

Today  missed out on the podium among the men, but in the women's race Jasmin Coratti made up for that by winning her first ever World Cup gold 

it's about 2 main factors: first, the pool's size and shape (depth, width and also the gradient of the pool's sides -if the walls are perfectly vertical or not), which has an influence on the water mass movement following the swimmers' action (the more the walls can absorb the waves made by the swimmers, the faster they can go; meanwhile, the bigger the waves are, the more they slow the swimmers down); second, water hardness might also be a factor (less than the pool's technical features, but still) as in different Countries there might be different habits (if not laws) about the sanification of the water itself (for instance, here in Italy we use to put a lot of chlore in pools' water, more than in many other places)
 
environmental and water's temperature can also have an impact, but in the indoor events I think there's no big difference between places (and the water's temperature is standardized by FINA for sure)
 
altitude might also be a factor (as it is for all the aerobic efforts), but normally there are no swimming big events in high places, so it's more a chance than a real thing since the 1968 Olympics and the 1975 Worlds (which were held in  Cali)

and  adds another Gold to their collection  

it's about 2 main factors: first, the pool's size and shape (depth, width and also the gradient of the pool's sides -if the walls are perfectly vertical or not), which has an influence on the water mass movement following the swimmers' action (the more the walls can absorb the waves made by the swimmers, the faster they can go; meanwhile, the bigger the waves are, the more they slow the swimmers down); second, water hardness might also be a factor (less than the pool's technical features, but still) as in different Countries there might be different habits (if not laws) about the sanification of the water itself (for instance, here in Italy we use to put a lot of chlore in pools' water, more than in many other places)
 
environmental and water's temperature can also have an impact, but in the indoor events I think there's no big difference between places (and the water's temperature is standardized by FINA for sure)
 
altitude might also be a factor (as it is for all the aerobic efforts), but normally there are no swimming big events in high places, so it's more a chance than a real thing since the 1968 Olympics and the 1975 Worlds (which were held in  Cali)

Today  missed out on the podium among the men, but in the women's race Jasmin Coratti made up for that by winning her first ever World Cup gold