phelps

I have always thought baseball should be an Olympic sport, but comparing the Tokyo 2020 tournament to the World Baseball Classic this year, I would rather have a high-level competition like the WBC every two/three years than a bunch of minor leaguers trying to win an Olympic medal.

with a great inning there 

what a farce!
 
please, close down this circus once and forever!
 

 
from 2.02.45, if the video doesn't start at the right point...

what a farce!
 
please, close down this circus once and forever!
 

 
from 2.02.45, if the video doesn't start at the right point...

what a farce!
 
please, close down this circus once and forever!
 

 
from 2.02.45, if the video doesn't start at the right point...

not many, but it's not impossible, especially if Italy will play without Egonu and/or Antropova and USA will prove once again inconsistent outside the major tournaments, as often happened in the past.

Women's Team Sabre ( Sint-Niklaas)
 
Gold:  South Korea
Silver:  Italy
Bronze:  Ukraine
 
Semifinals
South Korea b. Hungary 45-44
Italy b. Ukraine 45-43
 
Bronze Medal Match
Ukraine b. Hungary 45-41
 
Gold Medal Match
South Korea b. Italy 45-42
 
Full Ranking & Results
https://fie.org/competitions/2023/756

Men's Individual Foil ( Busan)
 
Gold:  Alessio Foconi
Silver:  Cheung Ka Long
Bronze:  Gerek Meinhardt &  Maxime Pauty
 
Semifinals
Foconi b. Pauty 15-4
Cheung b. Meinhardt 15-12
 
Final
Foconi b. Cheung 15-13
 
Full Ranking & Results
https://fie.org/competitions/2023/140

Women's Individual Foil ( Busan)
 
Gold:  Lee Kiefer
Silver:  Sera Azuma
Bronze:  Martina Sinigaglia &  Alice Volpi
 
Semifinals
Azuma b. Sinigaglia 15-12
Kiefer b. Volpi 15-12
 
Final
Kiefer b. Azuma 15-3
 
Full Ranking & Results
https://fie.org/competitions/2023/121

half a scorpion...he didn't lift the leg so much...
 
joking...yeah, I saw that on twitter earlier...
 
saw also an amazing goal in Minnesota vs Michigan in the NCAA...
 
 
 

@phelps Heard about scorpion save by any chance ?
 
 
 

Open Water Len Cup
 
Stage #1 (Eilat)
 
Women's Race
 
Gold:  Chelsea Gubecka
Silver:  Madeline Gough
Bronze:  Ginevra Taddeucci
 
men's Race
 
Gold:  Marc-Antoine Olivier
Silver:  Domenico Acerenza
Bronze:  Marcello Guidi
 
(7th:  Gregorio Paltrinieri)

Women's Individual Sabre ( Sint-Niklaas)
 
Gold:  Sara Balzer
Silver:  Shao Yaqi
Bronze:  Theodora Gkountoura &  Rossella Gregorio
 
Semifinals
Balzer b. Gregorio 15-9
Shao b. Gkountoura 15-8
 
Final
Balzer b. Shao 15-13
 
Full Ranking & Results
https://fie.org/competitions/2023/151

HC Košice started the play-offs tonight. First point against Nitra after today´s win 5-2
 
Some highlights goals tonight
 

just another sport losing big part of theur (already small) audience.
 
time to cut them off the Olympic program (it should be the automatic punishment for those who leave the free comfortable streaming platforms for obscure and/or paid services).
 
my beloved Judo is another sport that needs a big slap in their face because of their choices about the media coverage 

Katinka Hosszu announced her pregnancy.
 
 

OK, now we have more news...
 
 are OUT
 
the draw for the OQTs will be Tomorrow, March 17th at 1 p.m. CET (Live for Free on FIVB Youtube Channel)
 
the 24 teams will be divided into 8 pots with 3 teams each, according to the World Ranking.
 
however, the top 3 seeds will be the organizers of the 3 tournaments (also ranked according to the WR).
 
therefore, we will have a draw following this path:
 
seeded teams: the 3 hosts,  (pool A),  (pool B),  (pool C)
 
then, we will have 7 pots with 3 teams each one (always according to the WR): 1 team from each pot will be drawn in each pool to build the 3 8-team tournaments (the top 2 of each tournament will qualify to Paris 2024).
 
Pot #1:
Pot #2:
Pot #3:  
Pot #4:  
Pot #5:
Pot #6:  
Pot #7:  

@MHSN
finally, Turkish media were right.  
 

@MHSN
finally, Turkish media were right.  
 

now it's official.
 
 Frank Chamizo Marquez tested positive for cannabis at the last world championships.
 
therefore he's been stripped of the bronze medal he won on the mat and received a 3-month ban (already completed).
 
what an idiot!!!   

speaking of final examination at the end of a school cycle, here in Italy we have basically 3 degrees of school: elementary school, 5 years; then, middle school, 3 years and finally the high school, 5 years (with a notable exception, the master institute -a professional pathway for elementary school teachers- being only 4 years).
 
elementary school and middle school are just for everybody, there's no specialization...and we have a final examination at the end of both cycles.
 
elementary exam is not that complicated, basically you only have to make a small thesis on a discipline of your choice (among those included into the studying program, of course).
or, at least, it was like that when I was a student, many, many years ago.
then there's an oral exam with multi-disciplinary questions on the whole program of the 5th and final year.
 
at the end of the middle school there was a first quite complicated exam, with 3 written tasks (free composition, foreign language, maths) and then a multi-disciplinary oral exam, like at the end of the elementary school, but way more difficult.
 
the high school, instead, is divided in many kinds of institute:
-the "generalist" scientific highschool, where you have to study almost every discipline (from Italian to a foreign language, from maths to physics, from history to philosophy, from Latin to arts, from chemistry to biology) and finally you get a non binding diploma, which generally is prodromic to the University;
-the "semi-generalist" classic highschool (where you normally study almost every discipline, but with lot more focus on the humanistic studies), once again giving you a diploma which generally opens the door to the humanistic studies at the University:
-the socalled "ragioneria", which is basically a professional highschool focusing on commercial studies (with more pathways within the same general school category);
-the linguistic highschool (easy to understand what's all about);
-the already named master institute;
-various kinds of professional schools (from mechanics to all the other manufacturing activities);
-the surveyors' school (no need for any explaination, I guess)
 
all this kind of highschools end with the socalled "maturità", the big final examination that takes sleep away from students for the entire last year.
 
when I had to take my scientific highschool diploma (30 years ago  ), the final examination consisted of 2 written tests (Italian language, a max 6-hour long free composition which you have to pick from a set of 3 titles of 3 different arguments chosen by the School Ministry -the same for the entire Country, all kind of schools- and then a second task different from school to school -in scientific highschool normally it's always a maths test, 3 different problems for which you have max 4 hours time) and the big oral test based on 2 different disciplines among those included in the program of the last 3 years, 1 chosen by the exam committee (but they were forced always to choose the discipline where you had the best entry evaluation, so you could manipulate a bit that choice and speculate on it), 1 at your choice, with the further rule that 1 argument had to be among the humanistic disciplines and the other among the scientific disciplines.
 
luckily, the foreign language was considered part of the humanistic disciplines, so I choose biology among the scientific disciplines and the committee didn't have any choice but to pick English language as my 2nd argument (I had really poor evaluations in the other humanistic disciplines). 
 
the final evaluation was expressed with fraction of 60 votes, so 36 was the bare minimum to be licensed and finish the highschool (otherwise you have to repeat the whole final year). 
I got a miserable 43/60 because I entered the final examination by miracle (half the teachers wanted me not being qualified to enter the exams, a couple of them had to fight really hard for me).
I paid the prize to those 2 people with a very good final exam, especially the oral part...but the damage was already done and I couldn't really get more than that.
actually, my classlmates (and not only them) were really surprised to see me with such a high evaluation, they all thought I'd get a lucky 36 and nothing more.
misbelievers!!! 
 
nowadays the evaluation system (and the final examination itself) are slightly different, I think now they have 3 written tasks and a multi-disciplinary oral part, with more arguments to prepare, but a different depth of knowledge (we were required to know our 2 disciplines at the same level of a University exam, knowing every line of the whole specific book -500/600 pages if not more).

surely the covid infection was where the avalanche started...
 
I really hope it's only a question of that, of not feeling herself competitive at the top level anymore and nothing more than that.
 
Wish her a super-happy life outside competitive racing.

But it's not a secret most of her problems of last year basically came from the COVID infection and the problems that came with that. One can imagine mental problems also arise when you start doubting if your body will ever be able to do what you want it to do again...

provided she can stay healthy and somehow competitive, Wierer won't retire until after the home Olympics, surely she won't do it this Summer after the amazing end of the season she's having right now.

my respect to that guy who chose Italian language