phelps

a robbery of the worst type, I'd say...
 
in general, I've been watching a few matches earlier and these semifinals...and I've seen many bouts with controversial (just not to say shameful) refereeing...
FILA changed their name to UWW, but their attitude and politics are always the same...

streaming on wrestrus is not perfect...to say the least...
 
luckily now I can watch the finals on the Turkish Tv in HD via satellite...
 
p.s. if the official stream has troubles, try the Turkish TV one...
http://www.trt.net.tr/anasayfa/canli.aspx?y=tv&k=trtspor

the semis have just been completed...the finals are starting right now...

wow! what a game (and what a tournament) by the Finns...
they were lethal in both the power play and, above all, the penalty killing, where they scored the game winner while being shorthanded...
but Wahlstrom made such a mistake in the very last second of the game...it could even have some consequences through his entire career (I hope not, of course)...
but really, how can you miss a goal from less than half a meter from the net and without the netminder?
 
p.s. Niklas Nordgren is gonna be a great goal scorer...I guess he will jump up a lot of positions in the next NHL draft after this week...
meanwhile today I've not been so impressed by Jack Hughes...I know it's just 1 match and he's not even 17 yet (his 17th birthday is coming in 2 weeks), but still I expected more from him in such an important game...

well hard to say. wrestling is a different sport with this new weight-in rules. I don't know how much these guys cut to make the weight, that's a big big factor.
 
55; I only know the Azeri guy Azizli. even the Russian guy is new for me ( a bit lazy to check their junior records) so I guess Azizli is my pick here
63, again I'm going with the Azeri guy Mammadov. even though he has Russia in 2nd round. we have Olympic medalist Berge from Norway on top half but I don't really consider him a great wrestler. he is just a tough guy.
77; the great Roman Vlasov is back. he has his dark horse Mursaliyev in top half but I think Vlasov will beat him this time. the bottom half will be between Lorincz and Nemes. Lorincz is good in par-terre (which is a new addition per new rules) Nemes has to be careful not getting a caution, Lorincz can score big if you give him the chance being on top. Nemes has a tough draw actually he has to beat Etlinger and then Kilov before even meeting Lorincz
87; I think the 1st round match between Abdesalam and Kobliashvili is the key match for the top half. the bottom half looks much tougher with both last year world medalists Kudla and Basar. the Russian guy. and also Lorincz. for whatever reason Kudla had full support of the referes in 2016 Olympics and 2017 worlds gifting him an Olympic bronze and world silver. he won medals by doing actually nothing. the world champion Basar is also not a great wrestler. he just took his chance last year. I believe Russia and Hungary will go to the final from the bottom half. The Egyptian guy Abdusalam is my pick for the gold. that's a bold prediction I know.
130; Kayaalp will win the gold 90%, I'm surprised Georgia didn't send their World Junior Champion Phartanidze. even though Kajaia is still favorite for making to the final and have the honor of losing to Kayaalp in the final. and thanks God. no Heiki Nabi after zillion years of watching him boring everybody to death and winning matches by doing NOTHING.

well, when it comes to team sports it's quite different, because there you have some club teams that try and get some players naturalized to make their team stronger and more competitive against the richer teams that can buy all the best native players (or to try to win games in the european competitions)...
so, it explains the light of the Molinas, Echeniques getting the Italian passport (just to talk about waterpolo)...
but you also have to consider that in many cases Italy is the heritage Country of those guys, the place where their ancestors come from...so it's quite normal if they want to get back to their origins...
on the other hand, we laso had situations like the great Tibor Benedek's..he used to play in Italy, he got married here in Italy with an Italian woman, but continued to play for his native Hungary all of his life...
 
p.s. in the volleyball case, don't get fooled by the names...the only actually naturalized player in our National team is Juantorena (and as you might know, Cuban are very used to escape from their Country and go play for a Western one...at least for now...maybe after the end of the Castro family dictatorship something will change, but it will take a lot of years, I guess)...
people like Zytsev, Kovac, Travica and many others are sons of old foreign players who did play in the Italian championship many years ago, but they were born here or just came to Italy when they were 5 or 6 years young kids and then lived all of their life here (therefore they were formed by the Italian volleyball system and it's perfectly normal if they play for our team)...

well, when it comes to team sports it's quite different, because there you have some club teams that try and get some players naturalized to make their team stronger and more competitive against the richer teams that can buy all the best native players (or to try to win games in the european competitions)...
so, it explains the light of the Molinas, Echeniques getting the Italian passport (just to talk about waterpolo)...
but you also have to consider that in many cases Italy is the heritage Country of those guys, the place where their ancestors come from...so it's quite normal if they want to get back to their origins...
on the other hand, we laso had situations like the great Tibor Benedek's..he used to play in Italy, he got married here in Italy with an Italian woman, but continued to play for his native Hungary all of his life...
 
p.s. in the volleyball case, don't get fooled by the names...the only actually naturalized player in our National team is Juantorena (and as you might know, Cuban are very used to escape from their Country and go play for a Western one...at least for now...maybe after the end of the Castro family dictatorship something will change, but it will take a lot of years, I guess)...
people like Zytsev, Kovac, Travica and many others are sons of old foreign players who did play in the Italian championship many years ago, but they were born here or just came to Italy when they were 5 or 6 years young kids and then lived all of their life here (therefore they were formed by the Italian volleyball system and it's perfectly normal if they play for our team)...

Team Italy
 
Jacopo Sandro GR 60 kg
Riccardo Vito Abbrescia GR 77kg
Fabio Parisi GR 87kg
 
Frank CHAMIZO MARQUEZ FS 74kg
Shamil KUDIIAMAGOMEDOV FS 86kg
Abraham de Jesus CONYEDO RUANO FS 97kg

Aurora CAMPAGNA WW 62kg
Dalma CANEVA WW 68kg
 

sure, my friend!
 
p.s. by the way, it could have gone the opposite way, with Italy helping SLO if you had been able to score first in our empty net...

so,our empty net in the end helped italy to go in the next round.we are friendly neighbour

1 to 16 - except all the bad movies...

don't worry...you just missed out on the best years of our hockey, before FISG and the teams from the valleys between the Alps literally destroyed it...
 
I could write pages and pages about that, but I don't think this is the right place...I can only tell you that we were among the top 8 teams in the world in the early Nineties (of course thanks to the US and  Canadian born Italians...at that time our team was only made with that kind of players, with 2/3 exceptions every year) and we had a very competitive championship with 3/4 clubs among the best in Europe...but that's history (and won't come back for sure in the next many years)...

I'd rather say "despite FISG"...at least for what concerns hockey, especially the men's game...

so Great Britain returning to the elite after 25 years !!!  Congrats
 
and congrats Italia as well
 
and   welcome to Slovakia

it's over...
what a crazy day...first Italy win against SLO with just 2.3 secs to play and both teams having the empty net and then GBR scores the decisive goal with less than 16 seconds on the clock...
my heart doesn't feel that good right now...

goal...goal...goaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllll!!!!!!!!!!!!!
top division here we come!!!!!!!!

no, even if they lose now it doesn't mind anymore...ITA and GBR are promoted...
so, next year we'll be destroyed once again by the big guns, but still we fly to Bratislava (or Kosice)...and that's enough for me...

but you wrote both of our teams...and Gianlu33 is Italian!

and finally Lugano's dream is over...
the Zurich Lions win game #7 on the road with a score of 2-0 (first goal after just 3 minutes on a bad defensive mistake, second one an empty netter wuth only 19 seconds on the clock) and take the title home...
Lugano didn't play their best hockey through the first 2 periods (they were too tired and probably they also did feel too much pressure for playing this decider at home), but tried everything they could in the 3rd period and only a miracle save by Zurich's goalie Lukas Flueler on a Hoffman shot with less than a minute to play allowed the Lions to avoid the OT...
well deserved success for Zurich...but what a pity for those so brave Lugano players...
 
so, all the European leagues are now over...time to focus on the World Champs and "time to say goodbye" (cit. Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman) for me...
 
see you next Hockey season...

it was the forelast move before the match was stopped, when Heydarov started the attack, but Karapetian countered it and turned the Azeri on his side and got the second waza-ari, which means ippon according to the new rules (from the blind side view replay it's possible to see that Heydarov touches the ground with his hip and doesn't actually avoid the score...to be honest, I don't like that much this new rule which states that if you're turned around and touch the ground even with only a part of your side it's a score...I prefer the old one, when you had to put at least part of the back of your opponent on the ground to get a score)...

and today it's time to...
 
 
also in Germany and Finland...
 
In the Finnish Liiga, infact, Kärpät Oulu just won another title thanks to a goal scored with only 4:28 minutes still to be played in regulation of the 6th game of the series. 1-0 the score of today's match in Tampere and 4-2 the final score of the final series for Kärpät.
 
On the other side, in the German DEL a sprint start (4-1 after the 1st period, 6-3 the final score) in the decisive game #7 secured Red Bull Munich the second success in a row. Nothing could do all the efforts of the Eisbären Berlin to try and comeback also in today's match.
 
And tomorrow (20.15 CET) in Lugano there will be another decisive game #7, this time in the Swiss NLA, which is (unusually for them) the last of the main European leagues to come to a close this year...
I just can't wait for my personal 5th game #7 in just over 3 days...

and today it's time to...
 
 
also in Germany and Finland...
 
In the Finnish Liiga, infact, Kärpät Oulu just won another title thanks to a goal scored with only 4:28 minutes still to be played in regulation of the 6th game of the series. 1-0 the score of today's match in Tampere and 4-2 the final score of the final series for Kärpät.
 
On the other side, in the German DEL a sprint start (4-1 after the 1st period, 6-3 the final score) in the decisive game #7 secured Red Bull Munich the second success in a row. Nothing could do all the efforts of the Eisbären Berlin to try and comeback also in today's match.
 
And tomorrow (20.15 CET) in Lugano there will be another decisive game #7, this time in the Swiss NLA, which is (unusually for them) the last of the main European leagues to come to a close this year...
I just can't wait for my personal 5th game #7 in just over 3 days...

Max. 2 women and 3 men per NOC, but for Italy it doesn't matter because Tessari won gold in -54 kg, which is not in the YOG programme.
On the other side Russia must choose 3 men out of their 5 gold medallists.

Dubois is the young sister of Daniel Dubois, the professional heavyweight from England
 

it should be, but I also read that Italy only had La Piana qualified fro this tournament and not both our god medallists...
so, probably it's only 1 per NOC (we already another qualified girl from previous events), even in case of gold...