Other sports

[vatroslav_cro]

Let's see following disciplines/competitions:

Today in Szczeczin, Poland, the European short swimming pool championships (25 m) starts;
Alpine skiing slalom competition in Beaver Creek, USA,
+ the world handball championship for women continues (Brazil).

so, let's hope our teams/representers will have some luck at least in something and that this year (relatively poor one for our sports), will finish good at least

 

[vatroslav_cro]

Croatian footsal (indoor football or small football) team qualified for semi final in EC which takes place in Croatia (Zagreb and Split)! They won Ukraine in 1/4 final with 4-2 (penalties). In semifinal they 'll play against Russia or Serbia.
Second semi final: Spain and Italy or Portugal.

GO CROATIA This is the biggest achievement for us in this discipline!

 

[Interrail]

Haha, it would be great if semi1 would be Croatia-Serbia
But to be realistic...futsal is a 'new' sport in Serbia, I think Russia is a big favourite in our match But...who knows what might happen
I heard Spain dominates this sport, they won latest championships like..4 or 5 times? I guess they're a secure finalist this time, too Good luck other teams too!

 

[vatroslav_cro]

Ah Nikola, we'll see.....I would like to see us in final ... it would be a HUUUGE success indeed ... I am really modest, you know....

 

[vatroslav_cro]

Lucija Zaninović from Croatia defended her title in European taekwando championship in Manchester, yesterday. She won gold over Russian Kristina Kim (class till 49 kg weight). Final result: 10-1. Well done, girl!

 

[toinou03]

Renaud Lavillenie beat the record of pole vault today in Donetsk !
He cleared 6m16 in front of Sergey Bubka himself, hence beating a record that seemed impossible !
And... he lives in my region !

(and now, the Olympics in which we are so invisible have completely disappeared ! )

 

[Edward]

Anyone watch F1 here?

First career podium for Bottas today in Austria. Have seen this coming ever since he was Williams test driver in 2012. Needs to be a bit more regular, but the quality is there. Fighting in equal terms with veteran Massa. Will be the next great Finn in the sport.

Happy for Rosberg too. As for Vettel it starts being too many things going wrong by now (as predicted). Whole season sabotaged, doesn't deserve this.

Was good to see Webber again as well. First time doing podium interviews and already so much better than that snotty pretentious failed F1 driver that goes by the name of David Coulthard

 

[Mattan]

I've watched most races since 2001. Happy to see Austria back on the calendar, and the race was one of the more exciting ones this season. Williams did well to get a 3-4 with a great performance from Bottas, who I started following in GP3 and was quickly impressed. Still, whoever does the strategies at Williams should heavily consider giving the position to someone else. Quicker reactions to Mercedes' stops were needed. Not sure how well Silverstone suits the Williams, but at least Hungary looks like a good track for them considering Austria. Out of the two Mercedes, the right one won.
Do note how Finnish drivers always drink champagne before spraying it. It shows that Nico Rosberg represents Germany, since he wastes good champagne by spraying it all over the place. xsnooty

Sergio Pérez seems to have a good strategist behind him, as unlike Williams, Force India always seem to extract maximum performance. I just wonder how many still don't appreciate Nico Hülkenberg - Pérez has had more standout races mainly due to working strategies, but Hülkenberg has scored points in every race and is sixth in the total standings.

Meanwhile in GP2, Stoffel Vandoorne finally came back to looking great on Saturday and Raffaele Marciello took his first points in style with two podiums.
In GP3, Roman de Beer also grabbed his first points in style by being fourth.

 

[JamieBrown]

won European team championships in Braunschweig today. Well done!

 

[Edward]

[MENTION=12309]Mattan[/MENTION] I was also disappointed when I saw Williams giving away leading positions so easily after the first stops. But it could just be that even at a circuit like the Austrian one other teams simply still don't have the pace to challenge Mercedes. Although Bottas didn't finish that far off and I read Massa's post-race comments on being disappointed again with the stops strategy. I wonder how's the feedback about Bottas in overall there in Finland...do people rate him as high as I said? He just always seemed very determined and professional to me. Really focused competitive guy that doesn't feed the yellow press - like Kimi. Though I'm sure Kimi doesn't try hard to be non-sport news either but with his personality and lifestyle it would have been impossible to have ever expected otherwise. I'm curious about what people are saying about his Ferrari season as well. Is his car that inferior to Fernando's or is he simply just "taking a **** in bathroom" all over again..

Haha, I did notice Bottas really enjoying his champagne in the podium as well. True Finnish style, indeed. Probably Rosberg has had more than enough champagne throughout his life by now on the other hand, so it's really not big surprise to me...though yeah, he's half-Finn. I think Keke cared more to educate him on driving than on his paternal heritage side. Finnish is hard to learn but Nico shouldn't really have an excuse not to be able to speak it fluently. I understand he probably never needed it but this whole thing just makes Keke look bad and lazy I'd be disappointed on him if I was Finnish myself at least, anyway.

Pérez turning point this season was clearly the Bahrain GP. Up till then he was supposed to be clear number 2. Canada's performance and penalty helped a lot building this Austrian result. Clever move by FI to start him with the hardest mixture of softs. But there shouldn't be any doubts at all about who's the better driver, you just need to watch qualifying and take a look at Hülkenberg's consistency ever since he joined the sport. I think he deserved to be in a top team already this season, that Red Bull spot should have been his. I'd say Ferrari as well, as it was rumored in the past, but that would have been a poisoned gift. I think he's underrated within the sport but not unappreciated. Also his financial backing is probably the reason why he isn't yet where he deserves to be. But it's good Pérez is back to his 2012 Sauber shape, he sort of left everyone down at McLaren last season. Then again McLaren themselves have been letting their fans down for years now and have recently been obviously more biased towards their British drivers, like Button (should retire already with some dignity..). Even Magnussen is showing that he can be at leveled terms with Jenson, I mean..

 

[Mattan]

If I'm not mistaken, Hülkenberg got an SMS saying he wouldn't get the Ferrari seat for 2014 because of a certain Kimi Räikkönen. About Räikkönen's performance this year - let's just say the gap between him and Alonso isn't 1.5 seconds per lap in normal conditions. The car simply doesn't work for Räikkönen's style, Vettel has very similar problems. Ferrari have the additional problem of being badly managed, so I don't think Räikkönen's season will get any better. Hopefully the car will be better for 2015 - he does, after all, have a contract, and Ferrari have two top drivers in the team and will want to make the best of it. They're in a mess right now, as not even Alonso is happy, and he is far more comfortable with the car (though he has a history of adapting rather well whereas Räikkönen is comparable to greased lightning in a car that suits him but won't drive a tractor).

There does seem to be a problem with being Ferrari's "second driver", though (Alonso and Räikkönen are technically equal, but currently, it's not really possible). When Massa went to Williams, his driving instantly improved. When Räikkönen went to Ferrari, he now has to battle the car rather than just driving it. Hopefully James Allison's input on the 2015 car will help Räikkönen, the two have successfully worked together in the past at Lotus.

As for Bottas, he still doesn't get the same amount of press as Räikkönen, but then again, the latter has been the shining star of Finnish F1 since 2001. Bottas is rated highly by many, though. He seems to be underrated internationally, though, which I find puzzling. Especially the amount of Massa hype is odd, because Bottas has been better overall this year.
Button has lost his edge, but is still a very good driver. Magnussen's speed shows his potential more than Button's decline. He still has to weed out his mistakes, though - he's made contact only with Räikkönen twice!

 

[Edward]

The hype surrounding Massa doesn't really amaze me, he shadowed Alonso for many years and now he's again at a position where he can shine as nr. 1 at last. His fans and supporters waited for this a long time so it's natural they want to see him doing well. Also long time fans want to access how good can Massa still really be now that he has the freedom to race without being someone else's puppet. And although the edge is with Bottas currently, I don't think Felipe has done badly. He was unlucky in Australia and Canada, for instance. And Williams got Rob Smedley just for him after all. It wouldn't surprise me if he's somewhat prioritized internally and that the team will try helping to edge things back to his side. But until then bravo Valtteri and it's great for the sport that this kind of freedom to compete between team-mates exists in some teams.

 

[Edward]

Bottas keeping the great momentum at Silverstone, victory at Hockenheim to come?

Quite suspicious win for Hamilton. I don't like to feed conspiracies and would rather not even have to wonder about these sort of things...but he really needed to win today no matter what for shortening distance to Rosberg and then again there's the "racing at home factor" to go along with it. Button in 4th, while apparently deserved is also just another odd case of extra-racing motifs bias. I mean, McLaren failed terribly so far for most of the season and today they almost grabbed a podium? Let's see if there has been improvement really in 2 weeks in Germany, I suppose.

Couldn't help but have a laugh at the fight for 5th between Vettel and Alonso. Good thing that the deserving driver ended up ahead in the end. While Vettel's complaints via team radio might be annoying for some, reason was totally on his side - Alonso started the whole taking advantage of the off-track limits thing.
It's impossible to understand why Fernando even complained and the whole scaling of the issue by Ferrari that followed. "Reporting Vettel" and what not Really. Ferrari are just still behind RB, pure and simple. Even in a rather terrible season for RB. The fact that Vettel crossed the line nearly 6 seconds ahead of Alonso should leave no doubts on who had the superior car, driving skills and responsible attitude. Fernando's reputation will just look worse than what it already is after this.

And I suppose we know better by now about Kimi's (totally weird accident today, btw) underperformance. Clearly he just wanted to milk in the best possible last contract of his F1 career and I don't blame him at all for that. Which better team to go if not Ferrari after all, if winning is not a realistic goal and you still get paid lavishly? Not to mention the return of the "status" and the whole "ending up on a high" idea. Clever of him, it's Ferrari that look bad, once more.

 

[JamieBrown]

Someone interested in cycling?

Today Tony Martin surprisingly won 9th stage in Tour de France. It wasn't a time-trial. So it's the fifth german vicotry at TdF this year. Only one win away from the record last year.

And Nibali lost the yellow jersey. That also surprises me, since I though he will defend it 'til the Champs-Elysées. But I'm pretty sure he'll win this year. Last years winner Froome and my favourite rider Andy Schleck quit because of injuries and all the other favourites already lost so many time.

 

[Milos-BC]

Today, the European championship in water polo starts! And we are defending the title



is playing against today. We are definetly the favorites, but we need to be careful. We should also use this match to get all the players in the needed form and shape.

 

[Milos-BC]

16-5


We totally dominated in this match Both offense and defense were great today and everything was functioning almost perfectly. We shouldn't fly too high after this result, as it is a long way until we make something on this championship.


Our next rival is . This will be a tougher task, so we should already focus on the German team.

 

[nofuxCZ]

European Softball Champions
We won 8-0 over Denmark in the final

 

[Milos-BC]

is in the quarter finals of the European water polo championship

However, except in the first match, objectively we didn't impress. We need to improve the game both in the attack and defense in order to be able to get far on this championship. We have too many oscillations and too many mistakes. That musn't happen with a team that is going on a medal.

 

[Milos-BC]

And we are in the final! Not a single impressive game at all so far, but we have shown a streingh of the collective in the latest match, and after we were losing with 4 goals of difference, we managed to return to the match and turn the result to our favor and won in the end.


The rival in the final is Hungary. The good thing is that we already played against them and lost quite tight. It is tough to beat the same rival on the same championship twice, even when the difference in quality is much bigger and Hungary and us are on the same level basically. Chances are 50:50 still. Whatever comes in the final, we already made a fantastic result, and I am proud of the whole team.

 

[Milos-BC]

7-12


EUROPEAN CHAMPIONS! What a blitzkrieg this was It reminded me of the match between and on the recent soccer world cup


By far the best game from our team. We were dominating through the whole match and in the end we humiliated the hosts like no team ever managed to do before, and on their own field. That is a real champions team, we were the best when it was the hardest. Now it is time to celebrate