Question for the Day…
August 27, 2008
The LPGA is requiring its players to speak English by the end of the 2009 season. Of the 121 international players from 26 countries on the U.S.-based LPGA Tour 45 of the women on the Tour are South Korean. It appears the policy-mandat is aimed directly at them. Tour officials said it will suspend players who can’t pass an English oral exam after two years on tour.
Is this fair?
Interview with Kathryn Bertine, Olympic Hopeful
August 27, 2008
I think most of us who played sports before have wondered if we’d have a chance at qualifying for the Olympics in the less well-known sports. Of course, you and I followed that thought by reaching for some more Pringles and changing the channel! However, Kathryn Bertine instead went all-out in attempting to qualify for the Olympics. She tried multiple sports, multiple strategies, and even multiple citizenships to be part of Beijing 2008. Unfortunately, her cycling times weren’t quite good enough for Beijing, but she’s already thinking about London 2012! My interview with her is below. (Photo by Andrew Kozak).
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U.S. Open Tennis: Days 1 and 2
August 26, 2008
The first two days of the U.S. Open produced few surprises. Rafael Nadal began play as the world’s number one with a tough straight set win over qualifier Bjorn Phau, 7-6 (7-4) 6-3 7-6 (7-4). Nadal was up to his usual antics, switching rackets just before an important Phau service game in the first set and later call for the trainer to attend to an “overly hot foot” - not blisters - during a changeover before Phau served. “Raffa” was obviously a bit shaken by the play of Phau and the fact that the New York crowd was squarely behind the qualifier. Nadal served for the match at 5-4 in the third set, hit some nervous shots, and was broken. But Nadal came through in the tie-breaker.
Number nine seed James Blake barely escaped a first rouynd upset as he staved off #99-ranked Donald Young. After taking the first set 6-1 in 18 minuted blake seemed to let up just a bit and Young took advantage, winning the second, 6-3. Blake then got into the type of groove where he can beat anyone in the world and demolished Young 6-1 in the third set and lead 2-0 in the fourth.
At that point Young dug in, held his serve after facing a break point, then played a long game where he had seven chances to break Blake’s serve before finally converting on the eighth break point opportunity. Young continued to surge and the level of play from both players picked mup considerably.
2008 Olympics: Racism 101 in Black and White
August 25, 2008
If this article is posted Monday morning, we can safely say the sporting press is generally racist. We can also say that certain black sportswriters and columnists are little more than shuffling, scuffling, buffoons; house slaves who love “Massa” more than they love themselves. You see Thursday evening just after 10:30 p.m. EST defending 400-meter gold medalist Jeremy Wariner finished a disappointing second in his event to fellow American LaShawn Merritt. Wariner, in fact, trailed Merritt, who posted a personal best time of 43.75 seconds, by nearly a full second (44.74) at the finish line.
But that was not the entire story of the Men’s 400-meter event in Beijing.
Not even close.
The real story was Wariner’s pitiful finish. With only 20 meters remaining in the race Wariner looked to his left and saw Merritt ahead of him. Instead of pushing himself to the end, Wariner, realizing there was not enough track left in the race to come back against his countryman, gave up.
Jeremy Wariner, the gold medal favorite in the 400-meter dash, gave up on his primary Olympic event before the finish line. He jogged to the tape and nearly cost himself a silver medal.
But as despicable as Wariner’s lack of effort was, that is only part of the story.
Men’s Olympic Basketball Gold Medal Game–WOW!
August 24, 2008
This will be terribly written, because it’s late and I’m excited. But is anyone else still up after watching that Gold Medal game? I thought it was tremendous and just had a few thoughts to share.
2008 Olympics: Redeem What Exactly?
August 24, 2008
(I couldn’t help myself … I had to write this)
It appears a battle is raging … and it is a battle for your mind. Early last week Jemele Hill appeared on ESPN’s 1st and 10 portion of its morning show, First Take. On 1st and 10 Hill talked about the “Redeem Team’s efforts and her belief that a gold medal would be some sort of pride-boost for that great monolith, “The African-American Community.” Dana Jacobson, the segment host indicated that Hill had written a piece about that very topic to be posted on ESPN.com later that day.Well, the shoe did not drop until Saturday (when it is all but assured that the US Men’s Team will win the gold) … and drop it did:
But considering how, until recently, Team USA has been vilified for being selfish, noncompetitive and fundamentally inept, it doesn’t surprise me that African-Americans view the gold medal as a special vindication.
The previous failures of the national team brought a strong sense of embarrassment to both African-American fans and players.
Wrong. Vindication for what, exactly? Vindication for malfeasant acts by the press and shock jocks, including those of ESPN Radio, who used the losses of the 2004 US Men’s National Team in Athens as their personal race-bait pulpit?
2008 Olympics: Triathlete Snowsill Demans the Games with Her Showboating Finish
August 19, 2008
Australian triathlete Emma Snowsill won an Olympic gold medal by torching her archrival, Vanessa Fernandes of Portugal. Snowsill crossed the finish line over one minute ahead of Fernandes, a winner of 20 triathlon World Cups.
Fernandes has won a record 20 World Cups, took the world title from Snowsill last year, and beat her again at the triathlon test event in Beijing last September. The Portuguese triathlete trained specifically for the Beijing environment in an attempt to get as leg up on her competition for this Olympics.
In the morning events Fernendes and Snowsill were close and in the bicycling portion of the event it appeared Fernandes might take command of the race. However, when it came to the third and final leg, the run, Snowsill, asthma and all, took control of the contest and left Fernandes far behind.
But what should have been a triumphant moment was soured by Snowsill’s showbooat finish to her gold medal run. Some 400 meters from the finish Snowsill was offered an Australian flag which she draped over her shoulders. As she trotted toward the finish line she alternately waved the flag behind her, mugging for the cameras.
Snowsill’s act cost her at least 30 second; she could have defeated Fernandes by an astounding two minutes. Instead she cheated a worldwide audience of Olympics watchers out of knowing exactly how dominant was her performance.
Under the NBC Radar: Men’s Olympic Soccer
August 18, 2008
I was just wondering if anyone else happened to watch the US men’s valiant struggle to make it out of the qualifying round of Olympic soccer. The matches were classics in that many of the players were young and more likely to take the tournament seriously. This also meant that the play was more inconsistent, but also that the games were more exciting. I wish that more people would pay attention to soccer and baseball at the Olympics, but due to the lack of pros, I don’t think people will.
Beijing Olympics: U.S. Men’s Hoops Squad Rolls Into Medal Round but Is Haunted by the Past; NBA Odds and Ends
August 18, 2008
With the score 98-53 and just a few minuites remaining in the U.S.-Germany game commentator Doug Collins sounded a warning. The former NBA player and head coach said the U.S. Men’s National Basketball teams was entering the dangerous territory of the Medal Round. Collins called this land, “One and done.” In an ominous tone he mentioned that, “One bad night and you’re finished.”
For this team of NBA stars that has demolished every team it has played so far in Group B of the Men’s Basketball Preliminaries, , the next game is a quarterfinal matchup with Australia. Unless the U.S. squad goes walk-about (Australian for, “spacing out”) the Aussies will give them no trouble. Then there are but two more contests, one almost assuredly a rematch with those dreaded “Chink-lovers,” Spain that Kobe, LeBron and crew recently blew out. Despite the ease with which this team has won, the announcer with Collins spoke in eaually ominous tones:
“The nickname coming in was the Redeem Team If you look back to 2002 and 2004 those teams came to this point (the medal round) undefeated and neither won a medal.”
Okay, okay, we get it. Let up and lose.
But this team has discovered the secret to winning basketball and as a result, will continue to run through its opponents to a gold medal. That secret is —————- shhhhhhhh…
Defense.
That’s right, defense. That act of playing consistent defense for many players is the bane of their existence, especially during the NBA regular season. But this team recognizes that 3-point shooting can come and go but with consistent, unrelaenting defensive effort come enough dunks and easy layins to augment any off shooting night.
2008 Olympics: Update - Bolt Shatters 100-meter Dash Record and the Accusations Begin (What You Haven’t Heard So Far During the Games)
August 15, 2008
Update:
Maybe Time Layden of Sports Illustrated didn’t mean what he wrote. Maybe he couldn’t help himself. But unlike other writings about Michael Phelps or any other athlete so far in the Beijing Olympics, Layden let loose with his concerns as he watched Usain Bolt shatter the 100-meter dash record:
In the belly of the Bird’s Nest past midnight, Usain Bolt emerged from a room where drug testing is done, having delivered the samples that might someday say as much about his performance as his winning time. He stepped into a wide hallway where giddy Olympic volunteers beseeched his autograph and his picture. He scribbled again and again, attaching his name to scraps of paper and to shirts, to programs and to credentials hanging from lanyards and surely they would have stayed all night with him.
Here then was a change in the course of sprinting history. Records fall, and then they fall again. But never in recent history has a 100-meter record record fallen like it fell on Saturday night in China.
Layden didn’t stop there; it turns out he did mean what he wrote to begin his article:
Yet it was not just the time. And it was not just the margin. It was the manner in which Bolt did it, shutting down with at least 15 meters left in the race and celebrating in a sort of arrogant exuberance as he crossed the line (and then running another 100 meters around the turn, much like he did in New York on May 31, when he first broke the record). He did something that seems nearly impossible: Shattering the world record while leaving the impression that he could have done much more.
“That’s not important,” Bolt said outside the stadium, long after the race. “I came here to win a gold medal.”
Soon will come the inevitable innuendo about whether Bolt is free of banned performance-enhancing substances. Surely they have started somewhere already. Such is the nature of track and field and sprinting in particular. “I pray that everybody is above board [clean],” said four-time Olympic medalist and current NBC sprint analyst Ato Boldon. “Because this kid is like something we’ve never seen before. We’re seeing the future right here.”
It appears that it will be a cold day in hell before people awaken from their slumbers and recognized how racially biased they are. A cold day in hell before they stop saying, “You’re blowing everything out of proportion. It’s not about race.”
A cold day indeed.
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I‘m officially done with the Olympics. Well, not done, just jaundiced by what I have not heard so far.
After years of decimating a who’s who of black U.S. track and field stars by using the Department of Justice (now, that’s an oxymoron if I’ve ever head one) hounding them as they competed around the globe, busting a laboratory Branch Davidian style, disseminating lists of the athletes to a salivating press, making them do the public perp walk at every turn, pursuing further evidence of their guilt with a vigor that would normally be used for, say, prosecuting a national leader who knowingly used false information to declare war on a country that has never attacked us (”he-he-he tried to kill my daddy!), then using taxpayer money to the tune of the high eight figures to prosecute them the the fullest extent, you would think the public would be attuned to Olympic figures who perform extra-extraordinary feats during the Games.
But no.
As it would be said by some wiggers, “Niggaz be breakin’ swimmin’ records like brothas in the hood breakin’ Vanilla Ice CDs.”
From Marion Jones to -oh, how could I forget?! - Barry Bonds, the eye test, the speed test, the head size test, the ‘my gut feeling’ test, and every other test except the urinalysis and blood test have been used to, to use a “W” twist on proper wording, “guiltify” black athletes who obliterate all-time records and perform feats of glory for which there is no Great White Hope equivalent.
Now, Jones and most of her track compatriots eventually caved to federal prosecutor pressure and admitted guilt in using what are termed “performance-enhancing drugs” (Bonds has not and probably never will). The prosecutions and all the itinerant perceptions surrounding the athletes’ performances were sifted through with the intensity of Africans searching for diamonds for De Beers were disseminated allegedly so the public had ample ammunition to understand just how difficult it is to perform at a world-class level and then, within a time frame where that does not allow for improvement through conventional training, suddenly top that previous performance level by a wide margin.
All of this leads us to the 2008 Summer Olympics held in Beijing, China….
And new world swimming records are being set nearly every race…. and there is not diddly-pooh being said about this fact. Sure there’s some whispering about Speedo’s LZR Racer suits (and others) that’s so nice even Phil Knight Nike reps are allowing swimmers to use them because they can boost swimmers’ best times in their chosen events.
But relay records obliterated by five seconds? 200 meter swim times shattered by over one second? Swimmers who, a little over one month ago struggled mightily to make their country’s Olympic squads winning gold and setting new world marks?
The eye, speed, and my gut feeling tests all point to something being drastically wrong, or right depending on your perspective, with what’s happening with swimmers at the “Cube,” as the facility where the swim events are taking place is called.
We all know - should know - by now that the PED makers are always ahead of the testers. And yes, athletes’ test samples for PEDs are now put into storage for the next eight years in case new tests arise that can suss out new PEDs.
But there is no urine or blood test for Insulin-like Growth Factor, commonly known as IGH-3. Only a muscle biopsy can demonstrate it in the human body. There are whispers of new procedures to mask EPO - red blood cell- boosting in the body.
The cold fact is the PED makers are probably 15 to 20 years ahead of the testers. Always have been, a;ways will be. And the not-so-funny thing is that the members of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and members of all its offshoots in nations around the world, know this.
When you watch Michael Phelps of the U.S. or Stephanie Rice of Australia crushing records, you might become absorbed in and enamored with their efforts.
But think about all the questions you asked of this baseball player, black or white, think about the new disregard for the Tour de France due to it’s proclivity for fielding a PED-laced roster of cyclists, and think about how you applauded the Feds and jeered all those the U.S. track stars when their PED use was divulged.
And think about why you are not doing the same now.
