A nation shared its proudness and appreciation Sunday. Basketball was MADE IN THE USA, after all. LeBron James, among all players, was the man of red, white and blue, representing the United States with a sense of pride and grace and led the U.S. to back-to-back Olympic gold medals. He, among all players, jumped for joy in celebration near the bench, wearing a widened smile as if he was a kid who opened a brand new Spalding basketball with MJ’s signature on it. As he led the Americans in the gold-medal game, he was entitled to jubilate with his U.S. teammates, he was entitled to laugh and crack jokes with the youngest one on the team, Anthony Davis.
The man who is the most polarizing figure is suddenly an American hero for restoring hope in U.S. basketball, for reducing the embarrassment of falling from grace in a game we originated, dominated, popularized, and then produced NBA’s finest studs to showcase a new era of talented stars. The man who is the most loathed player is suddenly a savior, a humble and unselfish human being. You don’t have to like him, no, but what he’s done for U.S. basketball is beyond incredible — it’s athletic brilliance and staying power. Maybe after he searched for U.S. coach Mike Krzyzewski on the sideline and greeted him with a hug, you perceive him differently. Maybe after he stood on the podium, aglow with pride, fighting back tears as the Star Spangled Banner belted out of the loudspeaker, you have gained more respect for James. Lauded in these games, he wrapped the American flag around his shoulders and sprinted a victory lap around the court, and then celebrated with the guys proudly and happily.
He didn’t just make the country proud — he escaped hatred, anger and antipathy as one of the most recognizable athletes in the world. It marked the first time, since the megalomaniacal spectacle he televised to announce that he would be signing with the Miami Heat, that he’s pleased millions nationwide. It marked the first time, since he departed Cleveland abruptly to outrage most of the town, that he’s beautifully appreciated for an unpaid effort to compete for our country and be honored for healing America’s basketball woes. The dominance of the United States men’s basketball team, mainly because of James’ leadership and humility, has been profoundly crafty and unbeatable. With James on the U.S. side, the basketball program has risen to the top of the world again, built with NBA stars from a number of franchises that came together and contended against world-class athletes as the game is globalized. You may not love LeBron, but he loves you, willing to sacrifice his vacation months to represent this country in a respectful manner. That’s what he did this summer — unselfishly and willingly — and didn’t mind playing for his country. Before they partied in London, with gold medals hanging from their necks, James poured in 19 points, grabbed seven rebounds and had a team-high four assists, all while he was in foul trouble.
So he finally smiled, breathed a sigh of relief, realizing he had just done something good for America, where he’s despised and demonized because of jealousy or bitterness. But now, we can only send our thanks and bow to the King after his excellent performances throughout the tournament. There’s no doubt, just no doubt, that James would have been named the MVP in the Olympics, if such an honorable award existed. But in America, he’s clearly our Most Valuable Player, the global superstar we are impressed by and call our superhero. For James, the reigning NBA champion after winning his first title for the Miami Heat, he’s the iconic face of American sports, particularly for what he’s accomplished in these Olympics. And by no means were Kobe Bryant and Kevin Durant underachievers in London, as the team almost featured a different star on a nightly basis.
Durant, meanwhile, scored 30 points and collected nine rebounds and Bryant scored 17 points. This time, respectfully so, the United States needed James in the fourth quarter. As time dwindled down in the final period — like he did last spring for the Heat — he came through when it counted the most to prove to the world that he’s a clutch performer. He carried Team USA on his shoulders, just as he carried the flag proudly when it all came to an end on the last day of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, a chance for the players to get to know one another as they came together as respected teammates. But most of all, even if you hate James, he did this for you, he did this for America, and he did this for me.
It’s about America, not LeBron. The absence of King James could have smudged Team USA’s gold-medal ambitions, but, of course, Krzyzewski lobbied for him to join Team USA and restore a winning personality internationally. We can make better sense of it, when perhaps James had the best fourth-quarter performance of the afternoon, silencing haters and doubters. It looks a lot like James isn’t selfish and egocentric, but a competitor who opted for a change of scenery and seized the opportunity to venture elsewhere to win a championship. The chosen one, the man of the fourth performed to hold off Spain late in the closing minutes. James basically rebranded U.S. basketball and repaired his bad-boy image. The nail-biting scare was when James took over, as the Americans coasted to a 107-100 victory.
The Spaniards tried to cut into a lead the U.S. owned, but down the stretch Chris Paul made a couple of baskets that extended the lead. The signature play happened when James drove to the lane for a dunk that gave the U.S. a 99-91 lead and put the icing on the cake. When Spain pulled within six points, LeBron was still playing aggressive, although he had four fouls, and responded by hitting a three-pointer that gave Team USA an eight-point advantage. At age 33, entering his 16th season, Bryant is still the best closer but isn’t as dominant. There’s the notion that Team USA could have taken home silver, if not for James, as the U.S. beat Spain by 11 points. In today’s game, LeBron is gradually stepping into the closer role in his prime, and four years from now in Rio, he’ll definitely be the star all eyes will be on.
The Americans are back to take back what was theirs at the Summer Olympics with the likes of Bryant, Paul, Durant, Carmelo Anthony, Tyson Chandler, Deron Williams and James Harden, doing it without the presence of Derrick Rose, Dwight Howard and Dwyane Wade.
But it’s about the USA and thanking James.
Showing posts with label 2012 Summer Olympics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2012 Summer Olympics. Show all posts
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Saturday, August 11, 2012
2012 London Games: Nobody Can Catch Usain Bolt
The first thing I should note, as I couldn’t keep track of the Jamaicans smoking the U.S., is that Usain Bolt is really the greatest track showman. He’s a showboat, a demigod and a natural-born athlete, the sprinting sensation of the world, which affirms he’s The World’s Fastest Man. Nobody can keep up with Bolt, let alone the Americans, an amazing talent running the greatest footraces of these London Games.
Lightning Bolt is the hero of the Olympics, a new theme of track and field. It’s the greatest show in the world by a man who is merely described as the fastest man alive, born with a gift to run for his life and break world records as we become crazy about the Usain Bolt Show. His countryman, Yohan Blake, the 100 and 200-meter silver medalist, handed over the baton and, man, Bolt pulled away in the final leg to blaze across the finish line with a time of 36.84 seconds. I was impressed by him and dropped my jaw Saturday night, as always, when Bolt anchored Jamaica’s world-record performance in the 4×100 relay, breaking its own record in its gold-medal medal victory.
Walt Disney released a film called “Cool Runnings” years ago. The movie was based on a true story about a Jamaican bobsled team that raced at the Winter Olympics. The folks at Disney — as Bolt has been entertaining and electrifying to characterize the nature of track and field events in these games — should choose to make a sequel to “Cool Runnings” and call it Lightning Bolt. The motion picture, after all, would be a seller and top the movie’s box office as one of the greatest sports films of all-time.
It was, after all, the prelude to an Olympic dream, and Bolt cemented his place as one of the greatest runners of all time. There’s no denying it — we are watching Bolt blossom into a legend of these London Games before our very eyes, after sustaining excellence of defending three championships. He is hailed as the Michael Jordan of track stars, captivating 80,000 in Olympic Stadium, with his incredible feet, agility and will to win during his prime as millions across the world respects him rightfully so. The night for Great Britain was filled with euphoria, as well, when Mo Farah beat Ethiopia’s Dejen Gebremeskel in the men’s 5,000-meter final to go with his 10,000 gold, perhaps more impressive than watching Bolt and Bailey in the final leg that concluded with a dramatic finish. Bolt is the most coveted of all Olympians and pulled away from American Ryan Bailey, an impressive run in the final leg of the race, while a rambunctious crowd erupted in cheers and wildly screamed.
My eyes, however, were glued to Bolt the entire time, and no one else. He is, without argument, an Olympic legend, no matter what IOC president Jacques Rogge thinks about his legacy, saying Bolt is not yet there. The rest of the world thinks he wasn’t only the star of the sport, but feels he took another step toward moving into the company of all-time great Carl Lewis, who Bolt ripped earlier this week. If not now, eventually we’ll have no choice but to call him a legend, surpassing Lewis as the most decorated sprinter in Olympic history. Most of all, however, he’s wore the Jamaican flag around his shoulders and gold medals around his neck three times. It’s no fluke that Bolt dominated the 100 and 200-meter with his God-given speed when, rather amazingly, he’s the most relentless athlete the world has ever seen and embraced.
There’s no one as fast as Bolt, a near-perfectionist and the greatest sprinter, running all the way to claim his third gold medal of these London Games and sixth in two summer games. There’s no one who runs harder than Bolt, not right now at least. There’s nothing more breathtaking and wonderful in sports than Bolt. You were delighted, thrilled, essentially falling out of your seat, wondering how the heck he runs so quick. The most athletic runner in London is Bolt. This is a guy who once, with a straight face, said he’s the best of all-time and he’s right about it.
That’s no lie.
But what about the United States? From the moment American Tyson Gay was handed the baton, he had trouble keeping up with Blake, who outran him to give Bolt a huge lead. The handoff from Gay to Justin Gatlin was anything but perfect. But if we’ve learned anything, besides understanding that Bolt is by far the greatest, it’s that Bailey can somehow stay with the fastest man in history. This is not to say, mind you, that he can edge Bolt in a race, because it’s not seemingly possible and won’t ever happen. As time progressed during the race, Bolt had to run all the way and beat Bailey to the finish. There’s no doubt Bailey, 23, is an emerging U.S. track star, not intimidated to compete and endure a challenging footrace against Bolt.
Short of the finish — as Jamaica dominated again — a common trait of the Jamaican culture, the Americans finished second in a time of 37.04 and captured silver. As for Bailey, he’s the emerging U.S track star for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, where he looks to compete and avenge a gold-medal loss against Bolt, who had to run at full speed. This time, Bolt had to actually give it his best effort, like having to accelerate and run all the way until he reached the finish line, just enough to hold off the Americans. Bolt couldn’t slow down and celebrate prematurely, but when he delivered a signature performance, he performed gold-medal winner Farah’s famous salute.
The Jamaicans were running for one purpose, and indeed they brought home the gold, as defending three titles was Bolt’s stated goal. The Jamaicans are celebrating, and among all sprinters, Bolt is partying the most. But as long as Bolt is around, he will be the man to beat. With him around, Jamaica has sustained historic achievements.
Lightning Bolt is the hero of the Olympics, a new theme of track and field. It’s the greatest show in the world by a man who is merely described as the fastest man alive, born with a gift to run for his life and break world records as we become crazy about the Usain Bolt Show. His countryman, Yohan Blake, the 100 and 200-meter silver medalist, handed over the baton and, man, Bolt pulled away in the final leg to blaze across the finish line with a time of 36.84 seconds. I was impressed by him and dropped my jaw Saturday night, as always, when Bolt anchored Jamaica’s world-record performance in the 4×100 relay, breaking its own record in its gold-medal medal victory.
Walt Disney released a film called “Cool Runnings” years ago. The movie was based on a true story about a Jamaican bobsled team that raced at the Winter Olympics. The folks at Disney — as Bolt has been entertaining and electrifying to characterize the nature of track and field events in these games — should choose to make a sequel to “Cool Runnings” and call it Lightning Bolt. The motion picture, after all, would be a seller and top the movie’s box office as one of the greatest sports films of all-time.
It was, after all, the prelude to an Olympic dream, and Bolt cemented his place as one of the greatest runners of all time. There’s no denying it — we are watching Bolt blossom into a legend of these London Games before our very eyes, after sustaining excellence of defending three championships. He is hailed as the Michael Jordan of track stars, captivating 80,000 in Olympic Stadium, with his incredible feet, agility and will to win during his prime as millions across the world respects him rightfully so. The night for Great Britain was filled with euphoria, as well, when Mo Farah beat Ethiopia’s Dejen Gebremeskel in the men’s 5,000-meter final to go with his 10,000 gold, perhaps more impressive than watching Bolt and Bailey in the final leg that concluded with a dramatic finish. Bolt is the most coveted of all Olympians and pulled away from American Ryan Bailey, an impressive run in the final leg of the race, while a rambunctious crowd erupted in cheers and wildly screamed.
My eyes, however, were glued to Bolt the entire time, and no one else. He is, without argument, an Olympic legend, no matter what IOC president Jacques Rogge thinks about his legacy, saying Bolt is not yet there. The rest of the world thinks he wasn’t only the star of the sport, but feels he took another step toward moving into the company of all-time great Carl Lewis, who Bolt ripped earlier this week. If not now, eventually we’ll have no choice but to call him a legend, surpassing Lewis as the most decorated sprinter in Olympic history. Most of all, however, he’s wore the Jamaican flag around his shoulders and gold medals around his neck three times. It’s no fluke that Bolt dominated the 100 and 200-meter with his God-given speed when, rather amazingly, he’s the most relentless athlete the world has ever seen and embraced.
There’s no one as fast as Bolt, a near-perfectionist and the greatest sprinter, running all the way to claim his third gold medal of these London Games and sixth in two summer games. There’s no one who runs harder than Bolt, not right now at least. There’s nothing more breathtaking and wonderful in sports than Bolt. You were delighted, thrilled, essentially falling out of your seat, wondering how the heck he runs so quick. The most athletic runner in London is Bolt. This is a guy who once, with a straight face, said he’s the best of all-time and he’s right about it.
That’s no lie.
But what about the United States? From the moment American Tyson Gay was handed the baton, he had trouble keeping up with Blake, who outran him to give Bolt a huge lead. The handoff from Gay to Justin Gatlin was anything but perfect. But if we’ve learned anything, besides understanding that Bolt is by far the greatest, it’s that Bailey can somehow stay with the fastest man in history. This is not to say, mind you, that he can edge Bolt in a race, because it’s not seemingly possible and won’t ever happen. As time progressed during the race, Bolt had to run all the way and beat Bailey to the finish. There’s no doubt Bailey, 23, is an emerging U.S. track star, not intimidated to compete and endure a challenging footrace against Bolt.
Short of the finish — as Jamaica dominated again — a common trait of the Jamaican culture, the Americans finished second in a time of 37.04 and captured silver. As for Bailey, he’s the emerging U.S track star for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio, where he looks to compete and avenge a gold-medal loss against Bolt, who had to run at full speed. This time, Bolt had to actually give it his best effort, like having to accelerate and run all the way until he reached the finish line, just enough to hold off the Americans. Bolt couldn’t slow down and celebrate prematurely, but when he delivered a signature performance, he performed gold-medal winner Farah’s famous salute.
The Jamaicans were running for one purpose, and indeed they brought home the gold, as defending three titles was Bolt’s stated goal. The Jamaicans are celebrating, and among all sprinters, Bolt is partying the most. But as long as Bolt is around, he will be the man to beat. With him around, Jamaica has sustained historic achievements.
Thursday, August 9, 2012
With All Due Respect, Hope Solo Gets Save for U.S. Women
When the clock finally expired, Hope Solo met her teammates at midfield for a group hug, then leaped in the air and wrapped herself in the American flag. The U.S. goalkeeping star wasn’t always a genuine sweetheart, or wasn’t always a quiet girl. And suddenly Solo, now an Olympic champion at Wembley Stadium, London’s most prestigious sporting venue, is humbled and meek, finally a winner in the Summer Games.
At best she’s not egomaniacal and not bombastic, growing as a person each day and curtailing her arrogant and defiant personality. Humility is helping her grow as a person. Gracefulness is helping her appreciate life better. The heroine of American soccer — a blowhard, a boaster and a loudmouth – was cocky and bitter in a sense, becoming a lightning rod as a well-known American sporting icon. But now, she has a gold medal hanging from her neck and backed up her talk with a diving save on Japanese forward Mana Iwabuchi in the 83rd minute to preserve a 2-1 victory over Japan on Thursday night in the Olympic gold-medal game. So, amid the doubts and unnecessary talk, Solo played the role of a goddess, and not an annoying prima donna who made headlines for arrogantly lashing out at Brandi Chastain on Twitter following her comments about the current’s team defense at the start of the tournament.
In defense, Solo was immature and mishandled the situation with a lack of class and no respect, childishly ranting her displeasure and rage with her big mouth and reckless tweets, allowing her emotions to get the best of her when remarks seem offensive. It shouldn’t be so shocking that Solo is overly sensitive and deciphers things wrongly, or takes unfavorable judgment too personal and doesn’t keep her cool. It’s been seen too often, but what’s also been impressive lately is her marvelous defensive play, leadership and maturity, stepping up at the right time to finally realize her responsibilities were extremely important for the Americans to beat Japan.
While the U.S. team pressed on throughout the tournament, Solo matured as a person, she was more gracious and cordial, handling her task as a goalkeeper, the most difficult position in soccer in which protecting the net is key. If it all looks unreal for the most polarizing athlete of all women — especially in these summer games — where she’s an angel or embattled because of her pompous comments, well, it’s as real as it gets. Solo is not someone you’d like to marry, but she’s very athletic and is the most recognizable female goalie in her country. For those who are not familiar with Solo — perhaps the best female goalie to ever play — she’s a winner and proved it when she rose to the occasion and was stout for much of the night.
This is her moment to laugh, and then years and years from now she can reminisce about the yesteryears with her kids, and tell her story about wrapping herself in the country’s flag. Years from now, Solo can share portraits of the moment she and her teammates stood in line with gold medals around their necks. This, of course, was an exhilarating and special day when she celebrated and soaked in a wonderful moment with her teammates. It’s one victory that might have signified vindication and mounted Solo’s status in U.S. women’s soccer, when she had a stellar performance after underachieving throughout the tournament.
At the right time, she came up big in the crucial moments, basically the justification for Americans coming away with a redemptive victory over their foes from Japan. The craziest, nastiest, bad-tempered woman turned into a score-stopping machine, stopping 12 of 13 shots she encountered that could have been game-changing plays had the Japanese converted goal-scoring opportunities. If not for her, the Americans could have lost for a second time to Japan, who defeated the United States in the World Cup last year. It came down to Solo stretching out her body, extending her arms and diving to amazingly fend off a missile shot. There surely is no way she will change her demeanor or personality, and she represents her country so proudly that she’ll always have a fiery and snobbish attitude, although she stands by America and gives us a bad name with her actions.
It’s in her nature and she’s molded in a sense to conduct herself in such a way that we should realize who she truly is by now, as we’ve all known Solo so well. If I had to choose the most noteworthy athlete to play goalkeeper for the U.S. soccer team, the first person who’d come to mind is Solo, even though she’s quite smug about being the star of the sport, thinking highly of herself as if she’s the best soccer star ever in the land of the USA. That sense of mannerism is irritating and annoying, but as we all know, winning is a cure to humanity. So once an athlete wins, particularly a medal for its country, everything turns irrelevant. Solo is, in her own way, a witness to that, no doubt. She can irritate and peeve our senses, and then carry the weight of expectations on her shoulders. There wasn’t a better time to come along and become a shutdown goalkeeper, coming through when it matters the most.
And Team USA? It was redemption and relief for the U.S women’s soccer team, erasing the heartbreaking blow in the World Cup championship game. The victory gave the Americans a third consecutive Olympic title, with a pair of spectacular goals from Carli Lloyd, who scored both goals including the gold-medal winning goal. And this wasn’t a time Solo blew it, or a time she couldn’t defend the net and instead came on strong for Team USA. Without Hope, the Americans had no chance to survive. The reality is, she wanted it badly, and within reach of her stated goal, Solo was huge in stretches of the game. Such was when she leaped in the air and deflected the ball with her fingertips on a header by Yuki Ogimi in the 18th minute.
A mountain of failures in the past brought her to reality, and she indeed responded, on the biggest stage in front of 80,203 roaring fans at London’s cathedral. The largest crowd ever attended to watch a women’s soccer game, and surely Solo had the game of her striking career. Spectators also saw Abby Wambach move toward becoming one of the all-time U.S. greats.
Solo, though, was given her chance to prove she can play.
If there were one thing we can take away from this miraculous Olympic games, it would be her goal-saving stops that led to American gold.
At best she’s not egomaniacal and not bombastic, growing as a person each day and curtailing her arrogant and defiant personality. Humility is helping her grow as a person. Gracefulness is helping her appreciate life better. The heroine of American soccer — a blowhard, a boaster and a loudmouth – was cocky and bitter in a sense, becoming a lightning rod as a well-known American sporting icon. But now, she has a gold medal hanging from her neck and backed up her talk with a diving save on Japanese forward Mana Iwabuchi in the 83rd minute to preserve a 2-1 victory over Japan on Thursday night in the Olympic gold-medal game. So, amid the doubts and unnecessary talk, Solo played the role of a goddess, and not an annoying prima donna who made headlines for arrogantly lashing out at Brandi Chastain on Twitter following her comments about the current’s team defense at the start of the tournament.
In defense, Solo was immature and mishandled the situation with a lack of class and no respect, childishly ranting her displeasure and rage with her big mouth and reckless tweets, allowing her emotions to get the best of her when remarks seem offensive. It shouldn’t be so shocking that Solo is overly sensitive and deciphers things wrongly, or takes unfavorable judgment too personal and doesn’t keep her cool. It’s been seen too often, but what’s also been impressive lately is her marvelous defensive play, leadership and maturity, stepping up at the right time to finally realize her responsibilities were extremely important for the Americans to beat Japan.
While the U.S. team pressed on throughout the tournament, Solo matured as a person, she was more gracious and cordial, handling her task as a goalkeeper, the most difficult position in soccer in which protecting the net is key. If it all looks unreal for the most polarizing athlete of all women — especially in these summer games — where she’s an angel or embattled because of her pompous comments, well, it’s as real as it gets. Solo is not someone you’d like to marry, but she’s very athletic and is the most recognizable female goalie in her country. For those who are not familiar with Solo — perhaps the best female goalie to ever play — she’s a winner and proved it when she rose to the occasion and was stout for much of the night.
This is her moment to laugh, and then years and years from now she can reminisce about the yesteryears with her kids, and tell her story about wrapping herself in the country’s flag. Years from now, Solo can share portraits of the moment she and her teammates stood in line with gold medals around their necks. This, of course, was an exhilarating and special day when she celebrated and soaked in a wonderful moment with her teammates. It’s one victory that might have signified vindication and mounted Solo’s status in U.S. women’s soccer, when she had a stellar performance after underachieving throughout the tournament.
At the right time, she came up big in the crucial moments, basically the justification for Americans coming away with a redemptive victory over their foes from Japan. The craziest, nastiest, bad-tempered woman turned into a score-stopping machine, stopping 12 of 13 shots she encountered that could have been game-changing plays had the Japanese converted goal-scoring opportunities. If not for her, the Americans could have lost for a second time to Japan, who defeated the United States in the World Cup last year. It came down to Solo stretching out her body, extending her arms and diving to amazingly fend off a missile shot. There surely is no way she will change her demeanor or personality, and she represents her country so proudly that she’ll always have a fiery and snobbish attitude, although she stands by America and gives us a bad name with her actions.
It’s in her nature and she’s molded in a sense to conduct herself in such a way that we should realize who she truly is by now, as we’ve all known Solo so well. If I had to choose the most noteworthy athlete to play goalkeeper for the U.S. soccer team, the first person who’d come to mind is Solo, even though she’s quite smug about being the star of the sport, thinking highly of herself as if she’s the best soccer star ever in the land of the USA. That sense of mannerism is irritating and annoying, but as we all know, winning is a cure to humanity. So once an athlete wins, particularly a medal for its country, everything turns irrelevant. Solo is, in her own way, a witness to that, no doubt. She can irritate and peeve our senses, and then carry the weight of expectations on her shoulders. There wasn’t a better time to come along and become a shutdown goalkeeper, coming through when it matters the most.
And Team USA? It was redemption and relief for the U.S women’s soccer team, erasing the heartbreaking blow in the World Cup championship game. The victory gave the Americans a third consecutive Olympic title, with a pair of spectacular goals from Carli Lloyd, who scored both goals including the gold-medal winning goal. And this wasn’t a time Solo blew it, or a time she couldn’t defend the net and instead came on strong for Team USA. Without Hope, the Americans had no chance to survive. The reality is, she wanted it badly, and within reach of her stated goal, Solo was huge in stretches of the game. Such was when she leaped in the air and deflected the ball with her fingertips on a header by Yuki Ogimi in the 18th minute.
A mountain of failures in the past brought her to reality, and she indeed responded, on the biggest stage in front of 80,203 roaring fans at London’s cathedral. The largest crowd ever attended to watch a women’s soccer game, and surely Solo had the game of her striking career. Spectators also saw Abby Wambach move toward becoming one of the all-time U.S. greats.
Solo, though, was given her chance to prove she can play.
If there were one thing we can take away from this miraculous Olympic games, it would be her goal-saving stops that led to American gold.
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
2012 London Olympics: A Dynasty at the Beach Like No Other
The nation’s best volleyball players, Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings had a wild party on the sand Wednesday night. The game ended, and May-Treanor danced and then ran around like a little girl at the playground, celebrating and hopping in the sand. The bikini babes medaled again, cementing a legacy on the beach every summer of the Olympic year, to clearly stand alone as the greatest dynasty in Olympic history.
After dominating three straight Summer Olympics, Walsh Jennings searched for her family in the stands, making a quick trip to her parents and her husband in the stands. The moment felt real, with her mom and dad, with her husband, hugging each of them proudly to embrace her last match. Teary-eyed and overjoyed, she grabbed and squeezed her children tightly, celebrating and sharing the moment in tears with Kessy and Ross, who wrapped a flag around their backs and playfully loped across the sand to be showered with “USA!” chants.
All along, we had the feeling May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings, favorites entering the contest, would pull off the victory. It’s as if they couldn’t ever lose, and the truth to the matter is, they never lost. It was theirs, and nobody else’s game. It seemed that they stole the ball to keep it out of reach, buried it under the sand and impressed every country, including the two Americans they met in the medal game, with their supremacy and flair to absorb all the spotlight and popularity.
It’s never easy to leave behind a game, especially when both Kerri and Misty, the most recognizable athletes in beach volleyball, dominated the sport for a decade and fascinated millions again beating Americans Jennifer Kessy and April Ross to win their third consecutive Olympic title. It’s no wonder we’ve fallen in love with the game of volleyball whenever the Summer Games were in progress, fascinated with Misty and Kerri and finished taking pleasure in one of the wonderful Olympic marathons in history by two U.S. hotshots that cultivated the sport’s significance.
The night ended so fast, and just like that, the girls were gold medalists — three-time gold medalists in the same thing they’ve played so well in their flawless Olympic careers. It still amazes me, as they swatted a ball over the net for the longest, that these ladies finished unbeaten. The whole time in competition against competitors from other countries they’ve never lost a match. They were all about winning, ever since teaming up together at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, where they started to produce win after win and went a combined 21-0 and unbelievably dropped just one set overall.
The beach girls came from California to London to compete again and leave precisely a legacy — two of the finest athletes, not only because of beauty or attractiveness but because they are indeed among the top athletes in American sports. Already world champions on the beach, Misty and Kerri, as we are all too familiar with every time the Olympics come in the summer months, were emotional, truly humbled and in tears of joy.
The most admired athletes, after going out as role models for many young girls who may be ambitious to follow their shoes, played in the Summer Games together for the last time, bringing home gold for the third straight time at the Olympics, a rare accomplishment not seen too often in these games. But it’s real and a dynasty is possible, just ask the best tandem in Olympic history. Oh, and they will tell you it wasn’t easy to win three straight gold medals. The two heroines, as we know, have a special bond, an enduring friendship that will remain intact, no doubt, spending countless hours together training and preparing for the world’s toughest competition.
They are Olympian darlings, often appreciated, and totally cool among an elite class of female athletes. Friendship, and competitiveness, is what led to a deep bond, made for a good show and popularized a sport that originated in Southern California at a beach, which gave us May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings. The game that defined a couple of legacies, on a night at a fake beach in the middle of England where spectators looked on and watched history happen before their very eyes, was beautifully magnificent and the legendary beach girls defeated a duo of two emerging Americans in straight sets (21-16, 21-16).
And while Walsh Jennings, 36, said she will return for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio seeking another gold medal to add to her precious collection, her friend and longtime partner, May-Treanor announced her retirement. At age 35, May-Treanor has plans for life after these games, standing by her word to stay retired and spend time with her family and husband Matt Treanor, who is a major league baseball player with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Before she ever was an Olympian, May-Treanor earned her master’s degree in coaching and athletic administration, and desires to coach indoor volleyball for her second-career.
For two years, after the Beijing Games, the two separated and dealt with personal issues in their lives. Things changed for Kerri having to be there for her kids. She’s a mother of two and spent plenty of time with her kids, while May-Treanor fractured her Achilles tendon on “Dancing With The Stars,” when she was a contestant. But the women finally took care of priorities and met again in 2011, and began to get back into studying and finding a workable blueprint for adjustments.
The hard work, because they were willing to give it their best effort in seeking gold, benefited in their favor indeed. The three-time Olympic beach volleyball champions were spectacular and performed impressively at these games.
It was a phenomenal tandem, an awesome dynasty, and I’m going to miss the most dominant team in U.S. Olympic history.
After dominating three straight Summer Olympics, Walsh Jennings searched for her family in the stands, making a quick trip to her parents and her husband in the stands. The moment felt real, with her mom and dad, with her husband, hugging each of them proudly to embrace her last match. Teary-eyed and overjoyed, she grabbed and squeezed her children tightly, celebrating and sharing the moment in tears with Kessy and Ross, who wrapped a flag around their backs and playfully loped across the sand to be showered with “USA!” chants.
All along, we had the feeling May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings, favorites entering the contest, would pull off the victory. It’s as if they couldn’t ever lose, and the truth to the matter is, they never lost. It was theirs, and nobody else’s game. It seemed that they stole the ball to keep it out of reach, buried it under the sand and impressed every country, including the two Americans they met in the medal game, with their supremacy and flair to absorb all the spotlight and popularity.
It’s never easy to leave behind a game, especially when both Kerri and Misty, the most recognizable athletes in beach volleyball, dominated the sport for a decade and fascinated millions again beating Americans Jennifer Kessy and April Ross to win their third consecutive Olympic title. It’s no wonder we’ve fallen in love with the game of volleyball whenever the Summer Games were in progress, fascinated with Misty and Kerri and finished taking pleasure in one of the wonderful Olympic marathons in history by two U.S. hotshots that cultivated the sport’s significance.
The night ended so fast, and just like that, the girls were gold medalists — three-time gold medalists in the same thing they’ve played so well in their flawless Olympic careers. It still amazes me, as they swatted a ball over the net for the longest, that these ladies finished unbeaten. The whole time in competition against competitors from other countries they’ve never lost a match. They were all about winning, ever since teaming up together at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, where they started to produce win after win and went a combined 21-0 and unbelievably dropped just one set overall.
The beach girls came from California to London to compete again and leave precisely a legacy — two of the finest athletes, not only because of beauty or attractiveness but because they are indeed among the top athletes in American sports. Already world champions on the beach, Misty and Kerri, as we are all too familiar with every time the Olympics come in the summer months, were emotional, truly humbled and in tears of joy.
The most admired athletes, after going out as role models for many young girls who may be ambitious to follow their shoes, played in the Summer Games together for the last time, bringing home gold for the third straight time at the Olympics, a rare accomplishment not seen too often in these games. But it’s real and a dynasty is possible, just ask the best tandem in Olympic history. Oh, and they will tell you it wasn’t easy to win three straight gold medals. The two heroines, as we know, have a special bond, an enduring friendship that will remain intact, no doubt, spending countless hours together training and preparing for the world’s toughest competition.
They are Olympian darlings, often appreciated, and totally cool among an elite class of female athletes. Friendship, and competitiveness, is what led to a deep bond, made for a good show and popularized a sport that originated in Southern California at a beach, which gave us May-Treanor and Walsh Jennings. The game that defined a couple of legacies, on a night at a fake beach in the middle of England where spectators looked on and watched history happen before their very eyes, was beautifully magnificent and the legendary beach girls defeated a duo of two emerging Americans in straight sets (21-16, 21-16).
And while Walsh Jennings, 36, said she will return for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio seeking another gold medal to add to her precious collection, her friend and longtime partner, May-Treanor announced her retirement. At age 35, May-Treanor has plans for life after these games, standing by her word to stay retired and spend time with her family and husband Matt Treanor, who is a major league baseball player with the Los Angeles Dodgers. Before she ever was an Olympian, May-Treanor earned her master’s degree in coaching and athletic administration, and desires to coach indoor volleyball for her second-career.
For two years, after the Beijing Games, the two separated and dealt with personal issues in their lives. Things changed for Kerri having to be there for her kids. She’s a mother of two and spent plenty of time with her kids, while May-Treanor fractured her Achilles tendon on “Dancing With The Stars,” when she was a contestant. But the women finally took care of priorities and met again in 2011, and began to get back into studying and finding a workable blueprint for adjustments.
The hard work, because they were willing to give it their best effort in seeking gold, benefited in their favor indeed. The three-time Olympic beach volleyball champions were spectacular and performed impressively at these games.
It was a phenomenal tandem, an awesome dynasty, and I’m going to miss the most dominant team in U.S. Olympic history.
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
With Failure After Failure, Lolo Jones Doesn’t Live Up to Hype
And so it ends, without Lolo Jones earning a medal to drape around her neck. For the American hurdler who has been criticized so much, it’s quite iconic with what happened to Jones again in these games, heartbroken and disillusioned, fighting through much adversity and having a second chance to respond, but unfortunately she was unsuccessful in redeeming herself of failures.
In Beijing, she tripped over the penultimate hurdle, falling flat on her face in the final to experience an agonizing debacle that crushed her heart, and then she had no choice but to live with the pain and humiliation until the London Games. Seeking redemption after blowing a gold-medal run in 2008, Jones perhaps was too slow, and without even tripping over a hurdle, she suffered a heartbreaker that will hurt for a while as she was supposed to be the comeback kid.
Considering that she’s a megastar in women’s track and field, engulfed in much tension and associated with negative publicity, she’s not famous only for her hurdling but sex appeal and marketing in which Jones attracts so much attention and plenty of hype because she’s gorgeous and sells products. It was four years later, not long after she burst into tears and missed out on Olympic gold, that Jones was burnt out from the annoying criticism and bashing, dealing with a remote crossroads and tough obstacles as she trained hard six days a week for the London Olympics.
The most hyped Olympian ever, finishing the 100-meter hurdles fourth and then walking off in shock Tuesday, stood at the finish line, with her eyes staring at the scoreboard, fighting away tears and holding back emotions as the gold medal slipped away ever so quickly. This time, it boiled down to a tight, nerve-racking finish, and then by the time Jones broke the tape to record a time of 12.58 seconds, her fastest time of the season, she still couldn’t medal to exceed expectations in the summer games. She was so disgusted, that she barely took a few minutes to congratulate second-place finisher Dawn Harper, the gold medalist in Beijing. The sight of her reaction was depressing and disheartening, and when she walked off promptly to escape from cameramen, she put her hands over her head and bent over, with tears flowing after enduring a gut-wrenching near miss.
The rain dropped softly, and as it was another lamentable night, she failed to prove she’s an athletic runner and not just a marketer, widely dissed by the media and critics for having no athleticism but an image and beauty that has ballooned her stardom. Having a beautiful smile and gorgeous looks that gives off a glow, Jones’ endorsements makes her rich and popular, not the way she performs on the track when she tries jumping over hurdles. The star of American track and field is the epitome of an overly beloved athlete treated like a heroine, making the cover of Time, along with a spread in Rolling Stone and a feature on MTV.com, when she had not medaled in the Olympics. The American diva of Olympians is also the prototype of a supermodel and could have a second career as a famous TV personality, especially after appearing on late-night television as a guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where she was rather more entertaining in front of the camera than running a footrace that she has not seen much triumph in during the course of her prosaic Olympic career.
It was, at the very least, intriguing that she opened up publicly to offer her biography on a rough life story. It wasn’t always easy for Jones, growing up in poverty as a young girl and living in a church basement with her family. Growing up poor with practically nothing, her ex-con father taught her to shoplift but she refused to take such a horrific path, turning to sports for a new outlet and then became a track star in high school that earned her a scholarship to LSU. Shortly after her phenomenal college career at Louisiana State University that launched her Olympic career and formed unnecessary hype, she foolishly posed nude in a magazine, and then vowed to remain a virgin until marriage. She is coming off a career threatening injury, and made a strong recovery after undergoing spinal cord surgery. Days after the procedure, despite a speedy rehab that allowed Jones to resume intense training, it was believed to be that she wouldn’t ever race again.
It’s funny she’s overly advertised and portrayed as a winner, when truthfully she has not won a damn thing, sputtering on the biggest stage and fluffing her chances of proving to be one of the best hurdlers. But as it turns out, Jones is merely a Twitter sensation, a superwoman exposed to all the glamour and endorsement deals. So basically, she’s a marketing ploy, a woman with a sexy body and beautiful looks. There’s nothing more to it, and by thinking there’s more to it, then just flash back to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I remember the race like it was yesterday, and not only was she in the lead for the 100-meter hurdle race, but right there at the finish line to secure the gold medal until hitting the last hurdle to finish seventh.
Talk about a heartbreaker. The standards are always more demanding for Olympic athletes when supporting and savoring high regards, leaving the athlete with no room to breathe or even commit failure. The weight of expectations is larger. The magnitude of failure is a concern. And the pressure of having to win and sustain near-perfection is hard and oppressive. By now Jones can see it, now that she is living through it and faces a sense of reality. She’s anything but golden. Not as advertised, she’s wrongly publicized. Not once in the Olympics has she ever been that good of a hurdler.
Australia’s Sally Pearson finished in 12.35 seconds, just .02 ahead of Harper to win gold. The other American medal-winner was Kellie Wells, an athlete who wasn’t nearly as popular or talked about. If you’ve been watching, then you certainly know of Lolo, a hurdler you cannot miss. It’s impossible to miss her, with all the attention she absorbs, which is not floating too well with a number of U.S. Olympic athletes. The Lolo drama is nothing more but an insult to them, a form of disrespect and disregard when two Americans beat Jones, who is so famous in London, she could have her reality show as the diva of pop culture and not a real athlete. Maybe she’s an idol, but she’s not an Olympian just because of her title in these games.
It doesn’t mean anything if she can’t ever win a medal. It doesn’t matter whether she’s a world indoor champion and first-place finisher at meets in Norway and Qatar. Wake me up when she wins at the Olympics. Until then, I’m sleeping on Lolo, a name that sounds like a baby lullaby. And, after all, she has been pouting and crying in these games, mad over a controversial New York Times magazine article last week that compared Jones to Anna Kournikova. The female tennis star has never won a Grand Slam singles final. So that’s not such a bad comparison quite frankly, in fact, it’s brilliant.
As it seems, at least for now, Jones is no crying or laughing matter. Try an American disgrace.
A fat hippo has a better chance of winning a race than she does.
In Beijing, she tripped over the penultimate hurdle, falling flat on her face in the final to experience an agonizing debacle that crushed her heart, and then she had no choice but to live with the pain and humiliation until the London Games. Seeking redemption after blowing a gold-medal run in 2008, Jones perhaps was too slow, and without even tripping over a hurdle, she suffered a heartbreaker that will hurt for a while as she was supposed to be the comeback kid.
Considering that she’s a megastar in women’s track and field, engulfed in much tension and associated with negative publicity, she’s not famous only for her hurdling but sex appeal and marketing in which Jones attracts so much attention and plenty of hype because she’s gorgeous and sells products. It was four years later, not long after she burst into tears and missed out on Olympic gold, that Jones was burnt out from the annoying criticism and bashing, dealing with a remote crossroads and tough obstacles as she trained hard six days a week for the London Olympics.
The most hyped Olympian ever, finishing the 100-meter hurdles fourth and then walking off in shock Tuesday, stood at the finish line, with her eyes staring at the scoreboard, fighting away tears and holding back emotions as the gold medal slipped away ever so quickly. This time, it boiled down to a tight, nerve-racking finish, and then by the time Jones broke the tape to record a time of 12.58 seconds, her fastest time of the season, she still couldn’t medal to exceed expectations in the summer games. She was so disgusted, that she barely took a few minutes to congratulate second-place finisher Dawn Harper, the gold medalist in Beijing. The sight of her reaction was depressing and disheartening, and when she walked off promptly to escape from cameramen, she put her hands over her head and bent over, with tears flowing after enduring a gut-wrenching near miss.
The rain dropped softly, and as it was another lamentable night, she failed to prove she’s an athletic runner and not just a marketer, widely dissed by the media and critics for having no athleticism but an image and beauty that has ballooned her stardom. Having a beautiful smile and gorgeous looks that gives off a glow, Jones’ endorsements makes her rich and popular, not the way she performs on the track when she tries jumping over hurdles. The star of American track and field is the epitome of an overly beloved athlete treated like a heroine, making the cover of Time, along with a spread in Rolling Stone and a feature on MTV.com, when she had not medaled in the Olympics. The American diva of Olympians is also the prototype of a supermodel and could have a second career as a famous TV personality, especially after appearing on late-night television as a guest on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, where she was rather more entertaining in front of the camera than running a footrace that she has not seen much triumph in during the course of her prosaic Olympic career.
It was, at the very least, intriguing that she opened up publicly to offer her biography on a rough life story. It wasn’t always easy for Jones, growing up in poverty as a young girl and living in a church basement with her family. Growing up poor with practically nothing, her ex-con father taught her to shoplift but she refused to take such a horrific path, turning to sports for a new outlet and then became a track star in high school that earned her a scholarship to LSU. Shortly after her phenomenal college career at Louisiana State University that launched her Olympic career and formed unnecessary hype, she foolishly posed nude in a magazine, and then vowed to remain a virgin until marriage. She is coming off a career threatening injury, and made a strong recovery after undergoing spinal cord surgery. Days after the procedure, despite a speedy rehab that allowed Jones to resume intense training, it was believed to be that she wouldn’t ever race again.
It’s funny she’s overly advertised and portrayed as a winner, when truthfully she has not won a damn thing, sputtering on the biggest stage and fluffing her chances of proving to be one of the best hurdlers. But as it turns out, Jones is merely a Twitter sensation, a superwoman exposed to all the glamour and endorsement deals. So basically, she’s a marketing ploy, a woman with a sexy body and beautiful looks. There’s nothing more to it, and by thinking there’s more to it, then just flash back to the 2008 Beijing Olympics. I remember the race like it was yesterday, and not only was she in the lead for the 100-meter hurdle race, but right there at the finish line to secure the gold medal until hitting the last hurdle to finish seventh.
Talk about a heartbreaker. The standards are always more demanding for Olympic athletes when supporting and savoring high regards, leaving the athlete with no room to breathe or even commit failure. The weight of expectations is larger. The magnitude of failure is a concern. And the pressure of having to win and sustain near-perfection is hard and oppressive. By now Jones can see it, now that she is living through it and faces a sense of reality. She’s anything but golden. Not as advertised, she’s wrongly publicized. Not once in the Olympics has she ever been that good of a hurdler.
Australia’s Sally Pearson finished in 12.35 seconds, just .02 ahead of Harper to win gold. The other American medal-winner was Kellie Wells, an athlete who wasn’t nearly as popular or talked about. If you’ve been watching, then you certainly know of Lolo, a hurdler you cannot miss. It’s impossible to miss her, with all the attention she absorbs, which is not floating too well with a number of U.S. Olympic athletes. The Lolo drama is nothing more but an insult to them, a form of disrespect and disregard when two Americans beat Jones, who is so famous in London, she could have her reality show as the diva of pop culture and not a real athlete. Maybe she’s an idol, but she’s not an Olympian just because of her title in these games.
It doesn’t mean anything if she can’t ever win a medal. It doesn’t matter whether she’s a world indoor champion and first-place finisher at meets in Norway and Qatar. Wake me up when she wins at the Olympics. Until then, I’m sleeping on Lolo, a name that sounds like a baby lullaby. And, after all, she has been pouting and crying in these games, mad over a controversial New York Times magazine article last week that compared Jones to Anna Kournikova. The female tennis star has never won a Grand Slam singles final. So that’s not such a bad comparison quite frankly, in fact, it’s brilliant.
As it seems, at least for now, Jones is no crying or laughing matter. Try an American disgrace.
A fat hippo has a better chance of winning a race than she does.
Sunday, August 5, 2012
Usain Bolt Strikes Lightning On London’s Brightest Stage
He is about to become the king of racing, to be precise. Taking off out of the starting block the minute the starting gun fired at Olympic Stadium, unfazed by the doubts and skeptics discounting him as the world’s fastest man, Usain Bolt hauled down the track, faster than a stampede of wildebeests. Well ahead of other sprinters to defend the Olympic 100-meter title Sunday night, he spread his arms in celebration, knowing nobody was behind him to catch up and deprive him of back-to-back resplendent performances, knowing he had just claimed the shiny hardware that he wore around his neck in Beijing four years ago.
As quickly as he dusted everyone in competition, he crossed the finish line and rolled his eyes, as the world’s fastest man alive celebrated, showboated, preened and bobbed his head. It also was Bolt bobblehead night at the center of Olympic Stadium, moving and jerking his head so much to revel in the moment after seizing another opportunity to win the 100-meter gold in 9.63 seconds, the second-fastest time ever run. After weeks of doubt, Bolt won the race, as usual, and kissed the ground, performed a somersault, struck his trademark lightning bolt pose and hugged his training partner and countryman Yohan Blake, who was second matching his personal best with a time of 9.75 seconds. There was an American who finished in the spotlight, as well, but Justin Gatlin lost for the first time this season, settling for bronze in a time of 9.79 seconds. Of course, Bolt was going to win the race — and not just by a step, but dust everyone in the fastest 100-meter dash you will ever see this generation. There’s no overstatement. Bolt, born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, had the greatest footrace in history to burnish a wondrous legacy.
At age 25, he’s achieved more than the average Olympian, idolized in his native home Jamaica, including other parts of the world as people all over the universe savor his awesome, far-reaching speed, a natural born star treated like an almighty superstar worldwide. That’s what happens when a man has a signature race that we will certainly recall one day, as the incredible showman put on a breathtaking display no one will ever forget, flying faster than Carl Lewis, who is the only other sprinter to defend his 100 Olympic title. Jesse Owens? Not so sure about him… But I do know that Bolt ran the race under 10 seconds to truly become a sporting legend, maybe even one of the most attractive icons in the land of the USA, where he even featured in an ESPN Sportscenter commercial, where he’s marketable, which he is one of the world’s richest sports personalities.
Yet his sport isn’t nearly as respected as are football, basketball and baseball, the basic three Americans tend to follow, while we ignore track and field, which is only popular and eventful every four years that the summer games are in progress. Otherwise, nobody talks about Bolt, an athletic star just as famous and competitive as, say, Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and David Beckham. If he was born and raised in the U.S., he’d easily be seen among the greatest, but Bolt is a stud, an all-time great and is anointed all over the world, drawing all eyes as a sellout crowd of 80,000 chanted “Usain! Usain! Usain!” In these Olympics, shutting up the few who said he wasn’t fast enough to continue his dominance, Bolt, famously living up to his moniker, exploded to the finish just hours before Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of independence, giving his folks back home more reason to celebrate.
If you can beat Tyson Gay, the second-fastest man in the world, and also outrun Richard Thompson of Trinidad, who won silver in the event four years ago in China, then you know you are pretty damn fast. He also burned Blake, yes, his teammate who smoked Bolt twice in the 100 and 200 at the Jamaican Olympic trials, and folks wondered about Bolt’s health status that raised concern as to whether or not he could retain the men’s 100m title when indeed he secured another Olympic gold to add to his collection. From the water to the track, as we dwelled on U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps for the past week when he shattered an historic Olympic record and earned a massive total of 22 medals, 18 of them gold, now we are harping on the fastest creature to run. In a statement victory, followed by a standing ovation from an amazed crowd that witnessed a jaw-dropping, dramatic finish, he can wear the Jamaican flag around his shoulders like a superhero’s cape all he wants and can keep running on the track as if there’s a race to be ran.
From here on out, Bolt has a molded personality that best defines him, and so he won’t change anytime soon, as we’ve grown to accept his victory pose, his dancing and his obnoxious frowns and facial gestures. He is, nonetheless, entitled to do what he feels is necessary, winning again to bloom on the biggest stage and keep the Olympic cauldron burning until Sunday, thanks in large part to his fastness and finesse. The need to defy science is the least important to Bolt — running not for scientists’ curiosity of evaluating the speed of sprinters — but to compete in a sport that he trains hard for and succeeds in these days. The race, believe it or not, was collectively the fastest 100-meter race in history, when seven sprinters zipped across the finish line under 10 seconds for a track event that will forever be talked about. Soon after he left the block, running faster than the rest of the gang, he had separated himself from them and then he turned his head back and effortlessly brought it home, a familiar affair recognized in Beijing four years ago. It was a time he dominated the summer games, as well, owning the track at the Bird Nest in China, like the way he owns Olympic Stadium now to the point where it can be named after him.
Bolt Stadium?
No, he couldn’t set a world record but he didn’t really have to, and still ran like a ferocious animal. Had he ran harder, and not decided to relax, Bolt would have broken the world record easily. But he wasn’t concerned about the world record, and just cared about becoming a two-time champion in the same race, one that seems to expose his strength and no weaknesses. Better than ever, Bolt likes drama, he likes excitement, he likes the noise he makes, bringing plenty of action to a race every time he walks onto the track and sets up for a footrace that he usually wins ridiculously. The attention was more important, craving the spotlight more than he does actually winning a race? Hmmm. Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn’t.
But either way, that is, he certainly loves the limelight, which explains why he’s so flashy and is much of a showboat by his actions and facial expressions that doesn’t float too well for some who think Bolt is pompous and arrogant. Not the case whatsoever. But now, as we can see straight and clearly, he’s a competitor, an athlete who cares about his popularity and rather entertain a large crowd, win or lose. So by staying true to his word, a civilized and humanly unstoppable specimen, ran almost the perfect and fastest race.
In fact, he had to be flying as fast as a 90 mph fastball, quicker than a cheetah or dragsters. With his speed, just to ensure you, Bolt can have a second-career, once he’s done racing and start a business for public transportation that wheels people across a community in a four-wheeled wagon at high speed. Millions of people in America waited to witness the fastest man alive, Usain Bolt, as opposed to U.S. sprinters Gay and Gatlin. We adore the drama and gripping performances in sports, and with Bolt’s burst of speed, his much-hyped world records in the modern era of the 100-meter dash, attracting such a mass audience that he fascinates as he leans back with his arms slanted and the left hand pointing into the air, our folks are infatuated with Jamaica’s sprinting sensation.
If you’re not awestruck by this, then I don’t know what to tell you. It was the race of the ages, an instant classic, an Olympic games to remember.
As quickly as he dusted everyone in competition, he crossed the finish line and rolled his eyes, as the world’s fastest man alive celebrated, showboated, preened and bobbed his head. It also was Bolt bobblehead night at the center of Olympic Stadium, moving and jerking his head so much to revel in the moment after seizing another opportunity to win the 100-meter gold in 9.63 seconds, the second-fastest time ever run. After weeks of doubt, Bolt won the race, as usual, and kissed the ground, performed a somersault, struck his trademark lightning bolt pose and hugged his training partner and countryman Yohan Blake, who was second matching his personal best with a time of 9.75 seconds. There was an American who finished in the spotlight, as well, but Justin Gatlin lost for the first time this season, settling for bronze in a time of 9.79 seconds. Of course, Bolt was going to win the race — and not just by a step, but dust everyone in the fastest 100-meter dash you will ever see this generation. There’s no overstatement. Bolt, born and raised in Kingston, Jamaica, had the greatest footrace in history to burnish a wondrous legacy.
At age 25, he’s achieved more than the average Olympian, idolized in his native home Jamaica, including other parts of the world as people all over the universe savor his awesome, far-reaching speed, a natural born star treated like an almighty superstar worldwide. That’s what happens when a man has a signature race that we will certainly recall one day, as the incredible showman put on a breathtaking display no one will ever forget, flying faster than Carl Lewis, who is the only other sprinter to defend his 100 Olympic title. Jesse Owens? Not so sure about him… But I do know that Bolt ran the race under 10 seconds to truly become a sporting legend, maybe even one of the most attractive icons in the land of the USA, where he even featured in an ESPN Sportscenter commercial, where he’s marketable, which he is one of the world’s richest sports personalities.
Yet his sport isn’t nearly as respected as are football, basketball and baseball, the basic three Americans tend to follow, while we ignore track and field, which is only popular and eventful every four years that the summer games are in progress. Otherwise, nobody talks about Bolt, an athletic star just as famous and competitive as, say, Kobe Bryant, Tiger Woods, Derek Jeter, Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and David Beckham. If he was born and raised in the U.S., he’d easily be seen among the greatest, but Bolt is a stud, an all-time great and is anointed all over the world, drawing all eyes as a sellout crowd of 80,000 chanted “Usain! Usain! Usain!” In these Olympics, shutting up the few who said he wasn’t fast enough to continue his dominance, Bolt, famously living up to his moniker, exploded to the finish just hours before Jamaica’s 50th anniversary of independence, giving his folks back home more reason to celebrate.
If you can beat Tyson Gay, the second-fastest man in the world, and also outrun Richard Thompson of Trinidad, who won silver in the event four years ago in China, then you know you are pretty damn fast. He also burned Blake, yes, his teammate who smoked Bolt twice in the 100 and 200 at the Jamaican Olympic trials, and folks wondered about Bolt’s health status that raised concern as to whether or not he could retain the men’s 100m title when indeed he secured another Olympic gold to add to his collection. From the water to the track, as we dwelled on U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps for the past week when he shattered an historic Olympic record and earned a massive total of 22 medals, 18 of them gold, now we are harping on the fastest creature to run. In a statement victory, followed by a standing ovation from an amazed crowd that witnessed a jaw-dropping, dramatic finish, he can wear the Jamaican flag around his shoulders like a superhero’s cape all he wants and can keep running on the track as if there’s a race to be ran.
From here on out, Bolt has a molded personality that best defines him, and so he won’t change anytime soon, as we’ve grown to accept his victory pose, his dancing and his obnoxious frowns and facial gestures. He is, nonetheless, entitled to do what he feels is necessary, winning again to bloom on the biggest stage and keep the Olympic cauldron burning until Sunday, thanks in large part to his fastness and finesse. The need to defy science is the least important to Bolt — running not for scientists’ curiosity of evaluating the speed of sprinters — but to compete in a sport that he trains hard for and succeeds in these days. The race, believe it or not, was collectively the fastest 100-meter race in history, when seven sprinters zipped across the finish line under 10 seconds for a track event that will forever be talked about. Soon after he left the block, running faster than the rest of the gang, he had separated himself from them and then he turned his head back and effortlessly brought it home, a familiar affair recognized in Beijing four years ago. It was a time he dominated the summer games, as well, owning the track at the Bird Nest in China, like the way he owns Olympic Stadium now to the point where it can be named after him.
Bolt Stadium?
No, he couldn’t set a world record but he didn’t really have to, and still ran like a ferocious animal. Had he ran harder, and not decided to relax, Bolt would have broken the world record easily. But he wasn’t concerned about the world record, and just cared about becoming a two-time champion in the same race, one that seems to expose his strength and no weaknesses. Better than ever, Bolt likes drama, he likes excitement, he likes the noise he makes, bringing plenty of action to a race every time he walks onto the track and sets up for a footrace that he usually wins ridiculously. The attention was more important, craving the spotlight more than he does actually winning a race? Hmmm. Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn’t.
But either way, that is, he certainly loves the limelight, which explains why he’s so flashy and is much of a showboat by his actions and facial expressions that doesn’t float too well for some who think Bolt is pompous and arrogant. Not the case whatsoever. But now, as we can see straight and clearly, he’s a competitor, an athlete who cares about his popularity and rather entertain a large crowd, win or lose. So by staying true to his word, a civilized and humanly unstoppable specimen, ran almost the perfect and fastest race.
In fact, he had to be flying as fast as a 90 mph fastball, quicker than a cheetah or dragsters. With his speed, just to ensure you, Bolt can have a second-career, once he’s done racing and start a business for public transportation that wheels people across a community in a four-wheeled wagon at high speed. Millions of people in America waited to witness the fastest man alive, Usain Bolt, as opposed to U.S. sprinters Gay and Gatlin. We adore the drama and gripping performances in sports, and with Bolt’s burst of speed, his much-hyped world records in the modern era of the 100-meter dash, attracting such a mass audience that he fascinates as he leans back with his arms slanted and the left hand pointing into the air, our folks are infatuated with Jamaica’s sprinting sensation.
If you’re not awestruck by this, then I don’t know what to tell you. It was the race of the ages, an instant classic, an Olympic games to remember.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Oscar Pistorius: ‘The Blade Runner’ Makes for Wonderful Story, So Don’t Ruin It
The folks of the Olympics don’t understand it, probably because Oscar Pistorius is different from everybody else, a double amputee born with no fibulas in his legs. It’s one of the many inspirational stories to ever bring a glow to the summer games, as the South African product ran in the 2012 Olympics on prosthetic legs, with millions inspired and overwhelmed having their sights on the fastest man with no legs.
The problem? Listen to what the naysayers are saying. The oblivious and dubious people are prejudice to the disabled, not kind allowing Pistorius to compete in these games, simply finding a convenient excuse to do whatever it takes to discourage him. But he refused to let the criticism stop him from seizing an opportunity that was finally given to him, and from a very young age, he’s always dreamed of getting into the action at the summer games. Fortunately, he was allowed to run with the world’s best after the International Association of Athletics Federations banned Pistorius from able-bodied events when tests conducted on him at German Sport University showed that his Cheetah blades gave him an advantage. Months later, the court attested that the IAAF had plundered his rights and violated its own rules, and with the concepts of science having a huge influence on their decision, he was unfairly excluded from qualifying for Beijing in 2008.
By now, with only nine days remaining until closing ceremonies, the swirling controversy circling around Pistorius, known as the “Blade Runner, is getting old and people are already fatigued by the endless debates. Why oh why must we ruin such a heartwarming story of a determined athlete who is handicap but has the mettle and self-command to work toward his passion and run with the able-bodies? Why oh why must we discriminate, and turn down a man different from other elite runners, yet he really isn’t much different from any one else? A day doesn’t pass without a tired conversation as to whether or not he belongs on the same track with able-bodied sprinters, an overblown and ignorant argument that has peeved our senses, well, some of us rather. What is there to argue?
Pistorius, like it or not, became the first double-amputee to compete in an Olympics. He also, like it or not, ran on the blades, the prosthetic legs people are negatively passing judgment and voicing opinions on without actually knowing if the blades are what gives him energy to dust able-bodies. Though the laboratories evaluated his blades, which delayed Pistorius’ Olympic eligibility, he dropped into the starting block. From the start, he was slow and couldn’t pick up speed but finally burst out of the crowd, and as a result, he finished in 45.44 seconds Saturday morning, one of his best times this season. That would be good enough for advancing into Sunday’s semifinal round of the 400-meter qualifying to hopefully finish in the top eight of the round to qualify for Monday’s final.
When he is running, as you probably notice, Pistorius’ legs make it seem as if he’s soaring and not actually running. It’s like he’s flying to give us his best imitation of Michael J. Fox on a hover board. It’s like he’s living in the year of 2030, or something. The footrace ended, and Pistorius had qualified for the next round, in sight of advancing further and pulling off the unthinkable. Among all things, now that he’s finally here reaching new heights as a runner, Pistorius is just graceful and happy to be belting along at full speed in these Olympics. He has been training diligently for these games for years and it has certainly paid off. He is stepping into the scene in hopes to stun the world, and he has the heart, he has the spirit, disallowing a birth defect to obstruct a sports career.
But to say he’s not allowed and that his blades gives him an advantage is injustice and folly 24 years after he had his legs amputated. It’s not his fault he was born without fibulas, but still turned into one of the world’s fastest runners with no legs, amazingly keeping pace with the able-bodies that makes for a wonderful book on one of the gorgeous heroic tale. There are signs that his prosthetics are an unfair competitive advantage to abled-bodied runners, but we really don’t know, no matter what scientists tells us, no matter what scientists wants us to believe. The same could be said about Pistorius, unfairly mistreated to take action against healthy runners. The effort of the Court of Arbitration for Sport to reinstate him, after track and field’s international governing body briefly banned him from able-bodied competition briefly, allowed Pistorius to compete — once two scientists confirmed his blades gave him extra propulsion.
He is, indeed, amazing and inspiring that encourage disabled athletes to take on sports and overcome adversity, opening doors for someone handicap, not as fortunate as those with arms and legs that allows them to perform at the highest level in whatever sport they decide trying. It’s only an insult to keep knocking him, downgrading him and disrespecting him, with the human race diminishing the magnitude of inspiration, encouragement, motivation, drive and dedication he brings to mind, uplifting the confidence of others willing to become stimulated with the challenge of overcoming a disability and not letting it stop a person from reaching his or her ambitions. Used to the doubt, Pistorius takes it as motivation. Used to the negative publicity, Pistorius runs harder every time he’s in for a dogfight.
Even if he doesn’t win, he’s still a winner just for hanging with the able-bodied runners, dauntless and courageous to expose his talent with help from his artificial legs. But while I’m OK with him out there, no different from anybody else who I’m fair to as well, you aren’t fine by him racing and think he should only be sprinting in the Paralympics when he has every damn right to have fun in London on his vicious Cheetah blades. Scientists, and it figures, are trying to study him as if he’s a science experiment, and the research has been vague and false, not sure what to believe. There’s no evidence to prove whether or not Pistorius’ blades offers an advantage, and we can only speculate and theorize, just as scientists can predict and try hard to sound intelligent when deep down they don’t know the truth about these blades themselves. In specifics, the carbon-fiber Cheetah Flex-Feet is what he’s wearing to race, the artificial legs he used for the 2004 Athens Paralympics, where he won gold in the 200 to shatter the world record.
Maybe he’s an unfair advantage. Maybe not. But, no matter what, he’s this year’s delightful story.
Let’s not make this an episode of Sports Science but a story of inspiration.
The problem? Listen to what the naysayers are saying. The oblivious and dubious people are prejudice to the disabled, not kind allowing Pistorius to compete in these games, simply finding a convenient excuse to do whatever it takes to discourage him. But he refused to let the criticism stop him from seizing an opportunity that was finally given to him, and from a very young age, he’s always dreamed of getting into the action at the summer games. Fortunately, he was allowed to run with the world’s best after the International Association of Athletics Federations banned Pistorius from able-bodied events when tests conducted on him at German Sport University showed that his Cheetah blades gave him an advantage. Months later, the court attested that the IAAF had plundered his rights and violated its own rules, and with the concepts of science having a huge influence on their decision, he was unfairly excluded from qualifying for Beijing in 2008.
By now, with only nine days remaining until closing ceremonies, the swirling controversy circling around Pistorius, known as the “Blade Runner, is getting old and people are already fatigued by the endless debates. Why oh why must we ruin such a heartwarming story of a determined athlete who is handicap but has the mettle and self-command to work toward his passion and run with the able-bodies? Why oh why must we discriminate, and turn down a man different from other elite runners, yet he really isn’t much different from any one else? A day doesn’t pass without a tired conversation as to whether or not he belongs on the same track with able-bodied sprinters, an overblown and ignorant argument that has peeved our senses, well, some of us rather. What is there to argue?
Pistorius, like it or not, became the first double-amputee to compete in an Olympics. He also, like it or not, ran on the blades, the prosthetic legs people are negatively passing judgment and voicing opinions on without actually knowing if the blades are what gives him energy to dust able-bodies. Though the laboratories evaluated his blades, which delayed Pistorius’ Olympic eligibility, he dropped into the starting block. From the start, he was slow and couldn’t pick up speed but finally burst out of the crowd, and as a result, he finished in 45.44 seconds Saturday morning, one of his best times this season. That would be good enough for advancing into Sunday’s semifinal round of the 400-meter qualifying to hopefully finish in the top eight of the round to qualify for Monday’s final.
When he is running, as you probably notice, Pistorius’ legs make it seem as if he’s soaring and not actually running. It’s like he’s flying to give us his best imitation of Michael J. Fox on a hover board. It’s like he’s living in the year of 2030, or something. The footrace ended, and Pistorius had qualified for the next round, in sight of advancing further and pulling off the unthinkable. Among all things, now that he’s finally here reaching new heights as a runner, Pistorius is just graceful and happy to be belting along at full speed in these Olympics. He has been training diligently for these games for years and it has certainly paid off. He is stepping into the scene in hopes to stun the world, and he has the heart, he has the spirit, disallowing a birth defect to obstruct a sports career.
But to say he’s not allowed and that his blades gives him an advantage is injustice and folly 24 years after he had his legs amputated. It’s not his fault he was born without fibulas, but still turned into one of the world’s fastest runners with no legs, amazingly keeping pace with the able-bodies that makes for a wonderful book on one of the gorgeous heroic tale. There are signs that his prosthetics are an unfair competitive advantage to abled-bodied runners, but we really don’t know, no matter what scientists tells us, no matter what scientists wants us to believe. The same could be said about Pistorius, unfairly mistreated to take action against healthy runners. The effort of the Court of Arbitration for Sport to reinstate him, after track and field’s international governing body briefly banned him from able-bodied competition briefly, allowed Pistorius to compete — once two scientists confirmed his blades gave him extra propulsion.
He is, indeed, amazing and inspiring that encourage disabled athletes to take on sports and overcome adversity, opening doors for someone handicap, not as fortunate as those with arms and legs that allows them to perform at the highest level in whatever sport they decide trying. It’s only an insult to keep knocking him, downgrading him and disrespecting him, with the human race diminishing the magnitude of inspiration, encouragement, motivation, drive and dedication he brings to mind, uplifting the confidence of others willing to become stimulated with the challenge of overcoming a disability and not letting it stop a person from reaching his or her ambitions. Used to the doubt, Pistorius takes it as motivation. Used to the negative publicity, Pistorius runs harder every time he’s in for a dogfight.
Even if he doesn’t win, he’s still a winner just for hanging with the able-bodied runners, dauntless and courageous to expose his talent with help from his artificial legs. But while I’m OK with him out there, no different from anybody else who I’m fair to as well, you aren’t fine by him racing and think he should only be sprinting in the Paralympics when he has every damn right to have fun in London on his vicious Cheetah blades. Scientists, and it figures, are trying to study him as if he’s a science experiment, and the research has been vague and false, not sure what to believe. There’s no evidence to prove whether or not Pistorius’ blades offers an advantage, and we can only speculate and theorize, just as scientists can predict and try hard to sound intelligent when deep down they don’t know the truth about these blades themselves. In specifics, the carbon-fiber Cheetah Flex-Feet is what he’s wearing to race, the artificial legs he used for the 2004 Athens Paralympics, where he won gold in the 200 to shatter the world record.
Maybe he’s an unfair advantage. Maybe not. But, no matter what, he’s this year’s delightful story.
Let’s not make this an episode of Sports Science but a story of inspiration.
Friday, August 3, 2012
2012 Olympics: Allyson Felix Tries to Exceed Expectations
Allyson Felix sprints into Olympic Stadium with a glare in her eyes, and the body language of a serious competitor, the kind of vibes she brings to racing. It’s about her intensity and emotions, building a winning attitude, on a mission to smoke each sprinter in London and sell a million of Nike shoes, feature on the front cover of sports magazines and be immortalized on Kellogg’s cereal boxes.
The pressure is on as she can rise to stardom, already a rising star in these games, considering that she’s one of America’s fastest women in the world. When she finally arrived in London, after training hard in Los Angeles for the 2012 Summer Olympics, she could have run a marathon around Great Britain. The reigning three-time world 200m champion, Felix, enters as favorite with Veronica Campbell-Brown of Jamaica standing in her way to once again try and unhinge her pursuit of becoming the next beautiful American dream. These games feels like her moment to capture the world’s attention, her moment to shine, proudly wearing the red, white and blue of the United States, representing a nation where it has produced some of the top competitors to take on elite Olympians from all over the world.
Thus, she has twice finished second to Campbell-Brown in the 200-meter at the Games after qualifying in heats running onto the track with a goal on her mind. The two-time silver medalist insisted she is much-improved and can win multiple gold medals, as her goal of winning seems well within reach. She’s dreaming about earning her gold, not silver, which she won at the age of 18 at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. The weigh of expectations that she may not exceed, the notion of failure and incompleteness are what the naysayers are thinking about, not kind to give her the benefit of the doubt, although four years later makes a difference in one’s performance.
Even at 26, Felix has been mentioned in the same breath as Marion Jones and has the weight her on shoulders to try and surpass a former U.S. sprinter whose sensational performance in Sydney was later tainted because of performance-enhancing drugs. In contrast, Felix has never tested positive for banned substances, which means nobody has placed an asterisk next to her incredible mark. Not once in her Olympic career has she fallen from grace or into deep shame. The world will be looking on to watch Felix hopefully sprint her way into the finish for an elusive individual Olympic gold medal, when she is arguably the fastest U.S. sprinter in track and field nowadays, with another crack to post an exceptional time and have a personal best in the 200 for the first time since in five years. The notion of track and field is that competition is about the fastest, strongest, or toughest, and Felix might just be the fastest, strongest, or toughest woman in these games, a track star who is gifted to blow past every runner in both the 100 and 200.
If she strides in the 100 and solidifies her Olympic career, for the most part, she will be a megastar in the world of track and field. If not, she will have to live with the doubt and misery of failing to capture a gold medal. In the women’s sprints, with all the attention pointing in her direction and really no one else’s, Felix is the more talked-about athlete and is joined by Carmelita Jeter and Tianna Madison. You’ve seen Felix race down the track like a cheetah on the prowl, a burst of speed during the final seconds of her race. At top speed, she just keeps running, on the flat surfaces as thousands of spectators watch from the stands amaze by her incredible agility and swiftness, dashing to the finish with an unbelievable time. For years now, she’s been running, training hard to develop her craft and preparing specifically for these games.
For years, she has been doubted and disrespected as much as she’s finally gotten the credit where credit is due, including in these Olympics favorite to walk away with the bright hardware that she hopes to drape around her neck this time around, awestruck by her improvement and odds of beating the Jamaican girl and other sprinters. With Felix in the middle of the strangest controversy due to a mishandled runoff, in which she and Jeneba Tarmoh finished in a dead heat for the USA’s final spot in the 100 meters, she just missed qualifying for the 100, a race Jeter won as Madison crossed the line second. And when she was disgusted by her fourth-place finish at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials in Eugene, Ore., while a review of the race conceded that Felix and Tarmoh finished in a dead beat, Tarmoh withdrew from a runoff and Felix was given the spot in the Olympic 100.
It’s no coincidence that we are embracing her as a true heroine or either an American disillusionment, an iconic sprinter anticipated to have a few races of her lifetime, particularly after Tarmoh determined the final Olympic spot by barely beating Felix for third place before it was overturned. Heretofore, she really wasn’t even eligible to compete in her best event, a race that exposes her strength and rarely a weakness and a few other activities she takes on in the summer games. It seems more people like her chances, including disbelievers, which she can likely come away with the gold. It may just be her time to spice up the games for the American folks watching from coast to coast, from state to state, from city to city, from living room to living room, from TV set to TV set.
We tend to fall in love with our superstars in America, and when it involves mano-a-mano competition that comprise of U.S. athletes, then viewers are willing to pay close attention. Felix, win or lose, does give us a show, sprinting as fast as she can, not to only awe spectators but chase her dream of standing tall on the podium with Olympic gold around her neck. This time, it was Felix who won her heat easily on Friday in a time of 11.01 seconds, advancing to Saturday’s semifinals and angling for well-respected, a most precious prize of representing a country as an Olympian. Her coach happens to be Florence Griffith-Joyner, the husband of Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
Her performances and speed, although she has not brought the same kind of intensity into the Olympics, is what allows her to own the moniker as the fastest women in the United States, if not the world. From her body of work, which has been seen over the years, she has won three world championships in the 200 meter and finished second at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. But if she’d like to post the quickest time and respectively finish first to accept the gold medal, an award she has been dreaming of and running after for years, Felix must beat rival Campbell-Brown. Felix saw an opportunity to accomplish her No. 1 goal, as she stated so often over the years.
She wants gold, not silver, not bronze. Gold.
The pressure is on as she can rise to stardom, already a rising star in these games, considering that she’s one of America’s fastest women in the world. When she finally arrived in London, after training hard in Los Angeles for the 2012 Summer Olympics, she could have run a marathon around Great Britain. The reigning three-time world 200m champion, Felix, enters as favorite with Veronica Campbell-Brown of Jamaica standing in her way to once again try and unhinge her pursuit of becoming the next beautiful American dream. These games feels like her moment to capture the world’s attention, her moment to shine, proudly wearing the red, white and blue of the United States, representing a nation where it has produced some of the top competitors to take on elite Olympians from all over the world.
Thus, she has twice finished second to Campbell-Brown in the 200-meter at the Games after qualifying in heats running onto the track with a goal on her mind. The two-time silver medalist insisted she is much-improved and can win multiple gold medals, as her goal of winning seems well within reach. She’s dreaming about earning her gold, not silver, which she won at the age of 18 at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. The weigh of expectations that she may not exceed, the notion of failure and incompleteness are what the naysayers are thinking about, not kind to give her the benefit of the doubt, although four years later makes a difference in one’s performance.
Even at 26, Felix has been mentioned in the same breath as Marion Jones and has the weight her on shoulders to try and surpass a former U.S. sprinter whose sensational performance in Sydney was later tainted because of performance-enhancing drugs. In contrast, Felix has never tested positive for banned substances, which means nobody has placed an asterisk next to her incredible mark. Not once in her Olympic career has she fallen from grace or into deep shame. The world will be looking on to watch Felix hopefully sprint her way into the finish for an elusive individual Olympic gold medal, when she is arguably the fastest U.S. sprinter in track and field nowadays, with another crack to post an exceptional time and have a personal best in the 200 for the first time since in five years. The notion of track and field is that competition is about the fastest, strongest, or toughest, and Felix might just be the fastest, strongest, or toughest woman in these games, a track star who is gifted to blow past every runner in both the 100 and 200.
If she strides in the 100 and solidifies her Olympic career, for the most part, she will be a megastar in the world of track and field. If not, she will have to live with the doubt and misery of failing to capture a gold medal. In the women’s sprints, with all the attention pointing in her direction and really no one else’s, Felix is the more talked-about athlete and is joined by Carmelita Jeter and Tianna Madison. You’ve seen Felix race down the track like a cheetah on the prowl, a burst of speed during the final seconds of her race. At top speed, she just keeps running, on the flat surfaces as thousands of spectators watch from the stands amaze by her incredible agility and swiftness, dashing to the finish with an unbelievable time. For years now, she’s been running, training hard to develop her craft and preparing specifically for these games.
For years, she has been doubted and disrespected as much as she’s finally gotten the credit where credit is due, including in these Olympics favorite to walk away with the bright hardware that she hopes to drape around her neck this time around, awestruck by her improvement and odds of beating the Jamaican girl and other sprinters. With Felix in the middle of the strangest controversy due to a mishandled runoff, in which she and Jeneba Tarmoh finished in a dead heat for the USA’s final spot in the 100 meters, she just missed qualifying for the 100, a race Jeter won as Madison crossed the line second. And when she was disgusted by her fourth-place finish at the U.S. Olympic track and field trials in Eugene, Ore., while a review of the race conceded that Felix and Tarmoh finished in a dead beat, Tarmoh withdrew from a runoff and Felix was given the spot in the Olympic 100.
It’s no coincidence that we are embracing her as a true heroine or either an American disillusionment, an iconic sprinter anticipated to have a few races of her lifetime, particularly after Tarmoh determined the final Olympic spot by barely beating Felix for third place before it was overturned. Heretofore, she really wasn’t even eligible to compete in her best event, a race that exposes her strength and rarely a weakness and a few other activities she takes on in the summer games. It seems more people like her chances, including disbelievers, which she can likely come away with the gold. It may just be her time to spice up the games for the American folks watching from coast to coast, from state to state, from city to city, from living room to living room, from TV set to TV set.
We tend to fall in love with our superstars in America, and when it involves mano-a-mano competition that comprise of U.S. athletes, then viewers are willing to pay close attention. Felix, win or lose, does give us a show, sprinting as fast as she can, not to only awe spectators but chase her dream of standing tall on the podium with Olympic gold around her neck. This time, it was Felix who won her heat easily on Friday in a time of 11.01 seconds, advancing to Saturday’s semifinals and angling for well-respected, a most precious prize of representing a country as an Olympian. Her coach happens to be Florence Griffith-Joyner, the husband of Jackie Joyner-Kersee.
Her performances and speed, although she has not brought the same kind of intensity into the Olympics, is what allows her to own the moniker as the fastest women in the United States, if not the world. From her body of work, which has been seen over the years, she has won three world championships in the 200 meter and finished second at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. But if she’d like to post the quickest time and respectively finish first to accept the gold medal, an award she has been dreaming of and running after for years, Felix must beat rival Campbell-Brown. Felix saw an opportunity to accomplish her No. 1 goal, as she stated so often over the years.
She wants gold, not silver, not bronze. Gold.
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Michael Phelps’ Historic Feat Enriches Legacy
On Thursday night, he became the king of swimming, the face of a sport that has taken over the Summer Olympics during a generation that Michael Phelps has swam for gold medals in the age of the Swimming Gold Rush. Once again, as winning is common, he amplified his incremental legacy at the London Aquatics Centre and remarkably is the most decorated Olympian ever, piling up his 20th medal at the 2012 London Games — and as Phelps finishes his outstanding career on top — he can retire from the sport with a bang.
If this is the end, he could wind up with an offer and television deal to broadcast swimming competitions for a TV network, or he may even get an itch and compete in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, which his mother, Debbie Phelps, is hoping he decides not to call it quits with a sport he’s dominated so well. And at these games, he’s now a 20-time medalist, 16 of them gold, and no doubt will go down as the greatest Olympian of all-time.
This was a race for Phelps to cherish for sure, an individual swim that will send him into retirement on a high note. As he celebrated at the medal ceremonies, again, as always, Phelps stepped onto the podium, smiled as the national anthem blasted out of the loudspeaker and stared into the air and fought back tears as the United States flag rose to the rafters. It marked the first time at these games that he won an individual gold medal, finally looking like the old Phelps we all knew so well in Athens and Beijing.
Four years ago, he stood on the podium every night, as he did today, with gold draped around his neck. Eight years ago, he collected more gold than Scrooge McDuck, and surely, America applauded him for becoming a then-14-time Olympic gold medalist. That was then. This is now. He was finally swimming like a streamlined dolphin, if not better, a human fish darting his way through the water. He had won the 200-meter individual medley and beaten his rival who burned him last weekend, teammate Ryan Lochte.
Now maybe he can attend a Ravens’ home game and feature on the Jumbotron in a video shot and be given a standing ovation. Now maybe he can make a late-night TV appearance with David Letterman. In what could actually be his final Olympics, Phelps is swimming as someone who is refocused and rejuvenated, willing to continue his quest for gold. He is, incredibly, a coveted and exuberant swimmer, be it painstaking training that has been his means to fame and fortune throughout a lustful generation of unthinkable performances and massive records, done brilliantly in the pool from Sydney to Athens to Beijing to London. There still are two more events remaining on his schedule, and by the time competition comes to a close, he can fly back to his hometown of Baltimore with five golds and two silvers in seven races. The race he will remember more than the rest would be the 200 IM at these summer games.
It was payback, in a sense, a way to get even with his teammate. This time around, he edged out Lochte by .63 seconds and won a gleaming gold medal to add to a priceless collection. Amazingly but realistically, Phelps’ long torso helped him paddle through the water. This time around, as expected, he crashed into the wall to secure Olympic gold for likely the last time individually if he doesn’t claim the gold medal in his last individual race and doesn’t chose to come back in four years to have yet another historic feat that he navigates so brilliantly and incredibly.
This time around, as anticipated, he’s not only the most decorated Olympian of all time with 20 medals, but also the first male swimmer to win a third straight 200 IM at the Olympics. In his first event, he was sluggish and lethargic, getting out of the water lost and dazed. But after he was blown out of the water on the night of the 400-meter individual medley by gold medalist Lochte, Phelps never seemed lazy, or complacent, or bored. There were times, such as last weekend, when he looked weary and uninspired but it just so happened that Lochte burned him in The Great Race. And suddenly, he won and made it clear that he’s still the greatest to ever touch water in these Olympics.
He wasn’t here just to get his feet wet, or wasn’t here to be anointed for what he’s done in the past, or wasn’t even here for prestige but arrived to London optimistic and fit to win more Olympic gold. He said he plans to retire, but sometimes athletes get that itch and then decide to come out of retirement to compete again, emotionally missing the sport they truly are fond of committing much of their life to. Phelps, to be straightforward, may deliberate on his retirement and could end up coming back four years from now. But he likely won’t swim in Brazil for the 2016 Summer Olympics, and the last thing he wanted was to be denied of his individual gold.
The swimming competition is more competitive, with Phelps swimming like he’s obligated to the sport, and he has reigned atop the sport for four straight summer games. More and more swimmers are stroking along to join the chlorine-soaked fun, with Phelps jumping into the water with much inspiration and enthusiasm and having the knack for swimming. For much of these Olympics, it was a slew of nostalgia and greatness. For much of these games, we relished shouting for one of the best and well-accomplished athletes in American history. For much of these swimming pool activities, we savored witnessing Phelps make a splash and transcend to the top of the world — a heartfelt story we’ll dwell on for ages.
This is something we’d be able to tell our children, our grandchildren, and if we’re bless to live long enough, maybe even or great grandchildren. The remarkable achievements in an unparalleled swimming career cannot be duplicated and no Olympic athlete will ever surpass Phelps’ historic record-setting 20 medals. Just when we thought it was the end of an era, he was no longer flat, weary or worn down but had sighed in relief and was finally back to chase greatness. People doubted Phelps about swimming in his fourth Olympics. But it lasted no time. The next day he was back in the water, where he amazed spectators and our fellow Americans, apparently consuming our consciousness. Phelps is not only a 20-time medalist, he’s one of the nation’s popular icons, representing a reflection of nationalism.
This also brings back memories of his historic eight gold medals four years ago. In this day and age, Phelps is obviously not unbeatable, flashing back to the days he’d paddle rapidly through the liquid and out-touch all swimmers for the gold medal. You can’t argue that he’s not among the best. He is among the best, but can’t race as good and hard as he once did. After that lousy performance last week, he swam solid the rest of the way to end his colorful career. He won this race without getting humiliated and worked his long arms and legs to hold the lead, until he had to make the transition to the backstroke.
A weakness for Phelps, Lochte hastily snuck up on him, swimming faster than ever, gaining confidence and suddenly keeping pace with him. But it wasn’t enough, not to beat Phelps, who stayed in the lead and broke away from the other swimmers in the freestyle to win. He touched the wall and then turned his head to look at the scoreboard for the results. As expected, Phelps won the race and Lochte finished second for the silver. When they both reached for the wall, they were fatigued, barely able to climb out of the pool.
We’ll always remember Phelps. We’ll always embrace these particular games, ones he competed in, ones that he enriched the nature of swimming. He will go down as one of the best American athletes the Olympics has ever seen. He’s a champion but he’s also one of the greatest Olympians for generations to come.
If this is the end, he could wind up with an offer and television deal to broadcast swimming competitions for a TV network, or he may even get an itch and compete in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, which his mother, Debbie Phelps, is hoping he decides not to call it quits with a sport he’s dominated so well. And at these games, he’s now a 20-time medalist, 16 of them gold, and no doubt will go down as the greatest Olympian of all-time.
This was a race for Phelps to cherish for sure, an individual swim that will send him into retirement on a high note. As he celebrated at the medal ceremonies, again, as always, Phelps stepped onto the podium, smiled as the national anthem blasted out of the loudspeaker and stared into the air and fought back tears as the United States flag rose to the rafters. It marked the first time at these games that he won an individual gold medal, finally looking like the old Phelps we all knew so well in Athens and Beijing.
Four years ago, he stood on the podium every night, as he did today, with gold draped around his neck. Eight years ago, he collected more gold than Scrooge McDuck, and surely, America applauded him for becoming a then-14-time Olympic gold medalist. That was then. This is now. He was finally swimming like a streamlined dolphin, if not better, a human fish darting his way through the water. He had won the 200-meter individual medley and beaten his rival who burned him last weekend, teammate Ryan Lochte.
Now maybe he can attend a Ravens’ home game and feature on the Jumbotron in a video shot and be given a standing ovation. Now maybe he can make a late-night TV appearance with David Letterman. In what could actually be his final Olympics, Phelps is swimming as someone who is refocused and rejuvenated, willing to continue his quest for gold. He is, incredibly, a coveted and exuberant swimmer, be it painstaking training that has been his means to fame and fortune throughout a lustful generation of unthinkable performances and massive records, done brilliantly in the pool from Sydney to Athens to Beijing to London. There still are two more events remaining on his schedule, and by the time competition comes to a close, he can fly back to his hometown of Baltimore with five golds and two silvers in seven races. The race he will remember more than the rest would be the 200 IM at these summer games.
It was payback, in a sense, a way to get even with his teammate. This time around, he edged out Lochte by .63 seconds and won a gleaming gold medal to add to a priceless collection. Amazingly but realistically, Phelps’ long torso helped him paddle through the water. This time around, as expected, he crashed into the wall to secure Olympic gold for likely the last time individually if he doesn’t claim the gold medal in his last individual race and doesn’t chose to come back in four years to have yet another historic feat that he navigates so brilliantly and incredibly.
This time around, as anticipated, he’s not only the most decorated Olympian of all time with 20 medals, but also the first male swimmer to win a third straight 200 IM at the Olympics. In his first event, he was sluggish and lethargic, getting out of the water lost and dazed. But after he was blown out of the water on the night of the 400-meter individual medley by gold medalist Lochte, Phelps never seemed lazy, or complacent, or bored. There were times, such as last weekend, when he looked weary and uninspired but it just so happened that Lochte burned him in The Great Race. And suddenly, he won and made it clear that he’s still the greatest to ever touch water in these Olympics.
He wasn’t here just to get his feet wet, or wasn’t here to be anointed for what he’s done in the past, or wasn’t even here for prestige but arrived to London optimistic and fit to win more Olympic gold. He said he plans to retire, but sometimes athletes get that itch and then decide to come out of retirement to compete again, emotionally missing the sport they truly are fond of committing much of their life to. Phelps, to be straightforward, may deliberate on his retirement and could end up coming back four years from now. But he likely won’t swim in Brazil for the 2016 Summer Olympics, and the last thing he wanted was to be denied of his individual gold.
The swimming competition is more competitive, with Phelps swimming like he’s obligated to the sport, and he has reigned atop the sport for four straight summer games. More and more swimmers are stroking along to join the chlorine-soaked fun, with Phelps jumping into the water with much inspiration and enthusiasm and having the knack for swimming. For much of these Olympics, it was a slew of nostalgia and greatness. For much of these games, we relished shouting for one of the best and well-accomplished athletes in American history. For much of these swimming pool activities, we savored witnessing Phelps make a splash and transcend to the top of the world — a heartfelt story we’ll dwell on for ages.
This is something we’d be able to tell our children, our grandchildren, and if we’re bless to live long enough, maybe even or great grandchildren. The remarkable achievements in an unparalleled swimming career cannot be duplicated and no Olympic athlete will ever surpass Phelps’ historic record-setting 20 medals. Just when we thought it was the end of an era, he was no longer flat, weary or worn down but had sighed in relief and was finally back to chase greatness. People doubted Phelps about swimming in his fourth Olympics. But it lasted no time. The next day he was back in the water, where he amazed spectators and our fellow Americans, apparently consuming our consciousness. Phelps is not only a 20-time medalist, he’s one of the nation’s popular icons, representing a reflection of nationalism.
This also brings back memories of his historic eight gold medals four years ago. In this day and age, Phelps is obviously not unbeatable, flashing back to the days he’d paddle rapidly through the liquid and out-touch all swimmers for the gold medal. You can’t argue that he’s not among the best. He is among the best, but can’t race as good and hard as he once did. After that lousy performance last week, he swam solid the rest of the way to end his colorful career. He won this race without getting humiliated and worked his long arms and legs to hold the lead, until he had to make the transition to the backstroke.
A weakness for Phelps, Lochte hastily snuck up on him, swimming faster than ever, gaining confidence and suddenly keeping pace with him. But it wasn’t enough, not to beat Phelps, who stayed in the lead and broke away from the other swimmers in the freestyle to win. He touched the wall and then turned his head to look at the scoreboard for the results. As expected, Phelps won the race and Lochte finished second for the silver. When they both reached for the wall, they were fatigued, barely able to climb out of the pool.
We’ll always remember Phelps. We’ll always embrace these particular games, ones he competed in, ones that he enriched the nature of swimming. He will go down as one of the best American athletes the Olympics has ever seen. He’s a champion but he’s also one of the greatest Olympians for generations to come.
Gabby Douglas Morphs Into World’s Greatest Gymnast
Gabby Douglas was given the nickname Flying Squirrel for a reason.
Simple.
That girl can fly and has become a gymnast of distinction and charm, an athletic figure with courage and guts of a stuntwoman, a young lady of soul and aplomb. Ladies and gentlemen, at long last the demographics of gymnastics for the Americans are greatly meaningful. That means gymnastics is back to normal with a teenager putting the U.S women’s gymnastics team back on a pedestal. At a young age, Douglas’ had nothing else on her mind other than to pursue her dream of becoming a gymnast. And look where she’s at today. She’s an Olympian, and not just a star of the sport, but a winner, a 16-year-old who left her family to fulfill her dream in Des Moines.
So here was her starting point, and as it happened late Thursday afternoon, she had an exceptional performance in her Olympic all-around debut. The exuberance and calmness she showed in competition was roughly an advantage for her to perform her routines brilliantly and in style, and because Gabrielle Douglas stayed calmed and nailed her acrobatic and signature floor routines, she secured the all-around gold medal making her the first African American to win the women’s all-around gymnastics championship at the London Olympics. She won one of the more popular events in gymnastics, wonderfully fitting the same category as Mary Lou Retton, Carly Patterson and Nastia Liukin, who are the only other Americans to win the Olympic all-around gold. After the victory, she stepped up to the podium with a widened smile, just as shiny as her gold medal, an electric smile that will feature on Wheaties boxes and gleam on magazine covers.
With a gold medal draped around her neck, becoming the fourth female American gymnast to win the Olympic all-around title, Douglas heard the national anthem as the American flag lifted to the rafters. A bouquet in one hand, while showing off her gold, she celebrated on the brightest stage and fought back tears — a touching ending to the opening chapter of a promising future ahead. It was a day of perseverance and self-confidence as Douglas came into a stiff competition with the Russians, Victoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina. The mind-blowing gold medal win happened when we least expected it, from a girl no one every thought would beat Russian sensation Mustafina, but as we witnessed with our own two eyes, Douglas was fierce and had mental toughness all along. On the subject of Douglas, a fiery competitor who gave it her best, she competes with heart and has the mettle to flourish into a star after a historic breakthrough that reshaped the brand of USA Gymnastics.
Douglas, who also became the first U.S. woman ever to win gold in both the team competition and all-around, earned a staggering 62.232 score, beating Komova and Mustafinia. The Russians couldn’t secure the gold medal, as they would have liked. But, in the end of it all, Komova got the silver and Mustafinia ended up with the bronze. And unfortunately, Aly Raisman, Douglas’ teammate, failed to keep her balance on the beam and fell short of winning the bronze in a tiebreaker, so settled for fourth place.
It’s amazing to see a young black woman reach her dream, becoming an American gymnast and representing our country with dignity and pride. She was one of the more lucky ones who made it, and on the top of it, won a pair of Olympic gold. Not many teenagers can leave London and tell you stories for ages about the time they’ve won gold medals. Not many teenagers can tell you stories about battling it out with world-class athletes all over the world. Not many teenagers can tell you they represented this country and played a sport in the summer games that they are profoundly obligated to playing.
But Gabby can tell you. She can also later decide to be the subject of a book if she chooses to write a story about her Olympic adventure as a young girl in London. Meanwhile, she may have broken the color barriers for African Americans who’ve always had a dream to push toward gymnastics. The Russians were supposed to win gold in both the team and all-around competition and were more experienced and talented, but couldn’t match Douglas’ level of performances. It had to be a proud accomplishment for Douglas to beat two of the best gymnasts Russia could offer, and certainly she took on the challenge, confronted the tension and exceeded expectations as the United States were long overdue and were finally superior again, with Gabby anchoring the USA gymnastics team.
When she took the lead early on, and while Komova and Mustafinia made critical mistakes to smear their hopes of Olympic gold, she never lost it and continued to perform her routines perfectly, crushing the Russian girls’ hearts in an unevenly matched competition to say the least. What happened was, needing almost a perfect score to move into the lead, Komova became more and more frustrated, more and more unconfident and uncertain of herself, a bit intimidated against the United States. Douglas began the night at North Greenwich Arena atop the scoreboard, and from then on out, she never looked back, holding on to a commanding lead. After the final results, Komova finished with a 15.1, well short of Douglas’ impressive score. Silver, nonetheless, was awarded to Komova, after all. Bronze, however, was awarded to Mustafinia.
The four all-around scores for Douglas, no surprise, ranged from 15.033 to 15.996, giving her enough cushion to fall sound asleep in the middle of the competition and then wake up hours later with the lead still. In over three days, amazingly — for those who haven’t watched closely — she earned a 15.000 or better in 11 of 12 performances. She’s a breakout gymnasts, a star who was born. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a rarity for a sport of equilibrium and coordination. As a teenager with lots of energy, she is alarming and adept at keeping her balance, extremely gifted at leaping and rotating in the air. It’s very seldom, well, from what we’ve seen all week, that Douglas makes an error, and usually she breezes through the routines and racks up an overwhelming score.
When it comes to gymnastics, no one ever imagined Douglas morphing into the world’s greatest gymnasts, surmounting past her teammate and friend Jordyn Wieber, the reigning world champion and was a favorite entering the Olympics last week but failed to qualify for the gymnastics all-around final. But then a new kid arrived on the block, and stunned the world. There were no burden of expectations, not even once did she fear failure.
She wasn’t fearful of the challenge and never ran from pressure, but grasped the opportunity to dig for gold.
And certainly, she was motivated and in demand to get her hands on that gold.
She is remarkably good as gold.
Simple.
That girl can fly and has become a gymnast of distinction and charm, an athletic figure with courage and guts of a stuntwoman, a young lady of soul and aplomb. Ladies and gentlemen, at long last the demographics of gymnastics for the Americans are greatly meaningful. That means gymnastics is back to normal with a teenager putting the U.S women’s gymnastics team back on a pedestal. At a young age, Douglas’ had nothing else on her mind other than to pursue her dream of becoming a gymnast. And look where she’s at today. She’s an Olympian, and not just a star of the sport, but a winner, a 16-year-old who left her family to fulfill her dream in Des Moines.
So here was her starting point, and as it happened late Thursday afternoon, she had an exceptional performance in her Olympic all-around debut. The exuberance and calmness she showed in competition was roughly an advantage for her to perform her routines brilliantly and in style, and because Gabrielle Douglas stayed calmed and nailed her acrobatic and signature floor routines, she secured the all-around gold medal making her the first African American to win the women’s all-around gymnastics championship at the London Olympics. She won one of the more popular events in gymnastics, wonderfully fitting the same category as Mary Lou Retton, Carly Patterson and Nastia Liukin, who are the only other Americans to win the Olympic all-around gold. After the victory, she stepped up to the podium with a widened smile, just as shiny as her gold medal, an electric smile that will feature on Wheaties boxes and gleam on magazine covers.
With a gold medal draped around her neck, becoming the fourth female American gymnast to win the Olympic all-around title, Douglas heard the national anthem as the American flag lifted to the rafters. A bouquet in one hand, while showing off her gold, she celebrated on the brightest stage and fought back tears — a touching ending to the opening chapter of a promising future ahead. It was a day of perseverance and self-confidence as Douglas came into a stiff competition with the Russians, Victoria Komova and Aliya Mustafina. The mind-blowing gold medal win happened when we least expected it, from a girl no one every thought would beat Russian sensation Mustafina, but as we witnessed with our own two eyes, Douglas was fierce and had mental toughness all along. On the subject of Douglas, a fiery competitor who gave it her best, she competes with heart and has the mettle to flourish into a star after a historic breakthrough that reshaped the brand of USA Gymnastics.
Douglas, who also became the first U.S. woman ever to win gold in both the team competition and all-around, earned a staggering 62.232 score, beating Komova and Mustafinia. The Russians couldn’t secure the gold medal, as they would have liked. But, in the end of it all, Komova got the silver and Mustafinia ended up with the bronze. And unfortunately, Aly Raisman, Douglas’ teammate, failed to keep her balance on the beam and fell short of winning the bronze in a tiebreaker, so settled for fourth place.
It’s amazing to see a young black woman reach her dream, becoming an American gymnast and representing our country with dignity and pride. She was one of the more lucky ones who made it, and on the top of it, won a pair of Olympic gold. Not many teenagers can leave London and tell you stories for ages about the time they’ve won gold medals. Not many teenagers can tell you stories about battling it out with world-class athletes all over the world. Not many teenagers can tell you they represented this country and played a sport in the summer games that they are profoundly obligated to playing.
But Gabby can tell you. She can also later decide to be the subject of a book if she chooses to write a story about her Olympic adventure as a young girl in London. Meanwhile, she may have broken the color barriers for African Americans who’ve always had a dream to push toward gymnastics. The Russians were supposed to win gold in both the team and all-around competition and were more experienced and talented, but couldn’t match Douglas’ level of performances. It had to be a proud accomplishment for Douglas to beat two of the best gymnasts Russia could offer, and certainly she took on the challenge, confronted the tension and exceeded expectations as the United States were long overdue and were finally superior again, with Gabby anchoring the USA gymnastics team.
When she took the lead early on, and while Komova and Mustafinia made critical mistakes to smear their hopes of Olympic gold, she never lost it and continued to perform her routines perfectly, crushing the Russian girls’ hearts in an unevenly matched competition to say the least. What happened was, needing almost a perfect score to move into the lead, Komova became more and more frustrated, more and more unconfident and uncertain of herself, a bit intimidated against the United States. Douglas began the night at North Greenwich Arena atop the scoreboard, and from then on out, she never looked back, holding on to a commanding lead. After the final results, Komova finished with a 15.1, well short of Douglas’ impressive score. Silver, nonetheless, was awarded to Komova, after all. Bronze, however, was awarded to Mustafinia.
The four all-around scores for Douglas, no surprise, ranged from 15.033 to 15.996, giving her enough cushion to fall sound asleep in the middle of the competition and then wake up hours later with the lead still. In over three days, amazingly — for those who haven’t watched closely — she earned a 15.000 or better in 11 of 12 performances. She’s a breakout gymnasts, a star who was born. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a rarity for a sport of equilibrium and coordination. As a teenager with lots of energy, she is alarming and adept at keeping her balance, extremely gifted at leaping and rotating in the air. It’s very seldom, well, from what we’ve seen all week, that Douglas makes an error, and usually she breezes through the routines and racks up an overwhelming score.
When it comes to gymnastics, no one ever imagined Douglas morphing into the world’s greatest gymnasts, surmounting past her teammate and friend Jordyn Wieber, the reigning world champion and was a favorite entering the Olympics last week but failed to qualify for the gymnastics all-around final. But then a new kid arrived on the block, and stunned the world. There were no burden of expectations, not even once did she fear failure.
She wasn’t fearful of the challenge and never ran from pressure, but grasped the opportunity to dig for gold.
And certainly, she was motivated and in demand to get her hands on that gold.
She is remarkably good as gold.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
2012 London Olympics: Phelps Most Decorated Olympian Ever?
Even through his foggy goggles, smiling underwater once he touched the wall, lifting his head out of the water and turning toward the board for confirmation to see where he finished in the race, Michael Phelps knew he had earned a 15th gold medal. It’s because he has the unprecedented talent and enthusiasm ripping his way through the pool like a streamlined, torpedo-shaped dolphin to embark on a swimming voyage under the sea at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. It’s because he anchored the United States to a gold medal in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay Tuesday night, earning the 19th Olympic medal and the 15th gold of his unimaginable career as a famous, world-class Olympian.
Americans waited all week hoping to see Phelps redeem himself after a sluggish fourth-place finish in the 400-meter individual medley when US teammate Ryan Lochte slaughtered him. The American folks waited all week, looking forward to seeing Phelps respond after swimming in the anchor of the 400 free relay but missing out on the second straight gold medal in these games when Frenchman Yannick Agnel charged on the final leg to catch Lochte and beat the Americans. Then Phelps sounded like, well, an exasperated swimmer who hated to lose when he finished far behind Agnel in the 200 free, not even winning the silver or bronze.
And then just an hour before he was back in the pool for a relay, on the same night he won his first Olympic gold in these games, South Africa’s Chad Le Clos chased down Phelps on the final stroke, winning in 1:52.96 seconds, just 0.05 seconds ahead of Phelps. In a moment when he released his frustration, he flung his cap outraged and settled for silver in one of his favorite events, the 200 butterfly, a competition he normally dominates without struggling to defeat other swimmers in for a fatiguing, laborious fight in the pool. Phelps, as good a swimmer as he is, reacted in a positive way when many felt he had come unglued for his tiredness, boredom and laziness. But as it turns out, Phelps came back kicking his legs and lifting both arms forward over his head, and when he reached the wall on the other side of the pool, he performed a solid flip turn to propel through the water for an eventual first-place finish that gave him and his teammates the gold medal.
His opponent Agnel, surely no slouch, had no shot at closing in on Phelps in the final leg. Beyond that, Phelps needed back up from his teammates Ryan Lochte, Conor Dwyer and Ricky Berens. So before the race, understanding that history was in the making on the night, they all huddled together. Lochte was standing on the deck cheering on his teammate, Phelps, waving his arms, urging him to propel to the finish. He certainly beat everybody in the water, as usual, and came flying in to the wall for his first gold of the London Games with a staggering time of 6 minutes, 59.70 seconds. The remedy was that Phelps uplifted Lochte, following his struggles in two straight events.
It turned out Phelps wasn’t done giving his best, after all. It turned out he wasn’t bored, after all. It turned out he wasn’t tired, either, as some suggested. What was seen, of course, was a re-energized swimmer, a recharged water creature of some sort and, as Phelps becomes the most decorated Olympian of all-time, he still may not be done with events impending this week. In other words, though he doesn’t have his mind set on returning in 2016 for the Rio Games and is leaning toward retirement once he’s completed a quest, Phelps is not quite ready to change from his speedos and into casual clothing. With 19 gold medals and counting, he’s on pace to get more than 20 medals before these games come to a close. This was an ultimate record for the ages, the most breathtaking event of the whole Olympics, a moment in Phelps’ swimming career that he had reached a crescendo and masterfully achieved the impossible, getting the 19th medal to surpass then-Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina’s 18 medals from a relay he won easily.
He has a collection of medals, probably on display at his home secured in a treasure chest in a secret room, as he’s the greatest swimmer ever. Phelps fuels up right with Subway sandwiches, and because he eats fresh, he’s energized and fierce occupying himself with a herculean task. Tuesday night at the London’s Aquatic Centre marked the first time Phelps won the gold since he was photographed sucking on a water bong at a college party in South Carolina. We haven’t lost an ounce of curiosity, infatuated with him when populace have watched him dominate the pool over the years, and obviously treated the beloved icon as if he’s a godlike superhero. It’s not debatable, perhaps not even worth wasting a single breath, to discuss whether or not he’s the greatest swimmer ever. His regiment of medals is a testimony to sheer greatness, and trouncing everyone else in these games is glaring that he’s surely No. 1 on the list, at least he is on mines.
By now, closing in to the end of his colorful career, he’s simply the most dominant competitor and the greatest Olympian the sport has ever seen, marked as the G.O.A.T and swam exceptionally to earn that title. Someone of Phelps’ pedigree approaches these games with diligence, persistence and conviction. But he also needed to put in long months, long days and hours of grueling and extensive training to regress into shape. A few attributes to Phelps’ advantage are his long torso and incredible wingspan, and the fact he’s a skilled athlete blossoming into an all-time Olympian great — more famous than Jesse Owens and Mark Spitz, amazingly so. It’s not so shocking come to think of it, when he surpassed Spitz in Beijing at the 2008 Summer Games. Couple that with 14 gold medals he won in the land of the Great Wall of China and even his contributions with the men’s 4X100M freestyle relay team that pulled off one of the unthinkable comebacks in Olympic history four years ago.
The celebration of what he’s reached as far as a unique plateau no other Olympian can ever match is very appreciated, and with all due respect, Phelps deserves cheers. Come now, he’s made every American proud to be an American, as folks debate his place in history and whether he’s the greatest Olympian ever. But there’s no need to argue when his amount of medals separates him from the typical amateur athlete. The medals speak for themselves, not Phelps. The achievements speak volumes, not Phelps. The longevity and dominance in four straight summer games speaks loudly, and I mean loudly. Phelps is a damn good swimmer.
He knows that, you know that, I know that. You can’t deny it. You can’t imagine it. You can only live it. Not a myth. Not an imaginary story. That’s reality.
For now, the nation will continue to watch him pile up medals with three events remaining — the 200 IM, the 100 fly and 4×100 medley relay. As he takes pride in this country, you and I take great pride in him, not only because he’s the most decorated athlete in Olympic history but because he represents our country every four years. Once he decides to leave an ineradicable legacy behind, we’ll talk about Phelps for many years to come.
Americans waited all week hoping to see Phelps redeem himself after a sluggish fourth-place finish in the 400-meter individual medley when US teammate Ryan Lochte slaughtered him. The American folks waited all week, looking forward to seeing Phelps respond after swimming in the anchor of the 400 free relay but missing out on the second straight gold medal in these games when Frenchman Yannick Agnel charged on the final leg to catch Lochte and beat the Americans. Then Phelps sounded like, well, an exasperated swimmer who hated to lose when he finished far behind Agnel in the 200 free, not even winning the silver or bronze.
And then just an hour before he was back in the pool for a relay, on the same night he won his first Olympic gold in these games, South Africa’s Chad Le Clos chased down Phelps on the final stroke, winning in 1:52.96 seconds, just 0.05 seconds ahead of Phelps. In a moment when he released his frustration, he flung his cap outraged and settled for silver in one of his favorite events, the 200 butterfly, a competition he normally dominates without struggling to defeat other swimmers in for a fatiguing, laborious fight in the pool. Phelps, as good a swimmer as he is, reacted in a positive way when many felt he had come unglued for his tiredness, boredom and laziness. But as it turns out, Phelps came back kicking his legs and lifting both arms forward over his head, and when he reached the wall on the other side of the pool, he performed a solid flip turn to propel through the water for an eventual first-place finish that gave him and his teammates the gold medal.
His opponent Agnel, surely no slouch, had no shot at closing in on Phelps in the final leg. Beyond that, Phelps needed back up from his teammates Ryan Lochte, Conor Dwyer and Ricky Berens. So before the race, understanding that history was in the making on the night, they all huddled together. Lochte was standing on the deck cheering on his teammate, Phelps, waving his arms, urging him to propel to the finish. He certainly beat everybody in the water, as usual, and came flying in to the wall for his first gold of the London Games with a staggering time of 6 minutes, 59.70 seconds. The remedy was that Phelps uplifted Lochte, following his struggles in two straight events.
It turned out Phelps wasn’t done giving his best, after all. It turned out he wasn’t bored, after all. It turned out he wasn’t tired, either, as some suggested. What was seen, of course, was a re-energized swimmer, a recharged water creature of some sort and, as Phelps becomes the most decorated Olympian of all-time, he still may not be done with events impending this week. In other words, though he doesn’t have his mind set on returning in 2016 for the Rio Games and is leaning toward retirement once he’s completed a quest, Phelps is not quite ready to change from his speedos and into casual clothing. With 19 gold medals and counting, he’s on pace to get more than 20 medals before these games come to a close. This was an ultimate record for the ages, the most breathtaking event of the whole Olympics, a moment in Phelps’ swimming career that he had reached a crescendo and masterfully achieved the impossible, getting the 19th medal to surpass then-Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina’s 18 medals from a relay he won easily.
He has a collection of medals, probably on display at his home secured in a treasure chest in a secret room, as he’s the greatest swimmer ever. Phelps fuels up right with Subway sandwiches, and because he eats fresh, he’s energized and fierce occupying himself with a herculean task. Tuesday night at the London’s Aquatic Centre marked the first time Phelps won the gold since he was photographed sucking on a water bong at a college party in South Carolina. We haven’t lost an ounce of curiosity, infatuated with him when populace have watched him dominate the pool over the years, and obviously treated the beloved icon as if he’s a godlike superhero. It’s not debatable, perhaps not even worth wasting a single breath, to discuss whether or not he’s the greatest swimmer ever. His regiment of medals is a testimony to sheer greatness, and trouncing everyone else in these games is glaring that he’s surely No. 1 on the list, at least he is on mines.
By now, closing in to the end of his colorful career, he’s simply the most dominant competitor and the greatest Olympian the sport has ever seen, marked as the G.O.A.T and swam exceptionally to earn that title. Someone of Phelps’ pedigree approaches these games with diligence, persistence and conviction. But he also needed to put in long months, long days and hours of grueling and extensive training to regress into shape. A few attributes to Phelps’ advantage are his long torso and incredible wingspan, and the fact he’s a skilled athlete blossoming into an all-time Olympian great — more famous than Jesse Owens and Mark Spitz, amazingly so. It’s not so shocking come to think of it, when he surpassed Spitz in Beijing at the 2008 Summer Games. Couple that with 14 gold medals he won in the land of the Great Wall of China and even his contributions with the men’s 4X100M freestyle relay team that pulled off one of the unthinkable comebacks in Olympic history four years ago.
The celebration of what he’s reached as far as a unique plateau no other Olympian can ever match is very appreciated, and with all due respect, Phelps deserves cheers. Come now, he’s made every American proud to be an American, as folks debate his place in history and whether he’s the greatest Olympian ever. But there’s no need to argue when his amount of medals separates him from the typical amateur athlete. The medals speak for themselves, not Phelps. The achievements speak volumes, not Phelps. The longevity and dominance in four straight summer games speaks loudly, and I mean loudly. Phelps is a damn good swimmer.
He knows that, you know that, I know that. You can’t deny it. You can’t imagine it. You can only live it. Not a myth. Not an imaginary story. That’s reality.
For now, the nation will continue to watch him pile up medals with three events remaining — the 200 IM, the 100 fly and 4×100 medley relay. As he takes pride in this country, you and I take great pride in him, not only because he’s the most decorated athlete in Olympic history but because he represents our country every four years. Once he decides to leave an ineradicable legacy behind, we’ll talk about Phelps for many years to come.
Monday, July 30, 2012
Missy Franklin, the Teenage Darling of America, Pockets Her 10k Gold
If she likes, Franklin can pose in the latest issue of Cover Girl. If she likes, the 17-year-old American swimmer can wear the crown to be our next Miss America with her bright smile that defines her stature especially when she dives into the water for a race, confident she’d outdo anyone and come away victorious in the end. It’s time to bow to the queen of London, not Queen Elizabeth — mind you – but Franklin, an American athlete appreciated greatly ever since she qualified for an astonishing seven events in the 2012 Summer Games in London at the U.S. Olympic Swim Trials in Omaha in late June and early July.
It’s time we come to notice a teenager and give her the uttermost respect and idolize her, as she is one of the rising and young swimming stars to gain premature fame, like Michael Phelps at the Summer Olympics in Athens eight years ago. The irony of this story is that she became the first American woman ever to swim seven events at the London Games with a chance of competing against other world-class athletes and winning Olympic medals. She smiled, knowing her dream turned into reality, knowing she had just won her first ever gold medal. Melissa Jeanette Franklin lifted her head out of the water, tiny drops were still falling from her face, when she laughed and giggled to soak in a gratifying moment. A girl who stayed in the water growing up had emerged into an Olympic champion.
When she stepped out of the water, met by NBC’s Andrea Kramer for a post-race interview, Franklin was still wet from the pool and couldn’t stop smiling. Like a typical teenager, she was a kid again, a high-school senior who could have easily been mistaken for a young girl who was given her favorite toy for Christmas. Standing on the podium, as she bent her head over to receive the gold medal, as the national anthem was ringing out of the loudspeaker and as the American flag was rising above, Franklin turned on a big smile and tried to sing the Star Spangled Banner. She struggled to fight back tears of joy during a moment she was honored, and forgot the words of the national anthem, overjoyed and so ecstatic for what had just happened when she touched the wall after a dramatic finish in the women’s 100-meter backstroke Monday night in London.
In the water, standing 6 feet 1, Franklin swam with her arms stretched back in rotation, she flipped and pushed from off the wall and kicked her legs and feet harder than Australia’s Emily Seebohm. When Seebohm closed in on the gold medal, toward the end of the race that finished in a dramatic fashion, Franklin knifed her way through the pool and outmatched everybody as the rest of her opponents floated around stunned and helpless. So was Seebohm, who entered the competition as precisely the favorite, among all qualified swimmers. Just then, because she was a veteran in her second Olympics and posted the fastest time in qualifying, it was understandable to assume that Seebohm would climb out of the water a winner. But not so fast — Franklin was here, too. She was in another lane, and had clearly been ignored entering the women’s 100-meter backstroke.
Afterwards, Franklin looked up and noticed her name atop the board, and a giant video screen featured a live shot of her parents, D.A. and Dick, who watched nervously and proudly from their seats at London Aquatics Centre. It’s even more nice Franklin won her first Olympic gold medal in her first ever event with an exhausting six events left on such a hectic schedule – and among all other things, it happened in a race just 14 minutes after she was in the water qualifying for the 200-meter freestyle. As a way to celebrate, she smiled, slightly giggled and tears crawled down her rosy cheeks, a sentiment we know so well about a nice, friendly kid. It’s almost beside the point, but she’s a fan of pop star Justin Bieber and her favorite movie is “Sound of Music.” It’s almost beside the point, but she’s not even out of high school, she has no diploma and has the character of a four-year senior in college. Her swimming acumen is amazing. Her wingspan and torso is long. Her body is well built and fit perfectly for swimming.
Splendid. Remarkable. Unbelievable.
And so it was moments after her swim that Phelps was so amazed of her energy and solid swimming and said he’s never seen a turnaround shorter than 30 seconds, performing better than Ryan Lochte and him. Since her arrival, Franklin has fallen in love with these Games. The laughter and smiles are signs of a teenage girl having fun at these games, the sweetheart of American athletes, the darling everyone has a crush on in these summer games. Her longtime coach, Todd Schmitz, has helped developed one of the fastest and youngest swimmers in the land of the USA, if not the world after such a heartfelt victory.
For now, for all the exhilaration, she reminds us, as some Olympians always do, that memories are made and legends are born. That is the gist of the Olympics, always is, and Franklin will always be remembered for her magnificent victory to a gold medal in the women’s 100-meter backstroke. We’ll always remember the goofy teenager pulling her gold medal out of her pocket and raising it into the air flaunting the 10k gold. We’ll always remember the London Games.
We’ll always remember Missy.
Sunday, July 29, 2012
2012 London Olympics: Jordyn Wieber Deprived of Fulfilled Promise
The loss of widely the top gymnast in the world, Jordyn Wieber, is agonizing and heart-rending, and some of our American spectators expressed grief for considerably one of the best U.S. Olympic hopefuls, as I did, feeling truly sorry for a girl who was in tears after finishing third on her team in the all-around scoring.
Unable to advance further with her teammates Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman, who both sailed through qualifying, Wieber wobbled on the balance beam and stepped out of bounds on the floor exercise mat, a few uncharacteristic mistakes that cost her tremendously and eliminated her from contention. Her best friend and competitor Raisman knocked her out of the finals to end the reigning world champions fulfilled promise of trying for gold Thursday. At noontime Sunday, Wieber was not Wieber and stumbled on the biggest stage to miss out on all the fun coming up this week, disqualified sooner than later –unfitted to conquer a medal in an event that she trained and waited for her whole career.
The afternoon was anything but kind to Wieber, and she flubbed early on a vault landing by stepping out, and then broke her form during an uneven bars routine. It was bad timing for a 17-year-old girl who was expected to go out there and perform her routines, expected to go out there and break a leg, but sadly it came to a poignant end. Her personal coach, John Geddert, if no one else, knows she was greatly in pursuit of earning an Olympic gold medal and can imagine what she’s feeling after fading in an event she was favored to rock her own world. But she’s not that girly rock star, not in these games, and strangely won’t join her teammates for the challenge as the bigger story seems to be her relapse, which no one ever saw coming until it happened before their very eyes. It was mind-blowing to watch Wieber, winner of the individual all-around world championship about nine months ago, fold and botch her chances of meeting qualifications to revel in the moment of gratification.
When you prepare and spend hours practicing, the last thing you want is for an event to go to waste, particularly after staying late nights in the gym to nail down a routine. And she did just that, no doubt, but had a tremendous amount of pressure on her to sustain seminal excellence because she’s one of the most appreciated American athletes at the London Games. A lifelong wish, which wasn’t the way Wieber thought it would be, fell short and the day turned into a disheartening nightmare, one she’d like to have back if possible. But now, even if the results are not too delightful and will emotionally hurt for a while, it’s only good to move forward and place the dreadful failures behind her and take it as a learning experience.
This is what happened to a teenager who competes in her first Olympic games. So what happened is somewhat surprising but just as shocking, looking at her accomplishments in prior years. The point is, she was overzealous and jittery, not completely focused but excited to be part of the fun in London. She is a natural talent, the new attractive among gymnast stars and a representative for the U.S., but the downside is that she’s not invited to give it her best effort in the finals, which would be a perfect time to redeem herself of woes and affliction. Wieber encountered a misadventure that broke her heart, and a shaky competition wasn’t bittersweet, stopping her of the possibility to take a prestigious gold medal. The honorable prize on this day slipped away and she wiped away tears in frustration and sadness. Maybe more so, this was new to Wieber, only losing an all-round title twice to fellow Americans in both events since the 2008 season.
There was no whining nor was she making any excuses for her failures and realized she was the only one to fault, making off quickly without interviewing with reporters afterwards, distraught for disappearing and making numerous mistakes that forestalled her attempt of representing the United States as one of the best gymnasts. It’s certain she had the worst moment of her life, and everything went wrong as aspirations were taking away from Wieber. The world came crashing down indeed, and by now, she’d like to have a second chance but realize it’s far too late. The reality set in as soon as it happened, and her sheer dominance and constant training stunningly disappeared during a year she was considered the next great American gymnastics star.
Right now, setting history in a negative way to become the first world champion to not qualify for the individual all-around final, Wieber failed to advance and placed a total of 60.032. And with Douglas, who also stepped out of bounds on her floor exercise, the last of four rotations for the U.S., had an average of 60.265 points and qualified. Credit was given to captain Aly Raisman for finishing second overall that knocked off both of them, as Douglas impressively finished third. Going into the all-round, Wieber and Douglas were the two favorites, with at least one of them favored to win a medal. But looks as if Douglas is the U.S. gymnastics team only hope, if not Raisman. There’s no shortage of confidence without Wieber, but she was an antidote to heal the wounds for the most horrid farce of the Beijing Games four years ago.
Wieber had her chance and blundered. She took an enormous fall, a disastrous lapse to keep her out of conversations for mental mistakes that ruined what was supposed to be a refreshing story. But as it turned out, Wieber’s dream is deferred.
Unable to advance further with her teammates Gabby Douglas and Aly Raisman, who both sailed through qualifying, Wieber wobbled on the balance beam and stepped out of bounds on the floor exercise mat, a few uncharacteristic mistakes that cost her tremendously and eliminated her from contention. Her best friend and competitor Raisman knocked her out of the finals to end the reigning world champions fulfilled promise of trying for gold Thursday. At noontime Sunday, Wieber was not Wieber and stumbled on the biggest stage to miss out on all the fun coming up this week, disqualified sooner than later –unfitted to conquer a medal in an event that she trained and waited for her whole career.
The afternoon was anything but kind to Wieber, and she flubbed early on a vault landing by stepping out, and then broke her form during an uneven bars routine. It was bad timing for a 17-year-old girl who was expected to go out there and perform her routines, expected to go out there and break a leg, but sadly it came to a poignant end. Her personal coach, John Geddert, if no one else, knows she was greatly in pursuit of earning an Olympic gold medal and can imagine what she’s feeling after fading in an event she was favored to rock her own world. But she’s not that girly rock star, not in these games, and strangely won’t join her teammates for the challenge as the bigger story seems to be her relapse, which no one ever saw coming until it happened before their very eyes. It was mind-blowing to watch Wieber, winner of the individual all-around world championship about nine months ago, fold and botch her chances of meeting qualifications to revel in the moment of gratification.
When you prepare and spend hours practicing, the last thing you want is for an event to go to waste, particularly after staying late nights in the gym to nail down a routine. And she did just that, no doubt, but had a tremendous amount of pressure on her to sustain seminal excellence because she’s one of the most appreciated American athletes at the London Games. A lifelong wish, which wasn’t the way Wieber thought it would be, fell short and the day turned into a disheartening nightmare, one she’d like to have back if possible. But now, even if the results are not too delightful and will emotionally hurt for a while, it’s only good to move forward and place the dreadful failures behind her and take it as a learning experience.
This is what happened to a teenager who competes in her first Olympic games. So what happened is somewhat surprising but just as shocking, looking at her accomplishments in prior years. The point is, she was overzealous and jittery, not completely focused but excited to be part of the fun in London. She is a natural talent, the new attractive among gymnast stars and a representative for the U.S., but the downside is that she’s not invited to give it her best effort in the finals, which would be a perfect time to redeem herself of woes and affliction. Wieber encountered a misadventure that broke her heart, and a shaky competition wasn’t bittersweet, stopping her of the possibility to take a prestigious gold medal. The honorable prize on this day slipped away and she wiped away tears in frustration and sadness. Maybe more so, this was new to Wieber, only losing an all-round title twice to fellow Americans in both events since the 2008 season.
There was no whining nor was she making any excuses for her failures and realized she was the only one to fault, making off quickly without interviewing with reporters afterwards, distraught for disappearing and making numerous mistakes that forestalled her attempt of representing the United States as one of the best gymnasts. It’s certain she had the worst moment of her life, and everything went wrong as aspirations were taking away from Wieber. The world came crashing down indeed, and by now, she’d like to have a second chance but realize it’s far too late. The reality set in as soon as it happened, and her sheer dominance and constant training stunningly disappeared during a year she was considered the next great American gymnastics star.
Right now, setting history in a negative way to become the first world champion to not qualify for the individual all-around final, Wieber failed to advance and placed a total of 60.032. And with Douglas, who also stepped out of bounds on her floor exercise, the last of four rotations for the U.S., had an average of 60.265 points and qualified. Credit was given to captain Aly Raisman for finishing second overall that knocked off both of them, as Douglas impressively finished third. Going into the all-round, Wieber and Douglas were the two favorites, with at least one of them favored to win a medal. But looks as if Douglas is the U.S. gymnastics team only hope, if not Raisman. There’s no shortage of confidence without Wieber, but she was an antidote to heal the wounds for the most horrid farce of the Beijing Games four years ago.
Wieber had her chance and blundered. She took an enormous fall, a disastrous lapse to keep her out of conversations for mental mistakes that ruined what was supposed to be a refreshing story. But as it turned out, Wieber’s dream is deferred.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
2012 London Olympics: Lochte’s Swim Drowns Sinking Phelps
He’s not that human fish we once knew, that invigorated Aquaman we were enamored with, in a sense, exhausted and apathetic, no longer a threat to opposing swimmers or even his teammate, Ryan Lochte. Michael Phelps, a 14-time Olympic gold medalist, aims for a 15th gold medal at these Olympics. And as one of the more popular American athletes, he has always been the face of USA Swimming, adored because of his sensational world records and journey four years ago in Beijing.
For those of us who’ve observed Phelps closely in Athens and Beijing, he was supposed to win seven medals in London — not zero, not one, not two, not three, but we strongly felt he’d leave England with all seven, brainwashed to postulate that he’d elevate his ultimate legacy after the folks in the United States were used to him stockpiling medals. An era for the all-time greatest medal winner in Olympic history, no matter how many times he stood on the podium to receive gold medals as our national anthem played, is surely coming to an absolute end.
This isn’t a matter of whether he’s unbeatable in the water against swimmers from other countries, along with countryman Lochte and the rest of the US team diving in to make a sudden splash, not intimidated and not afraid to compete and challenge Phelps to an exhausting and mind-numbing swim. This is a matter of him declining in the darkening stages of his magnificent career, plunging into the deep end of an Olympic-sized pool. The United States has a new athlete to root for, and maybe even the best world-class athlete.
Years ago, Lochte had no shot at beating Phelps, but now he’s a threat as his teammate Phelps is just as vulnerable. While Lochte knew what was at stake, pushing through water and looking stronger for four minutes, Phelps seemed disengaged and uninspired as if he wasn’t ready to swim. He was basically a no show for the night, which Lochte gave Americans a dramatic finish and left one of the greatest Olympians in defeat and shock. The victory for Lochte, without a doubt, cemented his claim to be one of the world’s greatest swimmers and move into the company of legendary athletes. Much has changed for Phelps. If he cannot beat Lochte, then what makes a person think he’s going to defeat him when they meet in a rematch for the 200-meter individual medley next Thursday?
This could be an upstart to Lochte’s rise after making a splash for an Olympic gold medal, which happened because of his turns off the wall and strength to float his way through water. Aside from his achievement, Phelps narrowly qualified eighth in the morning preliminaries. Now he won’t feature on Wheaties boxes, the official cereal of champions, and he won’t appear on Sports Illustrated either, to relive four years ago when he was on the front cover with his 14 gold medals around him. But it’s a different time now, a moment for Lochte to show the world he’s as good as Phelps.
What rivalry are we talking about, again?
It wasn’t even close to a rivalry, although Phelps vs. Lochte wasn’t ever a rivalry when they both share a uniform, and instead was more like a disaster Saturday night at the Olympic Aquatics Centre. There’s no better time, with the fiascoes that Phelps has experienced lately in swimming events, than now to swim home and take off his Speedos, owning more medals than any Olympian. He won’t give up so easy, and even though he seems lethargic and lazy in these games, he’s trained and worked out harder each day to stay in fit and good condition. But it’s not all that healthy for a man to notoriously eats a 12,000 calorie-a-day diet while he has preparations and trains, if true. It’s not easy to painfully watch the greatest US men’s swimmer of all-time suffer a beating, no fun at all.
Unfortunately, he has reached that point in his career, a moment when he is fading out of the equation at the summer games, for which it is someone else’s moment to dazzle in the pool. The king of H2O is our very own Lochte and he finally made it clear to the nation, if not the entire world that he’s the guy to be reckoned with after swimming an event that requires toughness and painstaking training, for which swimmers train and master the art of the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. That’s a lot to handle in one swimming match. Lochte now dominates the sport Phelps once owned, and everyone climbs out of the pool to make way for Lochte. It was not a triumphant moment as Phelps wasn’t ever close to standing a chance against his supposed rival, and climbed out of the chlorinated water startled. It’s the first time, after placing fourth in the men’s 400-meter individual medley, that he dropped his head with hands placed on his hips. Lochte versus Phelps was a stunning beat down, an epic blowout, and a major disappointment.
The first two laps up and down the pool, he was still in the race trailing Lochte by less than a second, and then he began to sink quite like a rubber ducky in a bathtub. The rout came from the instant both men hit the backstroke, and a well-anticipated duel between Phelps and Lochte wasn’t a classic but a race spectators and viewers can forget about as it might have been Phelps’ poorest performance. Where he ran into trouble was on a pair of breaststroke laps, and from then on out, Lochte gained complete control of what had been a tight, tense race. After all of that, Phelps finished fourth. The Brazilian swimmer, Thiago Pereira claimed silver. And then behind him was Kosuke Hagino of Japan winning bronze. Lochte kicked his butt and everybody else’s as well, and strolled onto the pool deck with a huge smile, waving to his family and throwing flowers in the stands. Oddly enough, Phelps followed, while dazed and baffled, passing by Lochte without congratulating his opponent and appeared to be very disgusted with himself for such a humiliating race.
These days Phelps is drowning, and he couldn’t finish the greatest swim ever, falling way behind even before the victory lap. These days Lochte performs a double flip, and it made a splash. And so, on to specifics, Phelps looked like an unsuccessful Olympian and not a 14-time gold medal winner. When it was over, surprisingly and amazingly, he looked like a washed up Brett Favre or Brock Lesnar, who were sent into retirement. Still, despite the upsetting loss, Phelps is favored to grind it out in the upcoming swim events. Four years ago, he owned the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, bringing home a historic eight gold medals.
But now he doesn’t own these Olympics, particularly not in the 400-meter individual medley, finishing four seconds slower than Lochte to stun the crowd and miss out on the silver and bronze. What we can take from these struggles is that he can’t race as fast nor will his body allow him to take on fatiguing swim events. This is a new reality, though Phelps’ place in swimming history ranks up there. Keep in mind, he’s the holder for the most overall Olympic medals won by any male athlete ever. With 14 gold, he has 16 overall and could surpass female gymnast Larysa Latynina of the former Soviet Union, winner of 18 medals, if he can earn at least two.
There is much belief he will shatter Latynina’s record, but what’s not certain is whether he can defeat and compete against his rival Lochte, who remarkably got the best of him on the opening day at the Olympics and surprised the world.
In short, Phelps is not the king of H2O. It’s now Lochte who owns the throne.
For those of us who’ve observed Phelps closely in Athens and Beijing, he was supposed to win seven medals in London — not zero, not one, not two, not three, but we strongly felt he’d leave England with all seven, brainwashed to postulate that he’d elevate his ultimate legacy after the folks in the United States were used to him stockpiling medals. An era for the all-time greatest medal winner in Olympic history, no matter how many times he stood on the podium to receive gold medals as our national anthem played, is surely coming to an absolute end.
This isn’t a matter of whether he’s unbeatable in the water against swimmers from other countries, along with countryman Lochte and the rest of the US team diving in to make a sudden splash, not intimidated and not afraid to compete and challenge Phelps to an exhausting and mind-numbing swim. This is a matter of him declining in the darkening stages of his magnificent career, plunging into the deep end of an Olympic-sized pool. The United States has a new athlete to root for, and maybe even the best world-class athlete.
Years ago, Lochte had no shot at beating Phelps, but now he’s a threat as his teammate Phelps is just as vulnerable. While Lochte knew what was at stake, pushing through water and looking stronger for four minutes, Phelps seemed disengaged and uninspired as if he wasn’t ready to swim. He was basically a no show for the night, which Lochte gave Americans a dramatic finish and left one of the greatest Olympians in defeat and shock. The victory for Lochte, without a doubt, cemented his claim to be one of the world’s greatest swimmers and move into the company of legendary athletes. Much has changed for Phelps. If he cannot beat Lochte, then what makes a person think he’s going to defeat him when they meet in a rematch for the 200-meter individual medley next Thursday?
This could be an upstart to Lochte’s rise after making a splash for an Olympic gold medal, which happened because of his turns off the wall and strength to float his way through water. Aside from his achievement, Phelps narrowly qualified eighth in the morning preliminaries. Now he won’t feature on Wheaties boxes, the official cereal of champions, and he won’t appear on Sports Illustrated either, to relive four years ago when he was on the front cover with his 14 gold medals around him. But it’s a different time now, a moment for Lochte to show the world he’s as good as Phelps.
What rivalry are we talking about, again?
It wasn’t even close to a rivalry, although Phelps vs. Lochte wasn’t ever a rivalry when they both share a uniform, and instead was more like a disaster Saturday night at the Olympic Aquatics Centre. There’s no better time, with the fiascoes that Phelps has experienced lately in swimming events, than now to swim home and take off his Speedos, owning more medals than any Olympian. He won’t give up so easy, and even though he seems lethargic and lazy in these games, he’s trained and worked out harder each day to stay in fit and good condition. But it’s not all that healthy for a man to notoriously eats a 12,000 calorie-a-day diet while he has preparations and trains, if true. It’s not easy to painfully watch the greatest US men’s swimmer of all-time suffer a beating, no fun at all.
Unfortunately, he has reached that point in his career, a moment when he is fading out of the equation at the summer games, for which it is someone else’s moment to dazzle in the pool. The king of H2O is our very own Lochte and he finally made it clear to the nation, if not the entire world that he’s the guy to be reckoned with after swimming an event that requires toughness and painstaking training, for which swimmers train and master the art of the butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke and freestyle. That’s a lot to handle in one swimming match. Lochte now dominates the sport Phelps once owned, and everyone climbs out of the pool to make way for Lochte. It was not a triumphant moment as Phelps wasn’t ever close to standing a chance against his supposed rival, and climbed out of the chlorinated water startled. It’s the first time, after placing fourth in the men’s 400-meter individual medley, that he dropped his head with hands placed on his hips. Lochte versus Phelps was a stunning beat down, an epic blowout, and a major disappointment.
The first two laps up and down the pool, he was still in the race trailing Lochte by less than a second, and then he began to sink quite like a rubber ducky in a bathtub. The rout came from the instant both men hit the backstroke, and a well-anticipated duel between Phelps and Lochte wasn’t a classic but a race spectators and viewers can forget about as it might have been Phelps’ poorest performance. Where he ran into trouble was on a pair of breaststroke laps, and from then on out, Lochte gained complete control of what had been a tight, tense race. After all of that, Phelps finished fourth. The Brazilian swimmer, Thiago Pereira claimed silver. And then behind him was Kosuke Hagino of Japan winning bronze. Lochte kicked his butt and everybody else’s as well, and strolled onto the pool deck with a huge smile, waving to his family and throwing flowers in the stands. Oddly enough, Phelps followed, while dazed and baffled, passing by Lochte without congratulating his opponent and appeared to be very disgusted with himself for such a humiliating race.
These days Phelps is drowning, and he couldn’t finish the greatest swim ever, falling way behind even before the victory lap. These days Lochte performs a double flip, and it made a splash. And so, on to specifics, Phelps looked like an unsuccessful Olympian and not a 14-time gold medal winner. When it was over, surprisingly and amazingly, he looked like a washed up Brett Favre or Brock Lesnar, who were sent into retirement. Still, despite the upsetting loss, Phelps is favored to grind it out in the upcoming swim events. Four years ago, he owned the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, bringing home a historic eight gold medals.
But now he doesn’t own these Olympics, particularly not in the 400-meter individual medley, finishing four seconds slower than Lochte to stun the crowd and miss out on the silver and bronze. What we can take from these struggles is that he can’t race as fast nor will his body allow him to take on fatiguing swim events. This is a new reality, though Phelps’ place in swimming history ranks up there. Keep in mind, he’s the holder for the most overall Olympic medals won by any male athlete ever. With 14 gold, he has 16 overall and could surpass female gymnast Larysa Latynina of the former Soviet Union, winner of 18 medals, if he can earn at least two.
There is much belief he will shatter Latynina’s record, but what’s not certain is whether he can defeat and compete against his rival Lochte, who remarkably got the best of him on the opening day at the Olympics and surprised the world.
In short, Phelps is not the king of H2O. It’s now Lochte who owns the throne.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
2012 Olympics: Teenager’s Rise Comes to Light In London
The reality was, all along, Missy Franklin, a 17-year-old American swimmer, was fitted to take part in the 2012 London Olympics. The actuality was, during the 2012 U.S. Olympic swimming trials in Omaha, Neb., she was equipped to compete in the summer games and unsurprisingly became the first American woman to qualify for seven events. It’s not surprising she arrived at such a young age, winning five medals, three of them gold, in her first world championships last year.
Though she was raised in Denver, Colorado and represents the U.S. women’s swim team for one of the most exhilarating stories, both of her parents were born in Canada, which she could have represented our neighbor’s north of the border. A gifted swimmer, Franklin is a teenage athlete whose love for water is what shaped her into being crisp and the most decorated female Olympian of all-time, making the 100 and 200 meter backstrokes and is a favorite to win. With a heavy heart, reflecting on the loss of 12 victims while sending her prayers to the other 58 who were injured in the mass theater shooting in Aurora, she is embracing her lifelong dream to swim in the Olympics.
It’s not every day that you hear a story about a teenager, as astonishing as Franklin, a world-class athlete who is on the quest to attain gold medals and leave London in tremendous happiness. She is thrilled to be swimming in the Olympics in the United Kingdom, a place she can leave behind countless memories. There’s competitiveness in her. There’s determination and self-discipline in her. There’s continuity and mental toughness in her.
And that she is considered to accumulate medals, because she’s won three gold, a silver and a bronze at last year’s world’s championship and currently is the world-record holder in the 200m backstroke, there’s no denying the promising swimmer who has already showed the world she can swim. Franklin, ladies and gentlemen, is making her Olympic debut in London this week, and after watching her in the trials, she moves through water like a fish. Now 17, Franklin achieved each of her feats at the age 16, and impressed the nation.
It was her Sweet 16.
Standing 6 feet 1, weighing almost 170 pounds, with her extraordinary wingspan and versatility to glide through water, Franklin is the next big star in the pool for USA Swimming, a phenom who is the female version of Michael Phelps. It’s clear that she’s definitely a stud and, in water, she’s larger than life, a soon-to-be American icon and even a beauty queen in the next few years.
My theory, in retrospect, is she will be around for decades and stand as an American symbol in the Olympic games with Phelps leaning toward retirement after London. It sounds as if swimming has its next brightest athlete for an eventual post-Phelps era — and rightfully so — Franklin is equivalent to the 14-time gold medalist after entering in five events this week, which includes the 50, 100 and 200 freestyles, along with the 100 and 200 backstrokes.
In today’s swimming, she may have channeled her inner Phelps, and then hopefully shatter records over the years. She is, however, a kid at heart, a typical teenage girl and carries a teddy bear in her backpack, as she jumps into the pool and makes a splash. It’s inevitable to ignore Franklin, even if it is her first Olympic games, even if this is a time she may be overly excited and nervous. Franklin, in this case, could suddenly have a nice cachet if she produces for the USA women’s swim team. In any event, she will have her work cut out for her, especially against 11-time Olympic medalist Natalie Coughlin. They are scheduled to meet in a captivating swim race for the 100 backstrokes event and then again for the 100 freestyle, where Franklin is seeded first and Coughlin second.
Long before Franklin came along, she was the dominant one of H2O, but now there’s a new girl in the water. It’s kind of crazy how we just forgot about Coughlin when she clinched a top seed with a time of 59.12 seconds, while Franklin finished just short of first with a time of 59.18 seconds. The U.S. women’s swim team, and there’s no doubt about it, is full of talented and fast swimmers, but nobody can match the teenager’s speed or even the 29-year-old veteran. It will and should be a scintillating event between these two incredible swimmers, an opportunity for Franklin to try and beat her role model and a chance for the world to take notice of the teenybopper who can appear on the popular Seventeen Magazine. But even better, if she brings home gold medals and earns a fair share of recognition, then she can feature on the front cover of Sports Illustrated, where most champs appear after accomplishing marvelous triumph.
She can rip through water, faster than lightning, and float beautifully under water once the electronic beep sounds for the race to begin. She is relentlessly fast in the pool, which is why she has a cool nickname and also is referred to as “Missy the Missile.” Years ago, when she was 13-years-old, Franklin wasn’t nearly as good and famous as she is today. In fact, dating back to four years ago in Omaha, she finished 37th in the 100 free but took it as motivation and had the audacity to get better. The hard work and exhausting competitions for long days, long weeks and long months paid off, turning her into a budding Olympian, trained and well-suited to be our next compelling star of H2O when Phelps decides to take backstrokes home and change from his Speedos to his street clothes.
For her, it’s really about turning into a faster swimmer and growing up to be stronger. For her, it’s really about staying in condition and withstanding rigorous training. At this point of her life, Franklin is not a party animal and attending parties is her least concern, with her eyes on the prize in these summer games. The tension and pressure is quite much for a teenager to handle, but she is more focus than ever before, more serious than before and more prepared than before. While preparing for stiff competitions, which could be her real challenge, Franklin is having fun as well, smiling and laughing with her family standing by her to root on their girl in London. Folks are used to her laughing, giggling and being shy in front of cameras.
But when she’s in the water, she’s for real. Beside Franklin on the pool deck is her 33-year-old coach Todd Schmitz, a man who is a head coach of a youth club and has credentials to mold and breed his athlete. His work ethic and enthusiasm for working with Franklin has shaped her into a pedigreed swimming star.
Her love for water began at age 6, when she won her first race, a 25-meter backstroke. As a little girl, since winning at such a young age, her grandmother would tell stories that her granddaughter would someday be an Olympian. And look at her… she’s a first-time Olympian. What’s more, Franklin is in position to become the wonderful face of swimming.
Though she was raised in Denver, Colorado and represents the U.S. women’s swim team for one of the most exhilarating stories, both of her parents were born in Canada, which she could have represented our neighbor’s north of the border. A gifted swimmer, Franklin is a teenage athlete whose love for water is what shaped her into being crisp and the most decorated female Olympian of all-time, making the 100 and 200 meter backstrokes and is a favorite to win. With a heavy heart, reflecting on the loss of 12 victims while sending her prayers to the other 58 who were injured in the mass theater shooting in Aurora, she is embracing her lifelong dream to swim in the Olympics.
It’s not every day that you hear a story about a teenager, as astonishing as Franklin, a world-class athlete who is on the quest to attain gold medals and leave London in tremendous happiness. She is thrilled to be swimming in the Olympics in the United Kingdom, a place she can leave behind countless memories. There’s competitiveness in her. There’s determination and self-discipline in her. There’s continuity and mental toughness in her.
And that she is considered to accumulate medals, because she’s won three gold, a silver and a bronze at last year’s world’s championship and currently is the world-record holder in the 200m backstroke, there’s no denying the promising swimmer who has already showed the world she can swim. Franklin, ladies and gentlemen, is making her Olympic debut in London this week, and after watching her in the trials, she moves through water like a fish. Now 17, Franklin achieved each of her feats at the age 16, and impressed the nation.
It was her Sweet 16.
Standing 6 feet 1, weighing almost 170 pounds, with her extraordinary wingspan and versatility to glide through water, Franklin is the next big star in the pool for USA Swimming, a phenom who is the female version of Michael Phelps. It’s clear that she’s definitely a stud and, in water, she’s larger than life, a soon-to-be American icon and even a beauty queen in the next few years.
My theory, in retrospect, is she will be around for decades and stand as an American symbol in the Olympic games with Phelps leaning toward retirement after London. It sounds as if swimming has its next brightest athlete for an eventual post-Phelps era — and rightfully so — Franklin is equivalent to the 14-time gold medalist after entering in five events this week, which includes the 50, 100 and 200 freestyles, along with the 100 and 200 backstrokes.
In today’s swimming, she may have channeled her inner Phelps, and then hopefully shatter records over the years. She is, however, a kid at heart, a typical teenage girl and carries a teddy bear in her backpack, as she jumps into the pool and makes a splash. It’s inevitable to ignore Franklin, even if it is her first Olympic games, even if this is a time she may be overly excited and nervous. Franklin, in this case, could suddenly have a nice cachet if she produces for the USA women’s swim team. In any event, she will have her work cut out for her, especially against 11-time Olympic medalist Natalie Coughlin. They are scheduled to meet in a captivating swim race for the 100 backstrokes event and then again for the 100 freestyle, where Franklin is seeded first and Coughlin second.
Long before Franklin came along, she was the dominant one of H2O, but now there’s a new girl in the water. It’s kind of crazy how we just forgot about Coughlin when she clinched a top seed with a time of 59.12 seconds, while Franklin finished just short of first with a time of 59.18 seconds. The U.S. women’s swim team, and there’s no doubt about it, is full of talented and fast swimmers, but nobody can match the teenager’s speed or even the 29-year-old veteran. It will and should be a scintillating event between these two incredible swimmers, an opportunity for Franklin to try and beat her role model and a chance for the world to take notice of the teenybopper who can appear on the popular Seventeen Magazine. But even better, if she brings home gold medals and earns a fair share of recognition, then she can feature on the front cover of Sports Illustrated, where most champs appear after accomplishing marvelous triumph.
She can rip through water, faster than lightning, and float beautifully under water once the electronic beep sounds for the race to begin. She is relentlessly fast in the pool, which is why she has a cool nickname and also is referred to as “Missy the Missile.” Years ago, when she was 13-years-old, Franklin wasn’t nearly as good and famous as she is today. In fact, dating back to four years ago in Omaha, she finished 37th in the 100 free but took it as motivation and had the audacity to get better. The hard work and exhausting competitions for long days, long weeks and long months paid off, turning her into a budding Olympian, trained and well-suited to be our next compelling star of H2O when Phelps decides to take backstrokes home and change from his Speedos to his street clothes.
For her, it’s really about turning into a faster swimmer and growing up to be stronger. For her, it’s really about staying in condition and withstanding rigorous training. At this point of her life, Franklin is not a party animal and attending parties is her least concern, with her eyes on the prize in these summer games. The tension and pressure is quite much for a teenager to handle, but she is more focus than ever before, more serious than before and more prepared than before. While preparing for stiff competitions, which could be her real challenge, Franklin is having fun as well, smiling and laughing with her family standing by her to root on their girl in London. Folks are used to her laughing, giggling and being shy in front of cameras.
But when she’s in the water, she’s for real. Beside Franklin on the pool deck is her 33-year-old coach Todd Schmitz, a man who is a head coach of a youth club and has credentials to mold and breed his athlete. His work ethic and enthusiasm for working with Franklin has shaped her into a pedigreed swimming star.
Her love for water began at age 6, when she won her first race, a 25-meter backstroke. As a little girl, since winning at such a young age, her grandmother would tell stories that her granddaughter would someday be an Olympian. And look at her… she’s a first-time Olympian. What’s more, Franklin is in position to become the wonderful face of swimming.
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