After Atalanta

Well I guess the title is somewhat misleading in that the table tennis powers-that-be don't believe sexy was ever part of table tennis. Wait, let me clarify. They don't believe it was ever a part of women's table tennis. Not sure whether men's table tennis is sexy, whether the level of sex appeal is a concern, and whether the men's version is so popular they just don't have to think about these things. Anyway, I have written about this before briefly , but there is, a year later, a renewed call to sex up women's table tennis by encouraging them to wear skirts and dresses. And it's not even subtle. It's a blatant if you wear skirts/dresses you will be more sexy, the sport will be more sexy, and it will attract fans argument. First, it's probably not true. Sexifying athletes has not been proven to draw in more fans. And second, I think that while athletics and athletes are erotic, I don't think they are universally so. It's silly to say, we...

1. More competitive opportunities for women's sports in Asia, including the Asian Games and the Commonwealth Games, are paying off for previously unnoticed teams. The Malaysian (field) hockey team will be participating in its first Olympic qualifying tournament ever because of its performance in these two recent tournaments. Qualifying happens in Vancouver in the spring. 2. In China, officials with the International Table Tennis Federation are worried about the decline in popularity of the sport in the country. Their solution? Encourage the female players to wear sexy skirts and dresses a la Maria Sharapova. While I appreciate Sharapova's--and others'--fashion sense, I am conflicted about using fashion to sell sport. I also have a hard time getting my head around playing table tennis (ping-pong in my mind) in a short skirt. To me, it's more of a jeans and t-shirt kind of sport played in the basement before and after holiday dinners, preferably with a glass of wine near...

I have been very American-centric lately so I thought I would round up some news from across the globe Check out Women Who Serve for coverage of the Pan-American Games where Milagros Sequera from Venezuela and ranked 50 on the WTA tour won the gold. Also regarding the Pan-American Games, I was watching ESPN2 on Sunday waiting for some tennis when I caught a bit of the women's beach volleyball final between Cuba and Brazil. And it was in Spanish. I know ESPN has a Spanish-language channel but I was surprised to see them import that coverage to ESPN2. I don't speak Spanish but it was pretty easy to get the gist of what they were saying; "Fantastico!!" is not that hard to translate. So kudos to ESPN for doing a Spanish-language broadcast on a "regular" (the apostrophes are there to indicate the problematics with associating regular and normal with English-speaking) channel. In Dubai, the Al Ahli sports club that sponsors football (aka soccer) has formed a commi...

So of course the tennis world is all atwitter with Justine Henin's not-so-surprising announcement last week that she would be returning to tennis. And so begins an even more fervent discussion of the player sabbatical or the non-retirement or the mental break or the recharge--whatever you want to call it. It's an important discussion to have given the recognized intensity of the sport. (Both the men's and women's tour are making concerted efforts to reduce the playing schedules to offer more down time to players.) But the concept of the sabbatical--an official one--is not one on the table at either tour's next organizational meeting apparently. This means that the current practice of retiring and staging a comeback remains the only option for players who need a break. Pam Shriver finds it wrong--of course. She told USA Today : I'm tired of them announcing retirement when what they are really doing is leaving the tour for a period of time. Well, Pammy, what choic...

Nothing pleases me more than a snarky comment about ESPN's special women's history month programming. (More on the specifics of that in a moment.) After noting the good: a profile of Paralympic swimmer Jessica Long; blogger Ray Frager of the Baltimore Sun says this: Danica Patrick also will be featured, presumably to show how women athletes have been empowered to sprawl across a sports car in a bikini for a magazine photo shoot even after winning an event at their sport's highest level. Love it! So, yes, ESPN is engaging in some special programming for women's history month. We could say, yeah, they're not going to sit back on the fact that they cover women's March Madness. Or we could say--hey--what about the other 11 months of the year, guys? Pick your level of cynicism. I had been tuning into Sports Center in the mornings in an attempt to get some clue about how to fill out my brackets this year. I never saw a story about women in the line-up. (This was befor...

Okay so I didn't realize that the current dearth of coverage of the Paralympic Games was because they haven't actually started yet. I had thought that the Paralympic Games occurred immediately after the Olympic Games and I do believe this has happened in the past (Salt Lake City, for example). But not this time. The Games don't start until September 6. In the meantime, check out this article about the first Jordanian, Maha Barghouti, to win Paralympic gold. She did so in table tennis in Sydney, 2000. She is headed to Beijing to compete. Barghouti was named Arab athlete of the year in 2001 and Jordanian sportsperson of the year in 2002. I think those awards are pretty interesting in lights of a few things. First, we seem to think the (dis)abled athletes need categories of their own. Second, when there are not separate categories (I'm not going to get into the whole separate but equal debate here) sometimes it appears that the inclusion of (dis)abled athletes smacks a li...

It's all about Twitter these days. I was listening to one of my favorite college radio station Saturday and was told I could tweet my request in. (Of course I am not on Twitter yet so I would have to be a little more traditional and email it or even--gasp--phone it in!) But the Twitter/sports connection is also a hot topic. Check out Women Talk Sports for all the takes on Twitter and women's sports. And even SI.com is taking up the topic. Professional golfers and tennis players are twittering--but not from the course or court. Though I have to wonder if that is next. Might be a way to get around that whole coaching from the stands issue. (Not that that is really such an anomaly as I saw, in person, at Roland Garros this year.) Though members of the WPS are tweeting from the sidelines of their games. I wonder which sport(s) will be next. Baseball and softball seem likely candidates. Women's pro fastpitch could definitely use some twittering action, if, as some predict, Twit...