After Atalanta

Thank you, Doug Speirs, for this .

I complained yesterday about the crap I had to "deal" with in the form of the criticism levied against women's hockey by the powers-that-be, namely Monsier Rogge who wants the women to improve the depth of their game or else face elimination from the Olympics. But it's not nearly as much crap as the members of the gold-winning Canadian women's team found themselves in the morning after. Because long after the crowd had dispersed the women went back on the ice with champagne and beer and cigars. There were, however, members of the press still in the arena. And thus there are now pictures . And the IOC is investigating. Given that they kicked Scotty Lago out of the games for behavior that occurred outside an Olympic venue, one would think things do not look good for the team. But it's also a tad more difficult to kick out a whole team, that happens to have a gold medal, and also is from the host country. Not that they should be kicked be out. (Lago's ousting...

Apologies to NBC Sports for lifting their headline " Rogge: Women's hockey must improve to stay ." But seriously. Last night's game was good. Yes, it's unfortunate that earlier games were lopsided. And I have to think that Melody Davis might be singing a different tune if she doesn't have a job because Rogge kicks women's hockey out of the games. But I am not blaming her for refusing to play down to save women's hockey. Because it is after all pretty counter intuitive. But I don't think he can do that. It flies in the face of any gender equity commitment--no matter which side of Rogge's mouth it's coming out of. And obviously I don't think he should do that. [I'm being deeply analytical this morning!] In the same breath Rogge is encouraging the NHL commissioner, in the battle of the white men who control sports, to allow the pros to compete in 2014. Are we seeing part of the problem here? The men's tournament is comprised of te...

The the letter below is one I just sent to the NCAA who, if you have not heard, recently accepted banner ads from Focus on the Family. Thanks to the amazing work of Pat Griffin and other advocates who got the word of the offense out quickly, the NCAA has pulled the ads from the website. But there have been plans for CBS (you remember--they're the station that aired the Super Bowl with the infamous FoF Tim Tebow ad) to air more FoF ads during March Madness. There is no word, according to Griffin's blog, about the status of these ads. So I emailed the marketing and publicity department at the NCAA and told them 1) good job taking down the ads (I didn't bother to mention the mistake they made in accepting them in the first place) and 2) please don't run them during the tournament next month. You can do the same by emailing ( pmr@ncaa.org ) or calling (317-917-6762 )their public relations department. ------------------------------------------------------- I was quite please...

I don't know who the woman is who is doing all the commentary on curling (or at least on women's curling--I haven't watched much of the men's). But she's ridiculous. She's definitely a former player and sounds like a native English speaker but I am sensing some kind of accent. Up until this point (this point about 2 minutes ago) I thought she was knowledgeable, not especially helpful to those of us still in the dark about strategy (though I noticed last night at the bar as I was watching that there are others who know far less about the sport than I do), and a little bit condescending. In other words, typical commentator. But about two minutes ago as she and her co-commentator were discussing the "controversy" over the loud Canadian crowds that have caused some opposing teams to flub up shots she said that curling (the sport) had to find a way to manage the crowd but still keep the excitement alive. Her suggestion: "cheerleaders in bikinis." ...

Not my own--most of the time anyway. But all this neoliberal, neo-queer stuff is really confusing. Especially in the context of the Olympics. So according to Pat Griffin , the person I go to for such information, there are only 4 out athletes at these Winter Olympics (all women), plus Johnny Weir who sometimes epitomizes these neoliberal, neo-queer discussions for me. But four! That number is quite low. So we enter the "it's the 21st century and I don't need to be out; I am who I am" kind of discussion countered by the idea that that's just baloney (articulate, eh?) and queer people are making themselves more invisible in this age of increasing visibility and controversy over issues of sexuality. But this latter argument is hard to put on someone like Weir, who will not discuss his sexuality because it's "private" (though he has no problems with privacy when showing his ass on his Sundance Channel show) but is not at all subtle in his behaviors and c...

That's the message I am getting after the start of the men's single luge competition was moved farther down the track in an attempt to temper the high speeds that seemed to result in the death of Georgian luger, Nodar Kumaritashvili,* during a training run last Friday. This story is not breaking news of course, but I started to hear the grumbles about the start's move pretty much the day it started. Why? Well, one because it corroborates the party line that Kumaritashvili died because of luger error and not because of the course, which is on record as the fastest in the world. And one would think that given the pride those involved in the endeavor had over the speediness that they would have taken certain precautions. But I guess all that hubris gets in the way of covering steel beams with padding. But the second and more relevant (to me) reason for the disgruntledness is because the new start is the women's singles start. I am sorry--it was where the women were slated...

...from about an Olympic ice rink length away. I missed but definitely heard about Canada's 18-0 win over Slovakia. I saw the US's 12-1 win over China. I watched most of Canada's 10-1 win over Switzerland. And then I saw all the critiques . (And there were indeed more than three.) It is indeed worrisome given that the IOC nixed softball from the Olympic roster because of lack of international worthiness. (Though that seemed to become the official rationale there was all that curious wrangling that is alleged to have happened over whether baseball and softball were the same sport.) And if I were an elite female ski jumper right now seeing these scores, I would be miffed that the IOC hadn't even considered my sport because of alleged international shallowness. But the delve into Olympic hockey's history is important. The men's scores in the early years of the game--even worse. And the women's game needs to overcome even more: namely the sexism and intersecti...

Initially when I read this column at the Huffington Post by Michele Morris about the story of the missing female ski jumpers in Vancouver, I had another one of those where have you been moments. It's a good column that outlines the whole contentious history of the women's exclusion from the Olympic games. It offers those late to the issue, a quick and thoughtful catch-up. But I was still annoyed at the media coverage this late in the game. But then as I was watching jumping events this past weekend and heard nary a word about the lack of women, I kind of softened my stance. If they are not going to talk about it during the actual Olympics on the many stations of NBC maybe we do still need writers like Morris to be bringing up this issue. Then today I got irked again as I read about people so outraged they are boycotting the Olympics because of it. Really? I have been pleased to see a lot of controversy and protesting of these games, but you're picking this issue--NOW--to bo...

I am sitting here watching the US women's hockey team cream China. It's 5-0 at the end of the first period and China has only had one shot on goal. Four-time Olympian Angela Ruggiero scored the first goal. It was a pretty offensive-looking move for a defense person (that's right, Cammi Granato--she's a woman!). She just skated right in and slipped it around the goalie down low. Anyway here's a profile of Ruggiero from the NYTimes that highlights her charity work over the year. And thankfully leaves out her stint on that Donald Trump show. Ruggiero was the intermission interview and I have to say she looked a lot like a softball player: lots of eye make-up. I mean mascara that you could see clumping. So she's wearing a helmet most of the time but she put on the eyeliner for the intermission interview?

Because if Lindsey Vonn had a plan to gain Michael Phelps-like fame by winning many medals and becoming a highly decorated American skier, she might have to fall back on her modeling career. I refrained from commenting on the little upsurge in controversy after my colleague dared to suggest that the pose of Vonn on a recent SI cover, the one with her ass in the air and perfectly coiffed hair and impeccable make-up superimposed on a mountain, was slightly problematic. Though I was tempted to comment on how ugly the response to something that was nothing new: people including Dr. LaVoi and myself and many others have been noting the problematic ways in which female athletes are depicted for a long, long time. Luckily she and others addressed the sexist, homophobic responses. So now we can all move on and think about Vonn's latest SI appearance: the photos of her in the annual swimsuit issue. There's no question that these are indeed sexual pictures; there is no question of in...

The women ski jumpers may have lost their bid to gain entry into the Vancouver Olympics (as recounted in this article which I thought tried too hard to put a positive spin on the sexism) but the 2-women bobsled team from Australia is in! The Court of Arbitration of Sport ruled that the Australians were unfairly denied access as the best team from Oceania based on current bodsled federation rules for qualifying. That means 21 teams will be competing in Vancouver next week instead of the usual 20, which is good news for the Irish team which was the last to qualify.

...think about Saints player Scott Fujita whose open support of gay rights including an appearance at October's National Equality March. His advocacy has gone nearly unnoticed with the recent Tebow controversy. Also do not forget that women play professional football--and not just in their underwear (a la the Lingerie League). Here's my friend, Bobbi--sorry, Dr. Knapp, who is a former player herself and wrote her dissertation on women's professional football . She reminds us that the early years of the NFL---you know, like, the first thirty--were not profitable for the league. In other words, stop the doomsday talk about women's professional sports!

Roller derby has hit Britain! The American, largely female-only sport has been exported to Britain and is growing exponentially. Check out this piece in The Guardian about the emergence of the sport overseas. This is very good news for overseers of British women's physical fitness (note the problematic nature of having such overseers however well meaning). Because British women are quite absent in sport and physical activity. Which makes the popularity of roller derby a little curious. Much of the rationale behind the lack of activity is the need to uphold standards of femininity which many women find incompatible with sport participation. But roller derby is one of the most aggressive (an historically male trait) sports out there. But the performance of the sport with the self-styled "kits" (I love British-speak!) that often include skirts and fishnets and makeup might temper the perceived masculinity many women see in sport. Who knows. Also I found out an interesting t...

...the Olympics are run by boys. Shocker. But if you want some of the details check out Christine Brennan's column about the male-dominated USOC. All the National Governing Board (the groups that govern individual sports such as skating, skiing/snowboarding, luge, etc.) heads are men. The USOC briefly had a female president, but she got run out of town. And this is part of the reason why women are not found in these positions. All these men talk the politically correct game and the NGBs say they want to be diverse but, really, you think they want women in charge--of sports! Similar to the situations faced by female coaches and female administrators in intercollegiate sports (where there is also a dearth , though not nearly so bad, of women), women in Olympic sport administration deal not only with the pressures of their respective jobs but having to deal with the inherent sexism--sometimes overt, sometimes stealth--that honestly makes the job either impossible to succeed in or just...

Not that I was ever into him but this Super Bowl Focus on the Family ad conversation is getting old. Well not so much old as typical. Same old arguments. Same old sides. And in the end the "right" which is all about the self-martyrdom will have the ear of the greater public and call all left-leaning folks radicals--if only because on Sunday people just want to sit down and watch the game. So instead of getting embroiled (more so emotionally--I don't see myself as a major player in this debate) I am just going to post this link to Dave Zirin's column on the issue and remind people that having an ad during the Super Bowl is not a constitutional right; it's an economic privilege.

Business Week came out with its list of the 100 most powerful athletes . Only eight women made the list (which was based on both on-field and off-field earnings). Only two (Serena and Venus Williams) made the top 50. If only off-field earnings were taken into consideration more women would have made the list--including Annika Sorenstam and Lisa Leslie. But the lack of on-field opportunities in team sports was a major factor. Lack seems to be an understatement actually: women have .037 percent the number of spots on team rosters as men. So when I hear that we don't need Title IX in college sports any more, I think about the professional realm which is not subject to gender equity regulations. And I wonder what things would look like in intercollegiate athletics without it. It would probably be better than .037 percent but how much?