After Atalanta

Pretty interesting interview with Kathryn Bertine over at the Huffington Post the other day. Bertine is a senior editor at espnW and is trying to qualify for the Olympic Games and has written a book about her attempt to qualify in 2008. ESPN sponsored her quest to do so, but she didn't make it for those games. So she's at it again looking to be a cyclist in London in 2012. Here's what impressed me: her clear recognition of the skewed treatment of female athletes with sport itself and, of course, the media coverage. She gives the example of the lack of prize money in women's cycling, but notes that so few cyclists will speak up because of fear of alienating sponsors. Because there's nothing worse, we know, than an athlete who speaks her/his mind. And it's especially bad if that athlete is a woman who is complaining. I mean, she could be a feminist. Horrors! So Bertine, being the only cyclist from Saint Kitts and Nevis (she got dual citizenship as part of her qual...

ESPN.com has a good article on the debut of BMX racing as an official Olympic sport. Apparently it was a fan favorite and appeals to people from all over the world. Winter Olympian Gretchen Bleiler was there watching and believes BMX racing will change the Summer Olympics the way snowboarding changed the Winter Games. Not sure if it will have exactly the same impact given that there are a lot of snowboarding events and only a few BMX racing ones. But I think the addition of an "action sport" into the Summer Games is a good thing. As does this writer from the Vancouver Sun who also offers some good descriptions of what fans of the BMX events were privy to in Beijing.

I could have blogged incessantly about the Olympics and all the issues about gender (and I do still have a few things to say--but later), but I had some issues about giving the Olympics too much attention given all the controversies over the games. I'm disappointed that the American media failed to address the issues of human rights and animal abuse once the games began; as well as the things that went largely undiscussed--how the government made sure there was enough water in Beijing by taking it from the country, greatly affecting the people who live there. I share the concern by some that once the media and tourists vacate, seeing that it got away with little protest the things it got away with, that the government will continue to engage in abusive behavior. I would say, "we shall see." But we probably won't. I have heard that the coverage provided by other nations was a little more attentive but in some respects those media are preaching to the choir given the se...

US women's field hockey will not be advancing to the medal round in Beijing. Needing a win (and some help) against Great Britain the other day, they only managed a (scoreless) tie. The team actually only got one win, against New Zealand over the weekend. I saw some of it and I have to say that, having very little knowledge of field hockey and very little experience watching it, I really enjoyed it. It's a fast and very strategic game.

Not much news about the sex testing labs in Beijing since the initial news broke a few weeks ago. This editorialist , though, notes that as egregious as such testing is, in the US we have our own version of such testing. They're based on appropriate demonstrations of femininity and adherence to hegemonic beauty standards. And many female athletes--she only cites a few--get in line for fear of being deemed a lesbian. Here's an excerpt about both the challenges and potential in sport: Sports programs are a particular challenge when attempting to make schools, playgrounds, and locker rooms safe for our LGBTQ children. And as long as young women will be stigmatized as lesbian, that stigma will control women’s participation. But sports can also provide innumerable opportunities to teach valuable life lessons and can be a powerful influence in addressing myriad social issues. And eliminating lesbian-baiting can be one of them.

Dara Torres took the fastest time in qualifying for tonight/today/tomorrow's (?) 50 meter free final. The 41-year old's chances not only at a medal, but for a gold are looking good. She could set a record no one will ever beat: oldest swimmer to earn an Olympic medal. So as we wait for the final here's a cute piece about some of the effects Dara Torres's return to international competition. It focuses on three women over the age of 40 who have gotten back into a healthier lifestyle that includes a return to exercise. It's kind of a happy happy fluff piece, but it does point out that some of the recent focus on these fabulous women over 40 (Halle Berry, Kim Catrall, Nicole Kidman) really does not resonate with most women. But people look at Torres, who became a mother in her late 30s, hear her talk about achieving balance in her life and though they may never get her amazing abs and shoulders, they do know they can get into the pool or start being active again no mat...

So I slept in this morning, came downstairs, flipped on the television and what to my wondering eyes did appear? US women's soccer--LIVE! They are playing Canada. Loser goes home. Apparently there was a weather delay: lightning. Good for me. I saw almost the entire second half and am now watching the extra time. There will be 30 minutes of extra time and if there is no winner...penalty kicks! So, what's happening: Natasha Kai was put in as a sub for extra time. She's had a few touches but nothing--- Oh Oh Oh--score--by Natasha Kai. Disregard the start of that last bullet. She headed it in. Beautiful. Nice dance too. By the way, I hear she is single, ladies. They play on because this is not sudden death over time. The pressure the US started putting on Canada in the last quarter of the game has clearly carried over. The US just got another nice scoring opportunity. When Kai came on the field at the start of extra time commentator 9i forget his name) noted the presence of her...

Not that I have actually seen any women's water polo. I saw a clip of a match in which someone got punched in the nose. Bloody mess! But the NPR story a few weeks ago has engendered a curiousity in the sport and the team. That's why I found this USA Today piece interesting. It offers a few more details about the history of the team and two of its veteran players who are competing in their third Olympic games. The team is doing well, by the way. They have already qualified for the quarterfinals. They tied with defending gold medalists Italy and have no losses on their record yet. They play Russia tomorrow. The outcome will only affect the group standings (US and Italy are tied for the top spot) as the US is already moving on and Russia is not.

Last time the US fielded a field hockey team at the Olympics was in Atlanta--and that's because they, as home team, didn't have to qualify. But a good friend of mine who tried out for the team said the US was not really competitive internationally. Things may be changing. Having qualified for the Beijing games, the US has made a little bit of noise by tying Argentina in the first round of play. Argentina is ranked 2nd internationally. This is just a guess but I am thinking that the emergence of intercollegiate field hockey, due largely to Title IX, may have something to do with the strengthening of the the US in world play. Looking at the US roster it is easy to see which schools are field hockey powerhouses. I was actually surprised there wasn't a little more regional diversity. Stay tuned for more potential (near) upsets,

Today marks the opening of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beiijing. Bring on the excessive national pride and the blind faith in some kind of pure version of sport that the Olympics allegedly represents. Such cynicism, I know. But frankly, I am feeling kind of cynical about these Olympics. There's the immense political controversy over the host, there's the apolitical reaction by most athletes, in part, I believe, because of their need to believe in some pure version of sport that has been peddled to most Americans much of our lives. And then there is the problem of losing some of that blissful ignorance the more you begin to find out about what really happens within the IOC and other sport governing bodies. I don't want to rant or moan about some of the systemic and institutional problems, though. (Well I do but that would take a lot of time.) I do want to expand on a controversy I wrote about earlier this week: American "traitors." Seems like China's softball c...

So the article I read yesterday about the US soccer team's loss to Norway neglected to mention that defender Lori Chalupny, in trying to defend the ball--to no avail--was punched in the jaw by Hope Solo and then landed on her face. She was substituted out less than 15 minutes later and is listed as day-to-day because of blurred vision and dizziness. But she too is ringing the optimism bell saying that 1) it's not Solo's fault, and 2) that she is confident she will be ready for the squad's next game against Japan. I hope so. I like Chalupny a lot. She's a versatile player who quietly gets it done on the field. And I am kind of drawn to her red hair.

Not a good start to the defense of their Olympic gold. The US women's soccer team lost their opener to Norway the other day, 2-0. Major bummer. The two goals came in the first 5 minutes of the game off two defensive errors. Despite the pressure on the new coach, the noticeable absence of Abby Wambach, and this early blow, the team is optimistic saying things like the "glass is half full" and these are just "timing issues" they need to work out. I don't quite buy the brave face they're putting on--not that they have much of a choice. Stay tuned.

I sure do like Jennifer Finney Boylan. So I am glad she weighed in on the recent news that the Beijing organizers are instituting a sex verification center to test "suspect" female athletes. There was a lot of good stuff in her NYT op-ed Sunday . She spent a lot of time giving the history of the testing, which I mostly just skimmed. I thought she could have trimmed that down a bit, but the good stuff did come. Here is some of it: ...gender is malleable and elusive, and we need to become comfortable with this fact, rather than afraid of it. and Most efforts to rigidly quantify the sexes are bound to fail. For every supposedly unmovable gender marker, there is an exception. There are women with androgen insensitivity, who have Y chromosomes. There are women who have had hysterectomies, women who cannot become pregnant, women who hate makeup, women whose object of affection is other women. So what makes someone female then? If it’s not chromosomes, or a uterus, or the ability to...

The Olympics, in case you have not heard, are coming. There are stories every day from every possible angle imaginable. And one of the big stories, that has been big for a while now, is that this is the last Olympics for softball. The most common reason for the elimination of softball from the Olympic roster is that the sport does not have enough international depth. I have wondered for a while how much of a real reason this is versus what it might be covering. Since I don't have access to the inner workings of the IOC, I cannot really say for sure. But I am pretty sure there was not just one reason. Anyway, I find this all interesting in light of this story about the American, Michael Bastian, who is coaching the Chinese team and the bridges he has burned in doing so. Apparently USA Softball is not too keen on coaches going overseas. Wait, but wouldn't quality coaching--like the kind offered by USA Softball--exported to other countries help increase the depth of the sport? So ...

I can't even come up with some snarky to start this post because I am just so astonished by the news that the Beijing Olympics are going to engage in gender verification. Oh yes, it's true. When Ebuz alerted me to the NYT article linked above, I so naively and with the slightest bit of hope said "are they testing the men too?" Yeah, right. In fact, they aren't even testing all female athletes or even just a random sampling. They are testing "suspect" athletes. Has there been a situation of late to which we could so aptly apply the term witch hunt? So many questions...Who decided this? When? Why is it being allowed to happen? Is there any possible way to stop it? And I am so so curious as to the criteria being employed to determine suspect athletes? Do they win too much and too well thus relying on the stereotype that women can't be too good in sports? Are their muscles too big reinforcing some biological essentialism that does not account for a spe...

In the car this morning I heard a preview on NPR for this evening's All Things Considered which would air a profile on the US women's water polo team. How interesting, I thought. I don't know anything about the team. I should remember to go to the website and listen to it. Of course by this evening I had forgotten all about it. Luckily I happened to be in the car when the segment was running. And luckily there is this really long light in my town where I sat through two cycles which enabled me to hear the whole thing . And I was really surprised by a few things. No, not that some players have such strong legs and good egg beater kicks (it's described in the segment for the uninitiated) that they can propel themselves out of the water to about their hips. Though that did impress me greatly. I was surprised that women's water polo has only been in the Olympics since 2000. That fact I learned today. But what the whole segment got me thinking about was that this team--t...

Me...and the US National Women's Soccer team. Because Abby Wambach has broken her leg . And not just broken her leg. But broken it in two places and in need of a titanium rod. Of course this means no Beijing for her. The breakage happened in the first half of a match against Brazil when Wambach collided with a Brazilian player. Here's a YouTube video in which you can see the incident (over and over again) for yourself. (Someday I will learn how to import these things.) I haven't listened to the audio on the 7+ minute clip yet but you can see how it happened. h/t to Ebuz for breaking the bad news to me.

Did anyone else know that BMX biking (the cross country race course kind; not the tricks and aerials version) had been added to the summer Olympics? Yeah, me neither. And, of course, there will be women participating because new sports have to have a men's and women's event(s) where applicable. And, despite the fact that the United States is a BMX powerhouse, there are other countries that have athletes who will strong gold medal contenders in Beijing. On the women's side there's New Zealand, France, and Great Britain. Great Britain?? Huh, interesting. Especially in light of this article about the need for greater promotion of women's sports in the UK. The BMXers are hoping their Olympic presence will increase the sport's popularity. Who knows, maybe post-Beijing we'll see a cadre of British girls hopping on their BMXes and hitting the dirt.

I was pleased with some recent media coverage. (I know, I know; it happens so infrequently.) USA Today ran some pieces on some non-traditional women's sports a few weeks ago. The first was a feature on one of the leading female motocross riders, 17-year old Ashley Fiolek. Fiolek is heading to the X Games next month where she will participate as one of ten riders in the first women's motocross, which consists of 10 laps around a x-country course set up in the Staples Center in LA. I wasn't too excited about how both the article and Fiolek herself (girls are more hesitant to make an aggressive pass on the track, she said) set up how this is such a masculine sport. But I did like that they mentioned Fiolek's (dis)ability--she's deaf--and how she has had to train to take that into account. They did not posit her as a hero or as someone working against insurmountable odds. One might even be able to argue that her gender was more of an obstacle than her hearing loss. A ...

TIME magazine came out with an article at the beginning of the month entitled "Should US Olympians Speak Out?" Well, yes, they should. Of course the article was published before the recent earthquake which makes it difficult to critique China--the whole kicking someone while they're down kind of thing. But let's compartmentalize a little bit and not forget the myriad of egregious policies and behaviors enacted by China that did have everyone talking not so very long ago. Well everyone except maybe, many--or most perhaps--athletes who are either being told not to speak their opinions about the situation(s) or don't care much at all about what has been going on. Quite annoying have been the responses of some American athletes including Paul Hamm who believes it is up to the politicians to work this one out. Well no one is asking Hamm (who has already been that the center of quite a bit of Olympic controversy, why shy away now?) to solve the problem. It would just b...