After Atalanta

 One of my favorite podcasts, P op Culture Happy Hou r, does a weekly segment on Fridays when all panelists/hosts are asked what is making them happy this week. I find it both enjoyable to listen to and am reminded that this practice that should be more widely undertaken.  So this week, what is making me happy is Elana Meyers Taylor and her gold medal win in monobob at the Milano Cortina Olympics. This win makes her a six-time medalist (with one event to go)--and the most decorated woman bobsledder.  Sidebar: I was slightly disturbed, when looking for stories to link, to find this one from Savannah with the headline Who is Elana Meyers Taylor? Le sigh, Georgia. [Also, it is getting more and more difficult to find media outlets to link to that don't make me ill, and I still feel like I am not doing a great job at this. Still, FU CBS. No clicks for you!] This USA Today piece provides some history on her athletic career--including how she got into bobsled--and her legacy. ...

Note the staid title. It's because "you're f*&^ing kidding me" kept running through my head after reading this NYT piece and I couldn't get past that most basic but not very telling sentiment long enough to come up with a witty/snarky title. So Gigi Fernandez, former professional tennis player, decided rather late (relatively) in life to have children. And becoming pregnant was quite difficult for her. Not surprising because fertility rates in women do decline as we age. Fernandez and her partner, former pro golfer Jane Geddes, made the decision when Fernandez, who was to be the bearer, in her 40s. After many rounds of in vitro fertilization that did not take, Fernandez had the eggs of a personal friend inseminated and implanted in her.* And now she and Jane have twins. Before I get to the problematic aspects of this story, I just want to say "good for them!" It sounds like they went through a lot during this long process. But the messages Fernandez ...

The New York Times published an article this weekend about American swimmer Amanda Beard and the new stage of her life. She became a mother about a year ago and is working on a comeback in competitive swimming (she'll be competing in nationals this week; her first big meet since failing to qualify for the final races in the Beijing Olympics). I had some initial qualms about this article because I feel it constructs motherhood as some kind of happy ending, a positive life changer; something that drew Beard out of the pressures of her competitive sport life. And this is certainly how Beard is describing her new lifestyle. I just worry because one, motherhood is not exactly a stress reliever and depicting it as such when we are talking about an elite athlete makes it seem like the pressures are too great for women at this level of sport. And two, motherhood generally, from what I have seen and heard, often creates greater pressures and stresses. It is not any kind of escape. But I...

American softball player Jennie Finch announced her retirement from softball last week. I have to say, I'm not too sad about this. I was never a fan of the pretty face version of softball she--and others--were promoting. Though it will be a real loss for the game as all those men who tuned in and came out for games to see Finch and her "toothpaste commercial" smile will now abandon the game as it loses its sexiest star. Oh wait...sex appeal doesn't sell women's sports...never mind. Maybe the loss of Finch will make the game a little less heterosexual? People are hoping that Finch will stay involved in the fight to get softball back into the Olympics, thinking, I would presume, that her "pretty face" will have some kind of wooing effect on the male-dominated IOC. Let's note that softball didn't get cut from the Olympic roster because the players were ugly. It got too closely associated with baseball and did not--allegedly--have enough of an intern...

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...

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Throughout much of the US Open I was thinking, "glad I don't have kids!" But the other day I started thinking "I gotta get myself knocked up!" Why the radical switch? Well the former sentiment emerged after hearing, ad nauseum, about coming back from pregnancy and all the emphasis on motherhood in the wake of the Kim Clijsters return. All the attention made it seem like motherhood is some kind of disability. Is it really so astonishing that someone who is a great athlete, is young, and gave birth over a year ago can get to the top of her game again? So what's up with the kid gloves for mommies? Then there is the opposing discourse which cites all the benefits of pregnancy: an increase in red blood cells, the endurance from said increase, the mental benefits, increased flexibility (which could be a bad thing depending on where it is happening and what sport you do), possible muscle increase in the first trimester because of the hormone surge. There have been...

Busy mom who recently has taken on more intense athletic regimen needs a responsible person able to shield young child from flash bulbs and people with microphones asking inane questions. Must be multilingual. That's right, folks. Kim Clijsters is back . I was going to go back to my posts about Clijsters's retirement where I am sure I made a prediction about a potential comeback. But I think I don't want to know what I said. I am pleased she is making a comeback. She has asked for a wild card into the US Open (and a few other tournaments) this year. I predict that she will get them. A Clijsters return will be a big draw and no tournament organizer these days is going to turn that down.

1. Where international players will go in the WPS still remains up in the air though things are getting settled. Looks like Marta will head to LA to play for the Sol. No contract yet so don't count on it. But it appears that anywhere she goes, she will be the top-paid player--in the whole league. The WPS is planning to market the heck out of her. Interesting. First game of the season will be the Sol versus the Washington Freedom. So Marta versus Abby Wambach. Nothing like starting out with a bang! 2. Changing the conversation completely...the 2010 Olympics are only 13 months away! Writer Philip Hersh of the LA Times reminds us of that fact. Then he runs down what's happening in winter sports. Nice to see sports that are rarely covered (luge, speed skating) get some ink (or pixels I guess). Unfortunately he does not mention hockey, not that there is that much happening on the national front. Though it would have been nice for him to note that the US women's national team h...

Well I am. I played last night for the time in a couple of weeks. Not too badly considering. But according to a recent article in The Boston Globe , women over 30 are taking up in the game. Women, apparently, who are looking for a way to combat the ennui of stay-at-home momdom?? The article certainly makes that implication by highlighting a woman who took up the game decades ago when her kids went to school and her husband was at work. The heteronormativity just keeps on flowing throughout the whole thing. Writer Matt Porter does address though that not every woman playing tennis is a wife and mother who stays at home. He discusses working women's leagues. Of course the way he puts working women in quotation marks certainly has multiple connotations. Because it seems like women who work are always going to just a little less...something (moral, nice, sweet, feminine--pick an adjective) than women who stay at home meeting the needs of others without getting paid for it. What's ...

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 ...

Not too long ago I asked where the moms were in a post about a dads and daughters event in California aimed at getting girls interested in sports. I found them. They seem to be getting a lot of press these days; all these moms who get pregnant, give birth, and continue their careers in sports. A few years ago it seemed like everyone on the US Women's National Soccer Team was getting pregnant and coming back to the game. Now the discussions are all about tennis player Lindsay Davenport who retired, had a baby, and came back to the tour and has had great success in her endeavor. And of course there's Brenda Frese who gave birth to twin boys six weeks ago and is back pacing the sidelines at the NCAA tournament. (Well she was back. UMD lost to Stanford last night--another big blow to my bracket. *sigh*) I didn't really mind at first all the pictures of Davenport and son Jagger, or of a pregnant Frese in her office chair on the sidelines, all the interviews with both about mothe...