After Atalanta

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...

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...

Andrea Burns, an Australian columnist, writes about the sexualization of female tennis players taking, as her starting point, the recent gushing over Venus Williams's backside by a TV commentator. She seems a little surprised by all the drooling and ogling over the women, which makes me wonder: where has she been? Has she been paying attention to women's sports--and not just tennis--at all, ever? This statement makes me think that no, she is only just noticing these things: I thought the one place where women could be equal with each other - judged not merely on appearance, but on skill - was the sporting arena. There are a couple of problems (OK, probably more) with making this sentiment a reality. One, men control the sporting arena. Even when, as Burns is doing, we look at how women compare to women, we can never get away from the fact that they are playing in a "man's world." This leads to point two: men control the discourse--inside and outside of the sportin...

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...