Author: Beau Dure

The guy who wrote a bunch of soccer books and now runs a Gen X-themed podcast while substitute teaching and continuing to write freelance stuff.
mma

The Ultimate Fighter 17, Episode 7: Bones does not know

Posted on by Beau Dure

We recap, and then Josh Samman, still in a towel in his post-victory whatever, starts planning matchups. What was Jon Jones saying about him coaching too much?

The gang goes to Hooters, and while I don’t make moral judgments, I refuse to acknowledge anything that takes place at a chain restaurant that encourages men to treat women as objects.

Actually, I may have gained some respect for Uriah Hall, who refused to join the gang for a photo with Hooters women.

Then it gets serious. Samman, who had a major problem with a blood clot, has pain in his leg. He gets it checked out. Nothing serious. But he gets to chill in a hospital bed for a bit.

Jimmy Quinlan, tonight’s underdog fighter, talks about going through the police academy after college. But like Forrest Griffin, he decided to go for the fighting thing first. (Unlike Forrest, as far as we know, he has a job waiting for him if the fighting thing doesn’t work out.)

Chael Sonnen goes through the fight plan, which we already knew. Quinlan is great on the ground. Clint Hester, his opponent and much-heralded top pick, comes from a boxing background. So Quinlan isn’t going to have much interest in standing toe to toe with him.

We meet Clint Hester, from my home state of Georgia. He used to hang out with smaller kids and threaten the guys who bullied them. For some reason, I have visions of him beating up Matt Hughes.

Quinlan, on the other hand, is no bully. He jokes that Hester used a bowl reserved for him, so now they’re going to have to fight today. Hester plays along: “OK, 4 o’clock by the monkey bars.”

These guys are almost as fun as the TUF Smashes cast. Probably better fighters.

Fight time. Quinlan shoots for the takedown right away. After some effort, he picks up Hester for a slam. Hester slowly works his way back up. Another slam. Hester gets up again and gets stuck in a clinch with Quinlan. But he’s able to creat some space for his knees, then his fists. The strikes are clearly bothering Quinlan, but he manages to get another takedown. Then another slam. And yet, Quinlan doesn’t seem to have landed a single strike. Hester strikes a few times for the bottom. Quinlan responds by moving down to Hester’s legs, as if to say, “Yeah, I took you down, and you’re still down, but I’m going to take you down AGAIN!”

So it’s a scoring dilemma. Do you favor Quinlan’s takedowns, as Luke “The Mouth of England” Barnatt seems to think?

Round 2, another takedown. And everyone yells at Hester to keep his hand on Quinlan’s head. He doesn’t. Quinlan gets mount. Hester decides to give up his back instead. Quinlan gets the choke, and we have another upset.

“That was a good fight,” says an unidentified voice. No, it wasn’t. It was a wrestler who has no other discernible fighting skills beating a guy who has no idea how to avoid being slammed by a wrestler. And it’s more proof that Jon Jones should just quit making fight matchups and flip a coin.

In fact — you know that bit about the fighters being better than those in TUF Smashes? I take it back. And I take back the bit about Hester beating up Matt Hughes.

Sonnen, as usual, offers up sound analysis. He was impressed with Hester’s striking from odd angles and less impressed with Quinlan’s takedowns. He leans toward Hester in Round 1.

Sonnen and Jones have some good-natured banter about their bowling bet from last week’s episode, and we’re on to the fight announcement. It’s Dylan Andrews vs. Zak Cummings because they’re the only two fighters left. And yet, it’s still probably Jones’s fault.

The closed captioning (yes, I need to keep the volume down) tells us Jones paid tribute to Dylan’s (speaks indistinctly). That’s promising.

Next week, Dana White gives the coaches construction equipment for the coaches’ challenge. This cannot go well.

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soccer

Editing the Laws of the Game

Posted on by Beau Dure

The loud caterwauling you heard around the world this afternoon related to a questionable red card given to Manchester United’s Nani. Real Madrid scored two quick goals, Manchester United was bounced out of the Champions League, and civilization collapsed.

A furious, if somewhat one-sided, debate raged on Twitter over the call. NBC’s Pro Soccer Talk posted dueling posts from Richard “Red Card” Farley and Steve “No It Isn’t” Davis.

Fox Soccer’s analysts raged about “intent,” a word that does not appear in the Laws of the Game and its attached interpretations. (“Intentionally” appears four times, but never in the context of judging yellow or red cards.)

Coincidentally, the keepers of the Laws made a minor tweak this weekend, supposedly reducing confusion with a change in the offside rule.

Those keepers, known as IFAB, are reluctant to make changes. As they should be.

But the Nani debate highlights one of several passages that could use some editing.

Farley, in his rebuttal to the rebuttal, highlights English referee Graham Poll as an example of a divide between English refs and European refs. And quite often, there is. There’s certainly a divide between European refs and English-bred commentators, who still think a studs-up shot to the knee is a friendly greeting.

But here, at last, is the point. Poll says the Nani incident could easily be a yellow card. And many people agree.

And yet … Law 12, Fouls and Misconduct, does not specify anything about yellow cards for fouls that don’t quite deserve red cards. Go ahead – read page 38. The closest you’ll find is “unsporting behaviour.” Red card infractions include “serious foul play” and “violent conduct.”

Now if you read on to the interpretations, you find some common-sense talk on page 113. IFAB defines “careless,” “reckless,” and “using excessive force.” Careless? No foul. Reckless? Yellow card. Excessive force? Red card.

So if you stuck with the Laws, you’d be stuck trying to shoehorn a reckless foul into “unsporting behaviour.” The interpretations, on the other hand, clearly state what referees do anyway — give yellow cards for infractions that aren’t quite worthy of a red card.

Seems like the word “reckless,” at the very least, should be included in the actual text of Law 12. Right?

(But don’t add “intent.” The pundits were just bringing it up to make fun of it.)

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olympic sports, soccer, winter sports

Monday Myriad, March 4: Nordic state of mind

Posted on by Beau Dure

Headlines from the week:

– Slovenia’s Tina Maze is having the best Alpine skiing World Cup season of all time.

– Norway’s Maret Bjoergen had one of the best Nordic World Championships of all time.

– Shaun White was back in action with another U.S. Open title.

– Milers Mary Cain and Will Leer stood out at the USA Indoor track and field championships.

– At the same meet, pole vaulter Jenn Suhr broke five meters and the indoor world record. The only other women’s pole vaulter to clear five meters is Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva. Isinbayeva’s outdoor record: 5.06 meters. Suhr indoors: 5.02.

– Speedskaters Brittany Bowe and Brian Hansen won World Cup races for the first time.

The Storified version has a few more fun features:

http://storify.com/duresport/monday-myriad-march-4-storify-version

 

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olympic sports, winter sports

Alpine update: Maze sweeping, USA rotating

Posted on by Beau Dure

Today’s Alpine skiing news goes beyond what I can sum up on Twitter:

First, let’s talk about Tina Maze. Last season, she finished second to the dominant Lindsey Vonn, but she didn’t win a single race.

This year, she has won nine races. She has been on the podium 20 times, tying U.S. great Phil Mahre for second-most in a season behind Austria’s Hermann (Herminator) Maier, who had 22 in the 1999-2000 season.

In that season, Maier had 2,000 points. Maze broke that record today and is up to 2,024 points.

Here’s the scary part: The season isn’t over. We have seven more races.

The other headline for Maze today is that she became just the second woman to win a race in all five disciplines — downhill, super-G, giant slalom, slalom, and combined. She could actually win the season title in all five (though, technically, no globe is at stake in combined).

  • Giant slalom: Clinched it with two races left.
  • Combined: Clinched it. No races left.
  • Super-G: Almost clinched it. She’s first, with American Julia Mancuso chasing. Two races left: Sunday and in the World Cup final.
  • Downhill: She’s in second. But she’s only one point behind Vonn, who isn’t coming back in the next month. Others are in contention: Germany’s Maria Hoefl-Riesch and the USA’s Stacey Cook. One race left at the World Cup final.
  • Slalom: This one is the most challenging. She’s second, 33 points behind American teen phenom Mikaela Shiffrin. Two races left.

A lot of Americans are popping up in the standings, even after Vonn’s illness and catastrophic injury. Mancuso is a strong fourth overall, moving ahead of Vonn this weekend.

Today’s racing summed up the U.S. experience this season. Laurenne Ross finished second for her first World Cup podium. And Alice McKennis crashed, breaking her shinbone and requiring an airlift.

Maze vs. the Americans will be a fun story to follow in Sochi. Now, please, everyone stay healthy.

Links:
AP: Tina Maze breaks 2,000-point mark
Eurosport: Maze wins Garmisch downhill and breaks 2,000 points
World Cup standings

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soccer

2013 MLS teams, ranked by curiosity factor

Posted on by Beau Dure

Here’s what happens every Major League Soccer season:

1. Some newcomers will live up to expectation. Some won’t.

2. Some team predicted to finish near the basement will be considerably better than expected.

3. We will continue to wonder what Chivas USA or Toronto FC is trying to do. But maybe one of them will be the answer to #2.

So I’ve given up trying to rank teams in preseason. Instead, here’s a list ranking teams in order of how many questions we have about them, from least to most.

19. San Jose Earthquakes. Supporters’ Shield winners return most of the team, with little sign of aging.

18. Houston Dynamo. Omar Cummings joins the bulk of the team that made the MLS Cup final last season. They’ll be fine.

17. New England Revolution. Must not be any quick fixes for this team. They certainly haven’t tried any.

16. Sporting Kansas City. Lost Roger Espinoza and Kei Kamara, added DP Claudio Bieler and Benny Feilhaber.

15. Los Angeles Galaxy. Bruce Arena won’t be worried about the adjustment to the post-Beckham era. And while he’ll be missing Landon Donovan at the start of the season, perhaps Donovan won’t miss that much time with the national team this time around.

14. Colorado Rapids. Casey and Cummings out, Buddle in. The defense should be better with Diego Calderon.

13. Montreal Impact. A bit more Italian and Swiss than they used to be.

12. Seattle Sounders. Not a ton of turnover, but Shalrie Joseph and apparently Obafemi Martins are coming in, with Fredy Montero out on loan.

11. Real Salt Lake. By their standards, this offseason constituted “blowing up the team.” But Morales, Beckerman and Rimando are still there.

10. Columbus Crew. A lot of new names, including a couple of homegrown players and some discovery acquisitions.

9. Chicago Fire. They’ve rebuilt the midfield with Lindpere and Larentowicz, which would be a terrific name for a law firm or a folk-rock duo.

8. Vancouver Whitecaps. Nigel Reo-Coker should be an interesting guy to watch on a promising team.

7. FC Dallas. Still trying to pick a goalkeeper to replace Kevin Hartman. And how will they get Eric Hassli, Kenny Cooper and Blas Perez on the field at the same time?

6. D.C. United. Carlos Ruiz? Seriously?

5. Portland Timbers. Is Caleb Porter truly a genius whose college acumen will translate to the pro game?

4. New York Red Bulls. Heavy turnover is never a surprise here, but it’s often interesting, particularly with Mike Petke taking over on the sideline.

3. Philadelphia Union. Tying up a good chunk of your salary cap on a player who isn’t going to play for you (Freddy Adu) is a good thing? How will returnee Sebastien Le Toux and aging big man Conor Casey gel with a core of kids?

2. Toronto FC. New president? Check – Kevin Payne. New coach? Let’s get a guy who’s still playing in the EPL and see if we can convince his team to let him quit. Welcome, Ryan Nelsen. They weren’t good last year, and they let some talented guys go.

1. Chivas USA. Didn’t this whole “Mexican-American offshoot of Chivas” thing flop horribly the first time around? Or have they come up with better players this time around to fill the space between Dan Kennedy and Juan Agudelo.

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sports culture

A perfunctory Duke lacrosse legal update

Posted on by Beau Dure

Remember April 2011, when I took a peek at the latest developments in the Duke lacrosse players’ legal action (filed by the players who were NOT wrongly accused of rape) against the school? And then a bunch of people flooded my comments and insisted that the ruling at the time was a Really Bad Thing for Duke because everyone from a possibly crooked nurse to the guy who plays the carillon would have to step up in court and be grilled under oath?

This week, the major remaining lawsuit was quietly settled. Another one remains. Says KC Johnson, the professor/blogger who turned a quest for justice into a crusade against all things Duke: “The McFadyen lawsuit, for the three plaintiffs represented by Bob Ekstrand, remains alive. This news nonetheless means that chances of Duke being held accountable in court for its mistreatment of its students are very slim indeed.”

You may recall that I’ve always seen a certain irony in Johnson’s blog and his followers. It started as a just response to “groupthink,” which was leading angry mobs to judge the players prematurely. Then it became “groupthink,” with people buying into every wacky conspiracy theory about Duke’s actions in the case.

Johnson has moved on to “Minding the Campus,” another effort at fighting academic “groupthink” excesses (a legitimate cause) that links to Instapundit and the National Review (but not, say, The Washington Post’s education coverage) in the name of “intellectual pluralism.”

But this is too harsh on Johnson, who has written some thoughtful pieces on Penn State. And he has been criticized on his blog for it.

The lesson: Groupthink is a bad thing. Rushes to judgment are bad. Angry mobs are bad.

And at some point, you have to say enough’s enough and move on. I hope the three wrongly accused men are faring well in their careers. Meanwhile, the truly evil actors in this case (the accuser, the prosecutor) are the only ones who haven’t carried on with their lives. And that’s how it should be.

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olympic sports

Wrestling leaders gearing up to fight … what, exactly?

Posted on by Beau Dure

USA Wrestling’s response to the sport’s threatened ouster from the Olympics has been impressive.

They’ve done some international networking at the freestyle World Cup in Iran. They’re organizing at the grass roots. They’ve got an organization with a catchy name (CPOW, pronounced “ka-POW!”). They held a media conference call today and struck all the right notes, sounding polished rather than bitter.

Former USOC president Jim Scherr is now working with international organizer FILA to save the sport’s Olympic status. He speaks convincingly of wrestling’s “Olympism” — the goodwill created through respectful international competition. Anyone who has seen footage of the competition in Iran would have to agree.

Anything wrong? Perhaps. It’s clear from today’s conference call that they don’t really know why wrestling was the one existing Olympic sport excluded from the board’s list of “core sports” guaranteed a place in the Games beyond 2016.

Scherr can tell us why baseball was removed — doping scandals, lack of “universality” (number of countries that play it and play it well), the cost of building a venue. Wrestling has none of those issues.

So … why?

Here’s the shocking point: The IOC gathered extensive data about each sport. And Scherr says wrestling’s federations haven’t had access to the data.

And so wrestling is flying blind.

Scherr thinks the IOC will give some direction. IOC President Jacques Rogge will meet with FILA’s new leaders March 7.

But this lack of information rendered my question moot. I asked if wrestling’s lobbyists were considering changes to the Olympic program, such as the grappling-for-Greco idea I floated a couple of weeks ago. Short answer: It hasn’t come up.

Why should it, if they don’t know why the ax is hovering?

None of this is USA Wrestling’s fault. This conference call should assure people that USA Wrestling is doing all it can. Everyone can help — in response to a question from an elderly gentleman who didn’t identify himself and said he didn’t have a “medium outlet,” Scherr and company pointed everyone to its donation/political action site at keepwrestlingintheolympics.com

And in a minor but helpful point, USA Wrestling has released a good explanation of the process from here on out, explaining and debunking the “three sports” rumor:

Two dates are vitally important to reverse this recommendation. Between May 24-27 in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Executive Board will hear presentations from the following sports: baseball/softball, karate, roller sports, squash, sport climbing, wakeboard, wrestling and wushu. Up to three of those sports will move forward for final consideration at the General Session of the IOC in September.

In its meeting Sept. 4-7 in Buenos, Aires, Argentina, the 114-member IOC General Session will have two votes. The first is to accept or reject the Executive Board’s recommendation to drop wrestling from the Games. If that’s upheld, the IOC members will then vote to select one of the three sports forwarded by the Executive Board for inclusion on the Olympic Program in 2020.

Got it? Good.

Now if we can find out what wrestling needs to do to score a little better on the Olympic box score, we’ll be in business.

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soccer

Which MLS newcomers will flop this year?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Let’s look back at the hyped MLS newcomers of 2012, shall we?

To remind ourselves of the hype, check previews from Fox (Ives), ESPN (Leander) and Goal.com (Seth). Not picking on anyone’s prognostication skills — these were all players with resumes.

BACK IN 2013

Michael Gspurning, Seattle, goalkeeper. Dealt so well with the difficult job of replacing Kasey Keller that he was a finalist for league Newcomer of the Year and Goalkeeper of the Year.

Arne Friedrich, Chicago, defender. No complaints here. Solid central defender and leader of an otherwise-young back line.

Lee Young-Pyo, Vancouver, defender. Right back was the team’s player of the year despite advancing through his mid-30s.

Blas Perez, Dallas, forward. Actually staying put for a change, so that’s a good sign. Led the team with nine goals last season but will face competition for playing time this year.

Markus Holgersson, New York, defender. A steadying force on a team that really needs one. Now it appears he’ll provide quality depth behind Jamison Olave and Heath Pearce.

Miller Bolanos, Chivas USA, midfielder. Promising attacker who may flourish under new coach.

Jaime Castrillon, Colorado, midfielder. Overshadowed a bit by teammate Martin Rivero despite his team-high eight goals. Out injured for the first few weeks of 2013.

GONE

Rafael Robayo, Chicago, midfielder. Signed with the Fire after seven years with Colombian power Millonarios. Spent half the season coming off the bench in Chicago and went right back on loan.

Milovan Mirosevic, Columbus, midfielder. Four goals, two of them game-winners. The bad news: Only two assists from a player hyped as a playmaker. Back to Universidad Catolica he goes.

Hamdi Salihi, D.C. United, forward. I liked him. But he did have a bit of trouble finding the net, and he’s gone.

Gabriel Gomez, Philadelphia, midfielder. Box-to-box Panamanian scored six goals. Released anyway.

Kris Boyd, Portland, forward. Scored 100 goals at Rangers. Not quite as many for the Timbers, especially after coach John Spencer’s departure. He’s back in Scotland.

Franck Songo’o, Portland, winger. Played 27 games with five assists, but he was let go just this week.

Tressor Moreno, San Jose, midfielder. Attacking mid left halfway through the season.

The Newcomer of the Year was Columbus midfielder Federico Higuain, who arrived in midseason. Another finalist was San Jose’s Victor Bernardez, who didn’t get quite as much hype as the others on this list.

So good luck to Claudio Bieler (Kansas City), Juninho Pernambucano (New York), Diego Calderon (Colorado), Rafael (D.C. United), Diego Valeri (Portland), Carlo Cudicini (Los Angeles) and Nigel Reo-Coker (Vancouver). Odds are pretty good that three or four of this group will turn out half-decent.

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mma

The Ultimate Fighter 17, Episode 6: Oh, you mean this is EDITED?!

Posted on by Beau Dure

Before we begin, we’re reminded of a couple of minor issues from the season so far:

1. Josh might be speaking up a bit too much within Team Jones.

2. Uriah Hall was upset that someone corrected his word choice — cooker? Chef?

3. Dana White is blinking a lot in his closeup.

Chael Sonnen stops by to reassure Bubba McDaniel. Again, when did Sonnen become such a nice guy?

Moving ahead to the next fight, Sonnen is once again building up the other guy. He would’ve loved to have Josh on his team, but Tor Troeng is a sleeper.

No one seems to know anything about him other than he’s from Sweden and his teammates are making him a hammer. Because he’s “Thor,” right? Several roles of tape later, the hammer starts to look pretty good.

But we have discord on Team Sonnen. Hall is holding his hands low in sparring, so Luke Barnatt peppers him with a few light jabs. Hall responds by throwing hard. In confessional, Barnatt says Hall isn’t a team player, has an attitude, is an ego-driven machine, etc.

Maybe that’s what Hall means with this tweet:

Then Barnatt segues to a discussion of Americans always overlooking Europeans like Tor. The MMA scene is huge in Sweden. Also, Spinal Tap is big in Japan.

We meet Tor. He does math. He trains. Umm … can anyone say anything about him?

Sonnen to the rescue! He knows more about martial arts than anyone on Team Sonnen, but he’s unassuming and says little.

Out of nowhere, Tor lays a philosophical gem on us: “Speaking is silver and silence is gold.” Now I feel guilty about continuing this recap. Ah well — no one’s going to click on a blank blog.

After a break, we see Team Jones shadowboxing. At night. In the backyard of the house. Huh?

“Josh … thinks he’s coach,” says Dylan Andrews. Funny how each team has a complaining Englishman.

Adam Cella: “Josh is the guy I call ‘dad’ here.” We see him lecturing people on their diets. And the proper way to cut onions. Dude, everyone has a different way of cutting onions. I had a relative once tell me my girlfriend was doing it wrong.

Josh recounts his first tryout for TUF. He wound up with a blood clot and went in for surgery. Right before getting the anesthetic, the doctor tells him when he wakes up, he might feel a little dizzy. No, wait — they tell Josh might have only one leg. That’s a little more serious.

More about Josh: He was academically gifted and not allowed to do anything violent (football, playing with guns, etc.).

Oh wait, we’re not done with Hall and Barnatt. Gilbert Smith asks people who they want to fight, and Hall says “Biggs.” That’s apparently Barnatt, not the guy from Tatooine who died in the attack on the Death Star. Barnatt wonders who would say he’s ready to fight a teammate before the prelims are even done. Kevin Casey doesn’t like that.

Maybe that’s what Hall means with this tweet:

So Hall goes and hangs out with Team Jones. Smith starts recruiting him for the team, then badgering him about calling out Barnatt. Hall says he was joking. But it was the truth. But he shouldn’t have said it. Now Hall wants to talk about something else. Someone offers up a little comment about an upcoming field trip to a casino.

Then suddenly (at least according to the edit monster), Hall asks Cella if his girlfriend is a bitch like him. That requires some explaining.

Maybe that’s what Hall means with this tweet:

The next morning, Hall is reliving the conversation for Bubba McDaniel. He wants to get away from it, so he goes jogging through some leaves on a beautiful fall landscape, passing by a gazebo … wait, where the hell is he?!

Everyone goes bowling at the Red Rock. Fights are on big screens. Everyone’s having fun. Jones starts giving the usual interview about relaxing when Sonnen videobombs him, jumping into the camera frame. He challenges Jones to a three-frame bowling match in which the loser has to wear the winner’s shirt through a training session.

Sonnen: “I am not a bowler but I know HOW to bowl. … This isn’t rocket science.”

It’s far more entertaining than the Hughes-Serra coaches’ challenge, which took place at the same venue. But Jones still runs off a la Hughes after a close loss.

Fight day, and someone has drawn a “Thor Smash!” cartoon, reminding us all to pay tribute to the “Tour day schmalz,” the excellent Tour de France recaps at NYVelocity.com.

Sonnen tells Tor that he’d be thrilled if this fight exposes some holes in the Swede’s game. Then they could work on them and get him back in the wild card. Um … thanks, coach?

Josh said his experience was the reason he gravitated toward a leadership role. The tale of the tape tells us Tor has 20 fights to Josh’s 11.

It’s not a bad fight. Josh, wearing shorts not quite as tight as Colton Smith’s but in the neighborhood, trades positions with Tor several times. Tor ends up on top on the ground, but with Frank Mir yelling instructions, Josh scrambles out and lands several punches while they’re at an awkward angle. They stand, and Josh lands a massive knee to the body. After another exchange, Tor starts backpedaling across the cage. Josh lands a good body kick, Tor drops his hands, and Josh lands a massive 1-2 combo to the head. Tor falls instantly, and Herb Dean races in to pull Josh away. Might be KO of the season if not for Hall’s stunner.

Jones gets to pick. His last two fighters are top pick Clint Hester and last pick Dylan Andrews. He sends out Hester vs. Jimmy Quinlan. Sonnen is surprised, hailing Quinlan’s grappling skills against Hester’s boxing.

That only leaves two more fighters. They don’t say so, but the last match of this round, barring injury, has to be Andrews vs. Zak Cummings.

Scenes from next week: Josh Sannan’s leg acts up and sends him to the hospital, and the guys get a night on the town. At Hooters. Seriously? What, they spend all the production money on the new cameras?

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olympic sports, winter sports

Monday Myriad, Feb. 25: Nordic gold! Nordic gold!

Posted on by Beau Dure

Headlines from myriad sports this week:

– Sarah Hendrickson won the world championship in women’s ski jumping.

– Kikkan Randall and Jessie Diggins won the world championship in cross-country skiing’s team sprint, the first skiing title for the USA in Nordic World Championship history.

– The USA also won two world titles in the track cycling world championships. Not bad for a one-woman team, Sarah Hammer.

– Slovenia’s Tina Maze clinched the Alpine skiing World Cup title with nine races left.

– The U.S. men’s freestyle wrestling team went to the World Cup in Iran, building up some diplomatic goodwill but also wrestling pretty well.

The videos, features and tweets of the week:

http://storify.com/duresport/monday-myriad-feb-25

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