A once-in-a-lifetime javelin throw, Usain Bolt’s beach activities and some winning U.S. teams are in this week’s highlights:
https://twitter.com/Jason_Hickman/status/500727548821532672
https://twitter.com/jcampbelljav/status/499972769548083200
No comments this week due to the splint. Typing is hjklae.
Lori Lindsey’s retirement provoked a lot of good discussion. Would a young player coming through the ranks today stick around in amateur soccer to work her way into the national team? Who else makes that great through pass down the center?
What a great time to experiment with podcasting!
I’ve been thinking about podcasting for a while, and with my left hand in a splint that slows down my typing, it’s the perfect time. And it gives me a good excuse to put all the interviews from Lindsey’s home finale in one big audio file.
I’m learning on the fly, and I’m open to constructive feedback. If you’d prefer to skip around and listen only to the parts that interest you, here’s a quick guide:
3:20 Olympic sports recap
9:05 Setting up interviews on Spirit-Sky Blue game
10:15 Jim Gabarra’s comments on Sky Blue’s season. Techncal difficulties erased Mark Parsons’ comments on the game — basically, the occasion got to them, and everyone was trying to hit one big heroic pass instead of combining intelligently.
11:30 Me on Lori Lindsey’s history in Washington. Somehow, I worked Landon Donovan into it.
18:00 Setting up the rest of the interviews:
18:38 Virginia coach Steve Swanson telling an old anecdote on Lori and paying tribute to her attributes that many younger players do NOT have.
(Incidentally, I don’t think that’s me laughing on this one and other interviews. Maybe Kevin Parker? Maybe the other man who was there? We had a group of about 8 people.)
20:38 Christie Rampone on Lindsey’s ability to play a direct ball with great vision
21:15 Spirit coach Mark Parsons on how Lindsey filled a couple of different roles on a playoff team this year and a last-place team last year. Also, there’s some dispute over who won a danceoff in 2013. (It was Toni Pressley, as recorded in my book.)
24:45 Ali Krieger on the Spirit wanting to win for her
25:25 Lindsey on her retirement and favorite moments
31:00 I sign off and show off my mad GarageBand skills.
Enjoy, and tell me how I can do it better.
My poor goalkeeping form has left my left hand in a splint, so this will be a scaled-down Monday Myriad.
The lead story this week: Ten years ago, Athens hosted the Olympics in venues that were doomed to rust. The lesson isn’t to avoid hosting the Games. The lesson: Don’t do it like Athens.
The big events: USA Swimming championships, determining teams for the Pan Pacific meet AND next year’s World Championships. Yeah, that’s odd, but …
The week:
TOUR OF UTAH: Prettiest event in the USA?
USA SWIMMING
https://twitter.com/ESPNOlympics/status/498420710004359168
ELSEWHERE
https://twitter.com/ESPNOlympics/status/498617751447928833
IN MEMORIAM
The basic U.S. women’s plan for the foreseeable future: Katie Ledecky wins the distance races, Missy Franklin wins everything else.
But hold on a minute. Ledecky met Franklin in the 200-meter freestyle Thursday at the U.S. nationals and won. By 1.24 seconds.
So within U.S. swimming, we’re going to have a nice friendly rivalry, one that caught the attention of Alan Abrahamson and USA TODAY’s Nicole Auerbach, for a few years to come.
Now we’ll see if they’re as quotable as Lochte and Phelps.
Also Thursday — Franklin dominated the 200 backstroke as usual, and Lochte fell well short of 2012 gold medalist Tyler Clary in the men’s 200 backstroke.
[gview file=”http://www.sportsmyriad.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/USA-Swimming-2014-Day-2.pdf”%5D
Missy Franklin, Katie Ledecky and Cammile Adams were on target on the first day, but the depth in the 100-meter freestyle left Michael Phelps and Natalie Coughlin in seventh place in their respective events. Time is cruel.
[gview file=”http://www.sportsmyriad.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/USA-Swimming-2014-Day-1-1.pdf”%5D
Irrepressible equestrian star Beezie Madden, a team jumping gold medalist in 2004 and 2008, keeps jumping into her 50s. The 51-year-old Madden is the first woman to win the Longines King George V Gold Cup.
Not bad for someone who broke her collarbone earlier this year.
Starting with a few bits of news:
– Both U.S. teams won their first matches at the 2014 Chess Olympiad, then faltered today against high seeds. The U.S. open team lost 2.5-1.5 to the Netherlands, while the U.S. women lost 3-1 to China. Only eight rounds to go.
– The U.S. women’s volleyball team had a disappointing 1-2 start in the monthlong World Grand Prix, righting the ship against Japan.
– Nothing else happened.
Seriously. It’s a slow week. Thank goodness two UFC fighters decided to throw down … at the press conference. That’s actually kind of rare for the UFC.
The week in tweets and videos …
Top THIS, Vegas …
Wiping the floor: Simone Biles won the Secret Classic, thanks in part to this:
Close finish: You’d expect a margin of 0.27 seconds in a 100-meter race, but 10,000 meters?
https://twitter.com/Bonnie_D_Ford/status/495782069587685376
Weekly reminder of global press protocols (or lack thereof):
Best prep for climate change: Hey, just make biathlon a summer sport.
Most dangerous PR position: UFC’s Dave Sholler had the unfortunate task of attempting to keep Jon Jones off Daniel Cormier.
One more reason to visit Barcelona …
You’rrrrre … um … out?: This isn’t supposed to happen in beach volleyball.
We begin this week with a view of a cycling sprint finish from the winner’s perspective. Sounds like that would be “nothing,” but Marianne Vos didn’t take the lead until the last few meters:
And another point-of-view video from a winning cyclist, this time from BMX women’s world champion Mariana Pajon.
Nibali cares not for your dropped call: Tour de France winner Vincenzo Nibali is a model of focus as he plows right through a spectator’s calling arm. And the spectator also keeps her focus, ignoring the cyclists, the motorbikes, the oncoming car …
Things you don’t want to hear in cycling: “Midair collision”
More fast people: World Juniors track and field in Oregon.
But always remember …
Vertical jump matters, not age: Kerri Walsh Jennings and April Ross keep rolling.
https://twitter.com/ESPNOlympics/status/493505774182621184
And Phil Dalhausser and Sean Rosenthal made it a U.S. sweep on home sand …
The shots you don’t take: Compelling read on the need to take risks — pushing numbers up the field in soccer, swinging away in cricket — to get anywhere in sports.
On the other hand: Here’s a good strategy for getting out of an MMA fight without any blood or bruises: Tap out immediately.
Away win: U.S. wrestler Brent Metcalf came back from 6-0 down to beat Azerbaijan’s Magomed Muslimov at the FILA Golden Grand Prix in Azerbaijan. The key move, which earned four points to seal the tiebreaker for Metcalf, is at the 6:12 mark here:
USA Wrestling has the other U.S. results from that day and the next day, where the USA’s Elena Pirozhkova jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the final and held on with ease:
Comparisons: I think I’d rather be the Peyton Manning of bocce.
Along those lines …
Arf: Let’s see Rio 2016 top the Commonwealth Games opening ceremony:
Frame-by-frame defeat: Boxer Daniel Geale vs. Gennady Golovkin …
21 seconds in: “Hey, I just landed a punch! That felt really good!”
32 seconds in: “Hmmm, maybe I should’ve been in better position to take this-”
Guess the sport: An U.S. Olympian has finally completed the American Ninja Warrior qualifying course. We’ll give some hints: It wasn’t a gymnast (Paul Hamm and Morgan Hamm did pretty well on the Japanese precursor Sasuke), nor was it a medalist. Give up? Here’s the answer.
UPDATE: I missed Jarrod Shoemaker’s World Cup triathlon silver when I posted. Please forgive me.
If you like full recaps of U.S. athletes in action or track and field in general, try TeamUSA.org and Daily Relay later in the evening. If you like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain … actually, I don’t like either of those things, so call someone else.
Catch the Monday Myriad again next week.
This week: A couple of U.S. teams won world championships (one official, one nearly official), and we had a track meet with a series of dizzying performances.
We are the champions (I): U.S. men in the World League volleyball final.
We are the champions (II): U.S. women’s saber team in the fencing world championships.
And individually, Mariel Zagunis rocks on …
Don’t say I didn’t warn you: Remember when I did a few posts on the War on Nonrevenue Sports? (No you don’t, please don’t lie.) Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby, also a U.S. Olympic Committee board members, sees a post-O’Bannon suit future in which men’s Olympic sports are gone.
Best doping excuse: Want to know why athletes often claim they doped accidentally or tested positive because of a contaminated supplement? Because it happens. Just ask biathlete Evi Sachenbacher-Stehle.
Speaking of the complex morality of doping …
https://twitter.com/nealrogers/status/489398949032525824
“Daddy, can we ride the white elephant?”: No, because Barcelona is actually making good use of its Olympic venues.
Big things that happened at the Herculis Diamond League meet:
Take a look — Gatlin goes so fast he can hardly stay in his lane …
(Always a cynic …)
Over to the women’s 5,000 …
[youtube-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo58gX-ML9c]
Then the women’s 800 for a big upset in a world-leading time by American Ajee Wilson, which you wouldn’t have expected even with 200 meters left …
And the men’s 1,500, where most of the top nine set some sort of mark …
And Tori Bowie — from unknown quantity on the track to dominance …
See the Daily Relay wrap.
Fond farewell: Thanks to Betsey Armstrong, you’ll no longer think of your 100-year-old distant cousin when you hear the name “Betsy.”
And no surprise, it’s from the 2002 Olympics. It’s the Utah Olympic Oval:
Several members noted the oval was the centerpiece of a recreational gathering place for Kearns residents, quite worthy of the investment.
“The oval is the heart and soul of our community,” agreed Eric Hutchings, a Republican legislator from Kearns and an Olympic Legacy Foundation trustee.
“This facility and the park that surrounds it mean everything to us. We hold our Kearns Hometown Days events there, our “Night Out Against Crime” events. Our big community meetings are in the World Record Lounge,” he added, referring to a meeting room whose name recognizes the oval’s reputation for having the fastest ice in the world. Seven of speedskating’s 11 existing world records were set in Kearns.
via Sun & skates: Solar parking to power Utah Olympic Oval | The Salt Lake Tribune.
Duresport.com 