Category: winter sports

olympic sports, winter sports

Jacobellis wins another world title

Posted on by Beau Dure

Personal bias alert: Though I tend not to name favorite athletes because I’m a good objective journalist, Lindsey Jacobellis has always been one of my favorites because (A) she’s really good at what she does, (B) I interviewed her before most people knew who she was, (C) she was on my plane to Europe for the 2006 Olympics and (D) she has continued to be successful after being rotated on the spit of short-attention-span American public opinion after losing gold with the board grab late in the medal race in 2006.

Here she is winning her third world title and adeptly dealing with a curious line of questioning that could only be explained by the language barrier. Great race on what appears to be the only snow in Spain.

Video (not embed-ready, apparently)

The other favorite I’ll name is Hannah Teter, because the combination of achievement and charitable work she has compiled at such a young age is staggering.

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winter sports

Tossing down the gloves before fans of hockey’s “Code”

Posted on by Beau Dure

A few years ago, hockey fans got an intriguing addition to their bookshelves — The Code, which promised to demystify the unofficial rules of fighting.

It didn’t, frankly. The book is a worthwhile read, full of entertaining stories from the men who drop the gloves on the ice but are thoughtful, charitable and funny off it. But it fell short of explaining how hockey incidents progress from a clumsy hit to full-scale fisticuffs, and it didn’t follow through and show what happens to a game after a fight.

Sometimes, it’s just for a momentum change. Alex Ovechkin, the best hockey player in the world (sorry, Crosby fans, he’s just a bit better-rounded), gave someone a clean hit over the weekend and immediately dropped the gloves with the clear intent of shaking up his slumping team. That much is understandable.

Sometimes, it’s just to establish that a player can fight, which seems to be the case in this classic clip of Georges Laraque accepting a fight with the calm demeanor of someone agreeing to play chess in the park:

But after reading the book and watching a couple hundred hockey games in my lifetime, I have trouble accepting that “the Code” is the wondrous self-policing tool it’s supposed to be. As in the real world, fights seem to settle very little.

Fight fans have a meticulous site, hockeyfights.com, dedicated to rating each fight and fighter. But they don’t give any context. Neither do reporters and TV commentators. The comments at hockeyfights.com are usually full of the keyboard-warrior mentality you see from people questioning athletes’ toughness online or yelling at MMA refs to “stand ’em up” when fighters have spent 15 seconds grappling rather than punching each other in the face. They also devote a lot of time claiming one guy “won” a fight in which both guys struggle to grip each other’s shirts or throw clean punches before slipping to the ice.

Hockey enforcers clearly have a sense of fairness and camaraderie that other athletes should envy, and fighting isn’t worth any trumped-up moral outrage. I’ve cheered for fights on occasion myself. But do fights really serve a vital purpose in the NHL?

I could be wrong in thinking “the Code” is overblown. I just need to see more evidence.

Sp here’s my challenge to fight fans: Take a hockey fight and tell me why it happened. Then tell me how the game changed as a result.

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mind games, olympic sports, winter sports

Holiday diversions: Chess, biathlon … any curling?

Posted on by Beau Dure

This is the time of year in which work productivity is minimal, traffic and weather can be too much to bear, and the yule log is sometimes the highlight of the TV programming.

SportsMyriad sadly cannot be your all-inclusive guide to everything interesting on TV. For one thing, we don’t know what you like. But we can offer up a few items of interest if you need a December diversion aside from the mountains of soccer still available on FSC, GolTV and ESPN3:

– Chess: FIDE can’t get the world’s best players to agree on a world championship format, but several of them have turned up in the London Chess Classic: world champ Vishy Anand, world #1 Magnus Carlsen, former world champ Vladimir Kramnik, top American Hikaru Nakamura and four English players who were once or might be contenders. Carlsen lost on the first day, while Nakamura held off Anand. The fun part: They use soccer’s scoring system — 3 points for a win, 1 point for a draw. Neat thing to try in a competition that often sees too much caution. Check the Day 1 recap, check each game in progress at Susan Polgar’s blog, and get live commentary (or witty dissection, if Nigel Short is involved) on the official site.

– Biathlon: Weekend sprint, pursuit and relays — unfortunately, the “late” race each day is at 8:15 a.m. ET. Live on the official site.

– Other Olympic sports: Universal Sports has figure skating’s Grand Prix final, rugby sevens, Alpine skiing and a few other events — some pay-per-view, some free.

I have not, however, been able to find any televised curling. Can’t have everything.

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olympic sports, winter sports

Biathlon team surprises

Posted on by Beau Dure

Last year, biathlete Haley Johnson got a few World Cup points. This year, she isn’t going to the World Cup or IBU Cup.

In February, Wynn Roberts got a start in the Olympics. This winter? No slot on the team.

Such is the harsh, unforgiving world of sports that don’t attract mountains of money. Most of the spots on the team were determined by trials.

Jay Hakkinen, who has had a long career with a few top 10s along the way, is taking the early part of the season off.

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cycling, general sports, mind games, mma, olympic sports, soccer, tennis, track and field, winter sports

Monday Myriad: Sparkling play in WPS, short-sighted decision in Italy

Posted on by Beau Dure

We’re starting with WPS for a highlight that probably didn’t make SportsCenter (correct me if it did) but should have. It’s Abby Wambach’s back-heel, throwing off three defenders and setting up the Washington Freedom’s first goal against the run of play as the Atlanta Beat once again looked wonderful but couldn’t finish. If you want to skip ahead to it, go to the 1:17 mark:

Wambach’s header wasn’t bad, either, which is why she gets my Player of the Week vote ahead of Marta. Granted, if I could see Marta’s video highlights, that would help.

The full week (home teams first):

  • Atlanta 0, Washington 2: The Beat might have played the best two games ever without scoring, outshooting the Freedom 21-10.
  • Boston 1, Bay Area 2: Marta has both goals for the league leaders.
  • St. Louis 2, New Jersey 2: Apologies to Laura Kalmari, who scored twice for Sky Blue and won’t win Player of the Week ahead of the bigger names.
  • Chicago 0, Philadelphia 1: Not a very good week for home teams, was it?

GLOBAL SOCCER

Several trophies were on the line, but the decisive games made news for reasons beyond the results.

  • Spain: Barcelona looked as good as ever in beating Valladolid 4-0 to finish the La Liga season with a record 99 points — 31 wins, 6 draws, 1 loss — a season that ranks with Arsenal’s unbeaten Premier League run (2003-04) as one of the best ever in a top European league. The only team to beat Barca was erratic Europa League champion Atletico Madrid. Runner-up Real Madrid lost twice to Barca and still somehow kept pace until the very end, drawing 1-1 with Malaga in a result that kept the home team in La Liga next year at Valladolid’s expense.
  • Italy: Inter Milan made their fans sweat a little more, waiting until the second half to score at Siena and hold on for a 1-0 win that clinched the Serie A title by two points over Roma, which won 2-0 at Chievo.
  • Italy/USA: American defender Oguchi Onyewu, who missed much of the season after an injury in World Cup qualifying, worked out a one-year contract extension with third-place AC Milan by offering to play for free in 2012-13. The club have agreed, which is appalling. What happens to the next guy who gets hurt playing in a World Cup qualifier? How much pressure will be on that player to do what Onyewu did? (BBC)
  • FA Cup: Premier League champion Chelsea beat last-place Portsmouth, which played the season under the cloud of financial problems, but the underdogs managed to throw away much of their charm when Kevin-Prince Boateng’s brutal foul on Michael Ballack knocked the German cornerstone out of the World Cup. Boateng, coincidentally, has shifted nationality from Germany to Ghana and may play against Germany — and his half-brother, Jerome Boateng — in the World Cup. Perhaps it was instant karma that Boateng had a penalty kick saved, spoiling Portsmouth’s chance to take an improbable lead. (BBC)
  • German Cup: Bayern Munich 4, Werder Bremen 0. Saturday’s Champions League final (Bayern-Inter, 2:45 p.m. ET, Fox) will feature two teams going for a triple of league, cup and European trophies.
  • England: Congratulations to Oxford United, which returns to League football with an emphatic Conference final win. (BBC)
  • Mexico: Jose Francisco Torres will be available for the U.S. camp without a club-vs.-country battle, as his Pachuca side fell on 3-2 aggregate to Toluca. Santos followed up a 3-3 draw at Morelia by winning the second leg 7-1. What is this — the NASL? Third seed Toluca and fifth seed Santos will be the clubs playing in the Mexican final and lining up to crush MLS teams in next season’s CONCACAF Champions League.
  • CONCACAF (women’s): It’s a miracle that Haiti is able to field a team at all after the earthquake. They’re doing more than competing — they’ve advanced to the final round of Gold Cup qualifying. (All White Kit)

MMA

  • Strikeforce: Alistair Overeem demolished Brett Rogers to retain his heavyweight championship, saving Strikeforce from the PR dilemma of having their heavyweight champion already beaten by Fedor Emelianenko. All eyes now turn to an Overeem-Fedor matchup, assuming Fedor dispenses with Fabricio Werdum this summer. Also, Antonio Silva pushed Andrei Arlovski farther down the heavyweight ladder. (MMA Fighting Stances)
  • Shine Fights: Boxer Ricardo Mayorga was all set to face veteran Din Thomas in Fayetteville, N.C. Then a Florida judge granted boxing promoter Don King an injunction against Mayorga’s participation. After an afternoon Twitter flurry in which the card seemed to be going on with or without the main event, the North Carolina commission scrapped the whole card, though the co-main event of Murilo Rua vs. David Heath isn’t a bad matchup at all for a smaller promotion. King was asked to present a $1 million cash bond, which he did in two duffel bags. (Yahoo!)
  • Washington Combat: Sort of a senior-circuit main event, though Pedro Rizzo has two wins over Jeff Monson in recent years and was on Affliction’s much-hyped debut card against Josh Barnett. His opponent, Gary Goodridge, lost to Paul Buentello on the same Affliction card and lost to solid fighters Overeem and Gegard Mousasi since then. Bloody Elbow’s Luke Thomas says it’s time for Goodridge to hang ’em up. (Washington Post)

CYCLING

  • Giro d’Italia: Through nine stages, the leader is Alexandre Vinokourov, making his first big run since being tossed out of the 2007 Tour de France for flunking a doping test. Cadel Evans is 72 seconds back. American Tyler Farrar leads in points and has the red jersey, the equivalent of the Tour’s green.
  • Tour of California: Mark Cavendish, who won last year’s sprint title while Levi Leipheimer won the overall, won Sunday’s first stage of the eight-stage race. The big climbs are Tuesday and Friday.

TENNIS

  • Madrid Masters (men): After some atypical struggles, Roger Federer is back to normal, reaching the final and then, because it’s on clay, losing to Rafael Nadal. (AP)
  • Madrid Masters (women): Venus Williams reached the final and climbed to No. 2 in the rankings, her best since 2003. She lost in the final, though, to unseeded Aravane Rezai. Maybe she’ll be seeded next year.

OLYMPIC SPORTS

  • Swimming: Universal Sports has some video from the Charlotte UltraSwim, including Michael Phelps cruising in the 200 IM. Dancing with the Stars contestant Natalie Coughlin also is back in the pool. (Universal Sports)
  • Track, field and whatever this is: Tyson Gay set a “world best” (it’s not officially a world record because it’s not officially an official event) of 19.41 seconds in Manchester. Makes you wonder how Usain Bolt can run a 19.19 around a curve.
  • Running: Remember the USA TODAY profile on Amy Palmiero-Winters, the amputee who qualified for the 24-hour running world championships? She finished a very respectable 19th, coming just short of 200 kilometers. Scott Jurek covered 266.677k for a silver medal as the U.S. men placed third. Anna Piskorka (10th, 214.417k) was the top U.S. woman as the women’s team finished fourth. (USA Track and Field)

CHESS

Hikaru Nakamura and Gata Kamsky drew in their first meeting at the U.S. Chess Championships on Sunday, likely keeping both of them on track to play again in the “Final Four” in this uniquely formatted tournament. Irina Krush killed my fantasy team by losing out of what seemed to be a winning position against Varuzhan Akobian in a 113-move thriller. (U.S. Chess Federation)

INTRIGUING READS

  • Golf and tennis: One sport’s U.S. federation is taking all the right steps to get kids interested and keep them playing. The other is scratching its head as players appear to be abandoning the sport, and the solutions may be quite costly. (Wall Street Journal).
  • Football: Flag football — eventual answer to gender-equity questions? Convenient dodge of gender-equity questions? Waste of time? Great activity? Many opinions here. (New York Times)
  • Skiing/long-running TV shows: Lindsey Vonn was thrilled to do a guest spot on Law & Order. Not so thrilled to hear this is the final season. She’s organizing a group to save the show. (Yahoo! – Fourth-Place Medal)
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mma, soccer, winter sports

Thursday: Bring on Bellator

Posted on by Beau Dure

Quick roundup this morning in between a traffic-slowed morning run to school and a trek out of the Plex. As in Maryland SoccerPlex.

– Soccer: Can anyone remember a more  memorable week of Champions League games? Messi’s magic and Bayern’s rally, punctuated by Arjen Robben’s wonder goal, were spectacular. Most of the semifinalists have no time to rest. Lyon is in the middle of a tight five-team race in France. Bayern Munich, which just reclaimed the lead in Germany, plays at third-place Bayer Leverkusen. Messi and Barcelona? Oh, they just have a game at Real Madrid, which is always one of the top rivalry games in the world but even moreso now that they’re tied for first in Spain.

– Soccer: Pachuca has advanced to face Cruz Azul in a Mexican exhibition, I mean, the CONCACAF Champions League. (AP)

– Short-track speedskating: Apolo Anton Ohno has eight Olympic medals but might go even more Greek now as he auditions for films and considers TV options. (AP)

– Figure skating: Evan Lysacek is even busier as he balances Stars on Ice with Dancing with the Stars. (Washington Post)

– Nordic combined: Still more Olympic athletes keeping busy — the four U.S. medalists are heading to the Middle East to visit troops on what they’re calling the Heavy Medal Tour. (USOC)

– Triathlon: World Cup season starts Sunday in Sydney. (AP)

– MMA: Can we stop the “Rich Franklin replaces Tito Ortiz vs. Chuck Liddell” rumors now? Dana White has said rather emphatically that the June 12 Vancouver main event is Tito-Chuck. (FanHouse)

– MMA: UFC in Afghanistan? (Yahoo!)

– Curling: Make it six straight wins for Pete Fenson and company, and they’re on the verge of the World Championship final four. (USOC)

TODAY’S TV

– MMA: The second season of Bellator, a tournament-based promotion that has expanded its talent pool, begins live on some Fox Sports Net affiliates. Trying to pin down which ones. Major signings Roger Huerta and Joe Warren are in action tonight. See the Sherdog weigh-in report.

– Soccer: All Europa League and Copa Libertadores. (Soccer America)

– Other sports: Masters, NBA, NHL and the Frozen Four, an underrated event. (USA TODAY)

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mma, olympic sports, rugby, soccer, tennis, winter sports

Friday headlines and the Weekend Watch

Posted on by Beau Dure

Not that those of us in the Mid-Atlantic will be inside on what’s shaping up to be a beautiful weekend …

HEADLINES

– Media: Best April Fool’s gag seen yesterday: ESPN to cancel Pardon the Interruption to expand Around the Horn to an hour, bring in more people sure to grate on your nerves and judge it with a decibel meter. (Sports Media Watch)

– Soccer: Houston came back to beat Real Salt Lake 2-1 with two penalty kicks in one minute, both against Jamison Olave. The second benefited from some embellishment by Luis Angel Landin, but RSL coach Jason Kreis is holding his tongue. In the second game of the night, Edson Buddle scored the only two goals in the L.A. superclasico as the Galaxy beat Chivas USA 2-0.

– Soccer: The biggest development in last night’s MLS games was the injury to Brian Ching, who’s essential to the Dynamo and very much in the forward mix for the World Cup. He fell hard, clutching his hamstring. Watch for updates.

– Swimming: As a teen, Chloe Sutton was one of the early U.S. success stories in the rough-and-tumble world of open-water swimming. Now she’s skipping college and winning in the pool. Interesting read on the winner of the 200m and 800m freestyle on day 1 of the Columbus Grand Prix yesterday. Universal Sports is airing the Grand Prix action. (USA Swimming)

– Rugby: Gotta love games decided on last-second drop goals. (AP)

– Soccer: Bobby Convey’s frustrations have boiled over in San Jose. (Mercury News)

– Soccer: West Ham is complaining that Fulham didn’t have its best players in the lineup in a loss to Hull, which is battling the Hammers in the EPL relegation zone. Hey, Dempsey played! (BBC)

– MMA: UFC’s June date in Vancouver, thought to be in doubt, has been confirmed. If you’re willing to pay expenses to send an MMA/Olympics writer back to Vancouver for a weekend, e-mail beau dot dure … (MMA Fighting Stances)

WEEKEND WATCH (all times ET)

A selective look at what’s going on …

All weekend

Curling – Men’s world championships, Universal Sports. 2006 Olympic bronze medalist Pete Fenson returns to Italy, and the Canadian Press frets that Canadian rookie skip Kevin Koe must open against against him.

Friday

1 p.m.: Tennis – Sony Ericsson men’s semifinal, FSN. Andy Roddick vs. Rafael Nadal in a matchup sure to draw more interest than the eventual final.

Saturday

7:30 a.m.: Soccer – Manchester United-Chelsea, ESPN2. Just the top two teams in the world’s biggest soccer league. Yeah, we know — Wayne Rooney will miss it.

9:30 a.m.: Soccer – Schalke-Bayern Munich, GolTV. Just the top teams in the world’s (second? third? fourth?) biggest soccer league.

12:30 p.m.: Tennis – Sony Ericsson women’s final, CBS. It’s a throwback – Venus Williams vs. Kim Clijsters.

12:30 p.m.: Rowing – The Boat Race. Yes, THE Boat Race. Oxford-Cambridge. If you know a legal way to watch, please drop us a comment. (AP preview, BBC preview)

9 p.m.*: Boxing – Did you have any questions after Roy Jones Jr. took a unanimous decision over Bernard Hopkins at RFK Stadium in 1993? Good news: They’re fighting again, just a few years beyond their peaks. *Main event will be after the Final Four games conclude. (USA TODAY preview)

Sunday

1 p.m.: Tennis – Sony Ericsson men’s final, CBS. Roddick-Nadal winner vs. Berdych-Soderling winner.

6 p.m.: Soccer – MISL championship, local TV and B2TV. Milwaukee Wave hosting Monterrey La Raza, which knocked out the Baltimore Blast in the semifinals. Milwaukee got a bye. (Milwaukee Magazine preview)

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mma, olympic sports, soccer, winter sports

Thursday: No fooling around here

Posted on by Beau Dure

Today’s headlines:

– Soccer: The U.S. women’s team beat Mexico 1-0. At least, we think that’s what happened. The snow made it a little hard to see. Can’t wait for U.S. Soccer to post the highlights. In the meantime, the Salt Lake Tribune story includes a photo gallery worth checking out. (U.S. Soccer match report)

– MMA: Kenny Florian took a comfortable third-round submission win to spoil Takanori Gomi’s long-awaited — probably too long, unfortunate — UFC debut in the main event at UFC Fight Night. Roy Nelson won the battle of big and tall against Stefan Struve, ducking under a punch from “The Skyscraper” and answering with a knockout shot. Florian and Nelson took the night’s submission and knockout bonuses, while Ross Pearson and Dennis Siver took the fight of the night honors. Jorge Rivera had the best overall performance of the night with a convincing win over Nate Quarry that didn’t last long into the second round.  (MMA Fighting Stances)

– Soccer: Not to judge a city’s politics from afar, but it looks like a one-week delay in a vote on the Houston Dynamo’s stadium deal has spawned a bit of petty sniping. (Houston Chronicle)

– Alpine skiing: You didn’t expect Bode Miller to make his mind about next season anytime soon, did you? (AP)

– Soccer: U.S. player Marcus Tracy expects to miss the rest of the club season in Denmark with a knee injury. (AP)

Today’s reads:

– Volleyball: Need to catch up with any of the 157 U.S. women’s players going to overseas club teams? They’re rounded up on one staggering roundup. (USA Volleyball – PDF)

– MMA: The toughest part of getting into the house on The Ultimate Fighter might be dealing with solitary confinement in a hotel before the first bout, according to this compelling blog entry from contestant Court McGee. (Sherdog)

– Soccer: Inside Minnesota Soccer compiled a comprehensive preview of the USSF Division II (shotgun marriage between USL and NASL) season, with one writer per team. Familiar names include Steve Ralston, Christian Gomez, Louis Crayton and Steve Cronin. Future MLS clubs Vancouver and Portland have kept a lot of players from year to year. Miami, which has Gomez and Abe Thompson, is trying to rival the MetroStars/Red Bulls for roster turnover. (Inside Minnesota Soccer)

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basketball, mma, olympic sports, rugby, soccer, track and field, winter sports

Tuesday’s headlines: Moscow mourns, Man U in Munich

Posted on by Beau Dure

– The Champions League continues today at 2:30 p.m. ET with Bayern Munich-Manchester United (FSN) and Lyon-Bordeaux (FSC), but Wednesday’s action will have a somber tone as CSKA Moscow takes the field two days after a subway bombing that killed 39 people. The club has asked to wear black armbands (Reuters). (TV listings – Soccer America)

– CSKA Moscow’s basketball team, where Americans Trajan Langdon and J.R. Holden have carved out long careers, is in action today in the Euroleague quarterfinals against Spain’s Caja Laboral. CSKA leads the best-of-5 series 2-0. (Euroleague)

– Back to soccer’s European elite — Chelsea’s Didier Drogba has a two-match European ban. (BBC)

– Break up the U.S. men’s rugby sevens, which beat Thailand 62-0 and will play in another Cup quarterfinal. Will the USA turn into a rugby power now that the sport’s in the Olympics? (USOC)

– Tony Benshoof is the Terminator of luge. He’s having back surgery and says he might return for another season. (AP)

– Dana White talks often about the Internet being the future of broadcasting, and maybe he’s not kidding: The Ultimate Fighter will have tons of archival footage and extras online. (FanHouse)

– South Africa’s Carter Semenya, whose gender is still in question, has not been cleared to run. (AP)

– The collection of strange Diego Maradona headlines continues: He was treated at a hospital after being bitten by one of his dogs. Are the media too obsessed with him, or is his life that strange? (Reuters)

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