Category Archives: Sports

A couple of thoughts on Women’s Beach Volleyball & Women’s Gymnastics

Sports, Television

I am not much of an Olympics watcher. There was a time when I was interested in track, primarily because I had run the 100 yard dash – now the 100 meter sprint – and the broadjump – now the long jump – in Highschool. But also because I went to college in southern California and southern California was a hotbed of track in the 50s and early 60s, the “Golden Age” of track and field . In those days all track was amateur, or club track – so the athletes were paid under the table – and the spectators at a meet sat very close to the participants. Close enough to hear the runners talk, to see them sweat in the hot October sun; close enough to feel part of it.

Because I had seen enough track to know the athletes, I was pretty disdainful of the Olympics where, it seemed, the spectators were the amateurs, really didn’t know the players, and were only there for the spectacle, not the track. However, I did have a chance to go to one major, Olympic level, meet. It was 50 years and two months ago, in June of 1962 when the Cold War was at its height, and it was between  the the United States and The Soviet Union at Stanford Stadium. I still remember the Highjump duel: it had started earlier in the day but was still going on at the end of the day and by then everything else was over. All that was left were 70,000 hushed fans watching U.S. champion, John Thomas and the Soviets’ Valery Brumel – who was the best in the world – go toe to toe. Then it was only Brumel going for a world’d record. When he cleared 7′ 5″, the place went wild.

But this years, I got dragged into watching Women’s Gymnastics and, now I am watching some Women’s Beach Volleyball. My first thought is it should be Girls’ Gymnastics and Women’s Beach Volleyball. The Beach Volleyball players are women, the gymnasts seem to be girls trying to be glamorous. That does not mean that they aren’t great athletes, they are, and what they are doing verges on the impossible.

But I keep remembering my dad saying that women don’t become interesting until they were at least 30 or 40 and, I guess, I have internalized that. The women volleyball players just seem to have more gravitas, to be playing for higher stakes.

The biggest surprise in the Women’s Beach Volleyball – WBV from now on – is that the Chinese women did so well in chaotic  situations. That is the opposite of what I have been told to expect. In the semi-final, between the Americans and the Chinese there were atleast six times when the rally went on, and on, and on, losing any semblance of a set play and deteriorating into chaos. In that chaos, I expected the American to dominate, but the Chinese won four of the six long rallies. The first four, it is true, with the Americans winning the last two which, hopefully, points to a learning curve, but still a surprise.

One more thought, a question, really. Why are there no old gymnasts and why are there no young Volleyball, players.

A thought on the Olympics and Patricia Schroeder

Americana, Politics, Sports


I am not a big fan of women’s gymnastics. I think I was soured when I first saw  Nadia Comăneci. She was just  a child, dressed like an seductive adult and looking at her gave me a JonBenét Ramsey feeling: sort of a cross between feeling slightly perverted and dirty and feeling slightly superior for not feeling even more than slightly perverted. The movie Little Miss Sunshine captures it as well as anything I can think of. It is not that the seductive look is an accident, it is the point.

So, while Michele sat down to watch the  women’s gymnastics, I washed the dishes. Then Michele would say something like Wow, you have to see this, it is incredible. And it was and after a couple of trips back and forth – and the dishes were finished – that I sat down to watch the Women’s Team Gymnastics. To my eye, Gabby Douglas was the best but they were all superhuman. They all did tricks that, if Batman had done them in The Dark Knight Rises, it would have made the movie seem less realistic (I am 95%  sure that there were no Computer-generated imagery [CGI] during the actual Olympic  event).

Gabby Douglas seems older, more womanly, less child-like, than Nadia Comăneci did in 1976. Or, maybe I am just older. Eeither way, it didn’t seem as prurient. In seeing a picture of the awards ceremony, I was struck by how our gymnastics team looked liked what I want to believe America wants to be. It reminded me of a speech I once heard by Representative Patricia Schroeder, an outspoken women’s rights and minority rights advocate.

Schroeder had gone to India on some official business, at this point, I don’t remember what the official business was but because it was official she was provided with an Air Force plane. As she told the story, as a sort of air Force RF, her ground crew was made up of all minorities (counting women in this context as minorities). After she got back from what ever she was doing with her India escort, her plane was serviced and standing tall. Her India escort took one look at the crew and said something along the lines of That is why America is the greatest country in the world, all those different people working together as Americans. No other country in the world can do that. 

I think that Indian was right, what makes us great is our diversity.

 

 

A rant on uniforms

Americana, Psychological Musings, Sports, War

Actually, not those uniforms although I find the whole Olympic rule that women Beach Volleyball players have to wear bikinis weirdly sexist (not that I am complaining, I love looking at young women in scanty clothing). The Olympics presents a squeaky clean, almost innocent image, and they put alot of effort in keeping it that way. At the same time the biggest Olympic women sports are sports that require scanty clothing, think swimming, diving, track, and – of course – gymnastics. Don’t expect to see much women’s fencing or rowing.

As an aside – an aside from uniforms that is – the Olympics are the biggest sexual free-for-all on the planet. There are 10,960 young, hyper-conditioned, attractive, athletes from around the world living together for two weeks. These Olympians are people who are very much in their bodies and, probably, very much into their bodies, all brushing up against each  other on a daily basis in tight  quarters, with lots of alcohol, other drugs, and – once their event is over – free time. Even in China, a fairly controlled place, the athletes went through their allotted 70,000 condoms. In Britain, a much freer place and more understanding host country, they are providing  150,000 condoms which is about 15 condoms per athlete. Watching Michele Jenneke run the hurdles, it is easy to believe they will be used.

End aside.

But that is not my rant, my rant is about camo clothing in the US Military. Obviously camo clothing is very helpful when Soldiers and Marines are on the ground and do not want to stand out.

But an Army general in a rear area command center, in Washington or Qatar, wearing combat fatigues just seems ridiculous. I am not one to worship the past, but I do pine for the days when the rear echelon – known in front line units as REMFs – commanders and support dressed as if they were going to the office, which, of course, they really are. But the military – and police, for that matter – has fetishized camouflaged fatigues and everybody is now in on the act, including the navy with blueish uniforms. It makes no sense at all. It doesn’t hide them on the ship and, of course, it shouldn’t and then – to make it even stupider – in the highly unlikely event that the ship did see combat and did sink, it makes it harder to find the survivors.

It seems sort of wacko that the Navy is building ten $700 million ships designed for operation in near-shore environments but – by the Navy’s own assessment – is not able to take on heavy duty shore defenses, but I understand that there is a lobby for that: I understand there is money to made.  What I don’t understand is why the crew running the ship should be dressed in pseudo- camouflaged fatigues. End of rant.

Death Valley Ultra Marathon

Sports

Today is the start of the Death Valley Ultra Marathon.

I love all things Death Valley, well, almost everything. Maybe the Death Valley Ultra Marathon is an exception. The Death Valley Ultra Marathon is a foot race that starts at Badwater – in Death Valley at about 280 feet below sea level – and ends, 135 road miles away, at Whitney Portal (about 8360 feet above sea level)…pause…in July!  In the process, the runners cross two passes, the first one, Towne Pass is at 4960 some odd feet, and then – after going down to 1550 feet – the next one, maybe named Darwin Pass, is at about 5300 feet. That just seems nuts.

Last year, the winning time was 23 hours and 41 minutes; doing the math, I come up with a pace of over 5.7 miles per hour, almost ten minute miles. Oh! And it is hot in Death Valley in July: 120 in the shade – and there is no…. – last year. Last Thursday, Death Valley experienced a record – high – overnight low at 107º, but this week will be cooler, with a high of under 110 and overnight lows in the 80s.

Strangely enough, this race seems to be an old person’s game. Almost all of the runners are over 40. Last year there were 27 runners over 50 and two under 30! Probably proof that people don’t always get smarter with age.

It is astounding what humans can do.

This changing world – Korea edition

Sports, Travel

This weekend was the Korean Gran Prix, the country’s second Formula 1 race. When I was in Korea, in 63 and 64, it was a very different country.   I was on a Tac Site about two hours down a dirt road. When I tried to find it on Google Earth, I couldn’t, but I did notice a six lane freeway nearby. In those days, driving down a road, we often saw Korean women walking by the side of the road; we irreverently called them Mamasans.  The san being a diminutive stolen from the Japanese.

Anyway, in a thoughtful homage to male chauvinistic piggism, every F1 race has a group of women called Grid Girls. They stand at the grid position with the number of the car that will start from that position. Interestingly enough, they are no longer Mamasans.