(Photo finish between Michael Phelps, left and Milorad Cavic, right, in men's 100m freestyle -- photo by Patrick B. Kraemer/EPA)
Here's your daily subjective report on the Olympics and a chance to converse about it in comments.
SPOILER NOTE: Some results will be reported below for the competition of yesterday, so be forewarned.
We've got a jam-packed weekend, and yesterday's events required more viewing on my part than usual, so I'm just going to get started.
NBC's Olympics has daily highlights, what they consider the best from Day 7 (August 14): Phelps' 7th Gold and the briefly contested race against Cavic; men's tennis controversy of Blake vs. Gonzales; women's volleyball of U.S. vs. China; women's basketball, U.S. vs. Spain; women's water polo, U.S. vs. Russia; women's soccer, U.S. vs. Canada and Japan vs. China. Yeah, it's all about the U.S. in this recap, and there's an obnoxious commercial at the beginning. Sifting through the NBC site, you can find more balanced (and interesting) coverage on your own.
As you undoubtedly all know by now, Michael Phelps accomplished his goal of matching Mark Spitz's seven gold medal in a single Olympics (though not world records in each of those races). The highlights video below will cover part of the race that gave him his seventh gold by 1/100 of a second. The race is worth watching in full, however, and can be found here. Milorad Cavic of Serbia outswam Phelps until that last 1/100 second. At the very end, Cavic glided in on a final stroke while Phelps took another half-stroke, and even though Cavic's fingers appeared to be touching the wall, Phelps swung his hand in and actually made contact first.
In the days of Mark Spitz, that row of portly men in matching bright blazers who stand at the end of each lane and stare down into the water would have been the judge (along with camera verification) of who touched the wall first, and from the footage that was replayed endlessly, I can easily imagine the decision having gone in Cavic's favor. His coach immediately filed a protest with FINA, but the electronic touchpad system now in use appears to be inviolate and Phelps' win was swiftly upheld. It ain't over till the fat circuit sings.
NBC later had an extended split-screen exchange between Mark Spitz and Michael Phelps which, I have to admit, I did not watch. I appreciate the past champions coming to cheer on those who are breaking their records (as have Mary Lou Retton and Janet Evans at these games). I appreciate it especially when they make a generous comment, as Janet Evans did before the women 800m freestyle where her record, the oldest record in swimming, would be bested by three seconds in a fabulously strong run from Rebecca Adlington of Great Britain, who was six months old when Janet swam her best in 1989. Janet's cheerful comment to her mother was "It's going to go." From the few snatches I heard later, Mark Spitz was equally happy and congratulatory. But there's no need to drag out the changeover.
For all you guys and gals out there who want more of an opportunity to study the body of Michael Phelps, NBC has created a video, Aqua Man: A Study of Phelps' Perfect Physique (narrated by Costas, whose every heartbeat throbs for Michael).
Speaking of Mary Lou Retton: I was never caught up in the idolatry about her, either, partly because she was a born-again Baptist who couldn't shut up about how great she thought Reagan was, and also because her ability to win gold at the 1984 Olympics was heavily advantaged because of the boycott by all the Eastern European nation athletes who held the world records in those sports. Existing in a subculture often divorced from popular culture during those years, I didn't realize what a iconic figure she was until the episode of Friends where Ross gets permission from Rachel to name five fantasy "free dates", i.e., women he could sleep with and not be considered to have broken their monogamy agreement. Ross listed Mary Lou Retton as one of his five, which astounded the female contingent of his friends but not the males -- they all nodded in understanding.
All right, back to these games. There's much else worthy of notice as well. I was riveted as Cesar Cielo Filho blazed from one end of the pool to the other on a single breath, winning Brazil's first-ever gold medal in swimming and setting a new world record at 21.30 seconds. (Okay, that's today's news, but I can't help jumping ahead -- watch the video here here.) I was even more moved when, after beginning the apparently mandatory-for-males angry fist-pumping and pounding the water savagely, he allowed himself to burst into tears and continued crying on the medal stand. I think crying on the medal stand is absolutely normal, and the ultimate display of human connection to the moment. I loved how Nastia Lukin's face showed her overwhelm on the medal stand, and her mother's weeping for her. I also prefer winners who know their country's national anthem and sing along, which used to be widespread among U.S. athletes but not so much any more. The Chinese, though, sing along joyfully -- haven't seen one yet who didn't.
And, speaking of the anthem -- the U.S. version being used in these games is very different from what we usually hear at sporting events here. During the middle part, what usually comes across as very martial with lots of horns and blasts of tympani is instead rendered sweet, almost haunting by a preponderance of strings. Even when it transitions to the final section and some drums return, it isn't the fake cannon-blast I'm used to. It's musical, and an homage, rather than a belligerent thump on the chest kind of music. Striking, what a difference it makes.
Another highlight from yesterday was Dara Torres swimming her heat for the women's 50m freestyle -- not the swim itself, but what she did immediately prior. Instead of her usual intense focus, she was antsy and walked over to an official at the side of the pool, talking animatedly. Nobody knew what was going on. She went back to her block, yet did not get on it or put on her goggles; instead, she was talking in a reassuring way to the other swimmers nearby. Turns out, the Swedish swimmer in lane 2, Anna-Karin Kammerling, had a torn Speedo. Dara had tried to help her fix it, but it was unsalvageable and Kammerling had rushed to the bathroom to change. There is no rule which says a race has to be held for a suit malfunction. So Dara, in an incredible display of sportwomanship, went to the official to insist they delay the race until her competitor returned, then backed that up with persuading the other racers to likewise not get on the blocks, either.
When Kammerling returned, the heat went on and Torres came in with an easy second. She was beaten by 16-year-old Cate Campbell of Australia in the lane next to her, and after checking her time with a grin, Torres swam to Cate and patted her on the back, saying "Great job!" with exuberance. As the story about the torn suit emerged, everyone couldn't take their eyes off Torres. When she was interviewed about it, she brushed it off with "In the pool, they're my competitors; out of the pool, they're my friends." This is what maturity and greatness looks like, folks, whether it's in sports or another arena.
(Dara Torres after 50m heat; photo by Timothy Clary AFP)
There's a good article about Dara Torres' father and past in the Los Angeles Time, Dara Torres is propelled by her father's memory. One item I found interesting is that she attended "Westlake School for Girls, an academy established in 1904 with the school credo Possunt Quia Posse Videntur. ('They can because they think they can.') A lot of accomplished individuals have come out of the now co-educational school, renamed Harvard-Westlake, among them astronaut Sally Ride and actors Shirley Temple, Candice Bergen and Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal."
On the other side of the sporting-attitude scale, in men's tennis James Blake of the U.S. lost to Fernando Gonzalez of Spain in part because the referee missed a call. The ball hit by Blake struck and glanced off the racket of Gonzalez, which means a point for Blake. The referee did not see it, however, and refused to change his decision despite Blake politely bringing it to his attention. The bigger issue, though, is that Gonzalez had to know the ball struck his racket from the impact, clearly visible on replay. In a later news conference, Blake was poised and eloquently honest when he said "I'm 100% sure [it hit his racquet]. Fernando looked me square in the eye and didn't call it. If the roles were reversed, my father would have pulled me off the court if that happened to me." Beautifully said.
So far during these games there have been three captured incidents of doping, one of them the use of propranolol by a male shooter, which helps reduce trembling. A female gymnast (who did not medal, in any case) was also disqualified because diuretics were found in her testing. I'm curious: Why would diuretics be helpful to a gymnast? Anybody out there know?
(Elena Kaliska of Slovakia in the whitewater women's K1 semifinals at Shunyi Olympic Rowing-Canoeing Park, August 15, 2008; photo by Mike Hewitt/Getty Images AsiaPac)
I watched the finals in women's single kayak slalom, where Elena Kaliská of Slovakia did a perfectly clean run past 21 gates to win gold by an unprecedented almost 15 seconds, her second straight gold. I have to say, I love watching white-water anything. I appreciate that, in order to do it well, those in a craft must read invisible terrain (that under water) by how it is revealed from water flowing sometimes several feet above it. This is an ancient human skill calling on multiple portions of our specialized brain anatomy. I also love the language used by rafters and kayakers, which is succinct and descriptive (as jargon must be) but still frequently poetic and beautiful: To describe a rapid, you might use terms like pile, boil, curl, riffle, greenwater, pushy, shelf, slot, gnar, chute, sticky, horizon line, manky, eddy line, or eddy wall.
I haven't kayaked myself, but I did go white-water rafting with a group of women for an entire day on the American River in California during 1986, a class IV run. My roommate had a good friend who ran tours and taught boating, and she put together a special outing for us one summer. I took my 16-year-old daughter with me. During the preliminary instruction, we were told to avoid falling out of the boat if at all possible, despite wearing life vests, because the boulders in some sections were deadly: If we had to fall, aim for inside the boat, she said.
Sure enough, at one stompin' backroller, our huge raft doubled up on itself, then flipped backwards as it righted, giving those of us on the sides a bronco ride that tore my hand from the rope. I held onto my paddle but was flung into the center of the raft as it hurtled onward, our leader yelling instructions to keep us from broaching. The bounce and boil of the water below my back was hilarious to me, and I rode that cataract in hysterics. Finally we reached enough calm for me to resume my place. All the other neophytes highly enjoyed my laughter; the teacher did not, glaring at me suspiciously.
Late in the day, we came to a stretch called the Devil's something (certain terms are used over and over in naming geographic features), which was a run of easy washboard ripples, free of dangerous rocks. We paused while the teacher offered half of us the chance to jump in and ride the riffle to the deep pool beyond, between high cliffs. My daughter immediately looked at me with beseeching eyes, and I said "Sure. Just wait for us at the end." I had a little flip of my stomach as she went over the side, but she's a consummate swimmer (I'm no slouch myself) and I could hear her screeches of delight as she bobbled down the river and out of sight around the bend.
Those of us left in the raft followed more slowly. When we reached the pool around the curve, I began looking for my kid -- there were quite a few beached rafts here, with folks swimming. I couldn't find her for several long seconds. Then I heard her voice calling my name jubilantly, from a baffling direction -- overhead. I stretched my head back along the steep cliff next to the deepest part of the river and there, 50 feet above us, were a few folks in lifevests, standing in diving poses. I screamed her name but she was already in motion. I watched her fall to the surface, dying inside as she hit (with nicely pointed toes, I have to admit) and disappeared beneath the dark green water. She was up in a few more seconds, joyous and swimming toward the raft.
My hair went entirely grey the next few years.
After some of the discussion here and at my blog, I realized the tension I experience when watching certain events (especially gymnastics and ice skating) arises from not only the subjective nature of scoring, but also because a single error is (a) much more obvious than in a lot of other sports and (b) can have such terrible consequences. The pressure on these young people to be perfect really gets to me. I agree with Anne Lamott when she says "Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor.”
So I gave myself permission to tape these anxiety-inducing routines and watch them later, fast-forwarding through the ghastly bits where someone falls. It helped. Offering the same to you, at this link is a compilation of individual all-round gold-medal winner Nastia Lukin's routines, according to NBC. This collection is fairly straightforward and illuminating of Lukin's extraordinary ability.
I also watched a small "see the athlete at home" clip about Shawn Johnson of the U.S., who won women's all-round gymnastics silver. She and her mother were at the local grocery store in their Iowa town when Shawn noticed her image was on a box of ice cream sandwiches. Most top athletes earn the money to go professional by endorsements -- Michael Phelps is a multimillionaire from it, and his seventh gold medal yesterday resulted in a flat $1 million bonus from Speedo alone. But Shawn Johnson reacted by turning to her mother and saying "I didn't know I was promoting those." Her mother breezed past it, and I wondered, who's making the decisions about Johnson's endorsements? She's a teenager in high school, yes, but my own daughter at that age would have absolutely demanded to know where her photograph would be appearing. She would not have agreed to someone else signing off on it without her notification and consent.
Under way Friday in Track & Field are heats and semifinals for women's heptathlon (which includes 100m hurdles, high jump, shot put, 200m, long jump, javelin throw, and 800m, but only the first four of these were completed on Friday); men's 100m; women's 800m; men's hammer; men's 1500m; women's 3000m steeplechase; women's discus; women's triple jump; and men's 400m hurdles.
Completed Friday in Track & Field are:
Men's Shot Put: Gold -- Tomasz Majewski of Poland; Silver -- Christian Cantwell of U.S.; Bronze -- Andrei Mikhnevich of Belarus
Women's 10,000m: Gold -- Tirunesh Dibaba (of the formidable Dibaba sisters who keep coming back to thrill us all) of Ethiopia; Silver -- Elvan Abeylegesse of Turkey; Bronze -- Shalane Flanagan of U.S.
(Hyleas Fountain celebrates a jump in the Women's Heptathlon High Jump Final at the National Stadium, August 15, 2008; photo by Alexander Hassenstein/Bongarts)
As of Saturday morning, Hyleas Fountain of the U.S. had won three of the four women's heptathlon events. I have to say, if I were going to award the title of "greatest Olympic athlete ever", it would not be someone who medaled in one sport, no matter how many medals they accumulated. It would be a heptathlete or pentathlete -- or Jesse Owens, of course.
NBC did a brief feature/interview with Fountain's coach, Lynn Smith. Returning to an Olympics took particular courage on Smith's part: He was one of 111 severely injured at the terrorist bombing of the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, and he survived only by a miracle. When trying to talk about his recovery, he welled up and covered part of his face.
Two people were killing during that bombing, Alice Hawthorne directly and Melih Uzunyol from a heart attack in the aftermath. The terrorist who set off the bombs, Eric Rudolph, is serving a life sentence without parole. He went on to bomb two abortion clinics and a lesbian nightclub, killing another. His justification for the Olympics bombing was that the games promote "global socialism". Clearly, however, woman-hating was also part of his agenda in the later bombings. Like the majority of domestic terrorism cases in the U.S., this one was solved without the use of goverment-sanctioned torture or stripping citizens of their constitutional rights.
The track at these Olympics was declared by sprint analyst and commenter Ato Boldon to be "the fastest track surface ever". If his expert opinion is correct, we should see a lot of new world records set here in running events. Boldon also explained the purpose of the spandex-looking sleeves being worn by some runner, such as Walter Dix: They compact the lower arm muscles and that compaction has a positive effect on drag. The commentators called these "gauntlets", but gauntlets are technically gloves. Since these items of apparel extend from wrist to forearm, they are more accurately known as vambraces.
There was also much speculation about whether Tyson Gay's hamstring injury is recovered enough for him to compete here. I was watching earlier this year when he fell during the trials in Eugene. Boldon pointed out during the heats yesterday, Gay was wearing a hamstring brace not-quite-concealed under his running shorts. We'll see how he does. I hope he doesn't suffer further injury. And, I'd love to hear the story of whether his first name, Tyson, was deliberately chosen by his parents to offset the inevitable teasing he was going to receive for his last name.
CHEERS AND JEERS
Cheers to the font and text choices used on television to list the names of athletes: For the first time that I can recall, names which in that particular culture would be listed surname first are rendered intact but with a larger font on the surname so you can instantly tell which is their last name, which is their first. This way, everybody's preferences are respected without confusion. I hope this practice is kept. (And if it was China who instituted it, kudos to them.)
Jeers to the mysterious stomach virus which is hitting so many of the athletics in the Olympic Village, a few of them with lasting consequences. Nicole Teter of the U.S. did not finish her heat in the women's 800 meter race, stopping after 150 meters because of weakness from not having been able to eat anything the day before after contracting the GI bug, plus some residue from a recent Achilles tendon injury. She wandered off the track sobbing, looking pale and impossibly skinny. Others who have been sick but recovered (among the U.S. athletes) include Dara Torres, Ryan Lochte, Hazel Clark, Shalane Flanagan, Dee Dee Trotter, Torri Edwards, and Angela Williams.
Cheers to swimmer Cesar Cielo Filho of Brazil, not only for winning Bronze in the Men's 100m Freestyle (tying with Jason Lezak of the U.S.), and for setting new Olympic records in the heats and semifinals for the men's 50m freestyle, but also for having the most intriguing name so far. His last name, Cielo Filho, means "Son of the Sky" in Portugese. (Anyone else out there skilled in translation who can tell us the meaning of other interesting surnames among the athletes?)
WORLD RECORDS SET IN SWIMMING FOR AUGUST 14 AND 15:
Zige Liu of China in Women's 200m Butterfly: 2:04.18 WR (won Gold)
Ryan Lochte of U.S. in Men's 200m Backstroke: 1:53.94 WR (won Gold)
Michael Phelps of U.S. in Men's 200m Individual Medley: 1:54.23 WR (won Gold)
Rebecca Soni of U.S. in Women's 200m Breaststroke: 2:20.22 WR (won Gold)
Bronte Barratt, Linda MacKenzie, Kylie Palmer, and Stephanie Rice of Australia in Womens 4 x 200m Freestyle Relay: 7:44.31 WR (won Gold)
OLYMPIC RECORDS SET IN SWIMMING FOR AUGUST 14 AND 15:
Rebecca Adlington of Great Britain in Women's 800m Freestyle: 8:18.06 OR
Milorad Cavic of Serbia Men's 100m Butterfly: 50.76 OR (heats)
Cesar Cielo Filho of Brazil in Men's 50m Freestyle: 21.47 OR (heats, broken in the next heat by Amaury Leveaux of France)
Cesar Cielo Filho of Brazil in Men's 50m Freestyle: 21.34 OR (semifinals)
Ryan Cochrane of Canada in Men's 1500m Freestyle: 14:40.84 OR (heats, broken by Grant Hackett of Australia two heats later)
Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe in Women's 200m Backstroke: 2:06.76 OR (heats)
Jason Dunford of Kenya in Men's 100m Butterfly: 51.14 OR (heats, broken two heats later by Milorad Cavic of Serbia)
Grant Hackett of Australia in Men's 1500m Freestyle: 14:38.92 OR (heats)
Kosuke Kitajima of Japan in Men's 200m Breaststroke: 2:07.64 OR (won Gold)
Amaury Leveaux of France in Men's 50m Freestyle: 21.46 OR (heats)
Britta Steffen of Germany in Women's 100m Freestyle: 53.12 OR (won Gold)
OLYMPIC RECORDS SET IN TRACK & FIELD FOR AUGUST 15: (No World Records set on this date)
Tirunesh Dibaba of Ethiopia in Women's 10,000 m: 29:54.66 OR (won Gold)
SCHEDULE AND RESULTS: Available here.
If you'd like to know more about an individual athlete or to search among athletes for those representing a given country, sport, hometown, birthdate/birthplace, college, etc., go to the search page at NBC.
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]
Saturday, August 16, 2008
DAILY BEIJING OLYMPICS THREAD FOR 14-15 AUGUST 2008
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Daily Beijing Olympics Thread for 13 August 2008
(Natalie Coughlin models the Speedo Fastskin LZR Racer Suit)
Here's your daily subjective report on the Olympics and a chance to converse about it in comments.
SPOILER NOTE: Some results will be reported below for the competition of yesterday, so be forewarned.
FEEDBACK TO COMMENTS POSTED AT GROUP NEWS BLOG: It's so predictable. I self-identify as disabled and at least one person thinks that means it's okay to call me retarded. This is classic able-bodied oppression. I do not have a mental or cognitive disability (although I did for part of one year, after anoxia during a surgery). If I did, I'd say so without shame. It's not funny and it's not "less than", it's simply a difference. Retard, on the other hand, is a hate term and is not welcome here. I'm leaving the comment up to make my point, but future hate speech directed against physical difference will disappear, poof.
I think commenting on the rigid feminization of certain sports is entirely appropriate, just as commenting on race and class as it limits those who can be at the Olympics is what a political blog should be doing. I used humor to change the pace, but I think it must have gone over at least one person's head: Pointing out sexism and classism is NOT part of the problem, despite the American myth that silence is the only (middle-class) way to be "nice". White, male, and upper class are default normal in this country. If you point out something contrary to the default, if you ask for attention to be directed toward the areas where people are still fucking dying daily because they are targeted in these areas, it is not identity politics or causing trouble, it is clarity and conscience which offers hope to every person who isn't comfortably included in (or allied with) the "default" categories.
Using "political correctness" as an attempted insult immediately marks you as having been stunted by the thinking of the Right, as begun by Reagan. Liberal, politically correct, compassion, and global are not terms of disparagement to me and other radicals. Political correctness is, at its baseline, a sincere attempt to avoid language, thinking and behavior which contributes to the oppression of others. If it seems hilarious or too much work to you, well, as Dr. Phil says, you might wanna take a look at that.
I also have a little trouble with the term "heatherish", which has the feel of pretending that the internalized oppression aimed by members of a target group at one another is what keeps those of in the target group oppressed and "in line". My self-reminder in any analysis is: Check the power flow, dummy. Me noticing how terrified these young women are of looking "not right" is NOT the oppression (which is a blend of class and gender).
One commenter made a great point, about objective scoring vs. subjective. Another commenter (at my own blog) made a related point when she voiced appreciation for the commentators who are taking the time to explain the sport to us as the action goes along. Understanding why deductions occur helps make it a much more enjoyable, shared experience -- and, incidentally, reveals where subjectivity has too much leeway. I'm still outraged that Torvill & Dean didn't win their ice-dancing competition years ago, and whether it was judge corruption or simple disagreement about technique, the presence of subjective scoring there allowed a decision that almost no one found fair.
Thanks to the white-water fans who explained more about why Benjamin Boukpeti's win was so exciting, and about how the current course is equalizing gender in this particular sport. And, again, thanks to earlier commenters who gave me a smidgen of education about fencing: When I watched the women's team saber finals today, I understood a great deal more and got very caught up in the action.
Back to the question of attire: Much was made of Michael Phelps having to swim last night with goggles full of water, which effectively blinded him for 100 meters. To his credit, he still turned in a world record time. Since he is poised to break Mark Spitz's record, the Today show featured an interview with Mark Spitz, who was extremely gracious and supportive. I remembered him (all the swimmers then) racing without goggles, so I went to Youtube and found a video of the 1972 games, below. It's blurry but does show all the men wore no goggles or hats, had often shaggy hair (including Spitz's mustache, which I don't think we'd ever see today), and not all of them had the skimpy Speedo that Spitz wore. There was a lot of talk about how revealing his suit was, as I remember, but he said it played a role in his superior swim times and, of course, he was right about that.
In December 1974, my partner and I with our four-year-old daughter were traveling through South Texas and we stopped at the Magic Time Machine restaurant in San Antonio (which is still there). This is a TGI Friday's kinda place whose gimmick is that all the staff dresses up like characters from history or current pop culture. We were shown to a table by a guy dressed as Benjamin Franklin and invited to go to the "salad car" right away. Folks dressed in wildly different costumes flowed back and forth, and our daughter was a little frightened by it all -- she didn't recognize most of who the actors were supposed to be portraying. 
My daughter talked about meeting Mark Spitz for years, a thrill of her young life. We didn't let on until she was old enough to figure it out for herself.
This Olympics we're seeing an astonishing number of swimming world records broken, not just by Michael Phelps but across the board, even in qualifying heats. One possible cause is the widespread use of Speedo's Fastskin LZR Racer suit, which I think first appeared at the Athens Olympics but appears perfected at this point. Also, the newer Olympic pools manipulate water away from the swimmer, as if they are "swimming downhill". And I've heard that new chemicals to more quickly remove lactic acid from overused muscles gives a strong advantage to current athletes who must perform repetitively in a single day or over a few days.
I mention all this with no intention to draw away credit from the astonishing performances we are seeing. It's a swimming Olympics to remember, for sure. And -- as Mark Spitz's record is bested, let's remember the guy who did what he did without these advantages, without hype or much expected of him at all: Seven gold medals in seven races, with a new world record time in each race. We can't compare him to Phelps or anyone else, really, because that was then and this is now; his race times would not hold up now. We can honor both equally, for what they have done.
As if the commentators were listening to my earlier criticism (which of course they were not), they've done better about explaining instead of gushing and sharing the praise in more directions. I finally found out what Natalie Coughlin is so good on turns (she rotates her body sideways for a stroke, which creates less drag), why a big swimmer with Alain Bernard can negatively affect a smaller swimmer (backwash at the turn), and why Phelp's unusual body is so ideal for swimming (his arm span is 6'7", three inches longer than his height; his feet are size 14 and bend an extra 15 degrees at the ankle, allowing him to use them much more as flippers).
Interestingly, after Jason Lezak won Bronze in the only event where he swam individually at this Olympics, the men's 100m freestyle, he was interviewed by Rowdy Gaines. During the course of the interview, Gaines quite appropriately brought up the most exciting swim of this games so far, Lezak's anchor leg of the 4x100 free relay with a split of 46.06. However, Gaines veered off into Phelpsomania, stating "You got Michael his gold in that event." With a slight smile and a steady voice, Lezak replied "I did not swim that race to win a gold for Michael." Hear, hear! When this was replayed with Bob Costas present, Costas appeared unable to take it in, although Gaines did and seemed to appreciate Lezak drawing a lane in the pool, as it were: He is not Phelps' minion.
And, from what I can see, Phelps is very aware of that. He seems to be close to his male cohorts. It's the press who have attempted to make him into the Only Swimmer that Matters -- and for too many of them, it's for a commercial bottom line, not even from pure love of sport.
Speaking of commercialism: I don't remember previous Olympics' coverage showing every single heat and semifinal as this one has (51 in total). I personally love swimming, but it occurred to me that because of watching all these non-decisive races, I'm missing all the other events that could be covered. Track & Field begin tomorrow, which has a similar multitude of events and voluminous numbers of competitors to be winnowed down to final races. I'll be watching to see if all those heats are aired as well. If not, I'll raise the question of whether this is pure commercialism -- i.e., give viewers only what is most popular -- or, dare I say it, because most of the athletes in swimming are white and most of the athletes in track & field are NOT white? A discussion to be continued, after more observation.
Locally (I live in Austin, Texas) there's a great deal of credit being given to Longhorn Aquatics at the University of Texas, where a huge number of these swimmers train -- some of them not even pros yet, still students at UT. Since I should plug my home town at least once, the following swimmers are from the Longhorn program: Ricky Berens, Hee-Jin Chang (swimming for China), Ian Crocker, Susana Escobar (swimming for Mexico), Brendan Hansen, Kathleen Hersey, Aaron Peirsol, Scott Spann, Garrett Weber-Gale, and Dave Walters.
While I'm plugging, I discovered a blog I read regularly is running GREAT posts about the Olympics with cultural and sociological commentary, covering territory I'm not: Sue Katz Consenting Adult. I especially liked her report on the older athletes who find a niche in some sports, Boomer Olympians.
Also, the Guardian UK wrote a pre-Olympics article which is highly educational and entertaining, Game For Anything, in which they sent eight of their reporters out in crash courses for competitions. These intrepid writers report back on the finer points of steeple chase, front crawl, shot put, fencing, gymnastics, rowing, high jump, and BMX. It's a great read.
Returning to attire: The aforementioned LZR swimsuits show the men swimmers constantly adjusting their shoulder straps and arm holes as compulsively as the women. I was happy to see it's not just us: When you wear a tight garment that lets flesh bulge out, you simply are not as comfortable in it. (Plus the nervousness factor, I'm sure.) In my freshman year of high school, our basketball uniforms were the old-fashioned style with shorts that were more like panties and arm sleeves in a baby-doll style. I remember our coach screaming at us during one time-out because somebody had been pushing her ass-cheek back into her suit instead of catching the ball on a pass.
The next year, new suits were bought for both the boys and girls' basketball teams, and after heated lobbying on our part, we got the same style as the boys -- roomy sleeves, breathable fabric, long-legged and baggy shorts with wide waistbands. I still remember the glorious freedom I felt when I first put mine on, not only the ease of movement but, even more, the relief from having to worry about exposure. When I watch women doing strenuous movements in leotards and see them constantly reaching to their bottoms to make sure the fabric hasn't ridden up too far, I feel for them. I suspect, as one commenter said, it's about the look rather than the function -- otherwise, men would be wanting to compete in leotards as well.
And, finally, regarding commentary, race, and class inequality at the games: I was watching in 2000 when Eric Moussambani swam his heat for the men's 100 meter freestyle. I was leaned forward cheering for him every agonizing stroke of the final 50 meters, and also laughing wildly: How on earth had this guy gotten to the Olympics? The last few meters, it looked like someone might need to jump in and pull him out. He was immediately dubbed "Eric the Eel".
Turns out, according to Wikipedia, he "gained entry to the Olympics without meeting the minimum qualification requirements via a wildcard draw designed to encourage developing countries without expensive training facilities to participate." In other words, poor countries are given a ticket to compete but no funding to support their athletes. What I remember from interviews at the time, he had no access to an Olympic-sized pool and therefore trained in a hotel pool that was 20 meters long, so 50 meters was 2.5 times what he usually swam. He had only been training for eight months, and he did it for the honor of his country.
It stopped being funny at that point. Below is a Youtube video of Eric Moussambani's swim, the most respectful one I could find (and it's not entirely free of crap).
When I checked the NBC site to see who is competing from his country this year, I found under the entry for Equatorial Guinea a brief reference to Moussambani which stated "he had only learned to swim eight months before, and in crocodile-infested waters." This is directly contradicted by my memory of his history and also by that of Wikipedia, and it smacks of appalling racial stereotyping.
To make matters worse, last night the NBC anchor ran another video of a swimmer from who was the sole competitor for a poor African country (I didn't catch the name and I cannot find it by searching the NBC site). He was swimming in a heat and came in dead last. The commentator prefaced it by going from an image of (guess who) Michael Phelps to the heat, stating "And now, from the sublime to, well, also the sublime but in an entirely different way". He laughed throughout the video. His tone was utterly condescending. If you can supply the name of this swimmer and country, I'd appreciate it.
Professionalism in sports is not the problem: Paying athletes is on a par with paying artists and other non-profit endeavors, in my opinion. It's who is controlling the endeavor (i.e., community vs. corporate or government), and how fair is the access that matters most. Paying lip-service to access while providing no money for athletes to train is disingenuous at best. I admit it's a stretch to ask wealthy superpowers to set aside some of our largesse to create sports program for boys and girls in the countries we tend to exploit, especially since those kids will likely grow up to be crackerjack competitors -- but can you imagine the Olympics which would result from a truly leveled playing field? (Pun intended.)
(Stephanie Rice wins 200m individual relay, photo from China Daily)
WORLD RECORDS IN SWIMMING SET ON AUGUST 12 AND 13:
Alain Bernard of France in Men's 100m Freestyle: 47.20 WR (in the semifinal)
Federica Pellegrini of Italy in Women's 200m Freestyle: 1:54.82 WR (won Gold)
Michael Phelps of U.S. in Men's 200m Butterfly: 1:52.03 WR (won Gold)
Michael Phelps of U.S. in Men's 200m Freestyle: 1:42.96 WR (won Gold)
Aaron Peirsol of U.S. in Men's 100m Backstroke: 52.54 WR (won Gold)
Stephanie Rice of Australia in Women's 200m Individual Medley: 2:08.45 WR (won Gold)
Ricky Berens, Ryan Lochte, Michael Phelps, and Peter Vanderkaay of US in Men's 4x200 Freestyle Relay: 6:58.56 WR (won Gold)
OLYMPIC RECORDS IN SWIMMING SET ON AUGUST 12 AND 13:
Paolo Bossini of Italy in Men's 200m Breaststroke: 2:08.98 OR (in the heats)
Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe in Women's 200m Individual Medley: 2:09.53 OR (in the semifinal)
Daniel Gyurta of Hungary (beating record set by Paolo Bossini in previous heat same day) in Men's 200m Breaststroke: 2:08.68 OR (in the heats)
Leisel Jones of Australia in Women's 100m Breaststroke: 1:05.17 OR (won Gold)
Kosuke Kitajima of Japan in Men's 200m Breaststroke: 2:08.61 OR (in the semifinal)
Rebecca Soni of U.S. in Women's 200m Breaststroke: 2:22.17 OR (in the heats)
Coralie Balmy, Celine Couderc, Camille Muffat, and Alena Popchanka of France in Women's 4x200m Freestyle Relay: 7:50.37 OR (in the heats)
Ricky Berens, Klete Keller, Erik Vendt, and David Walters in Men's 4x200 Freestyle Relay: 7:04.66 OR (in the heats)
SCHEDULE AND RESULTS: Available here.
P.S. NBC, PLEASE stop doing segments on reporters trying to eat fried scorpions. It's junior high "let's make fun of what other people eat" behavior. Get over it.
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
DAILY BEIJING OLYMPICS THREAD FOR 12 AUGUST 2008
Here's your daily subjective report on the Olympics and a chance to converse about it in comments.
SPOILER NOTE: Some results will be reported below for the competition of yesterday, so be forewarned.
I was born with severe asthma and spent most of my childhood as an intermittent invalid, excused from P.E. I was anorexic as well. Because my family was poor, and because I was a girl, my congenital orthopedic problems went unnoticed (despite my complaints of pain and difficulty) and undiagnosed until I was 45, by which time irrecovable damage had been done. My life-threatened hormonal imbalance also went undiagnosed until I was 40.
In high school, I went out for the girls' basketball team and, partly because it was a tiny school, partly because I had a ferocious will, I made it. I played for four years and was captain my senior year. I also played volleyball, softball, and threw the discus (all of them very, very badly). My sophomore year, I tried on the life of being a jock but found it stultifyingly boring after one set of goal had been reached and gave it up for more creative pursuits.
I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of my 20s and 30s, where I was very physically active -- using public transportation or walking to get around, living up two and three flights of stairs, marching, hiking, and often doing manual labor for a living (baking, delivery, construction salvage). I was a hands-on parent and lived in collective households where the chores were shared but absolute. I pushed through the asthma, and also through the constant orthopedic pain. My latter choice was a grave mistake, according to the doctors and PT's I've seen since age 45.
Working class toughs: My mother's mantra was "Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without." That included bodies, of course.
I always identified with the disabled community because of my asthma, and because in the Bay Area they are the coolest folks around. Since becoming increasingly mobility impaired, I've joined the ranks of the visibly crippled. For four years I was a core writer and performer in Actual Lives, a theater troupe for disabled adults directed by Terry Galloway where all of our material was written by us, page to stage. I wrote some gorgeous stuff, I helped shape disability theory, and, even better, I got to live up close and personal with folks who have a multitude of diverse disabilities: Often, the kinds of disability that nobody wants to see on TV.
I watch NO organized sports on television except for the Olympics. I love community and school sports -- my daughter is a jock, thanks to Title IX -- but most of what makes it into "news" coverage is commercial sports, which is more accurately part of the entertainment industry than actual athleticism. I don't find it surprising that as, in my memory, sports have become a vast corporate-run industry (and claimed a share of the evening broadcast time that would have been unthinkable when I was a child), Americans have become less and less active. Watching sports is not about athleticism, it's about star-worship, reinforcing class and gender myths, and keeping us entertained so we don't notice the real issues of the day.
Why on earth, then, do I make an exception for the Olympics? Certainly, all of my objections above hold true for this event as well. I'm giving voice to them as they come up, including the clear political flaws related to how the Olympics are staged. But this is an international event bringing together, in however limited a fashion, representatives from 205+ nations who agree on a few basics, and as such, it's enormously important. Values and messages which can arise from this venue will be shared globally. That matters.
And on a physical, body level, I relate to the Olympics because it exists on the same continuum as disability. That may seem like a contradiction in terms: I know a lot of people see it as worship of physical perfection. I'm not sure how widespread that belief is.
For me and the disabled people I know, it's more revealing as a close examination of physical difference. Olympic-level athletes are as different from the average person as someone in a wheelchair (not that the two are mutually exclusive). Their bodies are abnormal. Different sports bring out different body types and unusual configurations, and for the most part, these differences are accepted without judgment. Many of the top athletes are unhealthy in some significant way, aside from the ever-present eating disorders. Many of them are, well, kinda ugly when compared to traditional standards of beauty. But we get a chance to look at all these through close-ups and long takes, often with smart people helping to explain what we are seeing, often without any of the commercial lens of sexuality and manipulation for profit.
Like being at a gathering of crips, in fact.
In addition, the powers of endurance called forth in Olympic athletes I find to be extremely similar to those found in disabled populations. When I see a muscle in extreme, sustained flexion, I am reminded of the severe contractures I sometimes have in my legs or hands, when my muscle goes into the same extremis, rock-hard and consuming all my attention. I am still able to either stand or move into a position (using another part of my body) which will force the contracture to end. I am in dread of the possible day when I won't have that option, like so many folks I know who live with constant contractures pretzeling one or more limbs, with all the pain and lactic acid release that athletes experiences daily.
One man I know, who was a teenaged athlete and became a quadriplegic from a hang-gliding accident, manages to mostly live alone still but the act of making himself a bag of microwave popcorn as a snack involves 20 minutes of all-out consuming physical effort before the bag is in the microwave and the button pushed. Opening the goddamned bag and eating it will require another massive expenditure of will and muscle once the bell dings. He certainly gets a gold medal from me, and this is part of why I keep complaining about how all the focus is on the top three, when the stories of those who simply manage to get to the Olympics at all are likely far more interesting.
Not to mention the rest of us, with bodies that are outside "the norm".
Having watched these events faithfully for 44 years also sheds light on trends and cycles. When watching the women athletes, I am occasionally nostalgic for the bad old days of the Soviet bloc nations who finessed steroids and produced women who were a dyke wet dream. (Looking like an "East German woman" was not a perjorative in my community.) Diving is increasingly rewarding those with no hips or ass to speak of, as they make less of a splash. Fortunately, water polo has gained in popularity which find those who are well-padded to be at an advantage for long, grueling hours in cold water.
As we begin, here and there, to emerge from a long period of right-wing domination around the globe, with its worship of the constructed myths of masculine/feminine and increasing societal pressure against androgyny, however natural, I noticed last night that every single female gymnast on the medal stand, 18+ from three diverse nations, had exactly the same hairstyle: A Betty-type ponytail held with a frou-frou scrunchie. What happened to the convenience (not to mention the cuteness) of short hair? It looked mandatory, that level of conformity. I had thought it was just the U.S. up to that point. The American female gymnasts all looked so much alike that I honestly could not tell them apart (except one had light brown hair instead of blond.) It wasn't simply a body type, it was make-up which reminded me of circus performers dolling up to go to the mall, and a way of moving, sitting, talking on the sidelines which was extremely wooden and subdued -- moreso than even the men. Shades of a Stepford pommel horse...
On a more humorous note, it occurred to me that if you are a suburban girl whose first name is from a department/jewelry store, a small country in Europe, a kind of liquor, or sounds traditional but is spelled in classic white trash style (Tari instead of Terry, Lenzi instead of Lindsay), combined with a surname which is Germanic or Slavic, you are destined to become a gymnast and should be fast-tracked toward that goal.
Many records which I saw created with a thumping heart are now being demolished. I screamed for Janet Evans, Jenny Thompson, Ian Thorpe, and Carl Lewis. I've learned to enjoy their excellence but, like Charles Barkley reminded us, to not mistake their accomplishments in one area for role models. I prefer athletes who are plugged into community outside their speciality, who pursue art or cooking or working with kids, whom you know are not going to be pathetic once their 15 minutes of gold are over. Some of the old familiar faces I've come to care about -- Aaron Peirsol, Natalie Coughlin -- are likely not going to be competing in 2012, and I hope they really are as happy as they appear to be.
But I'm even more interested in the folks who are dealing with major life issues away from competition: U.S. swimmer Eric Chanteau who leaves these games to have surgery for testicular cancer; Polish swimmer Otylia Jędrzejczak who sold her Athens gold medal for $82000 to fund a children's cancer clinic, then had a car accident driving recklessly which killed her beloved younger brother, served nine months in prison for it, and is back in the pool, dealing with whatever ghosts that must entail; and Israeli swimmer Alon Mandel, whose father died accidentally the day before the Olympics began and who is flying back to Israel tomorrow to bury him.
CHEERS & JEERS:
(Norway's Gro Hammerseng and Katja Nyberg, handball teammates and lovers, in Paris 2007)
Cheers to being able to compete while out (and thanks for doing your best while not out to Derrick Peterson, Greg Louganis, Alyson Annan, Rob McCall, and many others). From the Washington Blade, I've learned there are at least six openly lesbian/gay athletes completing in these Olympics. The list includes: Natasha Kai, a forward on the U.S. Women’s Soccer team; veteran Olympians Judith Arndt, a German cyclist, and Imke Duplitzer, a German fencer; a lesbian couple from Norway, Gro Hammerseng and Katja Nyberg, competing in the team handball competition; and Matthew Mitcham, a diver representing Australia.
Jeers to the men's basketball team from Spain who posed for the Spain Basketball Federation with a racist gesture, pulling at their eyes in a slit-eyed gesture to mime "Chinese". Jeers also the Guardian UK article about this offensive photo which attempts to deny its obvious nature by saying it "could be interpreted so as to lead to accusations of racism". It IS racist, folks. Behavior trumps intention.
(Benjamin Boukpeti winning a bronze medal for Togo in men's single-seat slalom kayak)
Cheers to the international crowd enthusiastically chanting "Togo! Togo!" as Benjamin Boukpeti, ranked a seemingly impossible 56th in the world, paddled a near-perfect run in the men's single-seat slalom kayak to win the bronze medal, the first medal ever for Togo in the Summer Olympics.
Jeers to the official from the Chinese Politburo (name not given) who decided that the adorable girl singer Yang Peiyi was "not suitable" for the opening ceremonies, so she was replaced with Lin Miaoke who mimed Yang's rendition of "Ode to the Motherland". What was Yang's cosmetic flaw? Her typical seven-year-old's uneven teeth. Look at the photos for yourself in the Guardian UK article here.
And cheers to the Four Winds blog in their article "Photos of George W. Bush 'Drunk As A Monkey' At the Olympics" for giving us a plausible explanation for this baffling photograph of President Bush I saw two days ago in general news, tagged then as something about difficulty in finding a seat, but nailed by Four Winds with "How many secret Servicemen does it take to help a President stand up?" Read the article for more photos. The LOLDubya below was created by little gator.
Because this post is going up late, I'm not going to report on all the various results, including Michael Phelps major accomplishment of outperforming all other gold medalists, great swims by some of my favorites, gymnastics, etc. Too much to see and keep notes on while having a life with other demands in it. Feel free to report and editorialize in the comments, as long as you avoid oppressive language or blogwhoring. I'll be back tomorrow.
SCHEDULE AND RESULTS: Available here.
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog.]
Monday, August 11, 2008
DAILY BEIJING OLYMPICS THREAD FOR 11 AUGUST 2008
(Jason Lezak after winning the men's 400 meter freestyle relay for the U.S.)
Daily Beijing Olympics Thread for 11 August 2008
Here's your daily subjective report on the Olympics and a chance to converse about it in comments.
SPOILER NOTE: Some results will be reported below for the competition of yesterday, so be forewarned.
Sorry about this going up late. I needed more rest, which always come first. And there's a LOT to cover.
Regarding the murder of Todd Bachman, assault on Barbara Bachman and a Chinese tour guide by Tang Yongming, with subsequent suicide by the attacker: No, I haven't commented because the facts are not yet in on this case. No connection has yet been made between the attack and the Olympics themselves, except circumstantial, that one of the members of this family is Hugh McCutchan who coaches men's volleyball for the U.S.. As someone who has lived in Calcutta and Brazil, and traveled through Mexico, I'm well aware of the generic hostility Americans encounter in other parts of the world -- and why. (They don't "hate us for our freedoms", they hate us for how our country negatively impacts the rest of the world.) I want to hear from those present at the attack, Barbara and Elizabeth Bachman and/or the tour guide, before leaping to conclusions and nationalist-based conjecture. I am struck by the fact that in all the English-language reporting of the incident, the name of the also-injured Chinese tour guide (a woman) or her current condition is never mentioned, as if she were of no consequence. If there is an Olympics-based reason for the attack, I'll report it here. In the meantime, grieving for that family's loss does not demand we immediately assign blame and "make sense" of it: There is never a sensible reason for murder.
Now, to coverage of yesterday's events, subjective as always. (You can add your own coverage in comments.) I didn't watch the entirety of the women's road cycle race, but I was glad for the region around Beijing, as well as the racers, that it rained all day. It provided a break from the punishing heat experienced by the men cyclists earlier, and possibly helped clean the air, even as it created slick road hazards for the women.
Sixty-two women began the race, and only 27 posted finishing times, a loss of over 50% of the riders. Of these 27 who finished, 15 were European, confirming what a commentator stated during the race that the current status of women's road cycling depended on a core group of 10-20 who were well-funded by their nations and thus able to dominate the sport. Africa had only three cyclists (two from South Africa, one from Mauritius); six were from Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Thailand, and Kazakhstan; 11 were from North and South America (Venezuela, the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba); and four from Australia/New Zealand.
Personal note: I enjoyed the camera coverage from the chase motorcycles because the lenses rapidly became coated with rain blowback, creating a blurry montage of speed and color. Also, one of the racers was Natalia Boyarskaya, and every time I heard her name, I flashed on the song "Natalia", sung by Joan Baez, about Natalia Gorbanevskaja, Russian poet and civil rights activist who was imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital for four years during the 1970s for her demonstrations against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia:
Where is the earth
Where is the sky
Where is the light
You long for
What hope of you
Where you are now
Natalia Gorbanevskaja
Regarding the desperate need for rain around Beijing, however, the real story is among Chinese farmers. The Miyun Reservoir, which supplies water to Beijing, was earlier this year down to one-third of the water it had ten years ago. Water is being diverted to create flowing taps for the Olympics, and this is far more grave than the air pollution. Vast areas of farmland have had their water turned off, throwing families which have farmed for time out of mind into desperate circumstances, and dropping the water table below into dire conditions.
And, as if to symbolize just how very clueless our corporate-stupid nationalism keeps us, at the conclusion of the race, when Nicole Cooke of Great Britain was celebrating her victory, the American commentator said "Today the British Empire extends into China." Click.
REPORT:
Women's Road Cycle Race -- Gold, Nicole Cooke, Great Britain (Wales); Silver, Emma Johansen, Sweden; Bronze, Tatiana Guderzo, Italy.
I briefly checked into the sculling heats, considering once again how much money it takes to buy and maintain these boats, what kinds of water access it demands, and how therefore the class and race demographics of who's competing in this sport are utterly nonrepresentative. And where class/race restrictions apply, in most nations this means women's access to the sport will also be affected. This triumvirate of oppression, a solid cord that cannot be meaningfully teased apart, is not identity politics but instead the foundation upon which every aspect of national power in the world currently depends, directly or indirectly.
I also watched some of the synchronized diving finals. This is the first time U.S. women have competed in this event, with Kelci Bryant and Ariel Rittenhouse coming in fourth. As if these dives don't present enough pressure on an athletic, having to match your body to the motion of another is mind-boggling.
REPORT:
Men's Synchronized Diving -- Gold, Lin Yue and Huo Liang, China; Silver, Sascha Klein and Patrick Hausing, Germany; Bronze, Gleb Galperin and Dmitry Dobroskok, Russia
Women's Synchronized Diving -- Gold, Guo Jingjing and Wu Minxia, China; Silver, Yulia Pakhalina and Anastasia Pozdnyakova, Russia; Bronze, Ditte Kotzian and Heike Fischer, Germany.
I checked in on the gymnastics qualifying trials. An NBC closer look focused on the ancient tradition of acrobatics in China (which is also true for some other Asian nations), especially for girls, which creates a bedrock for Chinese women to move on to gymnastics. I don't how accurate my perception is, but I've always felt like gymnastics in the U.S. was a place where white trash girls (like me) could find easier access to sports, because it combines individual and team effort (solo effort and glory is contrary to working class ethics) and it emphasized sexual dimorphism/female infantilism (also congruent with working class ethics).
Perhaps this is all a carryover from peasant culture and ethos. Several years ago, a prominent genealogist who was sick of the "hereditary societies" found in genealogy which are almost always racist and classist in nature retaliated by created what he loftily titled "Society of Descendants of 11th Century Peasants", limited to those who could prove such descent. The joke was, of course, that every human being on the planet is descended from at least one 11th century peasant. (Feel free to create your own gilt-edged membership certificate.)
Peasants were dependent on farming and community for survival. The values which emerged from this reality, no matter the local geography, included manual labor over other forms of labor, limiting education to only a few, sexual division of labor (which eventually became mythologized as the result of biological difference, but was mostly an economic response to non-biological pressures), conformity and collective action valued over individualism, dependence on community rather than institutions, suppression of angry response to oppression because of reprisal against the entire community, and the development of a certain body type after generations of repetitive labor on limited nutrition.
Perhaps gymnastics is the sport preferred by modern-day descendants of peasants.
Later in the coverage was another special report, this time on the Soviet boycott of the Olympics in 1984. Part of the point of this story was to illustrate how beneficial rejoining the Olympics community has been for Chinese athletes, which is clearly true. But a lot of political narrative and outright deception was folded into the story. To set it straight: The FIRST use of boycotting the Olympics for the purpose of political pressure and grandstanding was done by Ronald Reagan. His claim of the "noble" cause as a protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is belied by the fact that his administration constantly invaded, manipulated, and wreaked havoc on Central American nations, primarily for U.S. corporate interests.(Sound familiar? Those men found new life in Bush administration.) [NOTE: There is an error in the above paragraph. It was Jimmy Carter who ordered the 1980 Olympics boycott. However, in the NBC story it was credited to Ronald Reagan. I should have verified it independently before repeating it.]
Reagan paid for his illegal assaults on other nations by illegal sale of arms to Iran. I wonder if his contacts in Iran were the same men who helped delay release of American hostages until it cost Jimmy Carter the election.
After the farce of our 1980 Olympic boycott, we had no moral high ground to protest the equally stupid Soviet boycott in 1984. I hope such idiocy is behind us, but I won't be assured until every last Bushie is removed from any access to decision-making on a governmental level.
The rest of my Olympics attention for yesterday was consumed by swimming, where breaking world records (and stereotypes) became almost matter of fact. Eight new world records were set, many of them during qualifying races instead of finals. This kind of surge forward begs the question why? The streamlined suits so popular were in use in 2004. I'm reminded of the past Olympics (I want to say 1976, but I'm not sure) when a revision in the pool structure itself resulted in an explosion of new world swimming records. I particular remember new dampers at the sides of the pool then, as well as perhaps a shift in depth and lane ropes all designed to minimize waves and turbulence. Does this ring a bell with anyone else? Any theories about why we're seeing the current extreme improvement in swimming times?
After winning silver the first day of the Olympics in the women's 400 meter individual medley, Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe during the semifinals set a new world record in the women's 100m backstroke with a time of 58.77 seconds. The previous record of 58.97 set by Natalie Coughlin this past July, and Coughlin had set five consecutive world records in the event before Coventry took the record off her. Coventry is the second woman to ever break 59 seconds in this event. Her swimming style makes her strong as a closer, where Coughlin tends to get her best work in early. Perhaps ominously, in the heat for the 100 meter backstroke, Coughlin (who is the world record holder) swam in the lane next to Coventry and lost the heat to her. Coventry is a swimmer whose boundaries are bursting open, keep your eyes on her.
Also during the trial heats for the women's 400 meter freestyle, Katie Hoff of the U.S. broke Janet Evans' record which had stood for 20 years. This was after she raced to win a bronze in the morning's 400 meter individual medley.
Only minutes later, in the next heat for the women's 200 meter freestyle, Federica Pellegrini of Italy set another world record at 1:55:45, replacing the old record set by Laure Manaudou of France.
In the men's 100 meter breastroke final, Kosuke Kitajima of Japan not only won gold, defending his title from Athens, but set a new world record at 58:91, breaking the old one set by Brendan Hansen of the U.S.
Michael Phelps also set a new record during his heat for the men's 200 meter butterfly, beating his own old Olympic record at 1:53.70.
Early in the evening, a personality close-up focused on U.S. swimmer Cullen Jones, only the second African-American to appear on a U.S. Olympics swimming team. Jones talked about his experience of nearly drowning at age five in a water park, when his inner tube flipped over, he sank and swallowed enough water to become unconscious. CPR was performed, and he coughed up a pint of water. He tells this story to children as part of his outreach work teaching African-American children how to swim. He stated that African-American children are three times more likely to drown than other children.
(Cullen Jones gives swim lessons to Tavion Traynham at the Butler-Gast YMCA in Omaha on in March 2008; photo by Daniel Johnson, AP)
I was thrilled to see him take head on the racist myth that African-Americans are somehow deficient in knowing how to swim. This is vicious stereotype which saw public exposure in 2006 when Tramm Hudson (white Republican) running against Katherine Harris for Congress decided to declare "I grew up in Alabama and I understand, uh…I know this from my own experience; blacks are not the greatest swimmers, or may not even know how to swim." (For great coverage of the incident, check out Crooks & Liars.)
The reality is, of course, African-Americans have the same swimming ability as anyone else. However, as a population subject to racism, they have been prevented from the chance to learn, originally by slaveholding practice which (no doubt correctly) interpreted the ability to swim as beneficial to escaping from slave territory. Later, segregation denied urban blacks the chance to use public swimming pools. This became intensified during the 1950s when polio swept the country, seeming to target children. I remember clearly hearing adults (whites) state that polio was being spread by black children at public pools. This was broadcast on the radio in Southern Louisiana, where the term used for black children is not something I can repeat here.
This is living memory for a huge section of the population. Racism is deeply imprinted on our culture, whether you know about it/admit it or not. To read more about Cullen Jones' work, check here.
Cullen Jones returned to the spotlight in the most electrifying swim of the day, the men's 400 meter freestyle relay. The French team was heavily favored, and without Jason Lezak of the U.S., the French certainly would have won. But the U.S. took the gold with a world record time of 3:08.24 and an astounding performance by Lezak who swam his 100 meters in 46.06 seconds, absolutely shattering what anyone else has ever done.
And let's be clear here: All of the American men who swam this relay deserve the gold, but some deserve it much, much more than the others. Michael Phelps is getting a lion's share of the credit, despite the fact that his lead-off leg lost to Eamon Sullivan of Australia, who swam it in 47.24, a new world record. If everyone had performed at Michael Phelp's level, the U.S. might have wound up with only the bronze.
Garrett Gale-Weber swam the second leg for the U.S., and he managed to catch and pass the Australian swimmer for that leg, Andrew Lauterstein.
During the third leg, however, the French surged, with their Frederick Bousquet passing both Cullen Jones and Australia's Ashley Callus. At this point, all three of these top teams were swimming noticeably faster than world record pace. I was sitting up screaming at the TV. My cat Dinah went to hide in the closet.
In the final leg, Alain Bernard, powerhouse for France, was off the blocks first. Jason Lezak, looking almost the entire length of a swimmer behind, entered the pool. At 350 meters, the turn, Bernard was ahead by 0.18 second. It looked like a done deal.
But Lezak got close to the lane marker between himself and Bernard, and he began the swim of his life. At 30 and 20 meters, Bernard was still ahead. Lezak kept closing, and in the last few meters, he evened up with Bernard. Lezak touched the wall first by 0.19 of a second.
It's Jason Lezak, my darlings. He did the job.
REPORT:
Women's 400 meter freestyle final -- Gold, Rebecca Adlington of Great Britain; Silver, Katie Hoff of U.S.; Bronze, Joanne Jackson of Great Britain
Women's 100 meter butterfly -- Gold, Libby Trickett of Australia; Silver, Christine Magnuson of U.S.; Bronze, Jessicah Schipper of Australia
Men-s 100 meter breastroke -- Gold, Kosuke Kitajima of Japan (new world record); Silver, Alexander Oen of Norway; Bronze, Hugues Duboscq of France
Men's 400 meter freestyle relay -- Gold, U.S. (Michael Phelps, Garrett Gale-Weber, Cullen Jones and Jason Lezak); Silver, France (Amaury Leveaux, Fabien Gilot, Frederick Bousquet, and Alain Bernard); Bronze, Australia (Eamon Sullivan, Andrew Lauterstein, Ashley Callus, and Matt Targett)
SCHEDULE AND RESULTS: Available here.
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog]
Sunday, August 10, 2008
DAILY BEIJING OLYMPICS THREAD FOR 10 AUGUST 2008
(Diana Gandega and the other members of the Mali women's basketball team received a house and bonus for qualifying for the Olympics. Photo by Antonio Scorza/AFP/Getty Images. Hat tip to Oak for e-mailing me the story from The New York Times.)
Here's your daily subjective report on the Olympics and a chance to converse about it in comments.
SPOILER NOTE: Some results will be reported below for the competition of yesterday, so be forewarned.
I'll begin by linking to an excellent article in today's New York Times about women at the Olympics, "Inside the Rings: Once Banned, Women Now Center Stage at Games". In one paragraph, they state "Women were not allowed to participate at the 1896 Summer Games in Athens, the first Olympics of the modern era. They were expected to contribute applause, not athletic skill. Not until 1984 were women permitted to run the Olympic marathon, in reefer-madness fear that they might grow old too soon with such exertion; or worse, they might grow a mustache. Or their uterus would fall out, as if it were a transmission."
Yeah, it's a real hassle to pull out the WD-40 and reinstall that uterus. You have to anchor it back in place with cinch clamps.
The article also says "Now, women have become must-see TV at the Olympics, as well as the target viewing audience for NBC. Of the 11,427 athletes participating in these Games, 4,845 are women — 500 more than in Athens four years ago, 1,000 more than competed in Atlanta 12 years ago."
Much of the focus of the article was the ground gained by African women, who "have long struggled against more onerous cultural perceptions and restrictions than women in the West. Not until 1984 did an African woman — the 400-meter hurdler Nawal el-Moutawakel of Morocco — win an Olympic gold medal. It was 1992 before a black African woman gained the top step on the medal podium, when Derartu Tulu won the 10,000 meters (6.2 miles) at the Barcelona Games." I think it's important to point out that these restrictions are not simply due to religious and patriarchal beliefs embedded in some modern African cultures. Regional and national instability also play a role, and this is ultimately brought on by the machinations of superpowers like the U.S.: there is constant strife at the edges of empire, and this strife always hits women and children hardest.
So, I've watched some coverage here and there. As usual, what gets in-depth, at times obsessive focus on NBC (the broadcast version, at least) are only the events where Americans have a perceived medal opportunity. I cannot afford cable and don't know if it is better on other channels, or if this sham "patriotism" carries through everywhere. I feel like I'm missing the best, which is the international effort, not the medal count.
(Mariel Zagunis of the United States celebrates after defeating her compatriot Sada Jacobson during the women's individual sabre gold medal match at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, Aug. 9, 2008. Photo from Xinhua/Chen Xiaowei)
I enjoyed watching women's sabre, ignorant as I am of the sport, in part because one of the commentators was doing his best to explain things as they progressed. I also really enjoyed seeing female bodies with thick, muscular thighs and asses, instead of the anorexic model seen too often among professional female athletes. I'm presuming there's a reason for that particular muscular development in fencing. Can anybody elucidate? I'm also curious as the reason why the U.S. swept all three medals in women's sabre: Is it primarily because (as always) we have the money to pay for facilities and training, or is there another contributing cause? Third question: They screamed when their sabretip made contact. Is this because it is painful or a release of emotion? Fourth question: Did the fact that the top two medal winners here were both left-handed play any sort of role in giving them an advantage? Inquiring minds want to know.
REPORT: Women's Saber -- Gold to Mariel Zagunis, Silver to Sada Jacobsen, Bronze to Rebecca Ward
NOTE: This was the first gold medal won by the U.S. at Beijing and a back-to-back gold for Zagunis (she also won in Athens). Interestingly, she is the child of Olympic rowers. Wonder if there's a story there.
I also liked seeing the men's road cycling and hearing the strategy employed. I have to confess, I kept thinking about Breaking Away, which I saw four times in the theaters, I loved it so much. I also appreciated the little bit of information they gave us about Tieneman Square (The Gate of Heaven to the Forbidden City). I recently saw a PBS special about China which was much more educational. It was intriguing that despite it having been constructed in 1651, it only got paved over in the 1950s. I find that unpaved stretches of land connect us much more deeply to the earth, even if they are lined with stone.
China's lone cyclist, Liang Zhang, led the peleton through the heart of Beijing. This appeared to be partly allowed by the other riders out of respect for the honor it meant to him, and partly because at that stage of the race, his choice to exert himself in this way meant he would not be a competitor at the end -- or might not be able to finish at all.
Some of the cyclists were squeezing what was called "energy gel" into their mouths as they raced along. I was curious and looked this up, finding a description here: "Energy gels (also called carbo gels) are a thick carbohydrate syrup or paste designed as an alternative snack supplement to extend your muscle glycogen stores and provide additional calories and energy for rides of more than 2 hours. They contain a combination of simple and complex carbohydrates (usually maltodextrin, rice syrup, or polysaccharides) packaged in a palm sized packet of plastic or foil with a tear off end to allow the contents to be 'sucked' out rather than chewed, and provide between 70 and 100 calories (17 - 25 grams of carbohydrate) per packet. An additional advantage is that they are completely fat free, minimizing any delay in gastric emptying. To provide the 60 grams of carbohydrate per hour usually suggested to supplement exercising muscle glycogen supplies, you would need a gel packet every 30 to 45 minutes." Sounds like maybe it's not something I'd spread on a biscuit.
I read an account once of a modern polar adventurer who was attempting to ski to the North Pole. She was using up so many calories, even chocolate bars weren't replacing enough. She began eating sticks of butter during her day's exertion. Wow.
The loss of liquid in the road race is a constant factor; the commentator said the cyclists could expect to lose about 3-5 liters of liquid. One method set up to help with perspiration loss is brand new to the Olympics: long strips of showers periodically by the side of the road that a cyclist could veer over and ride through to get wet. It was fun watching them discover these. Even so, heat and humidity took a heavy toll; of the 143 starters, only 90 finished. Another factor not mentioned in the press was, of course, the heavy pollution, euphemistically referred to as haze. When asked about the effect of this on the race, at least one cyclist, American Dave Zabriski, replied "On the advice of counsel, no comment."
Another first for Beijing is that the 152.2 mile race began and ended in different locations. It began in the heart of ancient Beijing, went past the Temple of Heaven and Tiananmen Square, traveled 25 miles along the Badaling Expressway, and ended at the Great Wall, where cyclists took seven laps around a 24 km loop which involved a total 12,000 feet of climbing.
(Spain's Samuel Sánchez, left, outsprints Italy's Davide Rebellin, right, to win. Photograph: Christophe Ena/AP)
REPORT: Men's Road Cycle Race -- Gold, Samuel Sánchez of Spain (the first cycling road race medal of any kind for Spain); Silver, Davide Rebellin of Italy (on his 37th birthday); Bronze, Fabian Cancellara (without the assistance of any teammates).
NOTE: For a great gallery of photos from the men's road cycle race, check out the Guardian UK.
I didn't watch the beach volleyball, regular volleyball, sculling, or men's gymnastics preliminaries. I did tape and later view the swimming heats and finals. As you cannot have missed by now, the first medal swimming race for men, the 400 meter individual medley, was won by Michael Phelps with a new world record time of 4:03.84. Silver was claimed by Hungary's Laszlo Cseh and bronze was also won by an American, Ryan Lochte.
Let me admit up front, I got sick of the hoo-ha about Michael Phelps at the Athens Olympics four years ago. Now I have a serious case of what I'd describe as Phelps Fatigue. Honestly, though, the commentators (especially Costas, who definitely has a crush on the guy) cannot talk about any other swimmer without needing to mention Phelps -- as in, "I wonder how so-and-so from (insert nation) feels about having to swim against Phelps" or "This woman swimmer once shared a training pool with Phelps." I'm not exaggerating. I would not have been surprised to hear Costas swoon "Phelps once loaned X his jockstrap" or "Phelps opened the door for Y to the Aquatic Center" as his only description of other swimmers. Is this just me, or is anybody else feeling the same way? I want to hear about the field, about what people from other places have to contend with in order to reach the Olympics.
And it would help if the objects of these fawning spots could actually articulate something deeper than "I just wanted to swim." I mean, that's a fine sentiment but don't give us five minutes of it rephrased in shorter and shorter sentence fragments. Let someone else talk, I do want to hear about the lives of committed people.
I enjoyed the spot given to Dara Torres, though it was a repeat of the interview done recently when she set a new world record at age 41. There's a shade too much emphasis on her having produced a baby (proving she's a Real Woman) but, interestingly, never mention of a husband or boyfriend. What I especially liked is how she is cleverly forestalling innuendo that her physical accomplishments are the result of doping by demanding more stringent testing for herself than most athletes receive and having her blood draws saved for eight years, against future refinement in testing technology. I mean, given this week's revelation in other arenas, it's possible she's a world-class narcissist who thinks she cannot be found out, but for the moment, I'm erring on the side of belief.
She swam today as anchor in the womens 4x100 meters freestyle relay, and the American silver in this event is clearly due to her. The initial leg by Natalie Coughlin was electric for 75 meters, but she faded at that point (uncharacteristic for her), swimming the 100 meters in 54 seconds flat, and she was overtaken by Germany, who held the lead for almost half the race. The next American swimmers in the relay, Lacey Nymyer, did not advance the team forward with a swim of 53:91. Following her, Kara Lynn Joyce swam her leg in 53:98 but this was enough to move the U.S. into second place. By the time Dara Torres entered the pool, the Netherlands team was a full length ahead of everyone else, and Australia looked poised to come in second. Dara's split of 52:44 gave the Americans their silver medal and contributed hugely to the new U.S. national record of 3:34:33.
(Dara Torres, photo by Robert Maxwell; I really can't share this image enough)
This race makes Dara Torres the oldest Olympic swimming medalist in history and the first American swimmer to mark her fifth Olympics -- her first was in 1984, when she was only 17, where she won gold. She now has ten medals to her credit. She is performing in Beijing without her longtime coach, Michael Lohberg, who is gravely ill in Bethesda, Maryland with aplastic anemia. Dara will be competing later in the week in the women's 50 meter freestyle, where she holds the world record. Can't wait.
REPORT: Women's 4x100 meters freestyle relay -- Gold, Netherlands foursome of Inge Dekker, Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Femke Heemskerk and Marleen Veldhuis (setting a new Olympic record at 3:33.76); Silver, U.S. as above; Bronze, Australia's team of Libby Trickett, Cate Campbell, Alice Mills, and Melanie Schlanger
Women's 400 meter individual medley -- Gold, Stephanie Rice of Australia with a stunning world record of 4:29.45; Silver, Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe; Bronze, Katie Hoff of the U.S.
Men's 400 meter freestyle -- Gold, Park Tae Hwan of South Korea, their first gold medal ever in swimming; Silver, Zhang Lin of China; and Bronze, Larsen Jensen of the U.S.
NOTE: Gold medalist Park Tae Hwan went to the 2004 Athens Olympics as a 14-year-old swimmer. However, he accidentally fell into the pool just before the race started and was disqualified for a false start in the preliminary heat of the men's 400m freestyle competition. He hid in the bathroom in shame. Way to come back, guy!
TODAY'S SCHEDULE:
Final competition in:
Archery
Road Cycling
Diving
Fencing
Judo
Shooting
Swimming
Weightlifting
Non-final competition in:
Badminton
Basketball
Beach Volleyball
Boxing
Equestrian
Football (Soccer)
Gymnastics Artistic
Handball
Hockey
Rowing
Sailing
Tennis
Volleyball
Waterpolo
[Cross-posted at Group News Blog]
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