- 01:00 AM
- 07/04/08
| Name: | Sean Smith |
|---|---|
| Homepage URL: | http://www.sportswebconsulting.ca/sportsbabel/ |
| Location: | Toronto |
| Member since: | June 4, 2002 |
| Last visit: | June 26, 2008 |
smithers has posted 37 links and 523 comments to SportsFilter and 8 threads and 113 comments to the Locker Room and has written 1 column.
Pistorius makes strides is his quest to compete in Beijing. The double-amputee won his appeal against the IOC in his hearing with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (previous SpoFi discussion on this topic here and here; note Amateur's graphic that suggests how far Oscar still has to go in competition).
posted on May 16, 2008 - Go to the detail view for this result
Dakar Rally cancelled by the Amaury Sport Organisation due to security concerns after four French tourists were killed in Mauritania. Have other sporting events of this magnitude been cancelled before due to terrorist threats or other such security concerns?
posted on Jan 4, 2008 - Go to the detail view for this result
8-year-olds suspended after hockey brawl in Guelph, Ontario. Criminal charges may be pending against one of the coaches involved.
posted on Nov 27, 2007 - Go to the detail view for this result
Electric skates to hit the hockey rink! Therma Blade uses battery-powered electricity to heat skate blades and lessen the friction between blade and ice surface. While it sounds slightly quirky, they have Wayne Gretzky on board as an endorser.
posted on Sep 26, 2007 - Go to the detail view for this result
Women's Basketball and Free Market Economics "They are too young to fully appreciate the irony of American basketball players traveling to Russia to earn a far better living than possible in the United States."
posted on May 17, 2007 - Go to the detail view for this result
Heisman Winner Tim Tebow Circumcises Kids How did Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback Tim Tebow spend his spring break? Performing medical and dental surgeries on impoverished children in the Phillipines -- including circumcisions. "The first time, it was nerve-racking," he said. "Hands were shaking a little bit."
posted to Football at 6:28 PM CDT
WHAT GIVES, GUYS? Nelson says there's no problem, Davis says very little For Warriors coach Don Nelson, the mind-boggling question everyone wants answered is really a no-brainer. Why didn't he play Baron Davis in the second half of Monday's playoff-elimination game in Phoenix?
posted to Basketball at 8:05 AM CDT
Baron Davis is the leader of the Golden State Warriors and their best player.
Correct on one of two. While he is their most talented player, it is widely acknowledged that Stephen Jackson is their leader and emotional catalyst.
And, as Davis' agent points out in the article, no other team has the cap room to match what Davis is guaranteed in his player option for 08-09 with the Warriors. So he likely isn't going anywhere.
posted at 11:13 AM CDT on April 16
"Tech doping"? How Speedo's LZR suit breaks swim records As the Associated Press reports, "the LZR now has been worn for 21 of the 22 world records set since it was introduced in February."
posted to Olympics at 10:51 PM CDT
"...who must wear new suits every 10th swim."
WTF? Any swimmers out there that can explain this to me? Is this normal for any swimsuit, or just the LZR?
I wouldn't call this technological doping so much as a technological arms race. Wearing an old-school suit now is like bringing a knife to a gunfight. I'm sure less-wealthy countries will recall the universal values of Olympism as they're getting pasted in the pool.
posted at 8:16 AM CDT on April 15
Rushin' to the Olympics: Former Silver Stars guard Becky Hammons becomes a naturalized Russian citizen in order to compete in the 2008 Olympic games.
posted to Olympics at 11:12 AM CDT
But the Olympics (modern not ancient Greco) were started for countries to come together in peaceful means for the purpose of freindly competition. My guys against your guys, in sport, not war.
Hmmm....is it possible that binary my-guys-against-your-guys thinking perpetuates a war-like mindset? The modern Olympics were introduced in 1896 and their "peaceful competition" played out against perhaps the bloodiest century in the history of humankind. Or maybe you're right: the bloodshed would have been worse if we didn't have the salve of Olympic competition every quadrennial.
posted at 3:38 PM CDT on April 11
Olympic torch put out by protests. Security officials canceled the final run of the Olympic relay through Paris after chaotic protests Monday, sending a snuffed-out torch to its destination on a bus in a humiliating concession to protesters decrying China's human rights record.
posted to Olympics at 12:24 PM CDT
Spitztengle kind of beat me to it, but the Olympics have always been about politics, long before 1980. You can look at the Cold War state-sponsored doping programs at their peak in Montreal in 1976 or Palestinian terrorism in Munich in 1972 or the slaughter of Mexican students and Black Power in 1968 or Japan's post-WWII reconstruction and coming out party in 1960 or Berlin's showcase of the Aryan ideals in 1936 ...
... or, as lil_brown_bat points out, you could right back to 1896 when Coubertin revived the Olympic Games and decided to centre competition around nation-states when there was no historical precedent for such competition in Antiquity, instead of simply making it an open competition for the world's athletes.
In other words, the Olympics have always been a site of political discourse and conflict. Thinking that they ever were (revisionist nostalgia) or could be (delusional utopia) is like buying into the slick marketing rhetoric that says there are no human rights violations taking place in Guantanam...err...Guangzhou.
That said, I'm sort of torn, and perhaps cautiously optimistic (in the lesser of two evils) that the market economics the Olympics will facilitate in the very near Chinese future have a better chance of changing things internally than symbolic political acts like a boycott of the Games. And that said, I still fully support any individual (ie. non-nation-state based) acts of protest, boycott or other awareness-raising activities that express a personal political response to the situation.
posted at 9:18 AM CDT on April 8
Good point cjets, though a small clarification: the torch/flame was introduced in 1928 in Amsterdam and the first torch relay that traversed national borders was used by Hitler and Goebbels in 1936.
And there is no evidence from Antiquity of a torch run spanning multiple city-states, either. It was a local event in which a flame was run to an altar to light a candle in homage to the gods.
In neither 1936 nor Antiquity was the torch sponsored by Lenovo.
posted at 12:31 PM CDT on April 8
Barkley, Shut Up and Jam: Gaiden
Every material on earth is, at the initial level, constructed from b-balls. Carbon is b-balls. The blood flowing through our b-ball veins is made of b-balls. Every star in our cosmos is b-ball in origin. Understand this, and you may begin to understand Barkley, Shut Up And Jam: Gaiden.
Once you've digested that, download the game. [via]
posted to Basketball at 6:51 AM CDT
Vinceborg would be really funny, except cyborgs can't writhe in pain, can they?
posted at 12:31 PM CDT on March 17
Bonds’ homer No. 762 a bizarre mystery After Bonds connected on No. 756 to move past Hank Aaron, each of his home runs became the new final home run. Every fan who snagged one became an instant celebrity and, at least until the next one was hit, a potential millionaire. When the season ended on Sept. 30, every home run ball that Bonds had hit after 756 had been accounted for, except one: No. 762.
posted to Baseball at 8:28 PM CDT
Thanks BoKnows.....that was as interesting for the draconian lengths usually taken to authenticate as anything else....kind of a shadow world that most of would never have known about.
posted at 9:00 AM CDT on March 14
Fast and the Furious In a sport historically slow to adapt to any but the slightest change, basketball programs at every level from high school to the NBA are embracing a whole new way of playing the game. Stranger yet, the architect of this change has never coached above Division ll.
posted to Basketball at 5:20 PM CDT
And so, using a pepper shaker as the basket, white sugar packets as offensive players and pink Sweet'n Low packets as defenders...
If you've ever coached before, this speaks to you...
posted at 11:07 PM CDT on February 13
or refereed
Hey Spitz, I only included a referee if there was a slice of lemon or a bottle of vinegar on the table. ;)
posted at 12:56 PM CDT on February 14
Jason Kidd traded to the Mavs. ESPN reports that discussions are ongoing. But Yahoo is reporting its a done deal. The official word is that the teams agree on the deal "in principle" pending league approval.
posted to Basketball at 2:51 PM CDT
2008: Nets deal Jason Kidd for a young star (Harris), two nice young players (Ager and Diop), draft picks and financial flexibility
2009: Nets deal Vince Carter in a similar deal for 65 cents on the dollar, but get a few young prospects
2010: Nets deal Richard Jefferson at the trading deadline
2010: Nets move to Brooklyn
2010 (summer): Nets sign LeBron James to the Big Apple via free agency; the kids are now veterans; challenge for the title in 1-2 seasons
There's your game plan right now...
posted at 5:13 PM CDT on February 13
Sparano beginning of Dolphins shakeup Now that they have a head coach,they've got to start looking for some players.And maybe in a few years they start to be a contender in the AFC East.
posted to Football at 1:59 PM CDT
You'd better work hard for Tony Sparano, or you'll be sleeping with the fishes...
posted at 8:12 AM CDT on January 18
Double Amputee Can't Run in Beijing Olympics Oscar Pistorius, a South African sprinter dubbed the "blade runner" because he runs on prosthetics, has been barred from this year's Summer Games. "An athlete using this prosthetic blade has a demonstrable mechanical advantage (more than 30 percent) when compared to someone not using the blade," the International Association of Athletics Federations ruled. A May 2007 New York Times profile asked the question, "Is he disabled or too-abled?" A YouTube video shows Pistorius competing at the Golden Gala in Rome last year, his first race against "able-bodied" sprinters.
posted to Olympics at 9:06 AM CDT
Wheelchair racers have been a separate part of marathons for years.
But wheeling with one's arms is not running, so it makes sense for it to be separate. As DJE points out, it is the process that is of concern here. Running with fancy new Nikes or prosthetic blades on your feet is still running.
How does one go about finding that well-defined line? How can Olympism claim to espouse a universal value system, but segregate and exclude based on defining what a body is/n't? If he only had one of these blades and one "real" leg, would he have been allowed to compete? And what if they find a way to synthesize the polymer with his DNA such that it becomes one substance? And ... I could go on for a while ... yikes.
posted at 10:41 AM CDT on January 14
Interview with Stan Honey, inventor of puck-swoosh and yellow first-down line TV graphics. The San Francisco Chronicle Sunday magazine has been doing interviews with "Bay Area people with innovative ideas who have put them to use." Meet Stan Honey, Palo Alto resident, pro sailor, and the man who put the blue highlight and red trail on the hockey puck, and the yellow first-down line on your TV.
posted to Culture at 10:32 PM CDT
Much of the technology that Mr. Honey used, borrowed, improved upon, and invented to generate the yellow line is in use in the defense industry today.
I remember talking to Juri Varangu, the Canadian contact for Princeton Video Imaging a few years ago, and he was telling me the same thing: it was trickle-down missile tracking technology from the first Gulf War.
The other thing it reminded me of, while I'm at it, is the glow-puck. I'm kind of curious as to why it hasn't been utilized again.
Instead of blue and red, make it gold and silver sparkles. Tracers, dude! Add it to racquetball and put it on ESPN2 at 2am....you're telling me stoned college kids wouldn't watch this? I've been wanting to do this for years now, but nobody will let me run a TV network.
posted at 4:08 PM CDT on January 6
He's on FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIRE.....
posted at 3:38 PM CDT on January 7
The Tim Tebows of the world are a refreshing change from the Greg Madduxes of the world.