2012 Olympics: The Games Before the Games (Part II)
DAY -1: 26 July 2012/Thursday The Games of the XXX Olympiad are officially set to open on Friday in London, and Olympic fever has started to take over cyberspace. There has been speculation and myriad hypotheses about who might set the flame alight at the Olympic Stadium in Stratford from among the former British sporting greats that the organizing committee has assembled to participate in the opening ceremonies. There has also been controversy,... Read More
Taking Drug Testing TOO Far
The war against doping in sports has ramped up significantly in the past several decades, with drug testers administering more and more tests both in and out of competition for more substances than previous generations could imagine would ever even exist. Under the guise of “fair play”, the war is justified despite the fact that its deterrent effect has proven less than entirely effective in actually deterring the pursuit of enhanced performance. And... Read More
The Looming Threat of a Spanish Soccer Strike
For sports fans in the United States — who endured the NFL work stoppage over the summer, and are currently watching and waiting as the NBA and its players work toward a stalemate that could look suspiciously like the NHL’s season-long shutdown in 2004-05 — labor situations have taken on a curious pattern in recent years. It isn’t the players, the labor of this situation, which initiates a strike; instead, it is management,... Read More
Indignance Betrays Blanc’s Nerves
It was, frankly, quite shameful to hear Laurent Blanc whining petulantly on Saturday after UEFA drew their qualifying pools for the 2014 World Cup. “I don’t know why France are in the second group; why Greece, Norway and Croatia are ranked higher. We had to face one of the top teams, and we got the biggest. We should have been in the first group — and now we have drawn the best team of the last World Cup. But then, you have no... Read More
FIFA Selects Dollars Over Sense
Twenty-two men convened in Zurich to seal the fate of the world’s most popular sport for the next dozen years. The preceding weeks and months saw FIFA forced to investigate alleged corruption, the spectre of blatant vote-buying and potential collusion between bids in the two adjoining cycles. It was a risk they knew they would take by selecting hosts for the next two available tournaments. Read More Read More
