Observations from the Couch 8.15

The Olympics ended a few days ago so I suppose it's time I stop writing about them, they are over and i have a late Saturday date with Air France that is taking over more and more of my brain power. What I had been trying to do for my last Olympic post was jot down my favorite moments and just do a look back over the games. The problem was I constantly returned to one thing, the American women. Again I don't want to sound like some kind of American zealot but I can't say enough about them.

A lot was made of the fact that for the first time there were more women on the U.S. team than men. In all honesty that fact is just a bit overdone because it was a majority of one. If American men actually knew how to play soccer, or for that matter field hockey, there would have been no female majority. What impresses me is that 63% of the medals won by Americans went to women athletes, that is historic.

Soccer, swimming, basketball, track, and gymnastics were the big headline grabbers, and deservedly so, but there was barely a sport where the women didn't have an impact. From a rich tennis star to a poor boxer from Detroit American women dominated the London games to the point that if they were a country they would have been fourth in total medals and only China and Great Britain won more golds than them. What is even more fun is that the women won more total medals (58 to 45) and more gold medals (29 to 17) than the American men.

Twenty years ago at the Barcelona games only 25% of the total athletes were women and 34 teams had no women at all. In London 44% of the athletes were women and every one of the 204 teams included women. In fact women were a majority on three of the five largest teams, the United States, Russia, and China. Remember the London games for what you will but history is going to remember them as the games where women first showed what they could do given an equal Olympic sized playing field.

Watching the games I cruised through a range of emotions but it wasn't till near the end that I realized more than anything else I was just proud.

______


Before i say goodbye to the Olympics a few more odds and ends. Here is a look at what Penn State athletes did in London. Megan Hodge and Christa Harmotto won silver medals with the U.S. women's volleyball team, Erin McLeod and Carmelina Moscato won bronze medals with the Canadian women's soccer team, and Natalie Dell won a bronze medal in the women’s quadruple sculls for the United States. I have no idea what a scull is but Dell was the first Penn Stater to ever row in the Olympics. However I do know what a goalie is and McCleod was Canada's awesome goalie who shutout France in the bronze medal game.

Finally, after complaining the Japanese silver medal winning women's soccer team had their flight upgraded to business class for the trip home. For the trip to London they had flown economy class while the men's team flew business. The Japanese women are the reigning world champions of women's soccer and were favorite to challenge the U.S. team for the gold medal. The Japanese men weren't expected to do crap London and didn't disappoint.

So its been fun, now I'm just going to kick back and wait for that call from ESPN. See you all in Rio.

Observations from the Couch 8.12.1

This probably isn't the last post of Katie2012, I have a couple started that I want to finish, but it's kind of important if you want to understand how this suddenly became a sports blog. I said at the beginning how much I love the Olympics because of the sports but it is always at the end that remember other reasons. One of my least favorite traits is that I can be terribly emotional and along with that I can be terribly sentimental. As long as I can remember I watched the Olympics, it was just what we did as a family, and whenever they end I'm just a little sad because it's four years to the next and who knows what will happen in those years. I can tear up watching the damn highlight show as I wait to watch the closing ceremonies I already watched live online.

Maybe deep down I'm just a big, well tall, kid again.

Of course there are other less emotional reasons too. For two weeks the news in it's many forms is dominated but sports and smiling faces making it easy to get lost in the games and barely notice that Willard picked wingnut Ryan as his running mate. It sounds corny but the nations of the world compete and no blood is shed, unless you happened to watch the field hockey gold medal game. Athletes from around the globe laugh, cry, and share their dreams as we at home argue, clap, yell, stomp our feet, and throw an occasional remote at the wall. The world just seems a much better place when medal counts are more important than body counts.

Than the flame is extinguished, the spirit fades, and the realization comes that the world really hasn't changed at all. Or has it?

In London ten openly gay athletes won medals, including seven gold, so if gay were a country it would have come in 31^st in the final medal standings. They included Seimone Augustus of the U.S. women's basketball team, Megan Rapinoe of the U.S. women's soccer team, whose coach Pia Sundhage is also gay, and English rider Carl Hester with gold medals. Judith Arndt, a German cyclist, won a silver medal while Edward Gal of the Netherlands and Lisa raymond of the U.S. won bronze medals. I'm especially prould of Marilyn Agliotti, Carlien Dirkse van den Heuvel, Kim Lammers, and Maartje Paumen of the gold medal winning field hockey team from the Netherlands.

Maybe the world did change if ever so slightly. Still, it is changing.

Observations from the Couch 8.12

Three hundred and eighty-nine days, 389 days after the U.S. women's soccer team lost to Japan in the World Cup they found redemption at the Olympics by defeating the same Japan team 2-1 and winning the gold medal. The American team had played six games in sixteen days in three different cities and won the gold in front of 80,203 spectators in Wembley Stadium, home of the English national 'football' team. It was the largest crowd ever to watch a women's soccer game in Great Britain or at any Olympics games. The win even earned them a tweet from President Barack Obama who signs his personal tweets bo.

My MVP of the team has to be goalkeeper Hope Solo and it has nothing to do with her cute butt. At one point in the tournament Solo, arguably the best keeper the team has ever had, strung together 368 minutes of shutout soccer in the net. Solo was also one of only three women at the Olympics to play every minute of every game for her country and allowed only six goals doing it. She came through for the team when the only options available were gold medal or failure. She now has two Olympic gold medals and a Golden Glove award as the best goalie at last years World Cup.

The team will play a series of exhibition games this fall but what comes after that is anybody's guess because both the player's association's and coach Pia Sundhage's contracts run out at the end of this year. With no major international competition until the 2015 World Cup and no major women's professional league in the U.S. it will be hard to keep the team together in its current form. Seven of the eleven starters are currently listed on the roster as having no club affiliation, none of Japan's were listed that way, so you can't blame any of them for going overseas to play at a high level.

Defender Heather Mitts, who is 34 and has three Olympic gold medals, announced her retirement after the game Friday. Captain Christie Rampone, who is 37, a mother of two, and the only American to have played in four Olympics and four World Cups, has mentioned the possibility as well. Hope Solo, Amy LePeilbet, Carli Lloyd, Shannon Boxx and Abby Wambach are also all over the age of thirty. Still it's a deep team with Alex Morgan, Sydney Leroux, Lauren Cheney, Tobin Heath and Kelley O’Hara are all under the age of 25 and the NCAA brimming with prospects.

Last year's World Cup and this Olympics showed how the rest of the world has caught the U.S. in women's soccer, a sport the team has owned from its birth. Japan, France, and Canada all had awesome tournaments but in the end London also proved something else. Once again the Americans are at the pinnacle and the team to beat in women's soccer.

"We filled Wembley Stadium, and you're telling me there is no league to play in?" Solo said after the game. Seems what Forbes Magazine called "the most compelling team in American sports" deserves at least that.

Observations from the Couch 8.9

I finished writing this in the heady time after the American gold medal win in women's soccer. After some thought I later added a postscript.

As the London Olympics enter their final days I'm amazed at just how much it has become a showcase for American women. I know I'm far from impartial but it just seems so many American women are doing so well in every sport. A 17 year old girl from Flint, Michigan became the first American woman to win a boxing gold medal. In swimming American women won 14 medals, including 8 golds, and seem to have a bright future led by Missy Franklin who won 4 gold medals in her first Olympics. As of yesterday the women have won twice as many gold medals as the American men and there are just too many highlights to mention but here are some of my favorites so far.

Monday Jenn Suhr (photo) of the U.S. won the gold medal in the women's pole vault and ended Russian Yelena Isinbayeva's bid for a third straight Olympic gold medal. Isinbayeva, who has broken the world record 28 times, had been hoping to be the first woman in track and field to win the same individual event in three straight Olympics.

The women's basketball team remains undefeated in London and now hasn't lost a game in the Olympics since they won the bronze medal in Barcelona twenty years ago, the men should be so lucky. The last time they lost in the Olympics was 1992 to a now nonexistent CIS team that represented the defunct Soviet Union. Saturday they will play for their fifth consecutive gold medal. Also Saturday the U.S. women's volleyball team, including its four Penn State members, will play Brazil in the gold medal game. A win will bring the first gold medal in the volleyball team's history.

Women's beach volleyball had a final that was an all American affair with the team of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings, who have played together since 2001, defeating the team of Jennifer Kessy and April Ross. It was their third straight gold medal and the last, May-Treanor plans on retiring after the games. Walsh, who hopes to play in yet another Olympics, said afterword; "The journey in the past two years that we shared together changed my life; I know it sounds really dramatic, and cheesy, but it has. Our competitive journey together is done, and that’s a big deal. It crushes me a little bit. It makes it really hard, really bittersweet, but I’m really proud that we went out the way we went out."

Finally there is the newly crowned Olympic Champions of the women's soccer team, I'll have more to say about them later.

postscript - My original thought here was how well American women performed when compared to the American men but I'm not sure I made that point clear. I didn't mean for what I wrote to in any way take away from what women in general have accomplished in London. There are so many truly inspiring stories to be told.

There was Saudi judo player Wojdan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani who faught her match even as Islamic clerics back home said she had dishonored herself and country for fighting in front of men. There was also Tahmina Kohistani of Afghanistan who ran for a country where good women walk behind their men and where a woman was executed for adultery last month.

Than, for totally non-political reasons, there was the Canadian women's soccer team. Last year they quietly exited the World Cup after 3 losses including a 4-0 loss to France. A 1-0 win over that same French team earned them the bronze medal and Canada's first team medal in the summer games since 1936. Over the past week they put in a performance in every way worthy of a gold medal.

Agony and Ecstasy

A small visual postscript to my last post on yesterday's soccer game. I can't even begin to imagine what it feels like to compete at their level. I never even played in championship games of any kind like my sis has. But over the years I did play in enough close games to totally understand either extreme of emotion you feel when the game is over and you find yourself on one side of the abyss, or the other.

Sophie Schmidt, Canada, Doug Mills/The New York Times

Abby Wambach, United States, Doug Mills/The New York Times

Observations from the Couch 8.7

When I turned on the women's match game between the U.S. and Canadian soccer teams I expected a good game but there wasn't much doubt in my mind that the American girls would win. What I didn't expect was a game won in the 123^rd minute of what will go down as one of the great soccer matches ever played. You can use any word or cliche that comes to mind. Epic, classic, one for the history books, the ages, in this rare case none of them would be wrong. Alex scored the winning goal almost three minutes into injury time after 30 minutes of extra time while most, no all, of those watching were getting themselves ready for the first ever women's soccer penalty shootout in the Olympics. It was the latest goal ever scored in an Olympic soccer game, men or women. From beginning to end this game was simply that good.

What made the way the game played out all the more unlikely was, among other things, the history of these teams. Canada scored first and took the lead three times only to have the Americans answer each time. Also, the score was 1-0 Canada at the half and the U.S. hadn't won a game it trailed at the half in its last dozen tries. Since 2001 the U.S. has gone 22-0-4 against Canada so how is it that the two teams could play one of the greatest games ever? Totally amazing.

My brother, a bigger soccer fan than I, said the game was just meant to be. After all the game was played at Old Trafford Stadium, built in 1910 and home of the Manchester United since that same year. To put it in perspective for an American it would be like playing a women's baseball Olympic elimination game in Chicago's Wrigley Field.

The American win setup a rematch of last years Women's World Cup final against Japan which Japan won in a shootout. It would be the third straight Olympic gold medal for the U.S. team but after the game against Canada Thursday's gold medal game has a lot to live up to.

After the game U.S. Coach Pia Sundhage found Alex Morgan and told her to “remember one thing, promise yourself one thing:
remember this moment.”

How could anyone who saw that goal ever forget?
This is why I love sports.

Observations from the Couch 8.6

The U.S. field hockey team played South Africa in its final opening round game this morning. When I started writing this South Africa had scored four goals in the first half while going into the game they had only scored a total of four goals in the entire tournament. SA won by a final of 7-0, in it's opening game South Africa lost to Argentina 7-1, Argentina being the only team the U.S. defeated. The Americans, a team that started the Olympics with medal hopes, will play Wednesday in the 11^th place consolation game.

Only four teams make the medal round in Olympic field hockey. The likely first round games should be the defending gold medalists from the Netherlands playing New Zealand while Australia plays China in the second game but both could change as today progresses. As the last games are played only the Netherlands has clinched a medal round berth. But looking farther ahead the Netherlands and Australia, the two perennial field hockey powers, have never played for the Olympic gold medal.

The first week of the London games is past and one of my lasting memories will be of South African sprinter Oscar Pistorius who made history by being the first double amputee to ever compete in the Olympics. After he won the 400m semi-final Sunday night Kirani James of Grenada immediately sought out Pistorius to shake his hand and trade name cards in one of those moments I watch the games for. Whether you believe he has some sort of unfair advantage or not, I don't,  it was one of those moments that change everything. The day is fast approaching when the sports world is going to have to come to grips with equipment that does enhance an athlete's performance. Not like light weight running shoes or graphite hockey sticks do but in a more basic biomechanical way.

Here is the link to a good video bio of Pistorius by Mary Carillo, NBC doesn't have an embed option for its videos.

Later today the women's soccer medal round begins with the possibility of it ending with a U.S. versus France rematch in the gold medal game Thursday afternoon EST.

Observations from the Couch 8.4

I know this is just one of a series of ads for Olympic sponsor Visa but some of them are rather well done. Also it doesn't hurt that it's a bio of Russian pole vaulter Yelena Isinbaeva. But really she has nothing to do with posting this. Just my way of celebrating the end of swimming and the beginning of track & field in London.

She looks much taller than 5' 8" ....


link

I should also mention that if Visa would like to sponsor me in any way, well, I would have no problem with that.

Observations from the Couch 8.2

I crawled out of bed on three hours sleep today to watch the U.S.A. vs Australia field hockey game only to have high school flashbacks. I played hockey for six years and one of the worst places to play was a private school in Lancaster County, PA, Lancaster Mennonite. I never really understood where the Mennonite part came in because it is a very expensive school to attend. It was the worst place to play because it had a blue turf field that was so much faster and harder than the grass I always played on. I was always sore when we played there. So I turn on the game this morning and there it was, blue turf surrounded by pink like some sort of garish sporting nightmare.

I was wondering why nobody around here seems to be as excited about Olympic hockey as I am. Having played for so long I sometimes forget how limited in scope the sport is in this country, nowhere near as popular as soccer, and men's field hockey is nearly non-existent. Field hockey has grown at the college level because of Title IX which in 1972 mandated colleges fund comparable men's and women's sports programs. But even in the NCAA field hockey is dominated by a select few schools basically in the Big10 and ACC conferences. In the last ten years only three teams have won the NCAA Div I title, Maryland (5), Wake Forrest (3), and North Carolina (2). All three are ACC schools and half the members of the U.S. Olympic team went to one of these schools.

But for this post I'm going to narrow it down even farther. Of the sixteen members of U.S. national team nine are from Pennsylvania and seven of those nine are from eastern Pennsylvania. Eastern Pennsylvania just seems to be the heartland of field hockey in the United States but that may be about to change and not for the better. This year the PIAA. the body that governs high school sports in PA, will no longer sponsor a spring girl's soccer season in the eastern part of the state. This means girls will no longer be able to play both field hockey and soccer. The only reason given for the move is to unify the sport as it's the only sport in the state without a state champion or full state playoff.

Now that I answered my field hockey question I have a new one. Why don't they play lacrosse in the Olympics? Lacrosse, that sport invented by the Iroquois, played mainly in the eastern United States.

Never mind.

Observations from the Couch 7.31, Updates

With a win in the 4x200 freestyle relay American swimmer Michael Phelps became the most decorated athlete in Olympic history. His 19^th medal surpassed the 18 of Russian gymnast Larisa Latynina as he broke one of those sports records that will never be broken. For the record Phelps currently has 15 gold, 2 silver, and 2 bronze medals and he still has three races to go in London. This is one Olympic moment that deserves a drink and I shall have one.

In all fairness to Hope Solo I thought I should mention that she is far from the only athlete in London who needs to think before they talk. Before the games even began Kobe Bryant announced to the world that this Olympics' edition of the U.S. men's basketball team was better than even the original "dream team." That was the 1992 Olympic team which was the first made up of NBA players and has sometimes been called the best sports team of any kind ever assembled. To answer Kobe I'll just throw out a few names from that team. Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, and David Robinson. They won every game with the wins ranging from a 32 point win in the gold medal game against Croatia to a 68 point opening game win over Angola.

Hope Solo threw a shutout today, her second in three games, as the U.S. women defeated North Korea 1-0 in front of 30,000, evidently no empty seats at this game. The American women swept the opening round of the tournament and now play New Zealand on Friday. It is the first time in Olympic history the U.S. team has swept its group.

The U.S. women's field hockey team stunned the 2^nd in the world ranked Argentina today by a 1-0 score. It was a repeat of the Pan American Games where the U.S. earned an Olympic spot by defeating Argentina. Before that loss Aregentina had not lost at the Pan Am Games in 25 years. The U.S. is ranked 10^th in the world and will face Australia on Thursday. The win keeps alive hopes for a medal after the American team lost its opening game.

In a totally different sporting area the Penn State football team  began practice today for its first season since 1965 without Joe Paterno as head coach. The team was greeted by an early morning rally attended by thousands of fans. Also the University announced it would loan the Athletic Department $60 million to pay its NCAA fine. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbitt continues to tell anybody that will listen that no tax dollars will be used to pay the fine. This is easy to believe when you consider that under Corbitt the state has cut education funding to almost nothing at all.

And than there are the Phillies. Can you say fire sale?

Observations from the Couch 7.29

U.S. Soccer starting goalie Hope Solo is one of my favorite players in any sport at any time but when she created a mini-firestorm by criticizing NBC analyst and former player Brandi Chastain on Twitter yesterday she screwed up (Hope Solo slams Brandi Chastain). The last thing a team playing at this level needs is drama because drama becomes distraction which becomes an excuse for defeat.

Chastain  played on teams that won two Women's World Cups and two Olympic championships, teams that gave birth to women's soccer as an international sport. It should be remembered that women didn't have a world cup until 1991 or play soccer in the Olympics until 1996. If not for Chastain and her teammates it's quite possible Solo would not be playing on TV at all.  But she doesn't need to thank the players that came before her, she doesn't even need to like them, she does need to respect what they did and should have just shutit. She should have taken a cue from teammate Abby Wambach who took a punch to the face against Colombia and quickly put it behind her.

After a bad Flyers loss in the past season's Stanley Cup playoffs Sarah Baicker, the Flyers editor for Comcast SportsNet Philly, tweeted
"There's a fine line between swagger (good) and arrogance (bad)."

Just another lesson some of us never learn. What? Oh shuit,
this wasn't about me ... 

What did Chastain say that sparked the whole controversy? "Rachel Buehler with the giveaway there. As a defender, your responsibilities are defend, win the ball, and then keep possession, and that’s something Rachel Buehler needs to improve on during this tournament." Seriously, that was it. Chastain made the 1996 national team as a defender,
maybe she would know, maybe that is why NBC pays her.

Finally possibly the easiest explanation for it all. Hope Solo's memoir, yes memoir, will be released next month.

Observations from the Couch 7.28.1

I just don't have words. This is so damn gay, but I totally mean that as a compliment. I especially like the segment on the flight over starting at the one minute mark.


link

Published on Jul 27, 2012 by 2012NBCOlympics
Members of the U.S. swimming team perform their rendition of Carly Rae Jepsen's hit song "Call Me Maybe" while moving around London.

Observations from the Couch 7.28

I don't plan on writing every day of the Games but I had a few things to share from today including this photo of the U.S. field hockey team at last night's opening ceremonies. The girls play their first game Sunday afternoon against Germany
at 4 PM EST.

The were a pair of big wins for American women today. In a game I 'watched' on twitter the soccer team defeated Columbia 3-0 and in the process guaranteed themselves a spot in the tournament quarterfinals. In the game Abby Wambach showed her toughness by taking a blatant punch to the head only to shake it off and score later in the second half. The goal was Wambach's 6^th as an Olympian which moves her ahead of Mia Hamm as the most ever by an American. Colombia's team is ranked 28^th in the world and includes 9 players who are on NCAA teams.

The heavily favored, and number 1 ranked in the world, U.S. women's volleyball team opened today with a 3-1 (25-19, 25-17, 20-25, 25-21) win over South Korea. The team includes four Penn State graduates, Nicole Fawcett ('09), Christa Harmotto ('09), Alisha Glass ('10), and Megan Hodge ('10). Harmotto and Hodge are part of the 12 player squad, while Fawcett and Glass are alternates. All were part of Penn State teams that that won four straight NCAA titles between 2007 and 2010, a run that included a record 109 match winning streak.

Finally a link to an interesting review of the opening ceremonies by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in The Guardian. Ai Weiwei was a consultant to the design and construction of the Beijing Olympic Stadium. He withdrew before it was finished and described the Olympics as a government controlled "empty event" not shared by ordinary people. Ai Weiwei finishes his review with this line, "Anyone who watched it would have a clear understanding of what England is."

That final line is one of the scariest things I have ever read.

Observations from the Couch 7.27

I have a confession to make. I know this is going to be hard to believe but every four years I become even more of a sports geek than I normally am. Yes I am watching the Olympic Opening Ceremony which means I'm going to be watching some sports I barely acknowledge at any other time. I love watching gymnastics and diving but I honestly wont do it unless it's the Olympics. Still I'll only go so far and I can find better things to do than watch badminton, archery, or that infamous sport of synchronized swimming. Than there is equestrian, something otherwise known as Willard's favorite tax deduction. To me the horses do all the work and it doesn't belong in the Olympic games any more than auto or thoroughbred racing.

My favorites to watch are probably pretty obvious to anyone that knows me. Soccer, field hockey, beach volleyball, basketball, and volleyball. I guess I'm more of a team sports fan than anything else but I'll be watching anything I can find at any given time. To be honest if I wake up at 4AM tomorrow I'm already planning to turn on the women's beach volleyball match which just happens to be an important one between teams from Russia and China, both perennial beach volleyball powers.

If you are into the Olympics you totally have to watch the opening ceremonies because there are always some stories to be found. The flag bearer for Bolivia almost drowned when she was nine years old. Her parents forced her to take swimming lessons and here she is ten years later, an Olympic swimmer. Also I noticed that it must be the year of the fencer because both the American and French flag bearers were female fencers and both were kinda cute. However neither won my best flag bearer award because that goes to the Russian Federation's reigning Wimbledon Champion and all around tall girl Maria Sharapova. Saudi women marching and competing for the first time was another highlight, even if NBC chose not to show them.

Finally a bit of Olympic history for you. For the first time ever the United States Olympic Team is composed of more women than men.
Way to go girls.

Enjoy the games.