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Between preparing for my daily coverage of the
Winter Olympics, which begin tomorrow in
Vancouver
, and working hard on the manuscript for the Non-Traditional
Sports Fan's 2010 Almanac, it seems like there has been little time to
follow everything else transpiring around the globe. But despite a
singularity of focus recently, plenty of news continues to flutter through
the cerebral vortex to catch my attention.
Soon enough all the world's attention will be
focused on the ice and snow which may or may not be present in western
Canada
over the next fortnight. You will be able to catch my daily thoughts every
evening in the Non-Traditional
Sports World, so I will offer but one pre-Games thought here toward
the end of this column. Otherwise, it's time to get back up to speed on
the rest of the action from around the world after technical difficulties
and the Olympics preview derailed the usual format. Buckle in tight,
because we've got a lot of ground to cover this week!
LAGAT
DAZZLES IN INDOOR DEBUT
At the 15th Boston Indoor Games, fans of
track-and-field were treated to one of the greatest budding friendly
rivalries in the sport when the 5000m race got underway. Americans Bernard
Lagat -- the legendary emigre who is the bane of existence to other
African runners -- and Galen Rupp were both in the field, with the
Ethiopian pair of Dejen Gebremeskel and Bekana Daba presenting the biggest
challenge to domestic supremacy.
Galen Rupp, the University of Oregon star who was
the sensation of the Beijing Olympics as the fastest non-African in the
10,000m (yet just 12th overall), came into the race with the American
indoor 5000m record. Now graduated, Rupp continues to improve his times
steadily. Finishing in 13:14.21, Rupp set a new personal best in the event
by four full seconds.
Ultimately, though, Rupp would run faster than he
ever had before yet still finish just fourth in the event. It looked like
Gebremeskel and Daba were going to better the Americans on their home
soil... until Lagat, displaying a fearsome finishing kick, swept past the
Ethiopian duo and broke Rupp's old mark. Holding off the African pair to
win by 28/100ths of a second, Lagat was dominant in victory. In his
first-ever attempt at the indoor 5000m, Lagat set the new U.S. record at
13:11.50, shaving nearly seven seconds off of Rupp's former record time in
the process...
FOCUSING
ON DOMESTIC ISSUES...
 While most casual fans think of the upcoming World
Cup and maybe the Champions League when they think of soccer, one cannot
forget the prime battlegrounds of the sport -- the big domestic leagues of
Europe
's biggest nations. Now two-thirds of the way through their seasons, the
various European leagues are the key employers of most of the talent we
will see in
South Africa
this summer. So let's take a look at how some of the biggest competitions
in soccer are playing out throughout the Old Country:
-
England
-- The
usual suspects are reigning at the top of the standings yet again in
what has become an annual battle between the have-mores.
Chelsea
currently leads Manchester United and Arsenal in the standings. But
the most fascinating story comes at the bottom of the points table,
where teams struggle to accumulate enough points to stay afloat
another year and avoid the drop to the Championship. In this respect,
the northern teams find themselves in a vexing quandary. After seeing
both Newcastle United and
Middlesbrough
knocked down last year, the third member of the traditional
triumvirate --
Sunderland
-- is now in danger itself of plunging. Hovering less than ten points
from relegation, fans in this part of England might have to depend on
Newcastle or Middlesbrough (currently 2nd and 8th respectively in the
Championship) to gain promotion just to see live EPL matches next
year. With so much of the competitive balance skewed toward the squads
of
London
and
Manchester
and
Liverpool
, the teams near the Scottish border have taken a big hit. In this
traditional hotbed of soccer, to are such ignominy among its biggest
clubs is a sad commentary on how the Premiership has consolidated
power for the few at the expense of the many.
-
Italy
-- It
looks like the nerazzurri are
running away with the Serie A crown yet again. Now eight points clear
of second-placed AS Roma and ten up on cross-town rival AC Milan,
Inter is on pace to repeat yet again as domestic champs. The Milanese
club has taken each of the past four
championships and is well on its way to a fifth. No longer the
neglected titan of Italian soccer, Inter is on its greatest-ever run
domestically in its century-long history. Like in
England
, though, it is at the bottom where the biggest shock comes. SS Lazio,
the Roman side which earlier this decade was in the annual hunt for
the title, could leave the capital city with just Roma to root for
next year as they cling precariously to la
salvezza. While few
would cry about seeing Lazio's militant, often-racist supporters
staining Serie A's reputation, a club of this stature floundering is
always a strange sight. Unlike Juventus' relegation a few years back,
though, this relegation to Serie B would be wholly due to results on
the pitch...
-
Spain
-- Just
like in
England
and
Spain
, there are those teams traditionally disposed to fight for the
spoils. In the case of La Liga, it looks once again like it will come
down to FC Barcelona and Real Madrid for the crown. Currently the
Catalan side is five points clear of the team from the capital, but
both are obviously the class acts of the Iberian nation... third-place
Valencia
is thirteen points behind the leader at this stage of the season.
-
Germany
-- The
tightest competition at the top of the standings can be found in
Deutscheland, where Bayer Leverkusen and Bayern Munich sit tied atop
the table with 45 points apiece. Right behind them is Schalke, just
three points behind the twin leaders. The big story as I see it,
though, is the potential relegation of Hertha BSC Berlin. For the past
dozen years, Hertha has been the sole representative of the capital
city in the Bundesliga. Playing in the Olympic Stadium that hosted the
1936 Games, Hertha has been a pipeline for stars such as Michael
Ballack over the past decade. That feeder system could be threatened
by a drop from the top division, an all-too-prevalent consequence of
relegation, and would leave the German capital without a top-flight
team...
BOONEN
WINS SPRINT IN
QATAR
Tom Boonen is a Belgian enigma. One of the greatest
cyclists of his generation, Boonen is an absurdly talented individual. No
one can deny that fact -- with three Paris-Roubaix titles, a green jersey
at the 2007 Tour de France, two Tours of Flanders, a Belgian national
championship and the rainbow jersey as the 2005 world champion, Boonen has
more than proven his merit as the next “Lion of Flanders” in the vein
of Johan Museeuw and a host of others before him.
But Boonen is an enigma precisely because, in
tragicomic fashion, he deigns to squander all the goodwill of his
victories in a puff of nose candy and a repeated need to clean his own
name after he has stained it once again. For the past two years, he has won
Paris-Roubaix -- the most grueling one-day cycling event on the elite
pro calendar, consisting of a seven-hour slog over the rough cobblestones
of northern
France
-- only to test positive for cocaine use in his post-victory reveling. Two
years ago he was prevented from starting the Tour because of it, ending
his hopes of defending the green jersey in the process. Last year he won
an appeal to be granted entry on the argument that cocaine is only banned
when an athlete tests positive for it within competition under the rules
of the World Anti-Doping Agency.
Boonen once again struggles to right the ship of
his still-storied career. His quest begins in
Qatar
, where he won the third stage on Tuesday in a battle royale at the
finish. On the finishing straight in Mesaieed, in the final kilometer of
the 136.5km stage beginning in Dukhan three hours earlier, Boonen pipped
Heinrich Haussler of Cervelo and Baden Cooke of Saxo Bank at the line to
earn his first victory of the 2010 season. A minor victory, but a victory
nonetheless, the stage win still sees Boonen
1:55
off the pace of Wouter Mol and Geert Steurs in third place. While one
might expect a champion of Boonen’s stature to dominate at such a race,
remember that the season is early -- Boonen is preparing to fry some
bigger fish come April in the cobblestone classics...
BACK
INDOORS FROM THE SUNSHINE
Tennis returns to
Europe
after basking in the sunshine of
Melbourne
for the Australian Open and the month’s run-up to the Grand Slam
tournament, and that means it’s back to the regular slog of indoor
tournaments this time of year for the ATP and WTA Tours.
The men are split between
San Jose
and
Rotterdam
; the women had the choice of either
Paris
or playing in
Thailand
.
The big guns take a backseat as journeymen begin their global hunt for
prize money and valuable rankings points.
Melanie Oudin has rebounded from her first-round
ouster at the Australian Open with a resounding 6-3 6-0 rout in the
opening round of the Paris Open over Romanian Sorana Cirstea. Oudin will
get the chance to advance against Patti Schnyder of
Switzerland
in the next round. The strongest lady so far in
France
, though, has to be Francesca Schiavone. Carrying over the form that saw
her finish in Australia by taking a set out of Venus Williams before
succumbing in three sets in the fourth round, Schiavone demolished
first-round opponent Vesna Manasieva 6-0 6-0. Look out also for Anna
Pavlyuchenkova, who knocked off Iveta Benesova 6-1 6-0 in the first round
and could present problems for Elena Dementieva in the next round.
In
Rotterdam
, the man who tumbled against Andy Roddick in the first round in
Melbourne
proved that his pushing of the American throughout their match was no
fluke. Dutchman Thiemo de Bakker,
playing on home soil, swept aside Jan Halek in straight sets to
advance to the next round, affirming the notion that the youngster is a
rising star on the tour. Look out for him in the coming months...
especially once we get back out from under the rooftops and onto the clay
leading up to the French Open. After all, it’s the 21-year-old’s
favorite surface...
That about
wraps up the news around the world that doesn’t involve snow or ice or
anything pertaining to a certain quadrennial spectacle about to descend
upon my northern Pacific neighbor. May you enjoy the torch ceremony
tomorrow, and stay warm wherever you might be -- it sounds like my neck of
the woods is the only one on this blasted continent that isn’t
getting snow right now! For this mountain-raised boy, it sure feels weird
getting to watch a Winter Olympics where the weather is too damn warm...
but then again, in the world of a Non-Traditional Sports Fan in America,
what could be more in line with the way in which my life is naturally
lived?!
Submitted 2/11/10
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