It is easy to take Lance Armstrong’s decision to not challenge his charges of doping by the USADA as an admission of guilt. Why would he not continue to fight to clear his name, it has significant ramifications. He has declined to enter arbitration, which was his last option – because he said he was “weary”. Maybe it is because he is guilty and he realizes he not able to defend himself against the evidence that has continued to mount. He is going to be known on the history books as a sports cheat. There is no doubt that he cheated death, winning the fight against cancer. Hopefully the great work he continues to do in fundraising for cancer research and awareness will not be overshadowed by his cheating on the road.
Rob's Blog
August 24th, 2012 · Cycling, Sports Medicine, Tour de France
August 2nd, 2012 · Olympic Games, Sports Medicine
There is a lot of hype surrounding the South African runner Oscar Pistorius (also known as the ‘Blade Runner’). Pistorius was born without fibulas and with deformities of his feet, and subsequently had both his legs amputated below the knee when he was only 11 months old. He competes with carbon fiber prosthetic legs, and is entered in the 400m and the 4 x 400 m relay races at the 2012 Olympics. This is a great story of achievement, though he has had to overcome a lot more than just his disability to reach the Olympics, having many bureaucratic hurdles to overcome too to get his place on the South African team. Even though he has been hailed by many as the first disabled athlete to compete at the Olympics, he is in fact part of a long history of disabled athletes to do so.
Some media have reported correctly that Pistorius is the first “double” amputee to compete at the Olympic Games. There has been other amputees missing portions of one leg who have competed at the Olympics, and some have even won gold medals. In 1904 American gymnast George Eyser won three gold medals for the vault, parallel bars and rope climbing. Eyser lost a leg when he was a kid in a train accident, and competed wearing a wooden leg. From 1928 to 1936, Hungarian Oliver Halassy won two golds and one silver in water polo. He achieved this despite missing his left leg that had been amputated below the knee following a childhood streetcar accident. Another amputee to compete at the Olympics is South African swimmer Natalie du Toit, who is missing her left leg. She came 16th in the open water 10km swim in 2008.
These are just some examples – there are many more disabled athletes who have participated at the Olympics, including other amputees, those that were blind, paraplegic or affected by polio. See more on Disabled Athletes at the Olympics, and also about the Paralympics.
July 27th, 2012 · Olympic Games
With the Olympic Games starting now, I feel like it is time for me to make my predictions for the final medal tally. It seems like everyone else is doing it. I have discussed a few prediction models on this site that use science and results from recent competitions. My prediction is based on something a little less scientific, my gut feeling and reflection, so don’t place too much emphasis on it. It will be interesting to see how my list performs compared to the other predictions, only time and a bit of number crunching will tell.
Here is my final top 10 predictions for gold medals won:
- 40 USA
- 33 China
- 26 Great Britain
- 24 Russia
- 15 Germany
- 11 Japan
- 10 Australia
- 10 Italy
- 9 France
- 8 South Korea
UPDATE: Now that the Olympics are over, it is time to score how well my predictions were. I got the first four in order. The only country I did not predict to make the top 10 was Hungary, which finished 9th on the official table with 8 golds, pushing Japan outside the top 10. How accurate were these predictions? Using my analysis method comparing the top five actual to the predicted medals for those countries, I achieved an percentage accuracy score of 85%, only just below the best by Goldman Sachs (87%), out of all the medal predictions for 2012.
| my order prediction | predicted medals | actual position | actual golds | |
| 1 | USA | 40 | 1 | 46 |
| 2 | China | 33 | 2 | 38 |
| 3 | Great Britain | 26 | 3 | 29 |
| 4 | Russia | 24 | 4 | 24 |
| 5 | Germany | 15 | 6 | 11 |
| 6 | Japan | 11 | 11 | 7 |
| 7 | Australia | 10 | 10 | 7 |
| 8 | Italy | 10 | 8 | 8 |
| 9 | France | 9 | 7 | 11 |
| 10 | South Korea | 8 | 5 | 13 |
→ 5 CommentsTags: gold medals·medal tally·Olympic Games·olympics
June 18th, 2012 · Gymnastics, Olympic Games, Swimming
We have a poll running on this site asking what is your favorite summer Olympic Games sport? The clear leaders at the moment are swimming, gymnastics, and track & field. This also matches the results of the most viewed sports on the Olympics website in 2004. To most Olympic watchers, the popularity of these sports is not surprising, but it should be if you consider that the undisputed most popular sport in the world (world football/soccer) is also one of the sports on the Olympic program, and other very popular sports that are on the program are basketball and tennis.
Outside of the Olympic period, you rarely see swimming, gymnastics, and track & field televised, and there are no stadiums full of spectators at these sports every week. The reality is that they are not that interesting to watch – except at the time of the Olympics it seems. It is football (whatever code), basketball, baseball, cricket and many other sports that are more popular with the fans week in and week out. At Olympic time, unfortunately, it is not just the sports fans that are watching, so the most entertaining sports are not necessarily the most watched and getting the most attention.
More on Topend Sports
Comments Off on Swimming is our favorite sport, but only every 4 yearsTags: gymnastics·Olympic Games·sports·swimming
April 1st, 2012 · Olympic Games
I recently wrote about Women Olympic Games Pioneers in which I discussed some of the early women participants at the Olympics, and the slow move to equality in women’s participation at the Olympic Games. There have been some great moves towards creating the opportunity for women to compete in the same sports as the men, with the inclusion of women’s boxing now completing the set so there are women’s events in all sports on the program. This is a great thing, but the reality is that there are huge barriers for women to even compete in any sport in some countries of the world, let alone the Olympic Games.
Up until now, three Muslim countries have never before sent a female athlete to compete at the Olympics: Qatar, Brunei, and Saudi Arabia. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) Charter clearly promotes equality: “The practice of sport is a human right. Every individual must have the possibility of practising sport, without discrimination of any kind.” However, the IOC seems to be doing very little to support the women competitors from these countries.
Each of these countries has made comments that suggest there may be sending some female participants to London, but we will have to wait and see. If Qatar is serious about their bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics, they need to send a clear message to the IOC, as it seems the IOC is not sending any clear messages back at them.
Related Pages: women at the Olympics, First Female Olympic Medalist
→ 2 CommentsTags: olympics·women
March 21st, 2012 · Olympic Games
With the addition of women’s boxing to the Olympics for 2012, all sports on the program now have events for women. However, women have had a long road to equality at the Olympics. There are some interesting stories and little known facts about early female participation in the Olympic Games.
The Ancient Olympic Games was limited to males athletes only, and they had to be free and Greek speaking too, with only male spectators allowed as the athletes participated in the nude! The only way women were able to take part was to enter horses in the equestrian events. There are records of several winning women horse owners. As the owner of the horse teams, they were credited with the victory, though they were most likely not present at the events.
Following on from the Ancient Olympics, women were also not invited to the first edition of the modern Olympic Games in 1896. Women participated for the first time at the 1900 Paris Games with the inclusion of women’s events in lawn tennis and golf. There were also three French women competing in croquet and there was at least one woman sailor as part of mixed crews.
It is commonly believed that first woman to win an Olympic event was England’s Charlotte Cooper, who won the tennis singles title and also the mixed doubles event. However, a month or two earlier Swiss sailor Hélène de Pourtalès won a gold medal as part of a team in the 1-2 ton Olympic sailing event. Charlotte Cooper is clearly the first woman Olympic champion, as winner of the women’s tennis singles tournament, though Hélène de Pourtalès should be rightly heralded as the first woman to compete at the Olympics and the first female Olympic gold medalist.
Related Pages: women at the Olympics, First Female Olympic Medalist
Comments Off on Women Olympic Games PioneersTags: olympics·women
March 19th, 2012 · Olympic Games
You would be surprised about some of the countries that have once participated at the Olympic Games. Regions such as Saarland and Bohemia participated at previous Games, but no longer exist independently. The Saar existed from 1947 to 1956 in part of Western Germany that was occupied by France, and only competed at one Olympics in 1952 before joining Germany. Bohemia athletes competed at the Olympic Games between 1900-1912. After World War I, Bohemia became part of the new Czechoslovakia, which itself lasted until 1993 when it split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.
Then there are short lived unions, such as The United Arab Republic which was made up of Egypt and Syria, and the West Indies Federation, a combined team from Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago and Barbados. Both of these teams competed at the Olympics only once, in 1960.
What about athletes with no team – athletes from Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia competed as Independent Olympic Participants in 1992, and athletes from East Timor competed as Individual Olympic Athletes at the 2000 Summer Olympics. Also, after the break up of the Soviet Union, the independent states competed under the banner of The Unified Team at the 1992 Olympics in Barcelona.
I wonder which teams competing in 2012 in London will one day join this list of past teams. Border disputes and wars will continue, and the countries of the world will continue to evolve. But, no matter what, most athletes will have a country to compete for, even though the names may change.
Related Pages: all Olympic Participating Countries, past participating countries
Comments Off on Little Known Olympic Games CountriesTags: olympics
January 16th, 2012 · Grand Slam Tennis, Tennis
The 2012 Australian Tennis Open starts today and is set to offer the highest prize money in the history of Grand Slam tennis around the world. The total prize pool will be A$26 million, with the men’s and women’s champions taking home a record A$2.3 million (US$2.18 million) each. Does that sound excessive to you?
It may be because I am not a great tennis fan, but I cannot see why we need to give the players that much money. As it is a grand slam event, you don’t need to offer large amounts to entice players to come and play. The winner of any tennis grand slam event will probably boost their off-court earnings more than that anyway by being more marketable.
Some of you probably will not agree with my next comment (and that’s OK). Another thing that bugs me is that the event organizers have decided that both the men’s and women’s champions will earn the same amount (in 2007 Wimbledon decided to do the same), despite more interest in the men’s side of the tournament, with longer more entertaining games, and consequently better revenue-raising potential.
I’ll still be watching the men’s final, and afterwards, I hope they can give a little back of their millions to the grassroots of their sport.
Related Pages: Australian Open, Tennis
→ 2 CommentsTags: Australia·australian open·grand slam·prize money·Tennis
September 26th, 2011 · Track & Field
The sub-2 hour marathon is a track and field barrier as talked about as the 4-minute mile. The world record in the marathon was broken this week, with Kenya’s Patrick Makau setting a new mark of 2:03:38, beating the old record of Haile Gebrselassie by 21 seconds. Even assuming improvements at the same rate, there has been a drop of 21 seconds in three years meaning it will take another 30 years to break the two hour mark. See the progression of marathon world best times, where you can see that reducing the record from 2:16 to 2:12 took seven years, 2:12 to 2:08 took 19 years, and from 2:08 to the current mark took another 27 years. Actually using scientific analysis of the trend of actual performances, Professor Francois Peronnet at the University of Montreal has calculated that the first sub two-hour marathon will be run in the year 2028. We have had a poll online asking which world athletics benchmark will be broken next, the 100m in 9.5 seconds or a marathon in 2 hours? The marathon is currently leading the race, though 7 percent of respondents think neither will reach those marks. It may be true that many of us will not live to see those times beaten, though I think one day they will. These records tend to have significant and unexpected jumps in improvement, we just have to wait for the time a sporting freak chances upon the right training and nutrition, prepares for the event perfectly and runs under ideal conditions on a flat and fast course with good pacemakers. That wont happen very often.
Comments Off on How Low Can the Marathon Go?Tags: marathon·world record
September 18th, 2011 · AFL, Technology, Umpires & Referees
I have previously discussed whether soccer should have a video referee and after being at an AFL game last night I believe there is a good argument for using video or other technology to adjudicate close goal-line decisions in AFL too.
Not far from me I saw two incidents where it was a close call whether the ball actually crossed the goal line, and from my position, the umpire did not seem to get it right. I have not had the opportunity to see a reply which was surely shown to the home viewers of the match.
If the TV viewers can get to see a slow-motion reply of such situations immediately after the fact, why can’t they refer close calls to an off-field umpire who can watch the same video and then refer their decision back to the field umpires? Rugby union has had such a system for a while now, and international cricket and tennis matches are also using a referral system. It is time for the AFL to join the other major sports.
There are already nine umpires on the field in AFL matches: three field umpires, four boundary umpires, and two goal umpires. There is an emergency umpire, who is the tenth. He is currently there as a possible replacement if needed, and is also responsible for monitoring behind-the-play incidents. It would not be too much to ask this umpire to also be responsible for reviewing the video replays when they arise. I have a personal reason for these views – last night my team the Blues lost by 3 points and are out of the finals, if only a video referee system was in place the result may have been different.
Related Pages: About AFL, Technology in Sports
Comments Off on Is an AFL 10th Umpire needed?Tags: AFL·Technology·umpires
