2016 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament Happening In Texas

While I have been busy with other events, on opposite ends of 1-45 we have had eight CONCACAF women's teams battling to get the two spots available from our FIFA region for the upcoming Rio Olympic Games women's tournament.

The tournament started on February 10 with the Group A teams, the USA, Puerto Rico, Mexico, and Costa Rica playing their games at Toyota Stadium in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, TX while the Group B teams Canada, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana and Guatemala started a day later at BBVA Compass Stadium here in Houston.

Team USA got their Olympic qualifying campaign off to a flying start with a 5-0 win over Costa Rica as Carli Lloyd scored the first of her two goals just one minute into the game to get the USA off to a 3-0 halftime lead in a match they never trailed in as Mexico was thumping Puerto Rico 6-0.

That set up a crucial clash on February 13 in which the USA prevailed 1-0 over Mexico thanks to the game winning goal from Carli Lloyd in the 80th minute on a penalty kick while Costa Rica recovered from their loss to the USA by spanking Puerto Rico 9-0.

The win also gave the USA the top spot in Group A with two wins and a +6 goal differential.

Yesterday Group A play concluded with the USA clinching the group and their trip to the semis here in Houston with a 10-0 win over Puerto Rico in which Crystal Dunn scored five goals.

In the battle between two 2015 World Cup squads to determine the runner up in the group, Costa Rica prevailed 2-1 in which Raquel Rodriquez scored two goals, with the game winner being on a penalty kick in the 57th minute to clinch the runner up spot in Group A and their ticket to Houston for the semifinals.

Group B play started on February 11 at BBVA Compass Stadium, with Trinidad and Tobago shocking Guatemala 2-1 and Canada behind an Ashley Lawrence hat trick spanking Guyana 5-0.

On February 14 Guyana sent Guatemala packing with a 2-1 victory as Canada clinched Group B with a 6-0 victory over Trinidad and Tobago.

Later today while Canada closes out group play with homeward bound Guatemala, Guyana and Trinidad and  Tobago will play to see who will be the Group B runner up and get the unenviable task of taking on the world champion USA in a knockout round semifinals on Friday at BBVA Compass Stadium.

Canada will play this final group game knowing that they will face Costa Rica in the knockout round on Friday with an Olympic berth on the line.

The Friday semifinal game winners will get both CONCACAF berths to the Rio Olympic Games women's soccer tournament, and play each other on Sunday for the tournament title.

IOC Relaxes Rules For Trans Athletes Without GRS

With the Rio Olympic Games taking place later this summer, there was some wonderful news coming in advance of the games that may speed up the day we see our first trans athlete participating in either a Winter or Summer Games..

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has relaxed its rules composed in 2003 that cover the participation of trans athletes in the Olympic Games.  Starting with the upcoming Summer Games and beyond, new guidelines have been issued by the IOC  that allow trans masculine athletes to be able to compete 'without restriction'.

Trans feminine athletes will not only be allowed to compete without the requirements of genital surgery, but will need to have been on a hormone regiment that reduced their testosterone below a certain level (10 nanomols per liter) for at least one year before first competition.  

Under the previous guidelines, trans feminine athletes were ineligible for the Olympics unless they had undergone genital surgery plus two years of hormone therapy.

It;s still up to the various international sporing organizational bodies to modify their policies to mirror the IOC standards, but now that the IOC has weighed in on the issue of trans athletes participation in the Olympics, we'll see which ones expeditiously do so.

2016 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament Comes To Texas!

The venues for the 2016 CONCACAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament being hosted in the USA were announced on August 12, and both are in the Lone Star State!

CONCACAF announced that BBVA Compass Stadium in Houston and Toyota Stadium in Frisco, TX will be the venues hosting the eight team tournament February 10-21 that determines which two teams from CONCACAF will be playing in the Rio Olympics in a few months.

Toyota Stadium will host the Group A matches from February 10-15, and BBVA Compass Stadium will host the Group B matches from February 11-16, the semifinal match on February 19 and final match on February 21.

The USA as the host nation has already qualified, and the world champs will be in Group A.  Canada and Mexico have also qualified, but their groups and which end of I-45 they will be playing on will be determined when the tournament draw happens

The other five nations competing will be determined by the results in the Central American and Caribbean Zone tournaments   Two will come from the Central American Zone tournament that runs September 30-October 4  and three from the Caribbean Zone. 

The Caribbean Zone tournament started August 21 and will be completed October 4.  Puerto Rico, Guyana and Jamaica are three of the four finalists in the knockout round as of this writing with the fourth finalist to be determined from a group that is composed of Antigua and Barbuda, Cayman Islands, Trinidad and Tobago and host Saint Lucia.

Only two CONCACAF  teams will be left at BBVA Compass Stadium when it is over and it will be interesting to see which two teams will be punching their tickets to go to Brazil.
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The 2020 Tokyo Olympic Logo Revealed

While we are still counting down toward the start of the 2016 Rio Games next year, we already know what city will be hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics.

It's Tokyo, and the Games of the XXXII Olympiad will take place from July 24 to August 9

The countdown to the 2020 Games will begin when Rio's mayor during the closing ceremonies  for next yer's games hands off the Antwerp Olympic flag to Tokyo's mayor, and in preparation for hosting the games for the second time since 1964, the 2020 games logo has been released

It was created by award winning designer Kenjiro Sato with the goal of symbolizing the unifying power of the Games.   It is based on a stylized letter ;T', which is the first letter in the words, Tokyo, Tomorrow and Team.

The black color of the central column of the stylized 'T' represents diversity.  The red color in the circle represents the power of every beating heart, in addition to representing the rising sun at the center of the Japanese national flag.

While the emblem has gotten some mixed reviews since it was unveiled at a public event in Tokyo on July 24, five years before the date of the opening ceremonies of the Games.  While some have criticized it, others have praised it, and the Tokyo Olympic Organizing Committee likes it.

But the logo unveiling is just another reminder that we'll soon be enjoying Summer Olympics action on less than a year, and the chatter about Rio Olympic favorites will only get louder over the next few months.

366 Days To Rio

366 days from today will come the day the world's sports fans will be looking forward to except everyone in Chicago.    Yes, Chicago I still feel your pain of having the best bid and being eliminated in the first round of venue voting.   Y'all was robbed by the IOC.

It'll be on this August 5 date next year that the Games of the XXXI Olympiad  will kick off in Rio de Janeiro at Maracana Stadium with what will probably be based on what they showed off during the 2012 London Games closing ceremony, an entertaining opening ceremony.    It will be only the third city in the Southern Hemisphere (Melbourne 1956, Sydney 2000) and the first South American one to host the Olympics.

Will be interested  to see what Brazilian gets tapped for the honor of being the final relay runner that gets to ignite the Olympic flame and how the Rio organizing committee chooses to do so since there have been since 1992 some pretty creative torch lightings.

Looking forward to from August 5-21 watching the various Olympic sports take place with the amazing scenery in the Rio area as a backdrop.

This Olympic Games for US and Canadian television and cable viewers will have many events in prime time network coverage in our time zones  

While we are still a year away from knowing who the pre-Olympic favorites will be in many of the sports and the qualifying will start ramping up soon, USA basketball fans know their FIBA world championship men's and women's teams will go in as gold medal favorites.  The USA men will be trying to accomplish an Olympic threepeat and the USA women will be seeking to collect their sixth straight gold medal.  

Both teams are already qualified, it's just a matter of who ends up on the Olympic squads.selected by men's coach Mike Krzyzewski and women' coach Geno Auriemma and what groups they end up in once FIBA Olympic qualifying is completed.  

And can the FIFA world champion USA women's soccer team not only handle their CONCACAF qualifying business in October, but capture their third straight Olympic gold medal in what is shaping up to be a loaded women's Olympic tourney field with host Brazil, Germany, France and a rapidly improving Colombia as four of the already qualified teams?

We will also have to wait until next August to find out what pre-Olympic favorites falter and what unknown athlete steps up big to claim an unexpected medal.

The clock is tucking toward August 5, 2016 and the opening date of the 2016 Rio Games.

Goodbye Sochi, Hello Pyeongchang

The Sochi Winter Olympic Games closed last night after seventeen days of competition and a $50 billion pricetag, exceeding the estimated $40 billion the Chinese spent on the Beijing Games.    

Guess Russian President Vladimir Putin and his people will consider it a great investment.  The host Russians made up for their by their standards poor showing of 3 golds and 15 medals overall in Vancouver by riding the home soil competition wave and owning the podium  

They led all nations with 13 gold medals and 33 overall.  Norway was second with 11 gold (26 overall) and Canada third with 10 golds (25 overall).  The USA was fourth, Germany (19 overall) and The Netherlands (24 overall) tied for fifth with 8 gold medals. 

While the USA had the second highest total medal count with 28, only 9 of them were gold, reflecting the disappointing showing of the speedskating team, the aggravating losses to Canada in men's and women's hockey (arrgh), some medal favorites not coming through, and the failure of the women's figure skaters to medal in ladies singles for the first time since 1936.

Hey US Figure Skating Association, guess y'all should have taken.Mirai Nagasu to Sochi instead of snubbing her in favor of Ashley Wagner.    Wagner did get a medal in the inaugural team figure skating event, but still finished sixth in ladies singles.


And speaking of figure skating, it wouldn't be a Winter Olympics without a figure skating controversy that revolved around the judging 

South Korea's Kim Yu-Na was robbed of a gold medal repeat due to some (surprise, surprise) alleged shady judging that led to Russian teen homegirl Adelina Sotnikova who trailed Kim after the short program winning gold to the delight of the Russians in the audience and the derisive whistling (the international version of booing) from the rest of the crowd in attendance at the Iceberg Skating Palace.  

Speaking of failing to medal, one of the two US Summer Olympic team members who was a winter Olympian at these Games is coming home with a history making medal and it isn't Lolo Jones.


Lolo Jones along with Lauryn Williams became the ninth and tenth Americans to make both a Winter and Summer Olympics team and were part of a US women's bobsled team that had four African-Americans on it.   

Jones convinced Williams to try out for the bobsled team, and despite being in the sport for only six months, she became only the fifth athlete ever to win medals in a Winter and Summer Games.   Williams narrowly missed by .10 seconds becoming the first woman and only.the second ever person to achieve the rare feat of winning gold in a Winter and Summer games and the second African-American to win a gold in bobsled

She and Elana Myers were leading in the women's bobsled competition before being bumped off the top of the podium by the Canadian duo and defending Olympic champions Kallie Humphries and Heather Moyse. 

Jazmine Fenlator and Lolo Jones in USA-3 were also trying to make history as well.   Fenlator was trying to become the first African-American bobsled driver to win a medal and Lolo Jones was trying to win her first Olympic medal period but they finished 11th.   The duo of Jamie Greubel and Aja Evans took the bronze, which marked the first time ever the US has taken two medals in the sport in the same Olympics. 

The USA women were up 2-0 and 58 agonizing seconds away from a gold medal, ending Canada's feminine women's hockey dominance and me unleashing a hockey themed rewrite of the Canadian national anthem on this blog and the world until the Canadians scored late to tie it up and then won their fourth straight gold medal in overtime.

It didn't help I had to hear about that 3-2 overtime gold medal game loss and 1-0 loss of the USA men's team in the semis the next day from a certain Canadian.


Shani Davis came into these Games seeking his third straight gold in the 1000m but shockingly finished in 8th place   Like I mentioned earlier, it was a bad Olympics for a US speedskating squad that left Sochi with only one medal in the 5K relay. but a great one for the Dutch speedskaters who made themselves, the Dutch royal family and their orange clad fans feel at home in Adler Arena.

Two time Olympic halfpipe champ Shaun White also failed to leave Sochi with a medal
    
And in the inaugural edition of the women's ski jump the American women favored in it failed to make the podium.  Sarah Hendrickson did battle back from a serious injury to make a little history as the first woman ever to jump in Olympic competition. 

But there was more drama away from the competition venues that at them.   While the feared terror attacks failed to happen, there was the video of members of the activist group Pussy Riot being horsewhipped by a Cossack militiaman, the arrests of former Italian MP Vladimir Luxuria for protesting Russian anti-gay policies, and the escalating violence in Russia's neighbor Ukraine that led to an emotional gold medal victory for the Ukrainian women over Russia in the biathlon relay .   

Now the flame has been extinguished and the hosting torch passed to Pyeongchang, South Korea who after two narrow losses to Vancouver and Sochi finally get to host the 2018 Games.  

Wonder if Dennis Rodman's good friend Kim Jong Un is going to demand like his daddy did when Seoul hosted the Summer Games.back in 1988 that the South Koreans let him host some Olympic events at the brand new ski resort he's having built? 

We'll have four years to see how that plays out.      

Sochi Olympic Watch-USA vs Canada Round One

It's the Clash of the Women's Hockey Titans in the USA vs Canada to determine who gets out of Group A with the number one seed.

Both teams and their fanbases in this intense rivalry badly want to win every time they face each other.

And a certain Canadian is still talking trash about her fave hockey team.   Maple Leaf Forever my anus!

The USA beat Finland 3-1 in their opening match and pasted Switzerland in a 9-0 scoring explosion two days ago.   The Canadians beat Finland 3-0 in a game that was closer than the score indicated and knocked out Switzerland 5-0.

Both have clinched semifinal berths and are expected to have their usual golden showdown on February 20 barring an upset. 

USA! USA! USA! 

Sochi Olympic Watch-NBC Screws Up With Another Bad Olympic Edit

One of the major problems with NBC's coverage of the Sochi Winter Games is the time difference from the East Coast.  

Sochi is nine hours ahead of US East Coast time (translation for me in Texas is 10 hours), so as a night owl, any live action for the Games when I choose to watch it will start around 2 AM Houston time.   

And with the next Winter Games scheduled for Pyeongchang, South Korea, that problem will be around in 2018 as well.

But what NBC needs to do is figure out when to do the edits of their broadcasts. 

NBC got justifiably excoriated for its Olympic coverage from London that was far too heavy on tape delay and included a badly timed edit of the 2012 Opening Ceremonies in which a tribute to the victims of he London attacks was edited out of the US broadcast. 

Well, for those of us watch the Olympic opening ceremonies, NBC's bad timing with edits struck again.  They decided to edit IOC President Thomas Bach's speech, and cut out an important chunk of it that the rest of the world saw that made a strong statement (from the IOC perspective) against any form of discrimination and a plea for tolerance.

Yeah, a strong statement that's a year too late.  

Here's the transcript of President Bach's speech.   The part that NBC cut out is in bold print.

Good evening, dear Athletes. Mr. President of the Russian Federation, Mr. Secretary General of the United Nations, Good evening Olympic friends and fans around the world! Welcome to the 22nd Olympic Winter Games! Tonight, we are writing a new page in Olympic history. What has been achieved in seven years is a remarkable achievement. I would like it thank, in again, the president of the Russian Federation and his Government. The Sochi Organizing Committee. The Russian Olympic committee. And the IOC members in Russia. Thank you to all the workers for your great contribution under sometimes difficult circumstances. Thank you to all the people of Sochi and the Krasnodar region. Thank you for your patience, thank you for your understanding during these years of transformation.

Now you are living in an Olympic Region. I am sure you will enjoy the benefits for many, many years to come. Thousands of volunteers have welcomed us with the well-known warm Russian hospitality. Many thanks to all the wonderful volunteers. Bolshoi spasiba, valantyoram! Thank you very much to everyone. Russia and the Russians have set the stage for you, the best winter athletes on our planet. From this moment on you are not only the best athletes, you are Olympic Athletes. You will inspire us with your outstanding sports performances. You have come here for sports. You have come here with your Olympic dream. The International Olympic Committee wants your Olympic Dream to come true. This is why we are investing almost all of our revenues in the development of sports. The universal Olympic rules apply to each and every athlete- no matter where you come from or what your background is. You are living together in the Olympic Village. You will celebrate victory with dignity and accept defeat with dignity. You are bringing the Olympic Values to life. In this way, the Olympic Games, wherever they take place, set an example for a peaceful society. Olympic Sport unites people. This is the Olympic Message the athletes spread to the host country and to the whole world. Yes, it is possible to strive even for the greatest victory with respect for the dignity of your competitors. Yes, Yes, it is possible - even as competitors - to live together under one roof in harmony, with tolerance and without any form of discrimination for whatever reason. Yes, it is possible - even as competitors - to listen, to understand and to give an example for a peaceful society.
Olympic Games are always about building bridges to bring people together. Olympic Games are never about erecting walls to keep people apart. Olympic Games are a sports festival embracing human diversity in great unity. Therefore, I say to the political leaders of the world - thank you for supporting your athletes. They are the best ambassadors of your country. Please respect their Olympic Message of goodwill, of tolerance, of excellence and of peace. Have the courage to address your disagreements in a peaceful, direct political dialogue and not on the backs of the athletes. (APPLAUSE) To all sports officials and sports fans I say - join and support our fight for fair play, the athletes deserve it. To you - my fellow Olympic Athletes - I say, respect the rules, play fair, be clean, respect your fellow athletes in and out of competition. We all wish you joy in your Olympic effort and a wonderful Olympic experience. (APPLAUSE) To all of you - Athletes, Officials, Fans and Spectators around our globe - I say, enjoy the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games! And now I have the honor of inviting the president of the Russian Federation, Mister Vladimir Putin, to declare open the 22nd Olympic Winter Games.

Okay NBC, you are already getting off to a bad start with the Sochi tape delay.   let's see what else transpires between now and February 23.

No Transpeople At The Sochi Games

'Athletic participation has been the road other marginalized groups have used as a pathway to greater visibility and human rights coverage, and it's past time we transfolks did so as well.'
---TransGriot , June 24, 2012
The Stockholm Consensus that allows transpeople to participate in the Olympic Games has been in place since 2004.  Since it was approved by the IOC we have had two winter Olympiads (2006, 2010) and three Summer ones (2004, 2008 and 2012) pass without an open trans athlete participating on their nation's winter or summer Olympic teams.

Keelin Godsey of the US, who did make the US Pan Am Games squad in 2011 has tried twice in 2008 and 2012 to be that first out trans athlete to make that history along with Kristin Worley of Canada, who attempted to make the Canadian Olympic track cycling team in 2008.

But as of yet our dream of a trans Olympian hasn't happened.  The new IOC rules were enacted far too late for a trans athlete to make an appearance in Athens and the first winter games in Torino two years later.  Beijing, Vancouver and London came and went with no trans Olympian sightings and it doesn't look like it will happen as the Olympic cauldron is lit at Sochi either.

Maybe the international trans* community will have better luck seeing one of our own two years from now in Rio or in 2018 at the Winter Games in Pyeongchang

Women Finally Get To Fly At Sochi

From the ski jump hills that is.

Since the 1998 Nagano Games female ski jumpers around the world have been petitioning the IOC and FIS, the International Ski Federation to add women's ski jumping to the Olympic program.

In 2010 a group of 15 ski jumpers that included women's world champ Lindsey Van filed a discrimination suit against the Vancouver Organizing Committee that went to the British Columbia Supreme Court.   The suit was unsuccessful, but in April 2011 women's ski jumping was finally added to the Sochi Olympic program and a women's World Cup ski jumping championship competition started..

So now, 90 years after ski jumping made its Olympic debut at the 1924 Winter Games for the men, women finally get their opportunity to do the same in Sochi.

But what a lot of women ski jumpers suspect was the reason for the far too long time lag in adding women's ski jumping was the Victorian attitudes of predominately male FIS federation heads that ski jumping would damage the reproductive health capacity of the female competitors combined with the macho culture of international ski jumping.

And yes, that attitude recently reared its head when Russian men's ski jump coach Alexander Arefyev was quoted in a recent Izvestia newspaper interview that he is not an advocate of women's ski jumping because of the sport’s injury risks and saying women’s purpose is to have children and do housework.

Even though the first Olympic competition is taking place during these Sochi games after an over ten year battle, women jumpers are only getting to compete in one event on the normal (K95) hill.   They will not have a competition on the large (K125) hill or a team competition in these games like the men will get to do.

But that's a fight for another Olympiad.  It'll just be fun to see women's sporting history happen on February 11.

Four African-American Women Make 2014 US Olympic Bobsled Team

The US men's and women's bobsled teams were named yesterday by the USA Bobsled and Skeleton Federation for the Sochi Games.  One of the interesting to note facts about the women's bobsled team is that it will have four African-American women on it. 

Lolo Jones did make it onto the women's team as one of the three push athletes along with fellow Olympic sprinter Lauryn Williams and Aja Evans. 

The US bobsled team drivers will be Jamie Greubel, Elana Meyers and sister Jazmine Fenlator.   

Jones and Williams by making the team also made a little sporting history by becoming the ninth and tenth Americans to make a Winter and Summer Olympics team.  Williams was a 100m silver medalist at the 2004 Athens Games and won gold in the 4x100m relay at the 2012 London Games.   

Jones will be in search of the Olympic medal that keeps eluding her.  She was on her way to victory in the 100m hurdles at the 2008 Beijing when she clipped the last one and fell.   In London she finished fourth and after being asked to try out for bobsled team made it and medaled in her first World Cup race.
  
So hopefully the Olympic medal will finally happen for her in Sochi.  She and the other US women want to keep the tradition going of a US women's sled collecting a medal in every Olympiad since the women's Olympic bobsled competition started in 2002.

The four African-American bobsled women in Jones, Evans, Williams and Fenlator will be trying to join Vonetta Flowers as African-American winter Olympic bobsled medalists.

If she does so, Fenlator would be the first to do so as a bobsled driver.

So I'll definitely be tuned in when the women's bobsled competition starts February 18-19 to see how the Team USA women do in Sochi.  
 

The Jamaican Bobsledders Are Back

There another reason I'll be watching the Sochi Olympic Games in a few weeks. besides women's hockey and hoping Shani Davis threepeats in the 1000m speed skating .

For the first time since 2002, the Jamaican bobsled team will be in the house and attempting to win a medal.

Their two man squad of Winston Watts and Marvin Dixon qualified to compete in Sochi which was the easy part. 

The hard part is getting the $80,000 they need to get to Sochi.   They wanted to enter a four man sled but funding cutbacks caused them to drop that and focus on the two man competition.

Hopefully the Jamaican Olympic Committee combined with some corporate sponsors will help them get the funding they need and be in Sochi in time to compete on February 16-17.

Because the world definitely wants to see Cool Runnings The Sequel, and Watts and Dixon deserve a chance to not only be there for the opening ceremonies in Sochi, but have the opportunity to at least compete for their country at the Winter Games.

When Does Finishing In Third Place NOT Get You An Olympic Spot?

The various trials and selection processes to assemble our US Olympic team are happening as you read this in preparation for Team USA to go for gold in Sochi next month.

In many cases the criteria has been clearly laid our for every Olympic hopeful to know.  Perform at the trials and finish in the top three and you make the team.  In other sports the federation will select the athletes who go like in hockey or the bobsled and luge team.

So what many people are asking is how does a figure skater who finished fourth at the 2010 Vancouver Games, but didn't fall during her more difficult routine at the US Figure Skating National Championships and finishes third get bumped off the Olympic team by someone who finished fourth during the same event in Boston, has no Olympic experience and fell twice during her program?

And yeah, I'm going there.  How do you explain that snubbing US Figure Skating Association, when the skater who finished third was Asian but the one who cratered is a blonde haired blue eyed white female who has been the focus of NBC's pre-Olympic marketing of the games and spoken out against the anti-LGBT laws in Russia?

Can you say vanillacentric privilege?   Thought you could.  

That's the question many people, and especially those of us who are non-white are asking in the wake of 20 year old Mirai Nagasu being passed over by the US Figure Skating Association and named an alternate on the team in favor of Ashley Wagner, the skater who fell twice during last weekend's US Championships that determined who would make the Sochi Olympic squad. 

Unlike the US Track and Field trials and other sports, where the first three people across the line at the trials regardless of past performance make the squad, USA figure skating takes past performances into account and gives them an unspecified weight in the selection process.

Did vanillacentric privilege and bias become one of those unspecified factors that influenced the process?

Wagner was the two time defending US champion entering the TD Garden before that event.  She was a fourth-place finisher at the 2012 world championships and the fifth-place holder at the 2013 worlds.  But she cratered badly during this event and even admitted the pressure got to her.

So if Wagner can't handle the pressure of the US Championships that determined who makes the US Olympic skating team going to Sochi, what makes her and the US Figure Skating Association think that she'll do any better when the pressure is ramped up several more notches and she's in the Iceberg Skating Arena at Sochi with medals on the line.having to compete against defending Olympic champion Kim Yu-Na of South Korea and defending Vancouver Games silver medalist Mao Asada of Japan?  

Meanwhile Nagasu arrives in Boston without a coach, people gave her no chance of making the Olympic team, but when the pressure was on she performed when Ashley Wagner didn't.  As a matter of fact she was the only person out of the top four that didn't fall during this competition.   That says a lot about the mental toughness of Nagasu.

But barring an injury to the other three, Nagasu will not get the opportunity to go for the medal that eluded her in Vancouver four years ago. 

And once again, a bitter lesson of American society gets harshly taught to its non-white residents.  No matter how good the person of color is or they earn their spot through their performance, merit  and hard work, whiteness will find a way to take it from them, hand it to a white person who didn't earn it and then try to justify and spin the reason they did so.

And FYI, here were the scores for the final night of competition.

1. Gracie Gold 211.69
2. Polina Edmunds 193.63
3. Mirai Nagasu 190.74
4. Ashley Wagner 182.74
 
If Wagner couldn't handle the pressure last weekend, that's nothing compared to the pressure and scrutiny that will be on her from now until the Sochi Games are over. 

Wagner has to prove to casual fans who feel like Nagasu was screwed (and I'm in that camp) that she belongs on the team.  There's also a lot of people that will be tuned in February 19-20 ready to pounce if she falls on her pretty behind once again and fails to make the Olympic medal podium.

I have a feeling karma will be making an appearance in Sochi wearing figure skates.

  

Olympic Gender Drama-Erik Schinegger

With us a month away from the start of what are sure to be the controversial Sochi Olympic Games, here's another one of my posts about Olympic and world class athletes that were embroiled in gender identity or gender related drama either during or in the runup to an Olympic Games.

We're going to jump into the wayback machine and go back to the June 19, 1948 birth in Agsdorf, Austria of Erik Schinegger.   Erik was raised as a girl named Erika who became a world championship downhill ski racer.

In Portillo, Chile in 1966, 18 year old Erika Schinegger won the title over France's decorated Olympic and world championship skier Marielle Goitschel.

In 1967 because of Marielle Goitschel's and Nancy Greene's of Canada's dominant World Cup season she fell to sixth in the overall standings and relinquished the downhill title to Goitschel.

But going into the 1968 runup to Grenoble, Schinegger was considered a favorite for three Alpine skiing medals on the women's side.  But because of concerns that the Eastern Bloc nations were using disguised genetic males to compete for medals in women's international athletic competition, invasive gender testing was inaugurated starting with the 1966 European track championships and expanded to the Olympics in 1968.   

Grenoble would be the first Winter Games that female competitors would have to submit to such testing, and now 19 year old Erika submitted to it along with the other Austrian skiing hopefuls as part of the formality for competing in the Olympic Games.  

Doctors found only male hormones in the saliva of Schinegger, and submitted her to more rigorous scientific and psychiatric testing that led to a shocking discovery for the soon to be 20 year old who had been raised as a girl but was questioning her sexuality at the time.

Schinegger was told by IOC doctors she couldn't compete in the Games because she was chromosomally male and intersex.  After digesting and accepting the news Schinegger changed his name to Erik, went on a hormone regimen, started living his life as male and underwent a corrective surgery that revealed he had an internal penis and testicles.

"The discovery was a tremendous shock for me, my parents and everyone who knew me," Schinegger was quoted as saying. "What came afterward was an indescribable torture."


Erik set his sights on competing for Austria in the 1972 Games in Sapporo, Japan.  He trained hard for it and found himself beating many of the leading male Austrian skiers of the time but was denied a spot on the Austrian National Ski Team assembling to compete in Sapporo.   

Schinegger subsequently retired from international skiing, got married twice and fathered a daughter in addition to running an inn and a children's ski school in the Carinthia region of Austria..   Schinegger also penned an autobiography entitled  Victory Over Myself and during a documentary that was filmed about his life handed his 1966 World Championship gold medal to Marielle Goitschel. 

Hey Renee, USA 2014 Women's Olympic Hockey Team Is Set

The NHL's Winter Classic between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Detroit Red Wings happened yesterday at Michigan Stadium.

It was played in front of a record New Year's Day crowd of 105,591 fans who endured 13 degree temps and blowing snow that fell through the entire game at The Big House. 

It was the largest crowd to ever witness a hockey game be it collegiate or professional, and the Maple Leaf fans making the five hour drive to Ann Arbor, MI went back across the border to Toronto happy after the 3-2 shootout win over Detroit.   

But of more importance to moi was what occurred during the Winter Classic second intermission, the  introduction of the 2014 USA Women's Olympic hockey team.   These are the 21 women who will attempt to earn our first gold medal in women's hockey since the 1998 squad did so at Nagano. 

Ahem, here's the Team USA women's hockey roster. for Sochi. 

Forwards: Alex Carpenter, Kendall Coyne, Julie Chu, Brianna Decker, Meghan Duggan, Lyndsey Fry, Amanda Kessel, Hilary Knight, Jocelyne Lamoureux, Monique Lamoureux, Kelli Stack

Defensemen: Kacey Bellamy, Megan Bozek, Gigi Marvin, Michelle Picard, Josephine Pucci, Anne Schleper, Lee Stecklein

Goaltenders: Brianne McLaughlin-Bittle, Molly Schaus, Jessie Vetter

Julie Chu made it to her fourth USA Olympic squad and is one of the 11 Olympic vets on the 2014 team.  Chu is also their oldest player at age 31.  The other ten vets who join her are goaltenders: Jesse Vetter, Molly Schaus and Brianne McLaughlin-Bittle, Kacey Bellamy, Meghan Duggan, Hilary Knight, Jocelyne Lamoureux, Monique Lamoureux, Gigi Marvin and Kelli Stack. 

Amanda Kessel is the sister of Toronto Maple Leafs forward Phil Kessel (who made the men's squad) and is also on this Sochi Olympic team.  While this is her first USA Olympic team, she already knows the thrill of beating Canada in international hockey competition. 

The College Player of the Year, Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award winner (the equivalent of the Heisman Trophy in women's collegiate hockey) for unbeaten NCAA national champs Minnesota scored the winning goal in the IIHF championship game against Canada last April.  

Amanda Kessel, as y'all found out on your home soil last year is all that and four bags of chips. 

Speaking of world championship winning gold medalists, 18 of the 21 members of this Sochi squad were members of the IIHL World Championship team  in Ottawa, and all 21 have played in the IIHL championships for Team USA. 

And this time a woman will be large and in charge of coaching our Olympic squad in Katey Stone.  She is the most successful coach in our NCAA women's hockey ranks as the head coach at Harvard.  She was also the head coach of the 2013 IIHF World Championship squad.

So now that our team is set, can't wait for the Olympic women's ice hockey tournament to start on February 8.  And yes Renee, February 12 is already circled on my new 2014 calendar.  

That's the day we play y'all in the final Group A match in Sochi before it heads to the medal round..   

Renee, Sochi Olympic Hockey Is Coming!

I know you and other Canadian women's hockey fans are still crying in your Timmy's after you lost the IIHF women's ice hockey championship to us for the fifth time in seven years.

What was even sweeter about this IIHF title win was it happened in Canada and in your nation's capital. 

It may be your game, but y'all got your butts kicked on your home soil in your nation's capital in the IIHF final.  And we didn't even need overtime this time to beat you.3-2.

USA! USA! USA! USA! USA!

Just sounds so good rolling off my tongue along with the words '2013 IIHF Women's Hockey World Champions.'
  
So now let's get to talking about the next major international women's ice hockey tournament, and it's going down in Sochi during the Olympic Games.   Yeah the Russian women claim they'll be motivated to prevent a USA-Canada Olympic final, and to be honest they have some recent positive results to back up those woof tickets they're trying to sell to the peeps back home.   They did take a bronze medal back home to Mother Russia from Ottawa, but we know who the real women's hockey powers are according to the 2013 IIHF Women's World Rankings that the (ahem) USA sits on top of..

The Olympics are a mere two months away from starting, and the hockey competition will start at the Shayba Arena on February 8. 

Unfortunately we'll be in the same preliminary Group A with Finland and Switzerland while the host Russians will be in Group B with Germany, Japan and Sweden.

But circle February 12 on your calendar because that's the night the USA and Canada meet in the final game Group A play.  If both teams play the way they normally do, that game will probably decide who wins Group A and who gets the runner up spot.

Yeah yeah, big deal that Canada has won the last three women's Olympic gold medals, but you didn't win the first ever one in the 1998 Nagano Games.  

And yes, all winning streaks must come to an end.

 

Johnny Weir Puts Skates In Mouth

With the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics in Sochi a mere 62 days away, the debate is heating up in LGBT World on whether or not to boycott those Games. 

While I'm pissed off about what is happening in Russia to our TBLG cousins there, after watching the Olympic Boycotts of 1976, 1980 and 1984 I personally believe a boycott only hurts the athletes, and will not result in the change the community is seeking in terms of getting the Russians to repeal those draconian anti-LGBT laws.   That being said, if you want to try to make it happen, go for it.

The option I support and still do was moving the Games to Vancouver.  With two months left and the IOC being as cowardly as they usually are, I expect on February 7 for the Olympic cauldron to be lit in Sochi.

But the controversy over those Russian anti-LGBT laws which were pushed by anti-gay activists in the US, will continue right up until that date and probably beyond the conclusion of those Games.

Meanwhile here in the States, Johnny Weir opened his mouth and inserted his figure skate clad foot into it. He pissed off the LGBT community and his rainbow community fanbase by stating “the Olympics are not the place to make a political statement” about Russia’s anti-gay laws and “you have to respect the culture of a country you are visiting.” while speaking a group of 40 female students at Barnard College December 2.

Weir poured more gasoline on the controversy stirred up by his earlier comments by calling the four veteran activists outside his talk exercising their free speech rights to picket him 'idiots'.  

It was a group that according to a Gay City News report that had 100 years of combined activism on behalf of gay and HIV/AIDS causes that included rainbow flag creator Gilbert Baker and Queer Nation's Ann Northrup.

Note to Johnny: Dude, the people you insulted made it possible for your ass to get married to your Russian husband.  Respect is due to your elders who paved the way for you to have the space to come out and live your self described fabulous life. 


Weir later apologized for his unfortunate choice of words, but the damage may be done with his gay fanbase he alienated with his comments.

We'll see what Johnny does when he has to travel to Sochi as part of the NBC analyst team covering the Games.  Question is will anyone be watching?

Lolo's One Step Closer To Going To Sochi

I love Lolo Jones and still feel for her when I see that video of her hitting that second to last hurdle on her way to what looked like a legacy cementing gold medal performance in the 100m hurdles final at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and failing to place. 

She gracefully handled that tremendous disappointment and busted her butt to make the Olympic team again in 2012 only to finish in fourth place in London behind her silver and bronze medal winning teammates Dawn Harper and Kellie Wells in the 100m women's hurdle final won in Olympic record time by Australia's Sally Pearson.

At age 31 Lolo Jones is still chasing Olympic gold, although at a different time of year and in a different event.  This is the second year that Jones has competed in bobsled as a push athlete, and she and fellow sprinter Lauryn Williams were recently named to the nine member USA Women's Bobsled team for the upcoming FIBT World Cup event later today in Calgary.  

She has also added 30 pounds to her previously 130 pound frame in order to help her in her quest to make the USA Bobsled team bound for Sochi. 

Jones and Williams will be joining Emily Azevedo, Katie Eberling, Aja Evans and Kristi Koplin as sled pushers, with Elana Meyers, Jamie Greubel and Jazmine Fenlator serving as drivers.

Depending on the results in this World Cup event the USA could qualify as many as three two woman sleds for Sochi.  The team will also be named in mid to late January, so this is an opportunity for Jones to make one last impression on the powers that be in the US Bobsled and Skeleton Federation before that selection happens. 

In case you're wondering about the prospects for Jones should she make the team of medaling in Sochi, there is a precedent for a track athlete crossing over into the sport and experiencing success in it.

After several failed attempts to make the US Olympic track team Vonetta Flowers at the urging of her husband tried and embraced the sport.  In the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Games she and her driver Jill Bakken won gold in the inaugural two women bobsled event.  With the win Flowers made history by becoming the first African descended athlete ever to win a gold medal at the Winter Olympics.  Two years later Flowers would earn a bronze medal at the FIBT World Championships at Konigsee, Germany.

During Jones' rookie season on the FIBT World Cup circuit she did medal in three races.  So she does have an excellent chance at making this team, attempting to match Vonetta Flowers and getting that Olympc gold medal that has eluded her so far in the Summer Games.

    

2014 Olympic Flame Lit And Headed To Sochi

As an lifelong Olympics junkie, the news from Greece that the Olympic flame has been lit usually gets me excited and fired up for and breathlessly anticipating the upcoming winter or summer Games wherever they are happening. 

When I heard the news that actress Ino Menegaki, dressed in her high priestess role, lit the Olympic flame in Ancient Olympia last Sunday and subsequently lit a torch from a cauldron inside Athens' Panathinaiko Stadium, all I felt this time was sadness.  It was grounded in the knowledge that this Olympic torch was headed to the host country of a winter Olympic Games that persecutes my fellow TBLG citizens based on the lies of American based right wing christofools.

The flame, placed in a lantern, was handed over to Hellenic Olympic Committee president Spyros Kapralos who passed it on to Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Kozak to trigger the Olympic torch run that will spend seven days in Greece before heading to Moscow and starting its 40,000 mile journey across Russia until it arrives in Sochi four months from now.


There was a peaceful protest by LGBT human rights activists held on the front steps of the Acropolis Museum where the Olympic flame made an overnight stay inside the Acropolis before being moved to a cauldron in the courtyard of the museum. 

The activists unfurled the rainbow flag and banners stating "Homophobia is not in the Olympic Spirit" and "Love is not Propaganda."

"The Olympics should have taken a stand against this law in Russia because the Olympic ideals are for supporting human rights and diversity and that's not what's happening in Russia," said protester Zak Kostopoulos.


Yes, the IOC should have taken a stand.  But exactly what is that stand?   A boycott of the Games only hurts the athletes who have trained for years to take part in them.   I would have along with others around the world supported a move of the 2014 Winter Games to another nation as George Takei suggested.  

The IOC has already caved in.  Others around the world have four months to decide how they are going to take a stand against the unjust Russian laws.     

The 2020 Summer Olympics Host City Will Be...

Tokyo!

Of course the Japanese people are deliriously happy they beat out Istanbul for the 2020 Games since they were worried that the latest news about the earthquake damaged Fukushima nuclear reactor had damaged their chances to land the Games.  

But their pitch about putting the Olympics in steady hands resonated with the IOC delegates in Buenos Aires concerned about the protests and construction delays bedeviling Rio and the negative drama surrounding the upcoming Sochi games because of the anti-gay laws passed by the Russian government triggering anti-gay violence and calls to move the Winter Games elsewhere.  It also didn't hurt Tokyo's bid that they have $4.8 billion sitting in the bank that is budgeted for the 2020 Games
 

In the first round of voting Saturday Tokyo was the leader with 42 votes with Istanbul and Madrid tied with 26 votes.  That necessitated an elimination runoff to determine which city would move on to the second round of voting, and Istanbul won that runoff 49-45.  Tokyo ran away with the second round voting 60-36 to beat out Istanbul.

So in the summer of 2020, the Olympic flame will once again come back to the Land of the Rising Sun and Tokyo will become the fourth city to host the Summer Olympic Games twice.