Good Luck Keelin!

The US Olympic Track and Field Trials (called Athletics to the rest of the world) will kick off today and run through July 1 in Eugene, OR to determine who gets those coveted all expense paid spots on the US Olympic team we're sending to London.

I've talked about transman Keelin Godsey, who has been pursuing his dream of competing in the Olympics since 2008.

Starting at 2:15 PM EDT 28 year old Godsey will take the first steps toward sporting history when he competes in the hammer throw prelims competition with 23 other athletes at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, OR.  If everything goes well for Godsey he'll be in the finals that start at 4:15 PM EDT.  

Keelin was a 16 time All-American athlete at Bates College and the Division III national champion in 2005 in the hammer throw before transitioning during his senior year.

Godsey has continued post college to excel in the event and has already passed the Olympic qualifying standard of 68 meters.   He long ago socially transitioned to male, but will compete in the women's hammer throw and is considered by IOC and IAAF rules as a female competitor.  He is forgoing taking testosterone until either after the trials or the London Olympics so that he could make his Olympic competition dream come true.    

If Keelin places in the top three finishers, he not only will make the team, he will become the first open trans athlete ever to quality for their national Olympic team and the US Olympic team.   Keelin already has the distinction of being the first open trans athlete to make a US Pan Am Games squad and competed in the 2011 Pan Am Games, finishing fifth in the hammer throw competition in Guadalajara. 

Keelin, good luck and hope you make your Olympic dream come true.

TransGriot Update:  Sadly, Keelin failed to qualify.   Finished fifth despite a personal best throw of 231 feet 3 inches. Missed a trip to London by 11 inches.

Some Euro 2012 Fans Can't Say No To Racism

The UEFA Euro 2012 tournament is being co-hosted by the nations of Poland and Ukraine June 8 through July 1.   The group play stage is winding down to its conclusion this weekend to determine the teams that will enter the knockout rounds and be in contention for the European championship.

Because it is an international game, talented players of African descent have long been integral parts of European club teams and several national clubs for years.

In the UEFA Euro 2012 tournament the national sides of England, the Netherlands and France have large visible contingents of African descended players.  Italy has 21 year old striker Mario Balotelli and the Czech Republic has Theodor Gebre Selassie as lone African descended starting players on their national teams. 

While soccer is called 'the beautiful game', one of the ugly stains it struggles with is racism in the sport, especially in European football venues.  There has been a long deplorable history of players and supporters of European based club and national teams uttering racial monkey chants, anti-Semitic epithets and throwing bananas on the pitch at African descended players. 

There were concerns expressed before the Euro 2012 tournament started by groups that monitor racist events at European football matches such as Football Against Racism in Europe (FARE) about the wisdom of hosting the tournament in those two nations in light of reports that Ukrainian fans had been videotaped during matches doing Nazi salutes and aiming monkey chants at African descended players


FIFA has been engaged in a ongoing Say No To Racism campaign to clean up the bigoted behavior in the sport since 2001 which I believe also needs to be expanded to combat homophobia and transphobia as well. .  

Superstar players in the sport such as David Beckham have also been outspoken about eliminating racism in 'the beautiful game' as well.

UEFA (Union of European Football Associations, the governing body for soccer in Europe) has a zero tolerance policy and rules that make national football associations responsible for their fans' boorish behavior.   Punishments can range from warnings and a sliding scale of fines to points deductions and even expulsion from future Euro tournaments.

Reports out of the first week of Euro 2012 are justifying the concerns that FARE and other groups had when the tournament was initially awarded to Poland and Ukraine.  It seems that old bigoted habits are dying hard. 

Even before the tournament started, The Netherlands national squad was highly pissed off about their players being subjected to racist chants during an open training session in Krakow a day after they visited the nearby Auschwitz concentration camp.

Reports have surfaced that during the June 10 Spain-Italy and June 14 Croatia-Italy matches elements of the Spanish and Croatian fan bases started monkey chants aimed at Balotelli.  The Croatians took it a step further by not only doing the chants but throwing a banana onto the pitch.

Croatia has a particularly egregious history of racist abuse.  They were fined by UEFA for deploying neo-Nazi flags and shouting racist chants during a Euro 2008 quarterfinal loss to Turkey and fined by FIFA for an incident in a World Cup qualifying match in Zagreb in which England's Emile Heskey was subjected to racist taunts.

Croatia has been formally charged for the incidents in Thursday's Croatia-Italy match in Poznan and the Croatian Football Federation is rapidly distancing themselves from the bigoted elements of their supporter base.


During the June 8 Russia-Czech Republic match in Wroclaw reports are surfacing that some of Russia's nekulturny supporters aimed racist monkey chanting at Gebre Selassie, and UEFA is investigating those charges with Russia's sports minister vehemently denying them. 

If those reports are true, then it's karmic justice that the Czech Republic qualified for the knockout round despite being beaten 4-1 by Russia thanks to Greece beating the Russians.1-0 in group play.

Now that UEFA is starting to crack down, we'll see if this chills out the racist supporters of some of the national teams still left in the Euro 2012 tournament and if the threat of severe UEFA sanctions or banishment from Euro 2016 will be enough to get those fans to say no to racism at this tournament.

2012 Olympic Women's and Men's Basketball Tournament Draw Held

We're getting closer to the start of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London on July 27 and the USA women's and men's basketball squads already know who will be in their respective groups when the basketball competition starts

For the four time defending gold medalist USA women, who are seeking their fifth consecutive gold medal in these games they will be in Group A that consists of Angola, China  and three of the qualifiers from the FIBA women's tournament that will be conducted in Turkey June 25-July 1.   


Group B on the women's side is shaping up to be the 'Group of Death' with Australia, Brazil, Great Britain, Russia, and the two remaining FIBA Olympic tournament qualifiers.

The Canadians are still alive for an Olympic women's berth.but will have to play in the Qlympic qualifying tournament in Ankara to get it.  They are in Group D with France and Mali and will either have to finish first or second in the group to advance to a matchup with whoever comes out of Group C between Croatia, Korea and Mozambique. 

For the FIBA world champion USA men, they will be seeking back to back Olympic gold in this tournament but will be missing Derrick Rose who just tore his ACL in the NBA playoffs and Dwight Howard who had back surgery and is out.    They are in Group A and will face Manu Ginobili and the Argentines, Tony Parker and France, Tunisia playing in their first ever Olympics, and two qualifiers from the FIBA Men's Olympic qualifying tournament to be conducted in Venezuela 

Group B on the men's side will consist of Australia, Brazil, China, the host Great Britain, Spain an the third FIBA qualifier 

The Men's Olympic qualifying tournament will be conducted in Caracas, Venezuela July 2-8.   In addition to the host Venezuelans will have perennial African champs Angola, who were shockingly upset in the Afrobasket tournament final by Tunisia.  

Nigeria, Russia, Lithuania, Greece, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Macedonia, Jordan, New Zealand and Korea round out the list of nations battling for the last three London Olympic basketball tournament spots

In both the women's and men's Olympic tourneys, top four teams in each group advance, then the four remaining teams play knockout games with the Group A winner facing off against the fourth place team in Group B, the Group A Runner up playing the third place team in Group B and the Group A third and fourth place teams squaring off in knockout games against the Group B winner and runner up. 

Winners keep playing until they get to the gold and bronze medal matches. 

The Olympic basketball competition will last until August 12, and I'm so looking forward to it.

2012 Team USA Women's Olympic Soccer Watch- London Or Bust

It really doesn't matter that so far the FIFA world number ranked Team USA won its group in dominating fashion, outscored its opponents 31-0, have never lost a match in a domed stadium, on Canadian soil or is 7-0-0 against Costa Rica.

All that matters is that 7 PM CST semifinal match they are playing in a few hours against Group A runner up Costa Rica.  

It's simple.  Win the match and you're going to London.   Lose and like the FIFA number 2 ranked Germans you'll be watching the Olympic women's tournament go on without you in a few months. 

In Team USA's case their chance to threepeat as Olympic champions dies with an upset loss.   

No pressure.   But as ESPN's NFL analyst Herman Edwards famously said, that why you play the games.  And when you do, the unthinkable can happen like the Ticas catching the USA on a bad day, beating them and going to the Olympics at our expense.

They already had that nightmare scenario play out during FIFA Women's World Cup qualifying two years ago when Mexico upset them in the semifinals.  They still had a chance to qualify via the two leg playoff against Italy and did so.   

In this Olympic tournament scenario there is no last ditch chance to qualify.  It's either win tonight or you'll be sitting at home this July.


In the other pressure packed semifinal matchup host nation and FIFA seventh ranked Canada takes on Mexico for the other CONCACAF Olympic berth.

Team USA is determined to make sure the upset for the ages doesn't happen and they end that semifinal match in Vancouver with a win and one of the two CONCACAF Olympic berths in their possession.

We'll see what transpires on the BC Place Stadium turf in a few hours.


.

2012 Williams Watch- Serena's Milestone Win Takes Her To Third Round

There was good news and bad news for Little Sis on her business trip Down Under.  First the bad news.

Serena's mixed doubles partner Andy Roddick pulled a hamstring muscle during his second round match with Australia's Lleyton Hewitt in which he was trailing 6-3,3-6,.4-6 and had to retire.    

Serena and Andy Roddick are considering entering the mixed doubles competition in the London Games and wanted to use this tournament to get some practice time together.   

Now the good news.  She breezed past Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova of the Czech Republic 6-0, 6-4 to earn her 500th career match win to send her to the Australian Open's third round.

It was Little Sis' 16th consecutive match win at Melbourne Park and her career match record is 500-104.  In case you're wondering Venus' career match record is 589-147.

Next up is Hungary's Greta Arn

CONCACAF 2012 Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament Starts Today

I mentioned it at the conclusion of the FIFA Women's World Cup tournament last year that Canada would host the CONCAFAF Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournament that will decide which two teams from our region punch their tickets to London.

The fun starts at the newly renovated BC Place Stadium in Vancouver later today as eight teams begin play to determine who will be in the championship match on January 29 and ultimately in the Olympic Games Women's Tournament.

The eight competing teams in Vancouver will be placed in two groups and the draw shook out like this:

Group A:  Canada, Haiti, Cuba, Costa Rica
Group B:  Guatemala, Dominican Republic, USA, Mexico

Top two teams in Group play make it to the semifinal round on January 27 with the semifinal survivors qualifying for London and playing for the CONCAFAF tournament title.

The teams getting the two available CONCAFAF berths will join host nation and FIFA number 8 ranked Great Britain, FIFA World Cup champion and number 3 ranked Japan, FIFA number 9 ranked North Korea, FIFA number 4 ranked Brazil, Colombia, FIFA number 6 ranked France, FIFA number 5 ranked Sweden, South Africa, Cameroon (who knocked off Nigeria's Super Phobes) and one more nation from Oceania (possibly New Zealand) to round out the 12 team Olympic tournament.field

The three teams to watch in this tournament are the homestanding Canadians, Mexico and the two time defending Olympic champion USA who has also won the last two CONCAFAF Olympic qualifying tournaments and are working on an Olympic threepeat.. 

The FIFA number one ranked USA in the 2004 final knocked off Mexico 3-2 and in the 2008 final beat Canada 6-5 on penalty kicks after the match concluded in a 1-1 draw.

In November 2010 CONCAFAF champ Canada beat Mexico for the title in qualifying for the 2011 FIFA Women's World Cup after Mexico upset the USA 2-1 in the semis to claim the other World Cup auto qualifying berths   Team USA was forced to win the third place game against Costa Rica and then beat Italy in a two leg playoff just to qualify for the 2011 World Cup..

Team USA coach Pia Sundhage is bringing the same squad that finished as the World Cup runners up in Germany minus two players since you're only allowed 20 on the roster  The one they added however is Vancouver born UCLA standout Sydney Leroux. 

FIFA number 21 ranked Mexico wants to prove that the November 2010 loss they saddled the USA with in Cancun wasn't a fluke and they'll get their chance on January 24.  Assuming everything shakes out as expected it'll be a Group B finale that will probably determine who wins the group and who faces the runner up team from Group A.    

The FIFA seventh ranked Canadians have a new coach after their disappointing showing in Germany but are still just as determined to put a dent in the US soccer domination of them.

They also wish to continue the positive direction of their program in advance of their nation hosting the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup.  

The USA's last loss to Canada was ten years ago and in compiling a 41-3-4 record against our northern neighbors have never lost a match on Canadian soil.
 

While pundits are expecting a Canada-USA final on January 29, there are six other national teams in Vancouver who have Olympic dreams as well and would like nothing better than to take down one of the favorites and punch their own tickets to London. 

The Canadians open up Group A play today with Haiti with Cuba taking on  Costa Rica in the other contest.  The USA opens Group B play tomorrow with the Dominican Republic and Mexico takes on Guatemala.

If the favorites slip up by taking an underdog team for granted or one of the underdog teams gets hot at the right time, anything can happen. 


But one thing is certain.   There will only be two teams representing CONCAFAF at the London Olympics when this qualifying tournament is concluded.  The rest will be going home bitterly disappointed and in a few months watching the Olympic women's football tournament on television and waiting to try again to qualify when the Games come to Rio in 2016.