NTSF 097: Tour de France, F1 shenanigans, Euro track and field and more…

TOOLING AROUND THE NET…

London prepares for the 2012 Olympics with a massive rejuvenation project in the Lea River Valley on the east side of the city, hoping to eliminate the albatrosses of future uselessness with their landscape engineering plan...

With the phone out of commission, I’ve found myself reading fewer things on the internet and more things in recent magazines that were lying around work. I’ve still found myself sitting early in the mornings, soaking in everything I can on the internet with my morning coffee before catching a bus to work, but my technology’s demise has inevitably left me without the means to read anywhere but at home. Still I’ve found a couple things worth sharing; some are the online links to magazine articles, others were posted directly online, but it’s all definitely worth reading:

• Why the World Cup Sucks (Matt Taibbi/Men’s Journal/10 June 2010) – After finding this one first in the June/July 2010 issue of the magazine at work, I came home and searched for the article online. It was almost more worth it reading the wealth of comments both intelligent and asinine… the article inevitably drew some massive ire (as you might guess from the title). Personally, I’ve always enjoyed Matt Taibbi’s writing, especially his work at the National Affairs desk of Rolling Stone. But he certainly wasn’t about to persuade me that the World Cup isn’t worth watching. Unlike most of the people of which he speaks, I’ve followed it for more than just the past few… and honestly all his logic stemmed from things outside the run of play itself, aside from the diving — something most soccer fans themselves can attest is an annoyance with which we grudgingly deal but hardly accept…
• Two years out: An early 2012 guide (Bonnie D. Ford/ESPN.com/27 July 2010) – There is no time too early to get to thinking about big events on the distant horizon. And in an article for ESPN, Ford has taken a preliminary look at the preparations ongoing in London ahead of the 2012 Olympics. With the various arenas popping up in the Lea River Valley on the east side of the city, the opportunity is on for the city to provide the blueprint for future Olympiads to regenerate downtrodden areas of future host cities and revitalize their usefulness for city populations. Having watched over the past year as Matthew Knight Arena has taken form hovering over the building in which I work on the University of Oregon campus, it is hard to fathom the sheer scale of construction underway in London. Ford provides an eyewitness view on the ground around the sites…
• How the golden boy can get even better (Tom Fordyce/BBC Sport/28 July 2010) – With Christophe Lemaitre’s victory at the European Athletics Championships in the 100m race, the track world has a new potential superstar to look forward to rooting for at the Olympic Stadium in London you can view at the prior link in two years’ time. But as Fordyce shows us in this BBC article, there are a few finite aerodynamics-assisting moves within the Frenchman’s race which still have plenty of time to be fine-tuned in advance of his maiden voyage on Olympic ground. With improvements to his biomechanics, Lemaitre might just be the man — instead of Powell and Gay — to give Usain Bolt a run for his money…
• “Disabled” former FDNY fireman cheating the system? (R.K. Menn/Sports Nickel/28 July 2010) – Having never been a firefighter myself, but having seen my father do it in a volunteer capacity for 16 years, a few differences between MMA and John Giuffrida’s former profession as an FDNY firefighter popped to mind as I read this article by fellow Sports Nickel writer R.K. Menn. First, I’ve never trained for MMA. If anything, I was raised more on the “sweet science” of boxing in the sport’s last golden era for heavyweights and never did get into mixed martial arts enough as they ascended right past boxing to prominence in the fight game. But the variance between the bursts of energy required for MMA versus the sustained endurance effort that is firefighting quickly came to mind as I read this. While his lungs may be able to adequately handle the heavy exertion in measured doses that is diving into the octagon, they may not be able to work at maximum capacity — not to mention tolerate the inevitable smoke inhalation that is residual and inevitable even when wearing a breathing apparatus — for as long a period as firefighting requires. Second, this sounds like the board which reviews these cases is as much at fault, if this is indeed an instance of cheating the system. In many cases medical boards (for insurance purposes) will call for an early retirement on a seemingly healthy individual due to the long-term risks inherent in the call of duty. What Giuffrida is doing, in my personal opinion, is laudable — instead of allowing himself to perpetuate risk factors by lettimg himself go, he is instead proactively looking to increase his years of health available despite prior afflictions. But then, like I said, I’m no expert…

What falls on your must-watch list this coming week? Tennis has been staging its fractious sideshows in such far-flung outposts as Croatia, DC, Gstaad and Los Angeles (for the men) and Istanbul, San Diego, Copenhagen and Stanford (for the women). Formula 1 graces us with back-to-back weekends of racing, following up last weekend’s contentious German Grand Prix with more action. Cyclists get back on their bicycles after a tough Tour de France to race a one-day classic in Spain and start another (shorter) stage race in Poland. And there’s more track action to be had in advance of next Friday’s Diamond League meet in Stockholm. Here are my can’t-miss events of the weekend and beyond:

• European Athletics Championships (through Sunday/01 August 2010) – After the thrilling performance by Lemaitre, it’s hard to believe… but there is far more action to come all throughout the weekend from Barcelona as Europe crowns its continental track and field champions. Back in 1992, the Catalan city issued a massive awakening as to how the Olympic ideal could revitalize a city beyond mere transitory renovations. The fruits of that labor include winning the right to host events like these European championships. You can become the beneficiary of these fruits by following the link to one of my favorite websites…
• Classica San Sebastian (Saturday/31 July 2010) – Spain, after an already-dominant summer which has seen their brightest athletic stars take victories in the showcase events of tennis, cycling and soccer, has been enjoying a run of playing host to big events. This UCI ProTour one-day classic through the capital of Basque Spain is a prelude for the Vuelta a España running later this month. Run annually since 1981, the thirtieth edition of the classic will have fierce competition. Five of the past six years a Spaniard has taken the crown; will the summer of successes continue for the Iberians?
• Hungarian Grand Prix (Sunday/01 August 2010) – Last year this race set off a chain of events that sent Formula 1 in a drastically unexpected direction. Brazilian driver Felipe Massa, denied the win at Hockenheim by his Ferrari team, returns to the scene where he was hit by flying shrapnel in a practice run and rushed to the hospital. At the time we feared he might never race again. Michael Schumacher made an aborted attempt to return out of retirement and drive Massa’s car for his old team. But Massa is back, and showing he’s on good form right now. If he’s got a chance to win this race, the longtime Italian-based F1 dynamo would be wise to let the Brazilian take the spoils, points race be damned…
• Tour de Pologne (starts Monday/02 August 2010) – Afraid the coming week was going to let you down with no action to watch? Getting the jitters for some bicycle racing after becoming acclimatized during the Tour de France? The UCI has just the cure, with the start of the Tour de Pologne falling Monday right when you think the doldrums are setting in after the weekend. The race continues all week long through August 8, and offers a chance to see some fresh-legged talent and some up-and-coming riders who didn’t get the call up to their teams’ French rosters.

After all, it’s never been easier to keep up with a sport that only a decade ago would have been so niche as to hardly render much online access (unless you’re ready to bone up on your Romance-language reading comprehension). Finding access to video is elementary; these days everyone has the instant potential to be a photojournalist and chronicler of history. But even when that technology breaks down before your very eyes, all hope is not lost. For there are so many damn ways to get to the crux of a story these days that one would be hard-pressed not to find out the score of something.

It makes for a dearth of suspense oftentimes… if you’re the type of person who wants to experience the whole drama of an event you couldn’t watch in real time and decided to record on your DVR. But it also allows for the catharsis to set in sooner. And that, in the end, is what sports are all about. A crisp radio broadcast or even a well-written recap can tell you just as much as the eyes can about the action of the contest on any given night. Even if you can’t witness something live, in person at the stadium or on television, there are myriad ways to drink in the experience nonetheless. And if you can know you have reason to cheer or boo later, it also allows the subsequent joy or suffering to be tempered with more sober thoughts of things to come.

That’s why we root, after all — to cheer on something far bigger than us. Sometimes the connection is something we’ve been born into, a familial passage of tradition borne of geographic relevance. Sometimes it is a tie to a place of matriculation, either one’s own or a sibling or friend. Sometimes we go so far as to end up choosing, on blind faith or the presence of a favorite player or a friend from the past who was fanatical himself or even an appreciative understanding of a given philosophy, an overseas team for which to root. But no matter where we direct our fan’s energy, it is all about the spectrum of emotions involved. Where else, after all, can you go from zero to giddy in the time it takes to blink one’s eyelids?