Olympics
Conversation with Usain Bolt
An official I know got me a track team suit from Japan and the necessary credentials, and I sauntered below the Olympic stadium in Rio and onto the practice track where I spotted Usain Bolt as he worked on starts a day before the four-hundred-meter relay final. I jogged over and said, “We’ve already run…
Read MoreThe Usain Bolt Gear
Tyson Gay has beaten me in a hundred-meter dash, so has Asafa Powell, and Yohan Blake recently outran me in both the hundred and two hundred at our Olympic trials in Jamaica. Those three are the swiftest in history, after me, and may be thinking, or at least hoping, that while I used to be…
Read MoreWater Polo War
after russians trampled hungary in ‘fifty-six victims got better matchup in summer olympics red army entered water polo pool minus tanks and planes reports pool turned red exaggerated water only pink and hungary won this war four zip
Read MoreHighlights from the 2008 Olympics
I see many noble commentators have downplayed if not altogether ignored Olympic sports in order to rebuke China for a range of civil rights concerns and thereby imply the nation today is as ill as in the era of Mao, who shred at least as much flesh as Hitler and Stalin. China has in fact…
Read MoreBob Costas Explains Olympic Coverage
BEIJING – Every night during the Olympic Games I’m frequently overcome by sensual gratification and the release of absolute power: this invariably occurs as I tell billions of inconsequential viewers that, in essence, their time matters not, and fragments of headline sports they’ve waited months to watch will be shown in two or three hours,…
Read MoreEddie Hart’s Quest to be the Fastest
Since his youth in the schoolyard, where he always outran other kids to the finish line, Eddie Hart dreamed of someday becoming the Fastest Man in the World. It is one of the most respected titles in sports – requiring a raw display of unequivocal athleticism – and rivals the significance (though not the celebrity)…
Read MoreStereotypes Trounced at the Olympics and Elsewhere
If someone asked you if you occasionally think about others in stereotypical ways, you’d probably be insulted and deny ever having had even a moment of biased perception. And you’d be full of prune juice. We all, in boundless imperfection, are periodically burdened by our unfair assessments. However, if you still insist that your thinking…
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