End of Two Great Sporting Events
Sunday marked the end of two great sporting events. Events where love of the game is greater than anything else. The first was the Summer Olympics and the other was the Little League World Series.
The Olympics
During the past two weeks the world’s best have competed against each other in all kinds of sports, competitions, and athletic challenges. The US won a total of 110 medals led by insane Michael Phelps who won a record 8 gold medals in the pool. Both the Men’s and Women’s teams dominated the world on the basketball courts by winning the golds in both contests. Both of our beach volleyball teams won as was expected.
Unfortunately in all the glory and great stories for the US in the the Olympics there were disappointments as well. Both the men’s and women’s 4×100 sprint relays were disqualified in the early rounds when they dropped the baton. The USA softball team lost its first game since the 2000 Olympics in the championship game to take home silver. We only won one medal at all in boxing and that was a bronze again not a familiar place for the American boxers to be. Props to the Jamaicans showing that they can run winning the Gold in the men’s 100M dash and all three medals in the women’s. Samuel Wanjiru of Kenys won the Marathon.
Now the bad; Angel Valodia the Cuban Taekwondo specialist was banned for life after kicking a referee because he didn’t agree with the call. Ara Abrahamian of Sweden was stripped of his bronze medal in greco roamn wrestling after protesting his 3rd place medal by placing the medal on the mat after the medal ceremony. Six athletes have been caught (so far) doping the lowest number in years. And the Chinese women’s gymnasts are still under suspicion of being under age.
Now we must wait 4 more years for the summer games and hopefully in 2112 London can put on a show as good as Beijing has in 2008.
Little League World Series
Sunday also saw the championship game of the Little League World Series (LLWS) in Williamsport Pa. The LLWS is a true world series in which 8 teams from around the world compete against each other while 8 teams from the US compete against each other for the right to play each other in the championship game.
This year the respective teams were Mexico for the world and Hawaii for the US. Hawaii brought the championship home for the US for the 4th straight year by beating Mexico 12-3 in the 6 inning contest (regulation little league game).
It is great to watch sporting events like these where the competitors are playing and competing for the love of the game and not for the money and endorsements. Sure the men’s basketball team are all professionals but this team was hell bound to bring home the gold after the US was embarrassed at the last Olympics in winning the bronze. The athletes in the Olympics and the LLWS are truly there for the love of the sport that they are competing in and representing their country.
Related posts:
Leave a Reply