**Next BC…Monday, Sept. 1…enjoy the holiday weekend**
U.S. Open Quiz: 1) Post-1925, name the four men to win at least four singles titles. 2) What man won three times, all between 1985-1987? 3) Post-1930, what woman leads with six singles titles? 4) How many have the Williams sisters won? 5) Who am I? I won four women’s titles between 1959-66, initials M.B. Answers below.
The Games Are History
1. United States…36 G…38 S…36 B…110 [103 in ‘04]
2. China…51-21-28…100 [63]
3. Russia…23-21-28…72 [92…heh heh]
4. Britain…19-13-15…47 [30…Roll Bri-tan-nia! On to 2012 in London.]
5. Australia…14-15-17…46 [49]
6. Germany…16-10-15…41 [37]
7. France…7-16-17…40 [33…it’s the Bruni effect]
Japan dropped from 37 to 25, while India and its one billion+ people managed 3, count ‘em, 3 total medals. Good gawd.
Being overseas the past few days, golfing and pubbing, I didn’t get to see many of the Olympics’ final events but we were fortunate on Saturday in that our golf match was over by 1:00 p.m., Ireland time, and so we got to watch the stirring performance in the men’s 5000m by Ethiopia’s Kenenisa Bekele, as well as the terrific performances by the USA men and women in the 4X400 relays. Watching all three finals live (because of the 7-hour time difference between Ireland and China) even put a tear in my eye (because I just eat this stuff up). I mean you will never, ever see a distance runner close like Bekele did, truly stirring, and it goes without saying the USA efforts, making up for the disaster of the 4X100 baton fiascos, were a needed shot in the arm after a so-so overall Games for the track and field team.
Tommy Conlon of the Irish Independent had the following on Bekele.
“Long distance running is not the people’s sport the way it once was, but every four years it comes alive and gives us a thrilling lesson in the basics of human survival.
“There are dozens of disciplines at the Olympics that were created for diversion and entertainment, but long before sport was codified and regulated and annexed by nation states, people ran out of basic necessity. For hundreds of thousands of years human beings were running, to flee danger, to find shelter, to hunt for food.
“And traces of its Darwinian origins can still be seen in an Olympic final when the race becomes, in a very real sense, the survival of the fittest. Other sports like boxing, rugby or American football, have violence built in to the rules. But there is nothing more savage than an Olympic middle distance or long distance final, where the competitors don’t lay a hand on each other but seek to win by inflicting so much pain that their rivals wilt and falter and fade.
“And in yesterday’s 5000m final we saw another classic demonstration of competitive running at its most pure and primal. It was won by the amazing Ethiopian, Kenenisa Bekele. He had already won gold in the 10,000m. Coming down to the 5K he knew he was vulnerable, slightly vulnerable, to the speed of a few athletes in the field who, if they could survive his relentless pace over the first 11 and a half laps, might have the superior kick over the final 400.
“The first lap was run in 68 seconds. Each successive lap was faster. The fifth was run in 62 seconds and already the pace was fragmenting the field behind him. With five laps to go he hit another gear and burned off everyone – brother and countryman included – bar a couple of Kenyans and Bernard Lagat, another Kenyan, now representing the United States.
“The next lap was 59.9 seconds and now Lagat, a 1500m specialist with speed in his legs, was starting to wilt. At this point, according to Steve Cram on commentary for the BBC, Bekele looked up at the large screen in the arena and at that moment a TV shot happened to show Lagat starting to buckle – so Bekele stepped on the gas some more. ‘He’s putting the foot down, he’s putting the boot in.’ In an instant Bernard Lagat had been burned off for good.
“Survival of the fittest: the brutal, merciless running of an Olympic final.
“With Bekele in front and three pursuers hanging on, he was guaranteed a medal. But he wanted the gold to go with his 10,000m gold, thereby emulating the achievement of another Ethiopian legend, Miruts Yifter, who won the Olympic double 28 years ago in Moscow. He wasn’t just competing against the remaining Kenyans yesterday; he was competing against Yifter and other national heroes like Haile Gebrselassie and Abede Bikila who won marathon gold in Rome in 1960 and gold again in Tokyo in 1964….
“Less than two laps to go and two Kenyans have survived the meltdown wrought by Bekele and the rest of the field. ‘Bekele’s got to get rid of them before they get into that last 200 meters,’ said Cram, ‘he’s got to keep the pressure on and that’s exactly what he’s doing.’
“Then, the bell. Bekele, running with his brain as well as his body, looks at the screen to check on his pursuers; his physical system, heart and lungs and legs, are in full emergency mode. But when the bell goes he once again finds another gear. The surge is devastating and it’s a sight to behold: the speed, after more than 11 ferocious laps, and the fluid, rhythmic cadence of his running action. Within 100 meters the race is his. He has burned off the last of the challengers and he is out on his own, the last lap a victory all the way to the finish.
“He is smiling in the home straight, showing emotion for the first time on his normally inscrutable face. It is a classic performance, a masterclass in championship running by someone who knew he had to run harder for longer than anyone else in the field if he was to take the great prize.
“It was, ultimately, not about how much pain he could inflict on his rivals, but about how much he could inflict on himself. And it was about the beauty of Olympic running in all its awesome cruelty.”
–U.S. sprint coach Harvey Glance, a former Olympic champion from 1976, commented that phenom Usain Bolt is clean, adding:
“Usain was a phenomenal athlete at 15, don’t forget. No one has ever doubted his ability. It was a matter of him staying healthy and maturing. People say he’s altering the shape and stature of the sprinter, but there’s been tall sprinters before, Carl Lewis, Steve Williams, but they didn’t have such quick feet or have a drive phase at 40m. Once he was rolling, Carl could embarrass you, but this guy can embarrass you off the blocks. I watched his 100m last night and I didn’t realize some of the things he was doing out there. It was a perfectly executed 70m.”
Both Bolt and countryman Asafa Powell train on a grass track back in Jamaica, by the way.
–Meanwhile, this year has been a lost one for tennis great Roger Federer, but as L. Jon Wertheim writes in Sports Illustrated, the Olympics provided him a final stage, even after being beat in the quarterfinals by James Blake of the U.S.
“Federer resisted booking the next Gulfstream out of town, as so many others in his shoes would have done. Instead, he took a night to regroup and then returned to play in the doubles draw with countryman Stanislas Wawrinka. Showcasing his vast portfolio of skills, Federer carried the team to gold. It wasn’t the event he envisioned winning. But you’d hardly have known that, watching him stifle tears and repeatedly hug Wawrinka, who was celebrating the biggest win of his career. Federer didn’t just salvage his Olympic experience; he salvaged his year.”
Thomas Boswell / Washington Post
“After four weeks here, a blink compared with real students of China, I have only impressions. But they are vivid.
“At 3 a.m. on most Olympic nights, a bus with a few reporters would return to the Beijing Tibet Hotel. A dozen security officials met us to make sure we had credentials. During the day, knee-high tape outside the hotel created lanes for entering and exiting – a reasonable way to keep things organized.
“But in the middle of the night in a sleeping city, the tape was irrelevant. So, exhausted, we’d step over the tape and take the direct route to the front door. And every night the security people objected, insisting forcefully that we obey the stupid tape maze.
“Finally, a Chinese solution was devised. Instead of stopping by the front door, our bus continued to the side of the hotel so, even though our walk was longer, the direct route now obeyed the tape.
“Though we were the guests and they the hosts, we didn’t matter. Common sense was irrelevant. The tape – symbolic of a decision made by somebody somewhere in an unknowably complex and security-conscious control structure – was all that mattered. They had uniforms. We didn’t. That’s big everywhere. It’s huge here.
“The current Chinese culture doesn’t just reveal itself in the middle of the night. All day long, every 20 minutes (to the split second), hundreds of buses run back and forth from media hotels to the Olympic venues. There’s even a special ‘Olympic lane’ for all official traffic to the Games. Because the Chinese obsessed with appearing efficient, the number, size and frequency of buses comically exceed the need. I often had a bus to myself.
“However, I can barely believe what I saw Saturday when, by accident, I had to return to my hotel at 1 p.m., when almost no reporter has reason to leave the Olympics. Several football fields full of buses all pulled out simultaneously, headed to hotels all over Beijing, theoretically transporting media.
“They still made their runs. They still wasted fuel. They still clogged traffic. But nobody, in an activity as state-controlled and Communist Party-scrutinized as these Olympics, would deviate from the original plan, no matter how stupid it might be….
“Everyone was helpful until you went one inch past where you were supposed to go. Then, arms sprang out to stop you. Everywhere you went, even alone at 2 a.m., you felt completely safe. Because every hundred feet there were a pair of guards – at attention in the middle of the night.
“As sports spectacles go, I’ve never seen one more efficiently or soullessly executed than this one. I have no idea where they put the real people for 17 days, but I felt like Jim Carrey in ‘The Truman Show.’ Where’s Ed Harris saying: ‘Truman is going to turn left on Main Street: Cue the smiling girl and the hearty hot dog vendor.’
“The family that’s always perfect in public is the one you worry about. What’s going on under the surface? The complete lack of dissent here – not one person could get a permit to use the designated Olympic ‘protest area,’ though some were detained for trying – has an eloquence of its own.
“As for the Chinese people, I like them a lot. But they’ve been through so many purges and plagues, cultural revolutions and great leaps forward, followed by the whipsaw from socialism to ‘rich is good,’ that I think they’re happy to toe the societal line. This decade, it’s entrepreneurial capitalism – hyper-boom phase. We’ll see how they like the bust part. It’s probably coming.”
“Jacques Rogge had the look of a man happy to get out of Dodge. The motors were running and the limo door was open as Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, prepared to extinguish the flame in the Olympic stadium Sunday night.
“Earlier in the day, Rogge said, ‘It is clear the Chinese have put the bar very high,’ referring to any tangible way the Games can be measured – large crowds, low drug busts, reasonable air quality, high television ratings, greater diversity of nations winning gold medals….
“(Beijing) staged Games that have been judged as excellent – the word ‘technically’ slips into play a lot. Given the control the Chinese government exerts over daily life (including coming down hard on troublemakers), it was not exactly news that the Games were, shall we say, disciplined.
“In his closing news conference Sunday, Rogge once again came under pressure to criticize the Chinese government for blocking Web sites like Amnesty International’s and giving two elderly protestors a sentence of a year at labor, currently being served in their homes. He replied that the I.O.C. was not in the business of criticizing sovereign states.
“And look at it this way: if the Olympics were held in the United States, what if Rogge were pressured by foreign journalists to criticize the United States’ incursion into Iraq?….
“The mustiness of the I.O.C. was apparent when Rogge criticized Usain Bolt of Jamaica for overcelebrating after winning three gold medals in two sprints and a relay. When asked about it Sunday, Rogge said: ‘I gave Usain Bolt what I call fatherly advice. He and Michael Phelps are the icons of the Games. He should show respect for his opponents. He is a young man of 22. He has time to mature.’ Back in the Americas, I have friends who celebrate harder than Bolt after tossing their bagel wrapper in the trash receptacle.”
Mike Vaccaro / New York Post
“The morning began the way the Games themselves had: with a very special guest appearance by the sun, so bashful for so much of these Olympics.
“Yes, the smog was every bit as bad as advertised, and the humidity was often just a little to this side of unbearable, and let’s just say they aren’t likely to ever turn Beijing into an Asian version of South Beach.
“But for this one morning, the sun was high in a sky so blue it looked like God Himself had just applied a fresh coat of paint. Up and down Zhichun Road there were people, thousands of them, many of them getting their first glimpse of the Olympics just as they were about to say goodbye.
“Only, they didn’t want to say goodbye. From high above the street, on the 10th floor of the Jade Palace Hotel, there came the oddest kind of wake-up call, a low hum that grew ever louder by the minute, that soon fell into a full-throated roar that wouldn’t quite cease. In a few moments, the leaders of the marathon would be passing through, and it was as if these citizens wanted to leave the crackle of thunder in the world’s ears.
“Soon, they came from off in the distance, the three men who would finish 1-2-3 in this most Olympic of Olympic events…and as they traversed this segment of their 26-mile journey the crowd began lifting its voice ever higher.
“For a good half hour, as the rest of the field came by, this segment of Zhichun Road was as loud as any sporting place you’ll ever be, louder than the Garden, louder than Yankee Stadium, louder than overtime at the Final Four or the 18th green at Augusta National.
“You’ll never see a place more alive than this, more vibrant, happier.
“And 30 minutes later, it was gone, all of it: the people, the laughter, the barricades, any trace that a road race had swept by here, any hint of ear-splitting wonder that had filled the morning along Zhichun Road. Where had it all gone?
“That is the fear of what comes next here, that whatever goodwill China may have built up across the past 16 days can vanish in an instant, in an eyeblink, that for all the joy these Games engendered it can all come tumbling down without any of the workers, or anyone else, even breaking a sweat.
“It didn’t keep many of the same athletes who competed under the German flag in 1936 from marching off to slaughter and be slaughtered little more than three years later.
“The Olympics are a Band-Aid, not an antidote. You would like to think the Chinese government will have observed how charmed much of the world was by its citizens, by its streets, by its temples, by its history. Many of us came bearing acres of cynicism, and leave a little wiser for our journey.”
“With their elbows locked, smiles iridescent and extreme image makeover complete, the United States men’s basketball players took their final step into Olympic lore in the most appropriate way – together.
“They pulled one another up to the gold medal podium on Sunday after a 118-107 victory over Spain in an old-fashioned shootout that could long resonate as a standard for international play. After hammering their opponents by an average of 30.2 points through their first seven games, the Americans outlasted the Spaniards in their first wire-to-wire test of the Olympics, a game as aesthetically pleasing as it was entertaining….
“Carmelo Anthony, a veteran of Team USA, said the squad had put ‘American basketball where it’s supposed to be – on the top of the world.’
“After embarrassing the United States on and off the court in Athens, this so-called Redeem Team lived up to its moniker with vigor. The players guarded as if their meals depended on it, shared the ball as if they were starring in ‘Hoosiers’ and made not even a wisp of trouble off the court….
“ ‘Everybody wants to talk about N.B.A. players being selfish and arrogant and being individuals,’ Bryant said. ‘Well, what you saw today was a team bonded together, facing adversity and coming out of here with a big win.’
“The victory appears to portend well for USA Basketball. Although (Mike) Krzyzewski is not likely to return as head coach, Bryant is one of five core players – Chris Bosh, Chris Paul, Deron Williams and Dwight Howard are the others – who said they would gladly return to play in London in 2012. LeBron James, Anthony and (Dwayne) Wade said they would consider it when they must decide.”
As USA Basketball’s managing director Jerry Colangelo said, “The quality and caliber of player in this championship game was extraordinary. The bar has been raised, and it’s going to be even better next time around.”
–WARNING: The following story is intended for children over the age of 16. When I was in Ireland, over many a pint one of the topics that came up was sex in the Olympic Village. Then I saw on Sunday when I got home the following piece from the New York Post that confirmed all the rumors.
“NBC couldn’t televise the most exciting action at the Olympics in Beijing – the sexual acrobatics of the young competitors in the Olympic Village.
“According to veterans of the Games, the world’s top athletes were hooking up for the two weeks of competition – with a final burst of sexual release last night on the eve of today’s closing ceremonies.
“ ‘This sex fest…[happened] right here in Beijing,’ Matthew Syed, a past Olympian and table-tennis champion now working as a commentator, writes in the Times of London. ‘Olympic athletes have to display an unnatural – and, it has to be said, wholly unhealthy – level of self-discipline in the build-up to big competitions. How else is this going to manifest itself than with a volcanic release of pent-up hedonism?’
“Syed notes the big winners, ‘even those as geeky as Michael Phelps,’ were the principal objects of desire for many female athletes. Losers also get their share, he said, adding it was ‘a common sight to see recently knocked-out athletes gorging on Magnums and McDonald’s, swilling alcohol and, of course, shagging like crazy.’….
“One Australian athlete told the paper, ‘It is unbelievable in there; everyone is totally crazy once they are out of their competitions.’”
–Holy Toledo! Trader George sent word to me while I was in Ireland that our home state of New Jersey is being overrun by feral pigs! As reported by Brian T. Murray of the Star-Ledger:
“The pigs have gone hog wild in New Jersey. As many as 100 feral swine are ripping up golf courses, rooting through flower farms and generally making a mess of things in the swamps, forests and fields of Gloucester County. Thought to be descendants of domestic hogs freed from pens at least a decade ago, the belligerent boars have mentally and physically regressed and are no longer the familiar pink porkers slopping it up on lazy little farms.
“ ‘We caught one boar that weighed in at about 250 pounds – tusks and all,’ said Christopher Boggs, a wildlife biologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture….
“Feral pigs have been declared one of the most destructive invasive species on the planet, and the federal government estimates 6 million of them are digging up crops and making mud wallows of sensitive vernal pools, where rare reptiles and amphibians reproduce. They are also reservoirs for a host of diseases that afflict livestock, wildlife and even humans.”
Said Lawrence Herrighty of the state Division of Fish and Wildlife, “They have to be eradicated.” Alas, despite a federal program to do just that, only three have been caught and killed.
You see, sports fans, “A freed pig becomes leaner, meaner, hairier and hostile. The full metamorphosis is found in its offspring, according to the USDA and state wildlife officials.
“ ‘By the first or second generation – and that means within about a year, because the pigs mate a few times in a year – you cannot tell the difference between the piglets and any other wild pig,’ Herrighty said.
“That prolific breeding, with a sow able to have three litters of up to 10 pigs a year, has made feral pigs an international nightmare, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the oldest and largest global environmental network.
“Texas, alone, was reporting 3 million feral pigs in 2000, and national estimates are double that.”
And get this, as reported by Brian Murray, Herrighty “said the pigs are very bright and, if they learn they are being hunted, may become nocturnal and disperse. But that may already be starting to happen. The USDA initially found no sign of the pigs in the White Oak Branch area until hunters quit for the winter season.”
–Our sympathies go out to those suffering from all the Tropical Storm Fay-related flooding in Florida. Of course the disaster has been compounded by the alligators and snakes driven out of their own habitats.
“Florida National Guardsman Steve Johnson recalled wading through hip-deep water Wednesday night with a flashlight.
“ ‘I said, ‘What the heck is that?’ and there was an alligator floating by.’” [AP]
–The Wall Street Journal had a piece on Monday on the Komodo dragon and its last big refuge in eastern Indonesia where 2,500 of the prehistoric monsters co-exist with 4,000 natives. Last year, as reported in this column, a Komodo took out a 9-year-old child and it’s the hope here that mor…………………oops, that wouldn’t be appropriate. Anyway, the natives are blaming the Virginia-based Nature Conservancy, which has helped manage the park since 1995, for the Komodo’s newfound belligerence. For one thing, park authorities no longer allow villagers to hunt deer, which they in turn would feed parts of to the Komodo, kind of like the natives used to do with King Kong, actually.
But get this, as reported by Yaroslav Trofimov, Komodo dragons, which can live more than 50 years, “can recognize individual humans.” That’s enough for me. I’m never going to say a bad word about a Komodo on these pages. I have enough to worry about when I take out the garbage at night.
–The New York Giants suffered a huge blow as defensive end Osi Umenyiora was lost for the season. But this now opens the door for a return by the retired Michael Strahan. According to a source close to him, all it would take is $8 million, but this would also mean breaking his contract with Fox.
–Nice win for Vijay Singh in the first round of the FedEx Cup playoffs at Ridgewood Country Club in New Jersey as Vijay defeated Sergio Garcia in the second hole of sudden death. For Vijay it was his 33rd PGA Tour triumph.
–And congrats to 18-year-old Danny Lee for becoming the youngest champion of the U.S. Amateur at Pinehurst, supplanting Tiger Woods.
–I have newfound respect for Jason Giambi and Joba Chamberlain of the Yankees. Really. From Page Six of the New York Post.
“It would be tough for average Joes to beat a couple of Yankees at baseball, but slamming them in a game of beer pong was no sweat. Last week, [Giambi and Chamberlain] were celebrating their win against the Kansas City Royals at Southern Hospitality, on Second Avenue, when a table of fans challenged them to a game of the college drinking sport. Our spy said, ‘The fans gave them a beating. Toward the end Chamberlain and Giambi got really competitive, but it wasn’t enough.’”
–And now a Bar Chat EXCLUSIVE: In “For Better of For Worse,” Liz’s wedding to Anthony won’t last a year. This is also what happens when everyone is drawn the same, as is the case in this strip.
–That was shocking news, the death of NFL union head Gene Upshaw. Just 63, Upshaw first learned he had pancreatic cancer last Sunday and died on Wednesday. Upshaw had been executive director of the NFLPA for 25 years, though it needs to be said he was highly criticized for being a toy of the owners and for failing to do enough on the issue of medical benefits for retired players.
–I was saddened to learn of the loss of Pervis Jackson, the bass voice for the R&B supergroup the Spinners. Jackson was 70.
A New Orleans native, Jackson was one of the original five members and had just performed in July with the two remaining originals, Bobbie Smith and Henry Fambrough, and two new members.
I’ve always felt that the Spinners’ Greatest Hits album is as good as it comes and their first big hit, 1970’s #14 “It’s A Shame” is easily in my personal Top 20. And you had these other Billboard Top 20s for the group.
Top 3 songs for the week 8/28/76: #1 “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” (Elton John & Kiki Dee) #2 “You Should Be Dancing” (Bee Gees) #3 “Let ‘Em In” (Wings)…and… #4 “You’ll Never Find Another Love Like Mine” (Lou Rawls) #5 “I’d Really Love To See You Tonight” (England Dan & John Ford Coley…sorry, I liked their sappy music… which doesn’t make me a bad person) #6 “(Shake, Shake, Shake) Shake Your Booty” (KC & The Sunshine Band) #7 “Play That Funky Music” (Wild Cherry) #8 “A Fifth Of Beethoven” (Walter Murphy & The Big Apple Band…truly dreadful) #9 “Get Closer” (Seals & Crofts) #10 “This Masquerade” (George Benson…talk about a groundbreaking tune…and what an awesome album Breezin’ is)
U.S. Open Quiz Answers: 1) Post-1925, four men to win at least four singles titles: Jimmy Connors and Pete Sampras, 5; Roger Federer and John McEnroe, 4. 2) Ivan Lendl won his three between 1985 and 1987. 3) Post-1930, the only woman to win six singles titles is Chris Evert. 4) The Williams sisters have won four singles titles, two apiece, and all between 1999 and 2002. 5) Maria Bueno won four titles between 1959 and 1966.
Next Bar Chat, Labor Day, Sept. 1. I need some more time to catch up, but I’ll be working this coming holiday weekend, friends.
