Well…hey, I am finally going to get at a topic that is not politics…or, on the surface it’s not about politics but the idiot trump is going to make it about politics. Just Sunday, the world anti doping agency announced that Russia and it’s athletes will be banned from all international competitions including the Wold Cup and the Olympics due to widespread institutional cheating led by the Russian government. The ban is going to be for 4 years pending the obligatory appeal the that the Russians will request, or if the idiot trump gets involved and tries to strong arm WADA into looking the other way…after all it is Russia involved and we all know that trump lives to please Putin. The bottom line is that Russia and it’s supposedly impartial athlete testing lab spent the past few years hiding positive results and were even involved with helping Russian athletes cheat at every competition they were in….just like the East Germans did in the 60’s through the 90’s when that tiny little country won every medal in sight. Look, this crap has been going on forever and Russia needs to pay some price for their blatant cheating…I do feel for the clean Russian athletes…if there are any, but the solution from Rio and Korea where individual Russians were allowed to compete but not under the Russian flag is not acceptable…we know that Russian athletes are under the thumb of Putin and can’t be assured they are not dirty…so while I feel for these athletes, it is time for their entire system to be penalized for their government’s cheating….that continues to this day…
Category Archives: Sports
Everone’s on vacation…
Well…it looks like a slow news day today…haven’t been able to find a topic that I want to talk about…okay, how about Manchester United? I started watching the first match of the year yesterday with some trepidation given the poor quality of the team last year and the almost constant disappointment that I felt watching them…so, I did feel a little better after they beat Chelsea 4-0 yesterday but the one thing I have to tell myself is that it is just the first game and until they put in a string of wins, I need to just try to enjoy the play and hope the youngsters they are playing will grow into the job. I still think a lot of the players are doing just enough to get by and they need to show more and work harder…and the goals that they got yesterday were all on the counter attack and not from the run of play and I’m not sure if that is sustainable over the course of the long EPL season…we’ll see…for now, I’m just going to enjoy the fact that soccer is back and that will give me something to hold back the boredom on the weekends…more later…
A good sports day…
Well…I wonder what I’m going to do on the weekends when soccer and football are over? Today started out well with Wolves and Leictester City going at it in a really good game and Wolves winning it 4-3 in the last minute of stoppage time…very entertaining….and now we have Man U playing Brighton and Man U has started out okay but no score yet…then we have Michigan trying to keep their unbeaten streak going in basketball against Wisconsin at noon…and then the NFL playoffs later in the aft…so, I’ve got a day of less boredom than normal and that really is something to look forward to…and, next weekend is the 24 hours of Daytona that I hope I have the channels to watch…so, for at least the next two weekends, I have something do…along with riding as soon as the parts get here…so, back to sports…more later…
A new day starts….Jose Mourinho is gone…
Well…as you know, I have vented my frustration with how Manchester United has been playing this year with it’s worst start in 28 years and no hope of getting to the Champions League next year. Today, though, we Red Devils fans got a Christmas gift with the sacking of Jose Mourinho as manager and I say it has been way too long coming. Under Mourinho, Man U has looked an ordinary team for more than a year even with all of the talent they have and the money they have spent…Jose turned them into a plodding, ugly team to watch and every game has left us guessing what team is going to show up…and I put that squarely on the manager…now, there is plenty of blame to go around and much of it is the players themselves who seem to be phoning it in at times and I’m not sure if it was conflict with Jose or what but maybe, just maybe we can have some hope to see our Man U team be Man U again…it will be interesting anyway….
Maybe the Wings are for real?
Well…getting up so early has it’s drawbacks in that I already have all the online papers read and it’s only 7:30…so I thought I’d come back here and talk a little bit about the Red Wings. They have been under the radar so far this season…for me anyway, with playing pretty terribly over the first ten games where they only won one game…but, there has been something happening with them over the past two weeks where they have won 5 of 6 games and have been competing with the teams that are going to make the playoffs…one of the things that might be a concern…and is to me, is that they have come from behind in every one of the wins…and three of the wins have been either in OT or shootouts and that is not a path to success in the league. Still, last night’s game was pretty exciting with the winning goal coming with 5.4 seconds left in OT and I guess a win is a win….and now I think I may need to follow them more closely…was hoping that the young guys would step up and at least make them credible…and they are starting to…and there is much more talent just waiting in GR so maybe the playoffs are not too big a stretch? Hope so….Let’s Go Red Wings!
Let’s go Red Wings!
Well….another fall comes and another Red Wings season starts tonight and I am going to admit that I am still excited when a new season starts even though they have missed the playoffs the past two years. That excitement is tempered this year by the retirement of Henrik Zetterberg who has been my guy since he came into the league in 2002 and has made me some money betting on who would score the next goal over the years…but, I am glad that he is going out on his own terms and is thinking about his health and the rest of his life…I am going to miss him but maybe there will be one of the youngsters that will step up and provide the excitement that Hank did over his career…we can hope. The boys have looked good through the preseason but we all know that really doesn’t mean much and the season is a long grind….the one thing I can say right now is that we are undefeated and I will be watching…and will be breaking my no cocktail policy for tonight…Let’s Go Red Wings!
184 mph…on a bicycle…
Well….read this article last week and forgot to comment on it until now….and WOW! Just frickin WOW! Earlier this summer, a 45 year old woman smashed the bicycle world speed record of 167 mph by riding her bike on the Bonneville salt flats at 184 mph…yep, you saw that right…184 mph with nothing but her legs providing the power…kind of makes my top speed of 42 mph downhill kind of silly…I have followed this record setting since I was a youngster and just the coordination between the pace car and the rider is amazing…she had the wind broken by a converted top fuel dragster since the cars used for other records just weren’t fast enough…all I can say is congratulations…what a feat….
Evel live….
Well….have had a lazy day today and just saw something that might be interesting to watch tonight…not sure if you know who Travis Pastrana is but he is a pretty famous motocross racer…has been on the “Xgames” quite a bit and tonight, he is going to try to re-create Evel Knievel’s three most famous jumps live on the History channel at 7…he is going to try to jump over 50 cars, 19 buses, and the Ceasar’s Palace fountain that Evel almost killed himself jumping…I remember seeing that jump live on “ABC’s Wild World of Sports” when I was a kid….well… not a kid but a lot younger than I am now…and he is even going to do the jumps on a comparable motorcycle…a big twin Indian that weighs twice Pastrana’s normal bike. So, that’s what I’ll be doing at 7 tonight…I know with the technology and preparation, there is little chance that he will crash doing these stunts but it will still be cool to watch….
And, I have leftover cocktail materials for it…yay!
A little more World Cup…
Well…just watched a stunning match with my guys from Belgium knocking off Brazil 2-1 and I actually stood up and cheered when the final whistle blew…and that leaves my two teams still in it…at least until tomorrow when England plays Sweden early in the morning…Belgium went up 2-0 in the first half but the Brazil just kept throwing attack after attack at them….and scored a goal at around 75 minutes to make the rest of the match pretty nerve wracking….this is the best word cup that I have seen since I started watching them in 1994 when the US hosted them…. and my guys from Man U, Lukaku and Fellaini were terrific all day…I’m still smiling…
Having some problems…
Well…no, nothing really serious…even with everything that is going on in the world, I just am having some problems figuring out a topic for today…and that started yesterday as you can see. Oh, okay…let’s talk about the world cup…have been watching quite a few of the games and there have been a lot of surprises…my adopted team from Mexico beat the Germans yesterday and that was not supposed to happen…the Germans looked slow and like they had no ideas how to cope with Mexico’s fast break and energetic defense that challenged every ball for the entire 90 minutes…I’ll surely be rooting for them the rest of the tournament. Another big surprise was when another favorite, Argentina, was tied by Iceland…yep, you heard that right, Iceland tied the powerhouse Argentina and Messi looked pretty ordinary for the best player in soccer…I am a little disappointed that England is playing this aft just when I’ll be shooting pool but they may have a replay somewhere later so I’ll have to look for that…okay, Belgium and Panama is almost ready to start so I’ll end here and try to find something political to write about later….