Tuesday, August 24, 2004

And now... Thoughts on Track & Field

-- Are these particularly malicious hurdles they got in Athens?  I don't watch loads of Track & Field so can't say whether this is usual, but it certainly looks like these hurdles are attacking more than your regular hurdles.

-- Is it just me, or do some of these guys need to get, um, athletic supporters?  I mean, on some of 'em, it's downright distracting.

-- I wanna try throwing the javelin.  Or the shotput, or the hammer, or the discus, or anything you get to yell when you throw.  I love the yell.  I particularly love when they yell after the item leaves their hands.  As though they can throw it silently, but then help it in flight by sending waves through the air with their lung power.

-- Do Track & Field athletes trade countries the same way professional baseball players change teams?  Seems that in every race, we're introduced to a runner who had some sort of problem with his home country so took up citizenship elsewhere "and is now competing for" their new country.  I always thought it was a little harder to trade nationalities than that. 

-- Did I mention the cup thing?

 

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

When Hurdles Attack!  Next on Fox.

Athletes switch or add nationalities for the Olympics all the time.  The rules for some sports and countries are pretty laxed; the Greek baseball team was ridiculed to some extent because it was basically a pile of Yanks.  The only requirement for being on the Greek team was that one of your grandparents had to be Greek.  A lot of these athletes probably wouldn't have made the US team, or want to play for their "home country" so they apply for dual citizenship in the foreign country, which often doesn't take the years and years it does in the US.  You just need paperwork proving your ancestry. Then, of course, there are the athletes who train in a different country because the conditions are better or even existent. I'll shut up now.

Anonymous said...

Until now I wasn't sure what the hurdlers were tripping over. Mrs. L