July 2009 - Posts
I’ve covered every Summer Olympics since 1984, and only Michael Phelps’ eight gold medals in Beijing surpasses what Michael Johnson did in 1996 in Atlanta.
Wearing his trademark look-at-me golden spikes and a heavy gold chain around his neck, Johnson first won the 400 meters by a full second over his nearest rival. Then he came back to break the 17-year-old 200-meter record and win that gold, too.
No male had ever swept the 200- and 400-meters at a single Games. Few had ever attempted it until Johnson pulled it off. No one has done it since. And if someone eventually does equal the feat, I don’t expect it to be in my lifetime.
Johnson was the picture of quiet self-confidence, exuding an aura of power on the track that you could actually see. When he spoke, it was with restraint and a level of insight and perspective that’s probably never been equaled in his sport – at least not in the seven Olympics I’ve been to.
I was delighted to learn that the man who so impressed me 13 years ago is, if anything, even more impressive today. A broadcaster, documentarian, writer and operator of a training center, he refuses to bask in his own glory.
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There’s enough to quibble about in the all-star rosters announced Sunday to give the baseball wonks plenty to whine about on the blogs. This is no surprise. Anytime you choose anything by a subjective vote rather than objective accomplishments, you’re going to have arguments.
But on the whole, the fans did a darned good job of picking the starting lineups for both leagues. This, too, should not be a surprise. Despite the tendency to vote for home-town heroes and long-time stars no longer on top of the game, baseball fans are incredibly knowledgeable about their sport. And with rosters expanded to 33 players per team, most of the deserving players skipped over by the fans make the team anyway.
This is quite a change from the supposed good old days, when teams did everything they could to stuff the ballot boxes. The Cincinnati Reds in 1957 handed out pre-punched ballots to fans, who dutifully turned them in. The result was seven Reds starting in the Midsummer Classic.
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