President Barack Obama is traveling to Copenhagen this week to speak in support of Chicago’s 2016 Olympic bid.
The International Olympic Committee votes Friday on where the Summer Games will go for 2016. Madrid, Rio de Janeiro and Tokyo also are in the running for what is expected to be a tight vote of IOC members.
Obama […]

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I will get around soon to detailing my awful  experience trying to see the Dodgers play today … but in the meantime I’m going to coast through this entry.
Can’t all be opuses. (Opi?)  Some days you don’t wake up ticked off, or eager to heap praise on someone …
And some days you are ticked off, […]

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So, let’s see … Usain Bolt has run the 100 and 200 in the Beijing Olympics last year, and the 100 and 200 in the world championship this month in Berlin …
And he has set world records in all four finals.
I wrote a few days ago that I remain an Usain Bolt unbeliever. I still […]

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Let me take you back to 1987. I was in Rome at the track and field World Championships, covering the event for Gannett News Service. A great assignment. No question. Great event, and a great venue. Rome and Italy? Can’t beat it.
Anyway, Ben Johnson and Carl Lewis were the great rivals, back then, in the […]

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Michelle Kwan probably will be remembered as the best skater of the last half-century who didn’t win Olympic gold. The most popular, too.
Five world championships. Nine U.S. championships.
Zero Olympic gold medals.
And apparently, Kwan, 29, will end her career with Zero in Olympic Gold, having announced Friday that she will not attempt to qualify for the […]

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Swimming is a sport with problems.
1. Hardly anyone pays attention to swimming unless it’s an Olympic year. (The world championships are going on right now, in Rome. Did you have the foggiest idea?)
2. About 80 percent of all swimming news stories seem to be about what sort of suits the swimmers are wearing.
So, let’s see […]

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If I could go back to the height of steroids abuse in baseball … and maybe 2002, 2003 would be it … I am convinced I could pick out the users, most of them, just by looking at them.
I now believe I can spot the reckless or unsophisticated user — and that was most of […]

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If I’m picking up on this correctly, from the other side of the ocean, 2008 can’t be over fast enough for a lot (most all?) of people.
“People” meaning Americans. Or at least English-speakers.
Like, everyone is all fixated on this “economy” thing … Letting it get them down.
Hey, 2008 wasn’t that bad. Take it from somebody […]

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No, not talking NASCAR and its (at the moment named) Sprint Cup.
Talking sprinters. Speed-merchants. Dashers.
Just looking at the sports news on espn.com, and the juxtaposition of these two stories caught my eye.
Usain Bolt runs 9.77 seconds.
Marion Jones gets out of prison.
And the question: How long until Bolt is as discredited and humiliated as Jones has […]

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Abby Wambach is to U.S. women’s soccer what Mick Jagger is to the Rolling Stones: Take them out of the mix, and it’s hardly a functioning unit.
Wambach means more to her team than any athlete on any significant sports franchise anywhere. She is that good, and the rest of her teammates are that ordinary.
Which makes […]

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