Much has been written about the U.S. men's basketball team and its failures until this point. This afternoon, the team plays Greece. Will the United States win?
A larger question: What's wrong with this team? What's wrong with basketball in the United States?
It's not likely Iraq's soccer team will beat Italy in Friday's bronze-medal game. Then again, reaching this point is pretty incredible in itself seeing as how the country has won a total of ONE Olympic medal in its history.
A nod to NBC for letting us watch almost in its entirety Saturday's 1-0 Iraq win over Australia on one of its affiliate networks. A good story actually took precedence over U.S. water polo coverage.
It's nice to know that even if the Iraqis fail against the Italians, they won't be returning home for torture at the hands of the now-deceased Uday Hussein. Many of the national team's players don't seem to appreciate this fact, but it's hard to root against them in any event.
OK, I'll be the first to admit that I don't understand exactly why gymnastics is always the ratings giant of the Olympics. So I start off from a biased position.
But at least grant me this - is there any real need to see a gymnastics exhibition during NBC's primetime coverage?
Read that again, gymnastics EXHIBITION. As in, no medals given out here nothing on the line.
Which got me to thinking ...
Spain coach Mario Pesquera first yelled and jabbed a finger at U.S. basketball coach Larry Brown after this morning's 102-94 American victory, then went berserk in the postgame news conference about a timeout Brown was awarded with 23 seconds left and the U.S. up 11 points.
"Dean Smith would have never done anything like that," Pesquera said of Brown's esteemed college coach. He also cracked that the game was played under NBA rules, not under FIBA rules.
Well, actually ...
So, in what's being called a major upset, London beat out Paris for the 2012 Summer Olympics by a 54-50 vote. Folks in France are in an apparent outrage, bitter toward their rivals across the English Channel. France native Tony Parker, now a San Antonio Spur, went so far as to accuse the IOC of an Anglo-Saxon bias. That seems a bit farfetched given how much animosity the international community has shown Tony Blair and the Bush administration lately for their Iraq policies and the very demographics of the IOC.
Could it be instead the skyrocketing unemployment and crumbling socialist economy of Jacques Chirac's France? Maybe that was a bigger strike against.
Should we feel sorry for Parisians? Je dis: "Mais, non!" (And it's been many years since I studied French, so please no snappy retorts on my grammar or spelling from French teachers.)
First off, in case you missed the comment to my recent blog on London landing the '12 Olympics, I'd like to thank John for sending a link to this London Olympics blog. I, for one, hope the Brits pull it off masterfully. My only suggestion: Don't skimp on the antiterrorism security measures.
Unfortunately, the International Olympic Committee has eliminated baseball and softball from the docket for 2012. Jemele Hill of the Orlando Sentinel makes a compelling case that Major League Baseball, not the IOC, blew it by not agreeing to take three weeks off in the middle of its season to send the world's top players to the Olympics and because of baseball's substandard drug-testing policy.
I don't disagree, but my cynicism cuts both ways. To drop baseball seems preposterous when you consider the huge growth of the sport elsewhere, particularly in Latin America and Asia. IOC prez Jacques Rogge pretty much says baseball and softball are too "Americanized" to be played on the world stage. According to mlb.com, though, there are now 122 world baseball federations, compared to 60 in 1990. About the only place the game hasn't caught on is Europe, which happens to dominate the IOC.
The good news is that baseball and softball could be back as early as 2016. In the meantime, enjoy that team handball.
News and Record reporters Jeff Carlton, Rob Daniels and Jim Young convene a session of Radio Free Sports to discuss Monday's big local news – Dudley High's Joey Cheek claimed Olympic gold in the 500 meters short-track speedskating event in Turin, Italy – and the big games on tap along Tobacco Road this week.