Not sure how closely I'll follow them, fbaezer. I used to really care about track & field (ran myself in college), and followed all the big international competitions, including Pan American Games. But the sport passed me by, I guess. Should be good, though!
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fbaezer
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Mon 4 Aug, 2003 10:52 am
Actually the official link sucks. Yahoo has better coverage.
After two days of competition (the "big" sports aren't in yet), Cuba is on the lead, thanks to their 6 gold medals in Greco-Roman wrestling (the US had 5 silvers).
The US and Venezuela, though, finished an old Cuban dominance in fencing.
The US Women team won the all-around in gymnastics, Canada was silver, and Brazil bronze.
AS for team sports, the US basketball team (from the NCAA) did what the NBA athletes couldn't do: defeat Argentina.
As the games continue, the US will very likely take first place, Canada will be third, trailing Cuba; and Argentina, Brazil and Mexico will fight for positions fourth and fifth. Venezuela, Colombia, Puerto Rico and the Dominican hosts will probably follow in that order.
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fbaezer
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Wed 6 Aug, 2003 10:43 am
I guess very few people are following the games. Anyway, I'll post updates, for the improbable reader.
Track and field has begun, with victories for Mexico (women's 20 km. walk), Ecuador (men's 20 Km walk), Cuba (women's hammer throw), USA (men's shotput), Canada (women's long jump) and Brazil (men's 5,000 meters).
Two big surprises in baseball. The big one, Nicaragua shot-out the USA 3-0; the bigger one, Mexico defeated Cuba 7-1.
Another showdown against the US in basketball: Brazil beat the American collegiates in the semi-final by a confortable 92-80
The American women freewrestlers have conquered all the gold medals, and helped put the US back into first place in the medal standing:
I've been following the games, fbaezer - not much of a choice when you're a devoted CBC.ca listener as I am.
from the sfgate site
Quote:
Highlights from Day 4 at the Pan American Games:
MEDALS COUNT
The United States tops the medals table with 47: 22 gold, 13 silver, 12 bronze. Cuba is second with 32, and Canada and Brazil are tied for third with 15. Eighteen nations have won at least one medal the games.
TOP U.S. PERFORMANCES
* The United States beat Cuba 45-44 for the team fencing gold in the men's foil. It was the first team win in 32 years over the Cubans at the Pan Ams. Dan Kellner won the final bout 15-4 after the U.S. squad trailed by 40-30. Also on the team were Jon Tiomkin and Jed Dupree.
* Reese Hoffa set a Pan Am Games record with a shot put of 68 feet, 3-4 inches.
* Aretha Hill won the women's discus at 207-8.
* Shannon Pluhowsky won the individual bowling gold with 2,459 pins, a 204.92 average.
* The women's field hockey team earned a berth in the semifinals with a 5-0 win over Uruguay.
* The women's basketball team clinched a spot in the semifinals with a 93-78 win over Argentina.
STARS
* Cuba's Eric Lopez won four of the day's six gymnastics events, giving him six gold medals for these games and 18 in his Pan Ams career. Lopez won pommel horse, rings, vault and parallel bars.
* Cuba's Yipsi Moreno broke the Pan Am games women's hammer throw record with a personal best toss of 243 feet, 7 seven inches.
* Ecuador won its first medal as Jefferson Perez took the gold in the 20-kilometer walk.
HISTORY
The U.S. men's basketball team's gold medal drought continued as Brazil defeated Team USA 92-80 in the semifinals. The United States can still win the bronze if it can beat Puerto Rico on Wednesday. The American men have not won a gold medal since 1983, when the team included Michael Jordan, Chris Mullin and Wayman Tisdale.
LOOKAHEAD
Brazil will face the Dominican Republic for the gold medal in men's basketball on Wednesday, while the U.S. team plays Puerto Rico for the bronze. Olympic gold medalist Laura Wilkinson headlines the women's platform diving competition. Eleven gold medals will be awarded as the track and field competition continues.
QUOTE
"This was absolutely the worst game we've played all year. Our approach was poor, our execution was poor, our concentration was poor. If we keep playing this way, we're sure to pick up bad habits. Then you're just rolling the dice with your finish." -- U.S. women's water polo coach Guy Baker after his team beat Brazil 9-4.
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ehBeth
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Wed 6 Aug, 2003 06:15 pm
from the CBC.ca site (errrrrrrr i'm not usually a listener to the website - i listen to the radio - and keep the website up, when i'm home)
Quote:
Heymans; Despatie and Comtois dive to gold at Pan Ams
WebPosted Wed Aug 6 20:00:00 2003
CBC SPORTS ONLINE - Emilie Heymans and Blythe Hartley braved the rain, then the sun to win the gold and bronze medals in the 10-metre platform at the Pan American Games Wednesday.
Then, after watching their female teammates reach the podium, Alexandre Despatie and Philippe Comtois, both of Laval, Que., claimed the gold in the men's three-metre synchronized event.
How do you count the medals in Canada, ehBeth? By total number?
Here we do it the old "Olympic" way. First you count the golds, silvers are tie-brakers for countries with equal number of golds, and bronze are tie-brakers after gold and silver are counted.
In the early days of the Cuban revolution, when State sponsored sport was only beginning in the island, Fidel invented a great funny sytem: every material medal given counts as one. It means that if Cuba won the baseball tournament, alas, Fidel got 19 gold medals to boast.
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ehBeth
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Wed 6 Aug, 2003 06:39 pm
Oh dear - I'm going to sound very stuffy. I prefer the traditional, old Olympic way - sort of a 3-2-1 approach. Gold then silver then bronze, as you said, fbaezer. I notice that some newscasters just lump the medals together - that just doesn't seem 'proper' to me.
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fbaezer
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Fri 8 Aug, 2003 11:38 am
Time for another update.
Things are normalizing as the medal standing goes, but there have been some surprises.
The US has taken a clear lead over Cuba, specially because of American victories in track & field and shooting.
Canada, led by it's divers, is now on third place, and it's unlikely to loose it.
The most dramatic upset has been in women's javelin throw, where Olympic and World Champion Osleydis Martínez, from Cuba, was only third, beaten by Kim Krainer, from the US and Laverne Eve, from Bahamas.
Two losses in a row prevented the male American basketball team from getting a medal, in a tournament won by Brazil.
Another surprise was Cuba beating Colombia in men's soccer, and getting to the semifinals.
Track and Field has witnessed the prevalence of Americans in short distances, Mexicans in long distances and Cubans in field competitions.
This is the current medal standing (first 10 nations):
The first case of doping in the games resulted in the taking away of Surinam's only medal. 800 meter runner Letitia Vriesde (PanAmerican medalist in '95 and '99) was found possitive for caffeine, and lost her gold.
Judo, sailing, beating the US women in the basketball finals and winning both the men's and the women's marathon put Brazil in third place, momentaneously ousting Canada (who will get it back with the swimming competitions, most likely). The Jamaican sprinters put their country in the top 10 list.
Cuba had another deception as Olympic and World 110 mt. hurdles champion, Anier García, got injured in the semis and didn't make it to the finals. On the other hand, Cubans surprisingly won in beach volleyball, a former Brazilian stronghold, and defeated Argentina in rowing.
The good Mexican baseball team lost in the semifinals to the US, 3-2, in 14 innings, in the best game of the tournament.
This is the current medal standing (first 10 nations):
The Games are receiving scant coverage in the mainstream US press. That includes the NY Times, which is giving LOTS more ink to pro football's pre-season (non-counting) games than to the Pan American games. My guess is that only local papers are paying attention when their local athletes score medals.
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fbaezer
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Mon 11 Aug, 2003 04:17 pm
The US is sometimes quite weird. Not because of the scarse coverage of the PanAm Games (they're NOT on the money). But something must be wrong when the top sports news is a sexual assault trial.
We get an average of a little less than two hours daily on the top tv networks, and between 2 and 5 pages on the national papers. That's nothing compared with Cuba's 18 hour daily coverage.
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Dartagnan
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Mon 11 Aug, 2003 04:32 pm
Maybe if an American competitor commits a major crime at the Games, the media will become interested.
The sad thing, fbaezer, is that there are those who think Kobe Bryant's legal status will help the NBA by generating more attention. No lie...
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fbaezer
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Mon 11 Aug, 2003 04:53 pm
Plus, there is the American Way of Olympic Coverage. I have been told by Europeans and Latin Americans alike who happen to be in the US in Olympics time, that it is a real nightmare.
Not a single competition is transmitted fully (well, perhaps the 100 and 200 meters dash). They show only bits of competitions if there are American medalist hopefuls and lots of time is wasted with "the human side" of the American Olympian: reportages about his family, his dog, his childhood struggles, his ailing cousin, his transvestite brother, his striving coach...
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Dartagnan
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Mon 11 Aug, 2003 05:06 pm
Right you are, fbaezer. The reason the coverage is so absurd is this: The network spends so many millions on the coverage that it absolutely has to maximize the number of viewers. So there's all this secondary coverage of personalities, presumably so that non-fans will watch, too.
The result is an amalgam of competition and soap opera. When I want to watch the Olympics, I tune in CBC...
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fbaezer
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Mon 11 Aug, 2003 05:22 pm
... and all of it, on the assumption that women do the shopping but don't like sports.
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Dartagnan
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Tue 12 Aug, 2003 09:14 am
Exactly. That may also explain why figure skating (winter) and gymnastics (summer) have become such a major deal on TV. Don't get me wrong, I recognize the athleticism there, but it's all about ratings.
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fbaezer
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Tue 12 Aug, 2003 11:09 am
D'artagnan wrote:
Maybe if an American competitor commits a major crime at the Games, the media will become interested
Not exactly a major crime, but 100 meter winner and 4x100 meter relay gold medalist Mickey Grimes was found positive for ephedrine. The US losses two gold medals: one goes to Jamaica; the other, to Brazil.
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Dartagnan
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Tue 12 Aug, 2003 12:32 pm
It amazes me that athletes still try to get away with that. Wasn't there another athlete who lost out because of caffeine? I wondered about that: Does it mean no morning java, or am I being naive, i.e., did he load up on far more caffeine than that?
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fbaezer
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Tue 12 Aug, 2003 12:45 pm
The daily IOC allowance for caffeine equals to 12 liters a day; she had the equivalent of 19 liters.
As you may know in hazy mornings, caffeine is a good boost.
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