Usain Bolt 300m

Posted by admin at 4:53 pm

London 2012 Mascots

Posted by admin at 12:34 am

The London 2012 Olympic Mascots were revealed today. What in the %$#@ were they thinking? The official website can be found HERE. Pictures below are of the Mascots….Thoughts?

According to the site the mascots names are Mandeville and Wenlock.

Madeville goes on to say

“How did I get my name?
My name is inspired by Stoke Mandeville in Buckinghamshire, the birthplace of the Paralympic Games. On the same day as the Opening Ceremony of the London 1948 Olympic Games, Sir Ludwig Guttmann held his own sport competition in Stoke Mandeville for World War II soldiers with spinal injuries. The Stoke Mandeville Games grew and grew until they became the Paralympic Games.

Obviously, I love the Paralympic sports and I think Paralympians are amazing! I love finding out about people, what makes us all different and also what links us together. I’m also always ready for action. With so many people to meet and challenges to try there’s no more time to fill this in! Sorry!”

According to Wenlock:

“How did I get my name?
My name is inspired by Much Wenlock in Shropshire, a town that is at the heart of Olympic history. In the 19th century, Baron Pierre de Coubertin was invited there to watch the Much Wenlock Games, which were inspired by the Olympic Games of ancient Greece. De Coubertin was inspired by the Much Wenlock Games, too, and went on to found the modern Olympic movement. The Much Wenlock Games are still held to this day!

I love sport (especially the Olympic ones) and I want to be as good at them as I can. I also love making friends who show me exciting new things to try and help me achieve my personal best. If they can make me laugh along the way… even better!”

Tyson Gay breaks 44yr Old Record

Posted by admin at 1:53 pm

American runner @TysonLGay breaks 44-year-old record in the 200-meter run. http://yhoo.it/cIl3Eq

Adrienne Power (my best friend) sponsored by Rivalus products

Posted by admin at 6:33 pm

So my best friend and roommate from University is being sponsored by Rivalus Supplements. I got the following article from their website.

Adrienne Power is Canada’s fastest woman and is an internationally ranked track and field athlete. She has been a proud member of Team Canada since 2003 and has recently become an official member of Team RIVALUS, a handpicked group of elite athletes devoted to “clean competition”.

Adrienne first became interested in sports while watching the Olympics with her grandfather as a child. “I remember sitting with him and watching the Olympics. I would get chills hearing the Canadian National anthem and watching the Canadian athletes compete.” Adrienne found she was naturally gifted in most sports and credits this to being hardworking, fast, and naturally competitive. Her athletic ability did not go unnoticed – Adrienne was scouted to join the Dalhousie University track team where she trained hard and excelled at her sport.

Adrienne’s hard work and focus certainly paid off. Her long list of accomplishments include: Olympian, Canada’s Fastest Female, National Champion 200m, 4th All Time Fastest Canadian 200m, All Time Fastest Canadian 300m, 2005 Canadian University Female Athlete of the Year, Canadian University Record Holder 300m, National Champion & Undefeated in the 300m and Team Canada Member since 2003. Adrienne’s goal is to become an Olympic medalist at the 2012 Olympic Games. With a goal like that, Adrienne knows how important the proper nutrition and the right supplements are. “I compete with the best athletes in the world so I need to make sure my body is getting exactly what it needs to beat the best. RIVALUS products are always in my gym bag because they give me that extra edge and most importantly, they’re safe!”  

Not only is Adrienne an outstanding athlete, she is also a leader in her community. She volunteers as a relay coach for Dalhousie University’s varsity team, she acts as a team leader in an athlete support role and she has given over 260 motivational speeches to schools, business groups, community groups and sport teams. Adrienne’s message is simple but powerful “work hard toward what you want, focus on each and everything that takes you closer to your goal. I guarantee you’ll get there”.

RIVALUS is continuously seeking genuine athletic talent and Adrienne Power certainly has it. Dr. Darren Burke, RIVALUS founder and CEO speaks very highly of Adrienne. “Adrienne is the perfect athlete for RIVALUS. She is not only dedicated to excelling in her sport, but she’s also dedicated to her community”.
RIVALUS proudly welcomes Adrienne Power and looks forward to a long lasting relationship with this truly outstanding athlete.

Potatoes, the new athletic performance enhancer?

Posted by admin at 3:50 pm

This morning I was having a conversation with a long time friend. This friend works in the Track and Field world. He works closely with Olympic athletes from all sides (business, nutrition and athletic). He also works for a former Olympic medalist, and World Champion.

During our conversation about professional and ammature athletes the top of performance enhancing steroids came up. I love this topic. For some reason it sparks a great interest to me. Anyway my friend agrees with my opinion on drugs and sport. I will quote my unnamed friend to have said “Over 90% of Track and Field athletes are on something.” I believe this to be true because if WADA (World Anti Doping Agency) doesn’t know that the performance enhancing drug exists then there can be no test for it. Therefore any drug test results will come back negative, which means a clean test. It’s that simple. Find a new drug or create a fancy new synthetic drug and bingo, you test clean, you have an advantage, and you might just have picked a great one to give you an advantage over all the other athletes that are experimenting with their own drugs. It’s sad but true, and I have no idea when the IOC (International Olympic Committee) or WADA are even going to recognize this. Clearly these professionals are smart enough to realize this. I would love to interview Dick Poud on this topic. I am sure that he would have an opinion on my theory.

Glucose in the body is important in insulin release in the body. The use of injecting insulin has been banned by the IOC since 1998. This is key for the athletes because Acording to Mark A. Jenkins (2010) “Insulin promotes anabolic (storage) processes and inhibits catabolic (breakdown) ones. Thus, it signals a “fed state” and instructs the body to store fuels for use later. Insulin promotes uptake and storage of glucose in muscle and fat cells. In the muscle, glycogen is built from glucose molecules.” The idea works because insulin boosts stamina by increasing glycogen. What does glycogen do? Well it fuels muscles during exertion, and it prevents muscles from breaking down. The “advantage” of using insulin for this purpose is that it doesn’t linger in the blood stream and thus is very hard to detect with current drug tests. However because it is illegal the group of athletes in the states are creating this insulin boost legally, through the use of potatoes.

Hmm Potatoes…the new super food of athletes?

Usain Bolt dating Lava from the Love of Ray J 2

Posted by admin at 1:03 pm

Track and Field Clinic

Posted by admin at 1:23 pm

Gerard Mach will hold a clinic for sprint coaches and their athletes on Saturday and Sunday, February 20 and 21 at the Dôme at Louis-Riel High School in Ottawa. Ken Porter will assist Gerard. Two 3-hour sessions will be held – the first on Saturday afternoon, the second on Sunday morning.

The training system used by most coaches in Canada was developed by Canada’s former Head Coach, Gerard Mach. Gerard is widely acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest ever sprint, hurdle and relay coaches. He continues to refine the coaching system he first developed in his native Poland in the ’50s.

As always, Gerard’s focus will be on coaches and their athletes. Coaches are encouraged to bring their best youth and junior athletes who will participate in the on-track portions of the sessions. This will give coaches an opportunity for direct and immediate comment from Gerard on technique and training methods.

The programme is being organised by the Ottawa Lions and is supported by Athletics Canada.

For further information and registration please contact Joe Burke at jburke@ottawalions.com or at (613) 862-6145.

Semenya suing?

Posted by admin at 5:24 am

I realise I’m interrupting my series on the Top 9 sports science stories of 2009, and I am bombarding you with posts at a time when you may not even be reading (you’ll have a lot to get through when your vacation is over – apologies!), but I came across this link courtesy Alessandra at our last post, and decided to comment, since the opportunity will pass as we move into the Top 3 stories over coming days.

This was always going to be the Number 1 sports science story of 2009, without a doubt, and so when I tackle Number 1, I’ll review the whole saga, but I’ve just read that Caster Semenya, the world 800m champion from South Africa, and the athlete caught in the middle of a gender/sex row, is to sue the IAAF for $120 million.  ASA, for all their bungling, and the fact that they deliberately covered up the testing they did prior to Berlin, escape “lightly”, being taken for “only” $18 million.  The reason?  Presumably they don’t have enough money to pay what they should – it would be interesting to know what that amount would have been if ASA had any money at all (but that’s hypothetical, after years of Chuene-leadership has bled ASA of ALL its money).

I don’t begrudge Semenya compensation for the last few months – she was without doubt the victim in this affair, first at the hands of the corrupt and incompetent management of Athletics South Africa, which exposed her to invasive physical examinations under the guise of doping controls, and then entered her into the event in Berlin despite being advised to withdraw her by medical officials who were well aware that problems existed around her eligibility.

Then there was the leak.  To this day, I don’t know where it came from, or whether the IAAF were to blame.  All that is known is that the IAAF were faced with reports that Semenya’s sex was under investigation and they confirmed it.  Where the leak originated, I do not know, but I would suspect that legally, they are liable, even if the leak was not in their control.

For this discretion, they face a $120 million lawsuit.  It seems to me an absurd amount, though I’m not a lawyer and I don’t know how these values are worked out.   I guess it’s a combination of lost earning potential (which I’d put at very little, if her gender is in fact as confirmed – she would not have been allowed to compete anyway, regardless of a leak) and the psychological and emotional hurt done to her, which has been enormous.  But worth $120 million?  Your opinions are welcome. (I realize a settlement is likely, with a figure smaller than this, but still, the value is astronomical.  Or is it?)

The other twist in this story is seen by the following quote by the chairman of the law firm who is representing Semenya (it is the quote of the day on LetsRun.com):

“We learned during the Oscar Pistorius case that the rule of law does prevail in international sports and that equality of opportunity can be achieved.  Hopefully, the IAAF has learned from this experience and we look forward to working with it to ensure a just outcome here for Ms. Semenya.”

To clear up the issue, this is the same law firm that teamed up with questionable science to bend the result in favour of Pistorius, obscuring the science that existed and suggested that he enjoyed a 10 second advantage in a 400m race.  Yet they still managed to win the verdict.  Far be it from me to jump to the defence of a global sports governing body (my time in rugby has created a distrust of such organizations), but when they say that “the rule of law does prevail”, and that the IAAF “has learned from this experience”, what should be read is that the IAAF have been shown that good PR and law trumps good science and the truth (see our 4th biggest story of 2009 for more).

So the IAAF are on the block.  As for Semenya, if she wins even half of what is being sought, $70 million, then what?  Is this a sign that she is NOT going to attempt to compete internationally again?  Or is she going to go for the double-play, continuing to run with her millions?  And what of the surgery?  Can she run without it?  The issue has so many unanswered questions, and this latest story just adds to the layers of complexity. 

The IAAF may end up paying out a fortune to Semenya, but in the long term, I wonder who will really pay?  Does money buy back everything done since August?  The implications of this lawsuit (regardless of its outcome) will only become clear once we know if Semenya intends to run again or not.

If Semenya never runs again, will $120 million cover the loss (not of earnings, but of her career and peace of mind)?  If she does run, will $120 million become her legacy, a giant banner above her head at every meeting, every race?  Can she win and run?  Purely from a South African perspective, I shudder to think of the repercussions in South Africa of an individual suddenly coming into that amount of money with this much media attention.  Just ask Josiah Thugwane – he won a miniscule amount after winning the Atlanta Olympic Marathon, and became a repeat victim of organized crime.

I hope Semenya is getting some seriously good long-term advice right now – my point is that a lawsuit to claim hundreds of millions cannot be viewed separately from Semenya’s ambitions (if any) to run again internationally, yet they seem to have been compartmentalized in this way.  Semenya the aspirational athlete may ultimately be the one to pay for $120 million.

A giant mess for 2010, and it seems no end in sight.

Another Article I want to Share

Posted by admin at 6:22 pm

Bolt reminds the world why sport means so much to so many

LONDON (Reuters) – Amid the soaring triumphs and tawdry scandals underscoring the first decade of the new millennium, Usain Bolt reminded the world why sport captivates and exalts so many people.

A roar of disbelief greeted the tall Jamaican in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium last year after he shattered the world 100 record and became the first person to run under 9.7 seconds.
The wonder was provoked not just by the time but by the manner in which the race was run and won. Bolt made a mockery of the previous world mark and the efforts of his hapless opponents, despite slowing down and glancing to left and right well before the finish.
He set another world record in the 200 final, this time bettering Michael Johnson’s 1996 mark which statisticians had predicted would last for 25 years, and added a third when the Jamaicans won the 4×100 relay.
This year, again without appearing to extend himself unduly, Bolt went under 9.6 for the 100 and again broke the 200 mark at the Berlin world championships.
Bolt on the track, Michael Phelps in the pool and Yelena Isinbayeva through the air showed that the most elemental Olympic sports can be the most satisfying. Phelps won a record eight gold medals in nine days in Beijing with seven world records while Isinbayeva raised her own women’s pole vault record to 5.05 meters, her 24th world mark.
Awe at Bolt’s extraordinary feats near the end of the decade followed widespread unease prompted by events at the start.
In 2000 Marion Jones was the athlete of the moment after announcing she would go one better than Jesse Owens and Carl Lewis and win five track and field Olympic golds. Jones, who had featured on the covers of Time, Newsweek and Vogue while securing multi-million dollar contacts, spent the Beijing Games in jail after admitting to systematic drug use before Sydney.
Bolt has never failed nor missed a drugs test and the giant stride which eats up the ground faster than any of his contemporaries gives a plausible genetic explanation for his staggering feats.
Still, Bolt and his contemporaries must live with the suspicion that permeates too much sport in the 21st century as the huge financial rewards now available make the pressure to succeed ever more relentless.
Drugs scandals have besmirched the Tour de France and eroded the credibility of athletics and weightlifting.
South Africa cricket captain Hansie Cronje and two other international skippers were banned for life in 2000 for match fixing. This year Formula One team Renault admitted Nelson Piquet had deliberately crashed at the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix to help team mate Fernando Alonso win the race.
BALCO SCANDAL
Jones was exposed as a result of the BALCO scandal in which federal investigators discovered she had been one of the clients of a laboratory dedicated to manufacturing performance-enhancing drugs designed to fool the testers.
San Francisco Giants slugger Barry Bonds, who faces charges that he lied to a grand jury about steroid use after hitting a record 762 career home runs, was another BALCO client.
Despite its travails, sport not only survives but prospers in the rapidly shrinking global village and looks set to thrive further despite the financial crisis which hit the world shortly after the Beijing Games.
Sports are spreading outside their traditional markets, with the 2009 European golf tour, for example, starting in Shanghai and climaxing in Dubai.
Formula One, dominated by seven-times drivers’ champion Michael Schumacher in the first part of the decade, showed in Singapore how mesmerizing a night race can be.
The 2007 Tour de France started in London, two years after Lance Armstrong won a record seventh consecutive title. Armstrong, who had fought a successful battle against cancer which had invaded his lungs and brain, retired in 2005 but came back in 2009 to finish a creditable third.
Athletes also switched countries to maximize their potential earnings with land-locked Switzerland twice winning sailing’s America’s Cup thanks to a team of renegade New Zealanders.
At the turn of the decade, the two best footballers in the world, Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo and Argentine Lionel Messi were both plying their trade in Spain’s Primera Liga.
Television money underwrites modern sport and in particular soccer, now more than ever firmly entrenched as the global game.
Despite the economic crisis, the world governing body FIFA is expected to amass $2.5 billion in television revenue from the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
An exclusive broadcast deal with Rupert Murdoch’s Sky television has made the English Premier League the most popular and entertaining in the world and the explosion in the sports and leisure business generates enormous revenues.
In Beijing, the German shoe company adidas sponsored the Chinese National Olympic Committee while its fierce rivals Nike signed up 22 of the Chinese teams.
CRICKET AUCTION
Sport’s global appeal has been a direct result of the communications revolution.
Boundaries of time and space vanish with devotees able to watch or follow a dizzying array of events through dedicated television channels, specialist websites and magazines. Their reward is to live in an era when athletes have never been so uniformly skilful and strong and, consequently, the games they play have never been so fast and action-packed.
Tennis fans can marvel at the artistry of Roger Federer on Wimbledon’s manicured grass, thrill to the muscular vigor of Rafael Nadal on the red clay of Roland Garros and savour the exploits of sisters Venus and Serena Williams on any surface.
Twenty20 cricket, the three-hour version of a game stretching to five days in traditional tests, has become a phenomenon with the Indian Premier League holding an unprecedented auction to snap up the world’s top players.
Other sports slipped from the limelight, notably heavyweight boxing which became dominated by technically proficient but deeply boring fighters from the old Soviet bloc.
In September 2009 Forbes magazine announced that Tiger Woods, who has succeeded Michael Jordan as the world’s best-known athlete, had become the first sporting billionaire.
Woods has become an athletic and commercial phenomenon since winning the U.S. Masters in 1997 by 12 strokes. In the process he achieved the improbable feat of making golf, sport of the suburban middle classes and the country clubs, appear glamorous.
However, Woods’s lifetime ambition to overhaul Jack Nicklaus’s record of 18 majors was put on hold in the final month of the decade when he admitted to cheating on his wife and announced he was taking an indefinite break from the game.
Woods is a wonderful golfer, probably the best to play the game, and an implacable competitor as he demonstrated while winning the U.S. Open on one leg last year.
What he is not is the new messiah predicted in the more fanciful prophecies of his late father Earl or the impossibly perfect individual portrayed in the carefully crafted corporate image the sponsors crave.
One of the joys of sport is its unpredictability. The Woods case, which shows that athletes however gifted possess the same human frailties as the spectators, is all part of the appeal.

ADVICE

Posted by admin at 8:20 pm

I read this today on www.elitetrack.com and I want to share it with you. I have learned the most from these people (in no particular order): Hugh, Glenroy Gilbert, Charlies Scarrow, Doug Mitchell, Steve Morley and a bit from Peter Lord and Dan Hennigar…I have learned more about coaching from these people than any text book could ever teach me.

The passage that I want to make note of is ” If I were starting out again the first thing I would do would be seek out someone with gray hair who had traveled the path before, had made mistakes and learned from them. This approach is much more productive than the mutual masturbation that passes for information exchange on many of the discussion groups and web sites today. Bottom line is, read a book, find a mentor and coach; there is no substitute for getting your hands dirty and practicing.”

Makes me think of what my next move really should be. I want nothing more than to shadow a world leader in coaching in track and field. Who should I approach to follow/shadow and perhaps help? Any of you have any suggestions. I have about a week before my next major life decision. Insights are much appreciated.
Thanks