Apparently, Milorad “Mike” Cavic, the guy who won silver (by a mere length of a hair in touching the wall after Phelps) – he’s an American-born swimming for his parents’ homeland of Serbia. If the NY Times is correct, he’s apparently not too unhappy with his silver.
Interesting profile on the Team USA’s Women’s Volleyball team coach, Lang Ping (aka “Jenny” Lang Ping), as her current team played against her old team, Team China (and won).
The USA Women’s Gymnastics made quite a gold-silver pair – Nastia Liukin (Russian-born, Texas-raised) and Shawn Johnson (Iowan with a Chinese coach).
Too bad – Team China beat Team Chinese-Taipei (aka Taiwan) in baseball. Oh, c’mon – they actually like baseball more in Taiwan than in mainland China!
Meanwhile, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama spent the week vacationing in his old home state of Hawaii, to re-charge before the convention. I had to gnash my teeth over the brouhaha over whether this could be perceived as “elitist,” and had to be grateful for the posts and articles that say, “No” since Obama was born and raised in Hawaii and still has family (including his grandmother, sister, and others) there. It would also be where he can pay his respects to the loved ones he lost.
Plus, last I checked, Hawaii was one of the 50 states; to refer to it as “exotic” is nice, but it’s not exactly foreign either.
Plus, Senator Obama did such “elitist” things as … body surfing (umm, that’s what they do in Hawaii; you and me and Joe Schmoe may not do that, but people in Hawaii do), eat snow cones (that’s what they really do in Hawaii), had dinner with his wife, enjoyed his kids, and watched Batman (like millions of other people have).
Sad news from the area of NY Sports Radio: Mike and the Mad Dog of WFAN are breaking up. So weird to think that Chris “Mad Dog” Russo and Mike Francesa have split. 20 years and it ends. WFAN’s going to have to figure out what’s next. The NY Times article by Richard Sandomir has more details. At least Mad Dog called in on the show on Friday for a final goodbye to the fans.
Oh, and yeah, five years ago, on August 14, 2003, we had that blackout. Yeah, I don’t think I want another one. Really. But, nice of the NY Times for doing some observance of it.
But, this particular NY Times article seems to posit that maybe this summer might be the nice quiet summer in the city (well, with the waterfalls, the new Ikea, and inconsistent baseball teams). Maybe!
Asian Alumni picnic — well, plenty of food – always something to look forward to having.