Matt Argos: Sports Fashion Police

Stade Francais is rugby team from the Top 14, France’s pro rugby league. They also have the best jerseys ever.

2 seasons ago:

1 season ago:

this season:

 

kicknz

Silly soccer fans

Fans of Napoli, a team in Serie A (Italy’s top soccer league) rioted on a train ride to Rome for a big match.  Now the government has banned Napoli fans from going to any away games.  Huh!?  How does that work?  I mean, how do they look into your soul and know for sure that you’re a Napoli fan?  Couldn’t the Napoli fans just wear clothes without Napoli logos or colors and just go to away games, regardless?  How the fuck does this work?!

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/soccer/wires/09/02/2080.ap.eu.soc.napoli.violence.0294/index.html

 

kicknz

Soccer at the Olympix

It was 1994 when I really started paying attention to national team soccer, thanks to the ‘94 World Cup, so the first Olympic soccer tournament I paid attention to was the 1996 Atlanta Gamez. The US won the women’s gold but I wasn’t really paying attention to ladiez soccer yet. The big highlight for me was Nigeria winning the men’s gold. Wow! An African nation won the tournament! Take that, Europe and South America! And then I checked the FIFA World Rankings to see how high Nigeria was now ranked and it was something like: #50. WTF?

That’s when I learned that the Olympix soccer tournament is not, and never has been, a truly premier soccer tournament because of IOC and FIFA rules that have ALWAYS prevented the world from sending it’s true men’s national teams. There were 3 phases in these rules:

Phase 1- Amateurism (inception to 1970s) For the first 80 years or so of the Olympics, only amateur footballers could participate in the competition, a rule that that was fully exploited by the Soviet Union, whose athletes, even though they were really pros, could qualify as amateurs under communism.

Phase 2 - Leveling the playing field (1980s) Finally, professionals were allowed to compete but FIFA was afraid the Olympics soccer tournament would compete with the World Cup for prestige so they came up with a solution: nations from North America, Africa, Asia and Oceania could send their full-strength national teams but nations from soccer-powerful Europe and South America could only send teams made up of players that had never played for the national teams before. This ensured that the big stars didn’t appear.

Phase 3 - Under-23 (1990s-present) The current policy is somewhat goofy - nations send their best players that are 23 or under, plus 3 “overage” players. This means that a few big stars can compete but the real national teams are nowhere to be seen. This explains why Nigeria didn’t move up in the rankings after the 96 Olympics, the Olympix tournament has no bearing whatsoever on the actual national team.

The future: A few weeks ago, the Court for Arbritation in Sport ruled that, due to the strange, half-assed nature of the Olympic soccer teams, professional clubs have no obligation to release their players for the tournament. This means that in the future, teams will be made up strictly of players whose clubs voluntarily release their players, which will result in a diluted playing level, OR perhaps FIFA will finally upgrade the tournament to a full national team tournament.

kicknz

More Olympix ranting: water polo and volleyball

In response to Ryan’s previous post - water polo is NOT very foreign to the US. I would think that most sports fans here can identify it immediately. Obviously, a lot of Americans play the sport because our men’s national team is world class. Our men’s volleyball team is world class, too, in spite of a lack of prestige for the sport among American men. Both teams are doing very well at the current Olympics and have medal goals.

With these teams being somewhere between decent to world-class year after year, why do they never, ever get any attention outside of the Olympics? They both play a fair amount of games a year and the players are pros. Would it really kill ESPN to show their non-Olympics matches on ESPN2 or ESPN Classic?

On the other hand, the USA men’s national rugby team currently DOES have their games shown on ESPN Classic, which is confusing. We are NOT a powerful rugby nation and teams like Australia defeat us with great ease. I love rugby, but I’m not sure it’s getting airtime when more established sports that we’re better at are not. TheEnd.

kicknz

The Medal Count

http://www.nbcolympics.com/destinationbeijing/blogs/postid=221688.html#were+no+u+s+china+chase+spot

Basically, this article mentions that, when it comes to the Olympics medal count, the US ranks countries in order of total medals won while China and most of the rest of the world rank countries by how many GOLD MEDALS they’ve earned. The article then mentions that, due to their disparate ranking methods, the US and China will both probably claim victory at the Gamez.

There’s one big problem with this criteria that the article typically fails to mention: the ONLY OFFICIAL FUCKING MEDAL COUNT IS THE GOLD MEDAL COUNT. This is the only fucking ranking criteria the IOC uses or has ever used. In other words, we’ve decided to play by our own rules. So we can call ourselves the winner but we’ll be the only ones that do.

Here’s my awesome analogy: In Major League Baseball, wins is the only stat that will get you into the playoffs. So imagine if the Cubs get 100 wins and get into the playoffs but meanwhile the Cardinals won 99 games but scored more total runs, missing out on the playoffs, but then hold a victory parade declaring themselves champions because they scored more total runs during the season.

Awful analogies aside, I hate the medal count, especially because it encourages dumbass big powers like USA, China and Russia to invest in sports that their countries don’t give a flying fuck about to begin with just so they can steal a few more medals.

kicknz

The 1936 Berlin Olympics really did display Aryan Supremacy

Okay, this is another one of those things that’s always misrepresented in our media/culture/whatever. Books, TV shows, etc. love to present the 1936 Berlin Olympics in the following manner . . .

“Nazi scum Adolf Hitler staged the Olympics in an attempt to display Aryan supremacy and show the world the athletic prowess of the German athlete . . . BUT black African-American athlete JESSE OWENZ had other plans, earning FOUR gold medalz and showing how ATHLETICALLY INEPT those fucking Nazi skumz really were.”

Why is this representation super annoying? Because the GERMANS WON WAY MORE MEDALS THAN ANYONE ELSE AT THE BERLIN OLYMPICS. Good job, Jesse Owens. But also - good job, Nazis, you kicked our asses in the Gamez. I just think it’s really annoying that the 1936 Olympics are always misrepresented.

PS - There are a LOT of parallels between the 1936 Nazi Olympix and the 2008 China Commie Olympix. Examples include massive cleanups to impress foreigners, huge amounts of money spent to ensure victory in the medal count, rounding up of dissidents/undesireds, and so on.

Communist China = Nazi Germany

 

kicknz

Olympics Lolzs

Spain’s Olympic basketball teams posing for photos pull back skin of eyelids

Spanish star Calderon defends poses as ‘respect’ for Chinese

By K.C. Johnson |Chicago Tribune Olympic Bureau

August 13, 2008

 

 

 

The controversial image ( El Mundo photo / August 13, 2008 )

BEIJING — The Spanish men’s and women’s basketball teams posed for pre-Olympics photos in which their members are pulling back the skin of their eyelids in a racially offensive manner, causing controversy just as Madrid battles Chicago for the 2016 Summer Olympics.

The photo appeared as an advertisement for a courier company that sponsors the Spanish Basketball Federation, which didn’t immediately respond to a phone call because its offices were closed overnight.

A spokeswoman for the Spanish Olympic Committee based here said her organization had nothing to do with the photo, which appeared in the Spanish daily sports newspaper Marca before the Spanish national team traveled to China.

Spain, the defending world champion in men’s basketball, held a closed practice here Wednesday. Meanwhile, several Chinese-rights organizations decried the photos.

“It is unfortunate that this type of imagery would rear its head during something that is supposed to be a time of world unity,” said George Wu, deputy director for the Organization of Chinese Americans in Washington, D.C.

Spain has been involved in previous racial incidents involving sports. FIFA, soccer’s ruling organization, fined the Spanish Football Federation $90,000 in 2004 after Spanish fans shouted racist chants at black English players.

Spanish fans also taunted English driver Lewis Hamilton earlier this year, prompting the governing body for Formula One to initiate an anti-racism campaign.

The New York Times reported the Spanish national teams are sponsored by Li-Ning, the footwear company owned by Chinese Olympic hero and torch lighter Li Ning. In his blog at elmundo.es, national team stalwart Jose Calderon wrote of that association and his team’s “great respect for the East and its people.”

Calderon defended the gesture.

“One of our sponsors asked us to make, as a ‘wink’ to our participation in Beijing, an expression of Eastern eyes,” he wrote. “We felt it was something appropriate and that it would always be interpreted as an affectionate gesture. … Whoever wants to interpret something different, totally confused.”

 

ninjagarden

More Olympic stuff…sort of

The other day my brother and I were having lunch at some crappy Chinese restaurant, when I overheard the following conversation.

Two women are waiting for their takeout food, both watching Olympic water polo on a television in the restaurant.

Woman #1: These Olympics…Some of these sports I’m not even familiar with. (motioning to the television) I mean, water polo, I don’t really know what that is.

Woman #2: I don’t even know what this sport is called!

Is water polo really that foreign?

And did Woman #2 really just admit to not even listening to what the previous woman said and being too stupid to read the tv screen?

I love people.

Ryan

Another Olympix complaint

The medal count is really stupid. First off, it’s mostly about big powers like China, USA and Russia showing off. But what’s really dumb is how every medal has the same weight. What I mean is, why is the Gold Medal that Mr. Swimmer gets for making it through a few heats and then winning the final worth the same in the medal count as the Gold Medal that Mrs. Softball Team will get for winning the whole fucking softball tournament? It’s dumb!

At the last Olympics, Argentina got Gold in both men’s soccer AND basketball. That should have been worth a LOT in the medal count. Instead, just worth 2 medals. Dumb. ANd then USA and China won a bunch of individual medals in diving and track and the like and showed off big-time.

kicknz

Team Ball Sports at the Summer Olympix

When it comes to sports I primarily like team ball sports and the Olympics is jam packed full of them. Some of them are very familiar to US sports fans, some are moderately familiar and others have very little presence here. I’ll mention them in order of familiarity to US audiences.

Basketball (men and women)
Duh, it’s basketball. You know, like in the NBA, WNBA and NCAA? GAWD.

Baseball (men)/Softball (women)
Duh, it’s baseball and softball.

Soccer (men and women)
Duh, it’s soccer. You kick it.

Volleyball (men and women)
Although most Americans are familiar with the sport, the full, indoor version of volleyball is primarily seen as a women’s sport - a view that isn’t shared worldwide. Italy and Brazil have pro leagues.

Field Hockey (men and women)
Another sport that is primarily played by women in the US and, again, that’s not the case worldwide. It’s actually a rather popular sport for both sexes in Germany, Netherlands, India, Pakistan, and my mom. The sticks are quite short compared to ice hockey so the players are all hunched over and dying all the time.

Water Polo (men and women)
This is one of those sports that really isn’t super popular in any particular country or region but is just kinda popular in a whole bunch of them. Basically, everyone swims from end to end and tries to get a ball in a net. There’s really very little strategy.

Handball (men and women)
Actually, it’s kinda like handball on a court. Or maybe it’s like basketball with soccer elements. Yeah, I’ll go with that one. The players go end to end and dribble the ball (every 3 steps) like in basketball but when they get to the end there’s a soccer-style goal, complete with goalie. It removes the height element that annoys me in basketball but I still think basketball is more interesting due to a higher degree of strategy.

kicknz