I've always wanted to be a called a blogger. It has a nice ring to it, and sounds so hip and smart. As a result, I am putting on my fake library glasses while I type to make me feel extra intellectual.
I may just get a sassy business card that reads "Julie Foudy, Blogger."
Ahhhh, nice. It sounds so much better than "Jock." Or heaven forbid, "Retired Jock." Or, my personal favorite, "Water Girl."
In my past life, I was a soccer player. I played for 17 years on the U.S. national team and had a ton of fun along the way. I am not big on personal bios, so I will just leave it that. Thank goodness for Google; we don't have to dither in details. Most important, I am now the proud mother of the cutest 15-month-old daughter in the universe, who seems to be running daily 10Ks right now. I had the good fortune to participate in the last three Summer Olympics, so when ESPN.com asked me if I wanted to write/blog about the Olympics, that was about as easy an answer as someone asking me if I wanted a doughnut: well, of course.
To the substance of my first blog for ESPN.com (and hopefully not my last) ...
I made the mistake of getting my undergraduate degree in premed, so if my grammar stinks, don't have a myocardial infarction. And a disclaimer up front: I'm a big fan of using " ... " or as our team lawyer says, "the damn dot-dot-dot." I tried to explain that we bloggers (I am now part of the blogging family) are not writing legal briefs, but simply pontificating on life ... and sometimes meaningful pontification is full of "damn dot-dot-dots. Just ask my favorite writer and artist, Brian Andreas.
Back to the Olympics and the meaning of life.
I open a newspaper, I turn on the news, I read the Internet and all I see is talk about a boycott of the Beijing Olympics. Haven't we all learned our lesson here? Is anyone else surprised it is even up for discussion?
Yes, clearly, I come from a semi-biased viewpoint as a former Olympian, but just looking at history tells us boycotts don't work. The Soviets didn't pull out of Afghanistan in 1980 when the United States didn't send athletes to the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow. Instead, Russia took home more medals than any other country. It dominated those Games and reaped the benefit of national pride. When Russia and other Eastern Bloc countries reciprocated by boycotting the 1984 Olympic Games in Los Angeles, the repercussion heightened Cold War tension.
|
 |
|
|
Do they make these for soccer players? (Getty Images) |
Nations lose and athletes lose. It's not an effective means to inspire change. China has policies that have been condemned worldwide. Obviously, when a country hosts an Olympics, it opens itself up to intense international scrutiny. With that scrutiny comes unfavorable world reaction, which in itself is a catalyst for change. We should not place the burden for change on the Olympic athletes and should not damage the spirit that comes with the Olympic Games. There are plenty of other avenues and arenas to explore with China, rather than using Olympic athletes as pawns in this political game.
I can't even imagine, as an athlete training for the Olympics right now, how much this must weigh on their minds. Everything in their life -- for years, if not decades -- has been organized, set and planned for these 17 days in August. If someone had threatened a boycott of our last two Olympics in Australia (2000) or Greece (2004), I think I would have body-slammed that person WWF-style right on the spot (or gotten someone considerable larger, like Rulon Gardner, to do it). In a frothy frenzy, I would have demanded how they dare threaten all our hard work, dreams and aspirations. Thank goodness that never happened as a frothy frenzy is never a good thing. The controversy over boycotting shouldn't even be a national conversation.
It must be the suit?
How about those Speedo LZR Racer swimsuits that have been worn for 36 of the 40 world records set since it was introduced in February? Let me repeat ... 40 world records, 36 of them in the Speedo LZR Racer suits (according to USA Swimming), and it is only April. To put it in perspective, at this point in the 2004 Olympic year, only five world records had been set.
Canada and Italy recently banned the new suits from their Olympic trials. The NCAA is thinking of banning them since they are not available to all colleges. Critics have claimed the swimsuit makes competitors more buoyant, are not available to the masses and are too expensive for poor countries. But swimming's international governing body, FINA, disagreed, and is allowing them to be used in competitions. The swimsuits were designed with the help of NASA and its wind tunnels. There is no stitching, and the pieces are bonded ultrasonically (a patented process) at a factory in Portugal. I have no idea what that means, but it sounds very high tech. Low-drag panels are embedded into the fabric to compress the swimmer's body. Speedo said the suits have 5 percent less drag and are 4 percent faster in terms of starts, sprints and turns compared with last year's model.
According to many swimmers who are wearing the suit, just wedging their bodies into the suits can be a 30-minute process. But apparently, well worth the squeeze. Michael Phelps has said, "When I hit the water, I feel like a rocket." I am currently working on the Speedo story for an Outside the Lines feature on ESPN. And, thankfully, my producer agrees that having me squeeze my gut into this swimsuit is just not riveting TV. I do wish Speedo could have invented something like that for soccer players though. Speed and quickness were never my strongest traits, but who knows, I could have put on a LZR Racer soccer uniform and my nickname would have been "DASH."
Instead, I had to try to hide those two jet-propelled airlifters under my shirt so it didn't appear like I was playing underwater.
Yeah, pun intended.
