HUD Homes Articles | ![Another Race, Another Record for [block]1[/block] ‘Lightning’ Bolt](http://baltimorehudhomes.com/blog/wp-content/themes/indomagz_2/images/first_time_home_buyer.jpg)
Usain Bolt broke the 12-year-old record in the men’s 200-meter sprint on Wednesday, shortly before turning 22. Mr. Bolt, days after breaking his own world record in the 100-meter dash, became the first man to set records in both races at the same Olympics, lowering Michael Johnson’s mark from the 1996 Olympics to 19.30 seconds.
“This one was for the clock, for the record book, for Olympic history and to stand these Games on their head,” Thomas Boswell writes in the Washington Post. “This victory in the 200-meter dash on Wednesday was to put the name Usain Bolt smack into the Michael Phelps conversation.”
Mr. Boswell enjoys the young Jamaican’s joyful, goofy and somewhat arrogant personality, one exhibited when he asked to be called “Lightning Bolt,” and when he paused at a subsequent press conference to admire his televised self. “He grew up running barefoot on grass tracks. His aunt burns down her sugar cane fields, machete in hand, ready to chop them up. When he leaves his island for meets, he still gets homesick. Perhaps such extroversion goes hand in hand with some innocence. Let’s take it. We don’t get much of it anymore. And it never lasts long.”
Reporters got caught up in the frenzy. “Anybody in a green ‘Jamaica’ shirt was being swarmed for interviews,” Mitch Albom writes in the Detroit Free Press. “We didn’t even know who they were. ‘We’re proud to be Jamaicans!’ a middle-aged woman declared. ‘We are the sprint factory of the world!’ ‘Is that his mother?’ a reporter whispered. ‘He can go faster! You won’t see nobody like him for another 50 years!’ insisted a middle-aged man. ‘Is that his coach?’ a reporter whispered. It was not his mother. It was not his coach. It didn’t matter.”
Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, was not as taken with Mr. Bolt, telling reporters, “I think he should show more respect for his competitors.” New York Daily News columnist Filip Bondy writes, “Rogge should get down on his knees to thank the guy for saving the track meet.”
Mr. Johnson appreciates the man who broke his record. “He doesn’t just want to win races and medals, he wants to test the limits of human ability,” the former Olympian writes in the Times of London. “I am happy for him and I congratulate him.”
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South Africa’s Natalie du Toit finished 16th at the women’s 10-kilometer open-water swim race on Wednesday, well outside medal contention and her goal of a top-five finish. And then she was surrounded by a media horde — because she swam with one leg. “None of it seems strange to Deirdre du Toit,” Sam Donnellon writes in the Philadelphia Daily News. “Her amputee daughter wanted to keep swimming, so she kept swimming. She wanted to continue competing at a high level, so she trained harder than she had before. She wanted to make an Olympic team, she made an Olympic team. An Olympic medal? Why not?”
Because of the intense interest in the South African swimmer’s story from American writers and television networks, after her race “she was surrounded — even penned in — by cameras and microphones as journalists tried to get that extra quote,” Mark Smit writes in South Africa’s Business Day. “Despite the shocking behaviour of the cameramen and others, Du Toit starred at a press conference in which she gave generously of herself, talking at length about her feelings and the history of her journey since having the scooter accident at the age of 16 which caused her leg to be amputated,” Mr. Smit writes. “She never shirked a question, never showed a sign of disapproval or impatience.”
In the Times of London, Simon Barnes casts a wider lens, writing eloquently about the first open-water Olympics swim since 1896. “It was a great, glorious splashing battle from beginning to end,” Mr. Barnes writes. “It took place at the rowing lake — they took care to stop the rowing, I wouldn’t fancy the oarsmen’s chances against this lot — and involved four circuits around the marker buoys, and make sure you don’t get slammed into one on the turn. It’s all feet in the face and clashing arms and hands accidentally-on-purpose whacking adjacent heads.”
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Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor, after winning the gold medal in women’s beach volleyball, have won 108 consecutive matches. “This is the greatest combination, the biggest domination in hybrid sports/party history,” Greg Couch writes in the Chicago Sun-Times.
About that party: “This wasn’t China versus the USA, it was China imitating the American way,” Andy Bull writes in the Guardian. “The capacity crowd were marshalled into a series of Mexican waves by a break-dancing MC from California, the cheerleaders — half American, half Chinese — wore their cowboy hats and jiggled to Pretty Fly (For A White Guy) and It’s Raining Men. (No, no it’s not, it’s just raining.) At 11am, a lot of the Chinese were knocking back plastic cups of beer and guzzling popcorn and hotdogs on sticks. In the absence of any indigenous beach culture, the Chinese had brought some in wholesale from California.”
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The Miami Herald’s Michelle Kaufman describes the fun scene at the Olympic Village, where anonymous athletes and celebrity athletes mix. “The Brazilian team cut its lunch short because players felt trapped by their peers,” Ms. Kaufman writes. “Similar scenes have erupted around tennis No. 1 Rafael Nadal of Spain, Chinese NBA star Yao Ming and German NBA star Dirk Nowitzki (both got custom eight-foot beds), and Argentine soccer hero Lionel Messi, all of whom turned down posh hotel digs for a chance to slum it with kayakers and archers in the Athletes Village. They are sharing apartments with two to four roommates, eating in the dining hall, taking buses to venues and passing the free time in the Internet café, fitness center and game room.”
The 63 North Korean athletes are missing out on the cultural exchange. “The athletes get to go outside when they practice, or when they compete in the 11 sports they’ve come here to win medals in,” John Canzano writes in the Oregonian. “But that’s about it. And I know this because I went to the Water Cube on Tuesday and talked with North Korean synchronized swimmers Kim Yong Mi and Wang Ok Gyong. Well, I talked with an interpreter who spoke English and Mandarin. And he talked with a second interpreter who spoke Mandarin and Korean. And the five of us huddled at one end of the swim complex, against a steel rail that blocked off the back door, understanding each other, one clumsy sentence at a time. ”
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Here’s what Toronto Star columnist Chris Zelkovich would like to see, just once, in NBC’s Olympics coverage: “a story about an Olympic athlete who was born into wealth, had a private coach from age 6 on and arrived at practice in a chauffer-driven limousine.”
Washington Post columnist Sally Jenkins reminds readers about some of the Olympic events that aren’t being aired on NBC. “It’s easy for the head duckers of the International Olympic Committee to separate themselves from the underlying issues of the Beijing Games by labeling them ‘apolitical,’ ” Ms. Jenkins writes. “But the Greek word ‘polis’ means an affair of the state, and the Beijing Games clearly qualify as one, from their $40 billion governmental price tag, to the bulldozing of thousands of lives to make way for the stadiums, to a seven-year crackdown on social activists by the hosts, which is still going on. On Wednesday, this purported superpower sentenced a couple of old women, aged 77 and 79, to a year of labor reeducation because they filed for a permit to protest eviction from their homes at one of the supposedly ‘official’ Olympic demonstration sites. This is just one of the brazen evils perpetrated here in the name of ‘apolitical’ sport. China also retains its title as the world’s leader in jailing journalists. If the IOC wanted an Olympics separate from Chinese politics, it should have staged them in Tahiti.”
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Ever wonder how much your hometown baseball team is taking advantage of you? On Hardball Times, Chris Jaffe puts a price tag on that by adding up those extra ticket fees for all 30 teams. The combined cost for processing and convenience ranges from $2 up to $11.25.
– Tip of the Fix cap to reader Don Hartline.
Found a good column from the world of sports? Don’t keep it to yourself — write to me at dailyfix@wsj.com and I’ll consider your find for inclusion in the Daily Fix.
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