The Lochte caper enters the backlash-against-the-backlash phase

August 26, 2016

I had planned to write a post about the big, fat September Vogue and editrix Anna Wintour’s latest anointed tennis star, Alexander Zverev, who at 19 is the youngest player to crack the top 30 since Novak Djokovic a decade ago. (The magazine article’s headline blares “Alexander the Great” above a picture of a shirtless, Alexandrian figure indeed.)

But I’m afraid such pleasures pale with the news that Brazilian Police have recommended that Ryan Lochte be charged with falsely reporting a crime for saying he’d been robbed at a gas station during the Rio Games. ...

The Rio Games and the summer of our discontent

August 23, 2016

Is it just me or were the Rio Games ultimately dispiriting? Yes, I’m glad as an American that the United States won 121 medals and as a woman that American woman won 61 of them. (Give it up for Title IX.)

And I thought the Christoph Waltz/Samsung Galaxy commercial – in which the two-time Academy Award winner manages to mock superior Eurotrash and over-accomplished, multitasking exceptional Americans at the same time through a series of character vignettes – was just terrific.

But too many athletes reminded me that time is the cruelest opponent. ...

Seems like old times with Phelpte

August 10, 2016

Michael Phelps won his 21st gold medal and the U.S. men’s swimming team took its fourth consecutive gold in the 4-x-200 meter relay Tuesday in Rio de Janeiro. In all four relays, the common denominator was Phelps and longtime teammate and rival Ryan Lochte. He and Phelps swam the third and anchor legs respectively. They are now the grand old men of swimming at 32 and 31. Seems like only yesterday they were teenagers crowned in laurel and giggling on the podium in Athens.

Phelps, who’s had his share of problems with alcohol, has a newfound maturity with fiancée Nicole Johnson and baby Boomer (so adorable). Some things, however, never change. Lochte, noted for his, shall we say, striking sartorial choices, dyed his hair ice-blue for the Rio Games. Instead it looks platinum.

Why do thoroughly gorgeous people tamper with Greco-Roman beauty?

Fed, Davis Cup and ‘Just Say No’

February 25, 2015

Well, Feddy Bear has spoken and it’s ‘no’ to the Davis Cup this year.

Is it me, or does Roger Federer have a way of sounding self-centered even when he’s probably just trying to be logical?

"It wasn't a difficult decision," he was quoted as saying in Bleacher Report. "I have played for so long, and I think by winning it, I can finally do whatever I please, to be quite honest."

He also called the Davis Cup “a big burden” that lays on the guilt.

Reaction was predictable: “It’s ‘Me first’ again for Roger,” Mary Haw posted on the Bleacher Report report.

To be fair, Fed Ex does have a 50-17 record in Davis Cup. And he’s going to have to play it again to qualify for the Rio Olympics in 2016. Then, too, you have to pace yourself, particularly as you age. Sometimes you just have to say ‘no’ if you’re going to be fresh for tourneys, which are the main focus of a tennis player’s career.

That means ‘no’ to the guilt as well. In my novel “Water Music” and the upcoming “The Penalty for Holding” – both part of The Games Men Play series – the tennis players/swimmers and football players respectively are sometimes weighed down by the expectations of family and country. Tennis player Alí Iskandar – whose father is fond of quoting the biblical “To him to whom much has been given, much will be required” – wonders if there’s a statute of limitations on gratitude. Sometimes you have to put yourself first – something Feddy has no trouble doing.

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