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Mountain Men: The Sochi downhill and the uphill battle of Michael Sam

The Caucasus are a long way from the gridirons of America, but they both yielded big news Sunday, Feb. 9 that spoke to the allure of male power and its limitations.

Matthias Mayer of Austria took gold in the men’s downhill – one of the most glamorous, thrilling and dangerous of Olympic sports – ending a 12-year Austrian drought in the event. 

The men’s downhill is two minutes and change of pure testosterone. It’s men against a mountain and a clock. Hemingway couldn’t have scripted a crisper, cleaner, crueler narrative. And while the women ski the same disciplines as the men, I don’t know, they’re not as exciting.

“It’s just in my mind, for lack of a better word, kind of a manly sport,” veteran American skier Marco Sullivan said of the downhill in The New York Times. And it demonstrates what’s so attractive about men – their speed, their power, their abandon, for no one wins the downhill without combining technique with risk-taking. Veer too much to the former and you’ll ski too cautiously. Stray too close to the latter and you’ll crash and burn. (American favorite Bode Miller, anyone?)

The dark-horse winner Mayer said he eliminated his final training runs to conserve power for the race. That comment conveys the truth of power, which is as much about retaining as it is attaining. Read more

 

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What if New York had the Olympics?

With the Sochi Games now open, The New York Times has been wondering just that, with drawings that imagine the Big Apple as an Olympic winter wonderland. (This year we certainly have the snow for it.) But readers need wonder no more. In my new novel “Water Music,” it does. 

This first of the series “The Games Men Play,” two pairs of athlete-lovers who are at the heart of my story – swimmers Daniel and Dylan and tennis players Alex and Alí – meet at a Summer Olympics in Manhattan, where shifting professional fortunes signal shifting personal alliances.

Having awarded New York the Summer Games, I’ve gone on to give Omaha its own football team. The Omaha Steers are center stage in my second book in TGMP series, “In This Place You Hold Me,” about a quarterback’s search for identity. (Omaha, I know you were disappointed that Peyton Manning – who always uses Omaha as one of his audibles – and his Broncos lost the Super Bowl. I hope my giving you your own team takes the sting out of that – but I doubt it. Art can’t make up for real life.) Read more

 

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Is Peyton the Michelle Kwan of football?

Forget Richard III. This is the winter of my discontent, and it isn’t just the unrelenting cold, snow and ice in the Northeast. (It’s like “Dr. Zhivago” without Omar Sharif.) 

No, it’s partly because my guys – Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Colin Kaepernick, Gov. Chris Christie and now Peyton Manning – have all fallen short this season. (Thank God Tim Tebow has found his calling as a T. Mobile pitchman and ESPN analyst, or this winter would be a total bust.)

Let’s leave off Gov. Krispy Kreme, shall we? Remember how in math you always had to pick out the one thing that didn’t belong to the set. Well, he doesn’t belong to the set. His is a different kind of performance to be judged by other criteria. What I want to talk about today in the aftermath of that dud of a Super Bowl and with the Olympics beginning Thursday, Feb. 6 with the new team ice figure skating event is why some people – brilliantly talented everyday achievers – fall flat in big moments. Read more

 

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Year of the (Sea)hawk

It’s supposed to be the Year of the Horse. But someone forgot to tell the Seattle Seahawks.

And the Denver Broncos. Thunder, the Broncos’ Arabian stallion of a mascot, may have thundered into MetLife Stadium, but the Broncos sure didn’t.

So what did we learn from the less-than-Super Bowl?

1. Good pitching stops good hitting. Football translation: Good defense stops good offense. The Hawks’ D-line just shut Peyton Manning and company down.

2. But you still have to put up some points, otherwise a good defense means nothing. Ah, 43 – 8 Seattle? No problem.

3. The guard has changed. Peyton may be the classic pocket passer but – and it breaks my heart to say this – his time is past even as he lives it. The game belongs to a breed of young, largely African-American, running quarterbacks – led by the Hawks’ Russell Wilson – who are not afraid to move and mix things up. They’re risk-taking, they’re thrilling and their time is now. Read more

 

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Do clothes make the NFL man?

The NFL Awards were telecast on Fox the night before the Super Bowl. They’re like the Oscars only with men in suits that don’t fit. People: You’re multimillionaires. You can afford to go to a designer and have a half- dozen suits made. None of this squeezing into barely buttoned jackets as if you were sausages in casings.

Even those who looked good didn’t quite get it right. New Orleans Saints’ quarterback Drew Brees was sharp in his blue suit, but the tan shoes stood out. Blue and tan is a big combo this spring – for women. Men don’t always rock it.

There were exceptions. Former San Francisco 49ers star-turned-NFL analyst Deion Sanders was elegant in a three-piece suit and scarf. Current 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick was stunning in a black turtleneck and a black suit that fit perfectly, squaring those broad shoulders. He presented the Best Play award to Green Bay Packers’ QB Aaron Rodgers with 49ers QB great Steve Young. The ESPN analyst, whom I profiled in WAG’s January “Super” issue, was once as Kaepernick is now – a running quarterback. But he graciously told Kaepernick that he never ran as fast as Colin can. It was interesting to see how compact Young is in comparison to Kaepernick. They certainly don’t make ’em like they used to. Read more

 

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20 Questions to ask before the Super Bowl

  1. Will there be a super-duper storm for the Super Bowl as predicted by the Farmers’Almanac?
  2. If there is a storm, will Peyton Manning, who is said to have trouble in the cold, be affected by the weather?
  3. Will the rest of the Denver Broncos be affected by the weather?
  4. Will the Seattle Seahawks be affected by the weather?
  5. Will the fans be affected by the weather?
  6. Will anyone talk about anything but the weather before, during and after the big game?
  7. Why is the blogosphere just now waking up to the fact that the Super Bowl is going to be played outdoors?
  8. Why can’t the blogosphere understand that though Super Bowl XLVIII is being played at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, the teams that play in that stadium have New York in their names, hence New York is co-hosting the Super Bowl?
  9. Why can’t the blogosphere understand that Metropolitan Opera star Renée Fleming is more than capable of singing the National Anthem?
  10. How many people in the blogosphere can sing the National Anthem, getting all the words right? (Bonus question: How many know the second verse?) Read more

 

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Time for the NFL’s young guns?

Well, I’m disappointed that Colin Kaepernick and the San Francisco 49ers lost to Russell Wilson and the Seattle Seahawks, but I had a feeling it was going to be the Hawks. And it may well be their year, though I’ll be rooting for Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos.

The press, of course, will be looking at many storylines for this Super Duper Bowl. There’s Peyton playing and possibly winning at MetLife Stadium, bro Eli’s home, just as Eli and the New York Giants beat Tom Brady and the New England Patriots at Lucas Oil Stadium, Peyton’s then home as the Indianapolis Colts’ quarterback. Then there’s the possibility of a major storm – the Farmers’ Almanac says so – which may prove nothing compared to the cold front that might greet Gov. Chris Christie. (Will his fellow pols like Gov. Andrew Cuomo be treating him like he has cooties?)

But perhaps the biggest storyline will be the possible changing of the guard. Read more

 

 

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