The FINA World Aquatics Championships – a qualifier for the Olympics – will be held July 24 through Aug. 9 in Kazan, Russia for the first time.
The championships consist of diving (July 24-Aug. 2), open water and synchronized swimming (both July 25 through Aug. 1), water polo (July 26 through Aug. 8) and, my favorite, swimming (Aug. 2 through 9).
I’ve always had a special place in my heart for Worlds. The opening scene in my debut novel “Water Music” takes place there, and it’s often an indicator of what the swimmers will do at the Olympics, though not always. I can’t help but think that Ryan Lochte – who eclipsed Michael Phelps at Worlds in Shanghai in 2011 – peaked too soon. ...
Read more
Read MoreFrench Open champ Stan Wawrinka is among those going au naturel for ESPN’s 2015 Body Issue.
“My body is for my tennis, it's for my sport,” the man they call “Stanimal” told the mag. “I'm not a model at all. I don't work out to go to the beach, I work out to play well and to do well on the court.”
Precisely. We each have the body we need for our work. That doesn’t mean we should abuse it. But that idea should disabuse of the need for a cookie-cutter look. We can’t all be models, nor do we all want to be ...
(Read more)
Read MoreThe Pluto flyby has shown us how well the little planet that could is served by its name. Pluto was the Roman god of the underworld (Hades in Greek), whose queen, Proserpina (Persephone) spent spring and summer with her mother, the earth goddess Demeter, in the upper world, and fall and winter with her gloomily handsome hubby, the lord of the dead. Indeed, this arrangement was the reason we have spring and summer, when the earth is recalled to life and warmth, and fall and winter, when the earth dies coldly to itself.
Pluto the planet has icy mountains and geological activity, suggesting heat somewhere at some point:
“That leaves rethinking how thermodynamics apply at the dwarf planet,” Mika McKinnon writes. ...
(Read more)
Read MoreOn Aug. 1, I'll be at The DCCenter for the LGBT Community's OutWrite Book Festival with my novel "Water Music" - about the loves and rivalries among four gay athletes. I'll sign some books, do a reading (at 3:25 p.m.) and share news about "The Penalty for Holding," the second book in my series "The Games Men Play." If you're in Washington D.C., I'd love to see you at The Reeves Center 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The event is free to attend. For more, click on to http://thedccenter.org/outwritedc/exhibitors.html.
(Read more)
Read MoreWell, we have been to Pluto, so to speak, and it turns out to exceed the expectations even of us Plutonians. How could it not?
Pluto is no dull little rock but a world filled with texture characterized by icy mountains and geological activity. It’s Switzerland without the Lindt chocolates, the chalets, the cuckoo clocks, the secret bank accounts and, of course, the Roger Federer ...
(Read more)
Read MoreYou would think that for two people who had reached the pinnacle of their profession, the world would be their oyster.
But no, no, things didn’t work out that way for Serena Williams and Novak Djokovic though it’s certainly not for lack of effort on their part.
Holder of the Serena Slam (all four Slam titles at once), Serena will no doubt win the US Open that begins on Aug. 29 and succeed Steffi Graf by capturing the Grand Slam (the Australian Open, the French Open, Wimbledon and the US Open) in one calendar year. She will be remembered as one of the greatest, if not the greatest, to play the game. Simply put, there is Serena and there is everyone else ...
(Read more)
Read MoreVive la France and vive Pluto.
Tomorrow, July 14, Bastille Day (alias the Frenchy Fourth of July), New Horizons spacecraft will do its Pluto flyby. NASA TV will have a live broadcast from 7:30 to 9 a.m. EDT. But here’s the thing: We won’t know if the flyby has been successful – or if the probe, which looks like a grand piano wrapped in gold and silver foil, has hit debris and exploded – until 8:53 p.m. EDT when we get our first bit of data. We’ll get our first look at Charon, Pluto’s rival moon, at 7 a.m. EDT Wednesday, July 15. (Remember that Charon in Greek mythology is the ferryman who delivers the dead to Hades, or Pluto, lord of the underworld, so it’s all good in terms of keeping our mythological ducks in a row.) We’re also going to get a gander at Hydra, another of Pluto’s five moons. (And another Greco-Roman mythological reference: The Hydra was the seven-headed monster Herakles, or Hercules, had to battle.) Then at 3:25 p.m. Wednesday, finally, it’s Pluto time, with the little planet that could showing us its heart. (No, Pluto, we heart you.) ...
(Read more)
Read More