8:00 PMJeRome Wilkins, a former University of New Hampshire football player accused of sexually assaulting a woman outside a house, said in court Friday that he did have sex with the woman but that it was consensual.
7:30 PMRafael Nadal says he was given a surprise drug test Saturday a few days after a French TV show lampooned doping allegations against Spanish athletes.
I suspect Ahmet Coskun, a German wheelchair basketballer competing in the Paralympics, occasionally feels self conscious about his predicament. It’s completely understandable because, well, people can be mean.
Which is why it seems perfectly reasonable that Coskun (which has to be German for “Costanza”), would take measures to combat hair loss. Being confined to a wheelchair happens, but why would you choose to be bald if you could do something about it? One problem: apparently, Coskun’s hair-loss ointment of choice is a banned substance, at least according to the German National Paralympic Committee. Seriously.
• Okay, so it’s not sports-related, but we rather insist. (And thanks to RIDING WITH RICKY.)
• We’d be more concerned about the Dolphins unwittingly giving up their secrets to the Jets, but… come ON. They’re the Dolphins. Here’s the secret: they’re mammals but they live in the water. Freaky, right? And people pay to slip on a wetsuit and pet that. Double freaky, right? (Maybe we wouldn’t feel that way if we were INSIDE THE DOLPHINS.)
• Brian Billick will now blog. We hope he finds some way to bring his snarky and condescending attitude smoothly to the genteel world of web logging, as represented by the ladies and gentlemen of DEUCE OF DAVENPORT. Tea time! Read more…
The Iraqi Olympic team has been through some hardships over the last few years. The tae kwon do team were kidnapped, killed, and buried in a mass grave. The head of the National Olympic Committee had the same fate befall him. Numerous other athletes over the last 25 years and three wars have been killed and maimed.
However, Iraqi athletes have a curiously positive outlook, developed out of necessity and perhaps a mark of the Iraqi people themselves. How else could they find slivers of upside in such horrors?
““As a country that participated in many wars since 1980, we have many disabled people,” said Ahmed Abid Hassan, a wheelchair fencing coach. “Our Paralympic team is better than our Olympic team.””
Beijing Olympic officials have trimmed what was to be the first international Paralympic torch relay that routed through future Olympic venues (Vancouver, London, etc.) and around the world to Beijing into a few whistle stops through well-protected sites in China. (Thanks to RINGS for the heads-up.)
You might think this has to do with all of the protests and rioting that occurred around the Olympic torch relay. You might also think that China canceling runs through regions of their own country that despise Chinese rule was no coincidence. However, China made it very clear they’re canceling a joyous jaunt through Vancouver because of the Sichuan earthquake last month.
If an earthquake that occurred last month forcing a showpiece relay race in other countries in late August and early September seems ludicrous to you, it’s only because you haven’t heard an explanation. We can provide one.
