Month: March 2020

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Social Distancing

Well, COVID-19 COVID-19 COVID-19 COVID-19. This pandemic certainly is the news. Sport is basically on hold in the US, and should be around the world. Qualifying for Tokyo 2020 has basically stopped. I seriously doubt if there will even BE a Tokyo 2020.

The pace of this blog will slow until I can build the enthusiasm to start researching and preparing for something that I’ve been anticipating since it was announced and now likely won’t happen in 2020 and may never happen.

The health of people around the world is more important, but I’ll allow myself to be disappointed with the impact this is having to things we enjoy.

Stay safe everyone, and let’s see what the future holds.

Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:3D_medical_animation_corona_virus.jpg

Oh well, my Google analytics show that this blog hasn’t even had a single hit in two weeks.

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COVID-19 wins Indian Wells

COVID-19 cancels Indian Wells 

Viruses don’t cancel things, people do.

As tennis fans in greater Los Angeles, we have a great opportunity to watch top tier tennis at the BNP Paribas Open, aka Indian Wells. A year ago, we made plans to attend this year’s last three days of the tournament. It was scheduled to start tomorrow, March 9. Tonight, the entire tournament was cancelled.

“The Riverside County Public Health Department has declared a public health emergency for the Coachella Valley after a confirmed case of coronavirus (COVID-19) locally. As a result, the 2020 BNP Paribas Open will not take place at this time due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus and the safety of the participants and attendees at the event. This is following the guidance of medical professionals, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and State of California.

“There is too great a risk, at this time, to the public health of the Riverside County area in holding a large gathering of this size,” said Dr. David Agus, Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Southern California. “It is not in the public interest of fans, players and neighboring areas for this tournament to proceed. We all have to join together to protect the community from the coronavirus outbreak.”

“We appreciate the proactive stance tournament organizers are taking to ensure public health and safety,” said Martin Massiello, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, Eisenhower Health.

“We are very disappointed that the tournament will not take place, but the health and safety of the local community, fans, players, volunteers, sponsors, employees, vendors, and everyone involved with the event is of paramount importance,” said Tournament Director Tommy Haas. “We are prepared to hold the tournament on another date and will explore options.”

Any patron who has purchased tickets directly from the tournament may request a refund for the 2020 tournament, or a credit for the 2021 tournament. Patrons should click the button below to request a refund or credit.”

Source: https://bnpparibasopen.com/coronavirus/

 

Happier times at the 2019 Australian Open

Cycling Update

In other news, some of the quarantined cyclistshave been released but a number of Italian races have postponed. Paris-Nice is on though.

Scoring points with pros

It turns out Nathan Peter Haas’ and The Peloton Brief’s quarantine workout regime got some press in Australia but with limited actual attribution to the content owners. I let them know that I followed their rules, so I got a Twitter like. That means we must be best friends now.

Does a Twitter “Like” make us friends?
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Cycling update – COVID-19 woes, quarantine fitness, Chloé Dygert Owen dominance

Most, but not all cyclists quarantined on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi have been released after testing negative for COVID-19. However, a few teams remain and some of them are not happy. At all.

Nathan Peter Haas, who I’ve followed on Twitter for years, put together a pretty funny video, trying to make the best of it.

Credit to The Peloton Brief for this post.

In other cool news, Chloé Dygert Owen, featured here before, has won several gold medals in the Track Worlds, including a world record in the Individual Pursuit and the Women’s Team Pursuit.

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Swimming sport spotlight

Swimming tickets are a hard ticket to get, or at least it seemed so, and the price indicates they are popular. We managed to get tickets to session TOSWM04. There are 15 sessions of swimming, starting from July 25 through August 2. The events we will see in our session are:

  • Women’s 100m Butterfly Final and Victory Ceremony
  • Men’s 200m Freestyle Semifinals
  • Women’s 100m Breaststroke Semifinals
  • Men’s 100m Breaststroke Final and Victory Ceremony
  • Women’s 400m Freestyle Final and Victory Ceremony
  • Men’s 100m Backstroke Semifinals
  • Women’s 100m Backstroke Semifinals
  • Men’s 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay Final and Victory Ceremony

These events are finals and semifinals, so they will be highly competitive.

And, once again, one of the Purdue University spotlighted swimmers could be featured in the Women’s 400m Freestyle final, Kaersten Meitz. The US Olympic Team Trials are June 21 through June 28. In the 2019 World Rankings for LCM (50 m pool), Kaersten Meitz was 11th, with Katie Ledecky second ranked in the world and the highest American. Just behind was Leah Smith at number three. The top ranked in the Women’s 400m Freestyle is Ariarne Titmus of Australia.

The top performer in 2019 in the Women’s 100m Butterfly is Canadian Margaret McNeil, with Americans Kelsi Dahlia and Katie McLaughlin in the top ten.

Last year there were no Americans in the top ten Men’s 200m Freestyle. However, Japan’s Katsuhiro Matsumoto was the fifth highest ranked swimmer so if he makes the finals the crowd will be crazy. American Andrew Seliskar is just outside the top ten.

Lilly King (from Evansville, Indiana and an IU grad) is the reigning world champion at the Women’s 100m Breaststroke, Annie Lazor had the third best time of the year, and Japan’s Reona Aoki had the fourth best time. More crazy fans likely for this event as well.

In the World Championships last year, Adam Peaty of Great Britian set the Men’s 100m Breaststroke world record, fellow countryman James Wilby (not this James Wilby) had the third fastest time of the year, Yasuhiro Koseki had the eighth fastest time, and American Andrew Wilson had the ninth fastest. Yet another chance to see a Japanese swimmer get a home country boost.

China’s Jiayu Xu had the top time in the 100m Backstroke, and three Americans, Ryan Murphy (not Indianapolis’ Ryan Murphy of “Glee” fame), Shaine Casas, and Matt Grevers were all in the top ten as well as Japan’s Ryosuke Irie.

The Women’s 100m backstroke top time of 2019 is held by American’s Regan Smith, who set a world record at the 2019 World Championships and will graduate from high school THIS YEAR. Three other Americans, Phoebe Bacon (another high schooler), Olivia Smoliga, and Kathleen Baker are also in the top 10.

Finally, the USA had the fastest Men’s 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay, followed by Russia and Australia. Japan was tenth.

Note to USA Swimming – hire a professional photographer to do your bio shots. Preferably someone who knows how to use the “focus” feature.

One swimmer we won’t be seeing in the Men’s 200m Freestyle event is Sun Yang. He was banned for eight years for his second doping violation.