Neat article in today’s New York Times about Ebbsfleet United, a lower-tier British soccer club that was purchased by an ownership group started on the Iternet (MyFootballClub.co.uk), which raised money via readers, with the promise that the ownership group “could vote on every decision, from uniform design to player selection.”
Ok, who’s going to start [...]

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The title of this NYT story, A Culture Clash for South Korean Players on the L.P.G.A. Tour, is a bit of a misnomer, because mostly the writer is talking about how swimmingly things are going since the LPGA Tour’s commissioner, Carolyn Bivens, dropped the plan to require foreign-born players to speak English. But anyway, there’s [...]

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I won’t pretend to be a figure skating expert, but judging by the number of times this little ditty I wrote about Kim Yu-na came up on searches, I’d say she had something of a coming out partyinternationally over the weekend. Not sure how often I’ll follow her story, since I might be tired of [...]

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I guess I’m such a cynic at this point I read something like this and just wonder how people come to spend so much time on learning something like high wire walking that they actually become good at it. I suppose, for those who do spend their lives learning such things, it’s good they have [...]

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What would happen if a Japanese celebrity biker raced an insane french guy wearing a bodysuit with about 50 wheels attached  down a Japanese mountain side?  
Answer here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDBDkVI0Cn4

By the way the French guy calls this BuggyRollin.
(From Pink Tentacle)

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Actually, this isn’t as bad as game fixing, so the headline should probably read Korean Field Hockey League Kind of Bad, but Not as Bad as Taiwanese Pro Baseball League. However, this implicates 102 people and nearly every team in the league.
Video of Korean news report showing the league’s crooked books here.
From Korea Beat:
102 people [...]

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This is such wild situation to watch and I don’t have any clear opinion on it, but I actually understand the LPGA’s wanting it’s players to be able to communicate with the media. From a marketing perspective. If the LPGA were classified as a business I’d say they have the right to request whatever they [...]

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Even though it concerns Koreans I haven’t paid much attention to the stories about the LPGA’s new mandate that it’s golfers must speak passable English. Much of the coverage has seemed to suggest that the decision is xenophobic in nature, which I think is absurd. However, Ray Ratto, a columnist I’ve read off and on [...]

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In light of that recent Randy Newman post I did this definitely caught my eye; a funny reaction to Usain Bolt’s mind-boggling 100m dash on Saturday called Short people got no reason to live:
The 60-yard Procrustean Cut-Down was the sole event we Middle Men could hope to win. But after Usain Bolt’s world-record run in [...]

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This is my second Olympics in Korea. My wife and I spent last night at her parent’s place in Busan and we all watched Choi Ho-min’s gold medal win in 60 kg Judo. My guess is the event was a blip in North America, just as non-Korean wins are a blip here. Judo itself as [...]

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I’m in Seoul right now watching the Korean national team’s Olympic warmup games versus Holland and Cuba. I’m staying at a  pretty  nice hotel in Gangnam, and the place is teeming with Olympic athletes, no doubt training and staying in Seoul to avoid Beijing as long as possible.
From an AP story today:
Beijing’s smoggy air [...]

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Phenomenal article here entitled In China’s Medal Factory, Winners Cannot Quit, about the hell endured by many Chinese athletes on the road to, and away from, Olympic success. The focus is on Yang Wenjun, Olympic medalist in flatwater canoeing four years ago, and son of peasant rice farmers.
After medaling he was given a three-bedroom [...]

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As a lifelong Timberwolves fan who grew up attending home games during the Pooh Richardson era, I nearly cried for joy when Kevin Garnett earned his first of what will hopefully be many rings he earns during his career. It a joy that a great individual and team leader like Garnett–now in hindsight the indisputable [...]

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I  have no idea what kind of coverage this is getting in the states or if people are taking it seriously, but this made the news in Korea, so I went ahead and got this from ESPN. The article  details the letter ex-NBA official Tim Donaghy sent via his attorney to the U.S. District Court [...]

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Korean Beat has a few interesting factoids about the Korean Basketball Leauge. According to an article in the Sports Hanguk, over 600 foreign players will compete in an upcoming tryout in Las Vegas. Oddly, the league makes players who have already succeeded in the league to tryout all over again.
Among those with KBL experience are [...]

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If you live in Korea you can watch tongiht’s  KBS follow-up to last month’s program exposing the disturbing tendency of women’s basketball coaches raping their players. If you don’t live in Korea you can just sit back and wretch while you read this.
From a Korea Beat translationof a Sports Chosun article:

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Good piece I’d meant to post a day or two ago, courtesy of my friend Eric. It’s about the recent uptick in violence within the world of Sumo wrestling. Quite a bit of this makes it into the Korean media, but this story in the Washington Post  summarizes what’s been happening and draws the [...]

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Wouldn’t normally have much to say about soccer, let alone the Chinese women’s national team, but check this out –
Elizabeth Loisel was hired to coach the team at the beginning of last November. Now, the team is saying that if the team doesn’t win the upcoming East Asian Cup, she will be fired — just [...]

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This is one of those reports, kind of like the recent series of articles about the Washington Huskies football team that makes me want to vomit. The Korean sports world is on fire as of late due to a recent news program reporting that the sexual abuse and harassment of female competitors by their male [...]

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The Super Bowl is broadcast in Korea —  I believe it starts at 9 a.m. I’ll probably have it on TV in the other room, but most likely I’ll keep tabs on it on the computer.  If it’s still interesting in the 4th quarter I’ll watch some of it.
I could almost care less about the [...]

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