Medals devalued: Medal inflation
continues to get out of hand at the Games and
it's something not unique to Chicago. In some
sports, with lots of teams or lots of individual
competitors, winning a medal means something –
lots of hard work, dedication, sacrifice and
skill. In other sports, they basically hand
medals to anybody who walks by.
One example of the latter was the men’s 4x100
track relay for ages 45+. Team Philadelphia won
the bronze … with two of the runners being the
mothers of two male runners. Were these super
moms? Hardly. There were only three teams
entered, so had the team raced a 4-year-old they
would have won as long as the kid didn’t drool
on the baton. Or maybe they should have entered
the family dog and he could have been the first
Pomeranian to win a Gay Games gold and earn an
Alpo endorsement. The problem is that the “free”
medals look the same as the ones that were
really earned.
In the women’s 1,500 meters race, five of the
six age groups had only one entrant and they all
“won” a gold – you shouldn’t get a gold for just
being able to finish. Someone quipped that in
figure skating there were more medals than
athletes.
There should be a rule that there have to be two
fewer medals awarded than competitors in an
event or age group – if there are three
entrants, only the gold is given, which means
you would need five athletes to have gold,
silver and bronze awarded. If there are two or
fewer entrants, no one gets a medal (and they
shouldn’t bitch, since it’s supposed to be about
participation anyway). This would eliminate
someone winning a gold medal when they were the
only competitor; it’s a system that devalues
real athletic accomplishment and makes it seem
as if gay and lesbian jocks get graded on an
easier curve. –Jim Buzinski
Rockdogs win gold:
The San Francisco Rockdogs, playing in memory of
a beloved teammate, dominated the men’s
competitive division to win the basketball gold
medal, 49-33, over the New York Warriors.
The Warriors took an early 3-0 lead on a
3-pointer by long-range bomber Mike Rios with
less than a minute gone in the game, then failed
to score a point in the next 12 minutes of the
game as the Rockdogs went on a 17-0 spurt. The
Dogs, led by guard Mike Survillion, were much
quicker than the Warriors and outhustled them
for rebounds and missed shots in a game that was
sloppy and ragged. It was clear that both teams
were gassed after playing for six straight days
in a University of Illinois-Chicago gym that
resembled a sauna most of the week.
The
Warriors, who beat the Rockdogs by four in a
round-robin game, got as close as eight points
with 14:43 remaining, but never mounted a
sustained comeback. It was the Rockdogs’ first
gold since the 1998 Games in Amsterdam.
The Rockdogs wore white practice shirts with #51
and “Williams” printed on them, in honor of star
player Martin Williams who died from cancer two
years ago. Demarco Majors (top picture, left, with a friend)
was dealing with more tragedy, losing his
grandmother and sister in the last two weeks and
he dedicated his win to their memory. –Jim
Buzinski
Golden
boy:
Rory Ray (lower picture, left) had quite a Games. On Wednesday,
playing receiver and pass rusher, he helped Team Outsports to a flag football gold. Two days
later, he was a member of the Rockdogs’ winning
team.
Ray, Outsports’ web developer, is the first
athlete to win golds in competitive basketball
and flag football in the same Games. A New York
Warriors player also won two
medals – a gold in flag football for Outsports
and a silver in basketball. Both of them
spent the early part of the week racing between
football and basketball, playing multiple games
in both sports each day; they were real iron
men. –Jim Buzinski
Too much:
A problem at every Games is the amount of games
team sport athletes need to play. In flag
football, my team played six games in three days
(each game lasted about 90 minutes); the team we
played for the gold, the New York Bad Apples,
played seven. In basketball, teams play six
straight days, and the same goes for soccer,
volleyball and others. By the time the finals
are reached, the play is not as crisp and it’s
more of a matter of survival. Our football gold
medal game was not nearly as exciting or
well-played as games both teams played earlier
in the tournament. It’s a shame, since gold
medal matches should be of the highest caliber,
but that’s not often possible given injuries and
fatigue.
One solution would be to give an off-day between
the first rounds of playoffs and finals; it
might mean compressing more games into fewer
days at the front, but people are fresher then
and it might make the finals more enjoyable. –Jim
Buzinski
Blades win
hockey gold:In news as shocking as
the sun rising in the East, the Los Angeles
Blades beat Minnesota, 5-1, to win the men's
hockey gold. This victory was all but assured
when the Blades registered the two best players
in the tournament in
defenseman Steve Sarauer and center Paul Jene.
Both played college hockey at
Wisconsin-Milwaukee. And Sarauer reportedly was
drafted by an NHL team.
Both are
straight, which ruffled the skates, so to speak,
of many hockey players at the Gay Games. One
player from a team that lost to the Blades said
it was a joke that both played and said they
might as well awarded L.A. the gold without
playing any games. Prior to the Minnesota game,
he said there was 0% chance L.A. would lose. Had
the players been gay, the feelings would be
different since these are the Gay Games; it
usually seems that in gay sports the mediocre
straights are seldom invited on a team. And
neither player lives in L.A. (one is in
Milwaukee, the other in suburban Chicago).
One skating
official said that Sarauer and Jene were #1 and
1A in talent at the tournament, and the next
nearest player would be #14. There's a sports
term for players like these -- ringers. -Jim
Buzinski
Note: A letter
came in critical of the Blades item above. We
are reprinting it here:
It was with great
frustration that I read Outsports.com's
commentary on the LA Blades gold medal in ice
hockey. The article was riddled with
inaccuracies, based largely on hearsay, and
seemed intent only on stirring up gossip and
trouble. No one from the Blades organization was
contacted for comment or to verify the accuracy
of facts. Allow me to detail the problems:
1) The article is based on gossip and hearsay.
No sources are given for the information other
than "one player on an opposing team" and "one
official." Your article admits that the player
who complained was on a team that lost to the
Blades -- would it be any surprise that they
would be critical? Further, the official is not
identified, so it only bears the hint of
authority -- who is this official? If no one
will go on record with their name, I wouldn't
trust the information. At that point, it's just
gossip.
2) The article is full of inaccuracies. Paul
Jene grew up in the Midwest, but has lived in
Los Angeles for a few years now. He regularly
plays with one of our house league teams in
Torrance, Calif. His girlfriend has also played
on the same team for two years. Paul played with
the Blades in the 2005 Coors Cup and regularly
coaches the team and runs our practices. To
intimate that he is not affiliated with our
hockey club is just a straight out falsehood.
Steve happens to be one of Paul's best friends
-- and it was Paul who asked him to play with
the Blades in Chicago.
3) The article ignores the larger problem faced
by the men's hockey tournament: only ONE team
registered as an Open level team -- the LA
Blades. ALL nine other teams registered in the
recreational division. The tournament staff made
the choice to rank the teams and split the
divisions into Open and Recreational -- 5 teams
a piece. The Blades can hardly be blamed for
assembling an Open level team, and then not
being able to face competitive teams. The Blades
team was a legitimate Open team - with or
without Steve & Paul.
4) Your article is shockingly hetero-phobic. The
Gay Games are about "inclusion" - and our teams
have ALWAYS had players both straight and gay on
them. To intimate that straight players
shouldn't be allowed because they're good is
patently ridiculous, and ignores the fact that
these straight players made the most of their
Gay Games experience. Paul & Steve both attended
the Opening & Closing ceremonies, and were even
out socializing with the team in Boys Town. They
are open-minded, nice guys who don't care if
they're playing with gay or straight players -
good hockey is good hockey. That's the spirit of
the Gay Games, NOT sour grapes and gossip.
5) Your article smacks of sour grapes. Would
anyone be complaining if the Blades didn't win?
Doubtful, especially since our Rec level team
had straight players on it as well. The
Leftwings team had straight players on it -
including some of their best, too. Did anyone
complain about them? Did Outsports.com target
them? No, they were lionized for epitomizing
family participation in the Games. It certainly
seems like you have something against the Blades
organization.
6) Your article is shockingly hypocritical. You
have complained about ringers, but proudly
trumpet the fact that you had an ex-NFL player
on your own team. Straight or gay - a ringer is
a ringer. Yet it is ok for Outsports.com to do
it because the player is gay? Once again,
discriminatory and hypocritical.
Respectfully,
Jeff Archibald, #38 Hollywood Blades
ex-Los Angeles Blades board member
Editor's note:
The information about the two players not
living in Los Angeles was supplied by the
players themselves to an Outsports
correspondent.
Name
game:
My favorite team name is the Madison (Wisc.)
Thunder Kittens, who won the competitive
division in women’s soccer. Click on the picture
for a larger view. –JB
Morgan wins four golds:
Chris Morgan, the current reigning World Drug
Free Powerlifting champion, has won four gold
medals at Gay Games. The medals were for squat,
bench press, deadlift and overall combined
total, breaking seven Gay Games records in the
process.
“'The
Gay Games powerlifting competition is only held
once every four years, so it was a very special
feeling competing alongside other gay
powerlifters once again. I'm pleased to have
performed close to my own personal best, in what
were testing conditions in Chicago this week.
(more than 100 degrees indoors). I'm very proud
to have earned a total of four gold medals and
to have broken seven Gay Games records.”
Morgan’s story has been well documented on
Outsports.
His competition done, Morgan was a happy man
Wednesday night at Crew bar, wolfing down six
mini-burgers, something verboten during
training. “Only in America does mini still mean
big,” Morgan said waiting for his food.
London
calling:
The saying that sport is a universal language
holds true for the two men’s and one women’s
basketball teams from London. The birth places
of the players on the team could form a mini-U.N.:
two from Spain, two from the Netherlands, two
from Australia, one from Hong Kong, one from
Denmark, one from Portugal, one from the U.S.,
one from New Zealand, one from Canada, one from
Switzerland and one from Malaysia. There are
only four native-born Brits and three of them
are women.
“None of us learned our basketball in Britain,”
said Kaspar Palleson, a Dane (pictured left with
teammate Hugo Caballbro) who plays for the
London Cruisers. That goes for their
player-coach Gustavo Crespo, a Spaniard. The
Cruisers were happy with their 2-4 overall
record in the tough men’s competitive division.
–Jim Buzinski
London
calling
