June and July sports recap

Kobe, Lance and All Those Other Guys

I'm not a big sports fan. I don't like baseball. I go to Super Bowl parties for half-time and the commercials. Nascar, hockey, soccer (foot ball), tennis, or golf, no bother. I've started keeping up with MMA because it is such a topic of conversation at jui jitsu. Even with basketball, the one major sport I do enjoy watching I pretty much just watch the Lakers.

Which brings us to June. I wanted to follow the World Cup this year, even use it as a framework for some lessons for Skye, but I ended up getting that job that took me out of everything for a while, so my soccer fandom ended pretty quickly. However....

NBA Finals

The Lakers were in the Finals with the Boston Celtics.

"It was a thrilling seven game series, the Los Angeles Lakers became the 2010 NBA champions and Kobe Bryant earned his second consecutive NBA Finals MVP award. The 2010 NBA Finals, broadcast on June 17, 2010, had highest Nielsen TV rating 18.2 since the 1998 NBA Finals"

Thanks Wikipedia you took the words right out of my mouth.

It was fun, nerve-racking, landed me in the Casino a couple of times{to watch on the big screen, not to gamble), thrilled about the end result but not too shocked. (Lakers won) It was a huge time and emotion suck at a time when I didn't have a surplus of either. Thank goodness for DVRs.

Tour de France

Speaking of an emotion and time vacuum and more kudos to DVRS. The Tour de France this year was to be the year that Lance came back and won an unheard of 8 tours, putting to rest the controversy of last years 3rd place finish when team mate/rival Alberto stood at the top of the podium. He was going to beat Contador, Schleck and even Father Time, giving hope to all us over-the-hill, post 40 year old, week-end warriors.

That didn't happen. Instead just before the race started ex-teammate and Tour winner,(before getting it striped for using performance enhancing substances) Flyod Landis announced that Armstrong had used these illegal substances when he was kicking butt and winning 7 consecutive tours.

Not the best way to start the Tour but those accusations have been flying for years now and Armstrong has so far come out clean.

He looked good in the first few days and did better than expected in the time trial, what was supposed to be his weakness. But the Tour is 21 days of riding and he had a long way to go still.

And it got longer by the day. He couldn't keep up at times and had one crash after another, at some of the worst times. On one particular day he had a few crashes, lost lots of time and then struggled to pull himself towards the leaders and for all intensive purposes was done.

Identifying with Lance, the Downside

It was over. His "luck" had run out, Father Time had caught up, the streak, the domination was over. An era had passed.

It hit me hard.

I was getting set to launch my own comeback, the day after our big annual 4th of July get-together. But that morning, I had turned my ankle running down the stairs. It was actually a pretty gnarly strain, swelled up, turned black and blue. Maybe I should have went to the hospital but....



So I had started watching the Tour with my foot either in a bucket of ice or wrapped and elevated. I was walking for a cane for a few days.



A few days, like a sunset the colors change and evolve.

So I watched day in and day out, Tivo style, so a 3 hour program would only take 45 mins or so.
Aside from Lance's disappointing showing, the tour was one of the best since I've been watching, which hasn't been so long. There was an epic battle for yellow, some amazing sprints, great climbs, gorgeous setting as always.

On one of the final days, Armstrong went with a break away group and held tough the whole way only to be out sprinted in the last 100yrds. It was very poignant but not so surprising by this point.

Very much like the NBA playoff, very exciting great TV but no real big surprises.

As for the ankle, I think it's coming along.

Must go for now, falling asleep at keyboards.