The Sports Truth

The International Association of Athletics Foundation has ruled that South African, double-amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius gains an unfair advantage from his prosthetic racing blades and can not compete in the 2008 Beijing Olympics.

Apparently the IAAF forgets that Oscar is at an extreme disadvantage because, well, he’s missing both of his legs, something moderately important to sprinting.

Oscar Pistorius’ prosthetic limbs give him such an unfair advantage in sprinting, he’s been banned from the 2008 Olympics, as if he were using a performance enhancing substance.

Gert-Peter Brueggemann, a German professor, conducted tests on the sprinter’s prosthetic limbs and determined that they give the 21-year old sprinter a competitive advantage. Brueggeman told Die Welt newspaper that Pistorius “has considerable advantages over athletes without prosthetic limbs.” Brueggeman did not elaborate on what these advantages might be, but one can only assume that such bonuses like immense pain where the prosthetic joins the limb, the need for maintenance on the prosthetics and the constant question of “what happened to your legs” are on the list.

Jon Sigurdsson, CEO of Ossur who developed Pistorius’ prosthetics, vehemently denied Brueggeman’s claims. Sigurdsson wrote to the IAAF saying that Pistorius “does not have a technical advantage over able-bodied athletes. Based on biomechanics alone, it is simply not possible for him or any amputee to have an advantage over the able-bodied.”

Gee, you think?

Is Jeff McVaney, Strake Jesuit High School’s starting QB, the next Tim Teabow?

You decide…

Move over Yao Ming.

A whopping 91 inches tall, Kenny George, a junior center for UNC Asheville, is the tallest player ever for Bulldogs as well as the Big South Conference. Additionally, the Chicago Latin product was the tallest player in the NCAA last year and one of the tallest players in NCAA history.

Make way for the big man! Kenny George, a junior, is a 7′7″, 360 lbs center for UNC Asheville.

George had an injury plagued sophomore season last year, but in his final five games went 30-34 from the field for an astonishing field goal percentage of 88.2%. During that five game stretch, George averaged 11.6 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 3.3 blocked shots.

Once again, Sports Illustrated has ignored the most dominant player in all of sports.

While the various merits of Roger Federer’s career have been debated ad nauseum (Is Federer more impressive than Tiger Woods?, Is Federer better than Pete Sampras?, or is Federer even human?) no one disagrees that Federer has been a worthy candidate for the number of end-of-year achievement awards handed out by a multitude of sports journalist entities.

Roger Federer’s amazing achievements, year after year, continue to get ignored.

None is more acclaimed than Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year award, an award Federer has astonishingly never won. 2008 proved no different with Brett Favre’s admirable year garnering him the award over another ho-hum dominant season from Federer.

Consider his 2008 athletic achievements alone: In 2007 he set the alltime record for consecutive weeks ranked No. 1 at 205 and counting; he won a record fourth consecutive U.S. Open; a fifth consecutive Wimbledon; and three of the four grand slam events. His off the court efforts as a UNICEF international Goodwill Ambassador is well-documented and he was awarded the Laurenus Sportsman of the Year Award. As amazing as all of this is, it’s Roger’s second consecutive year of all of these achievements.

No one is saying he needs to win the award ever year, but how has he not won it once?

Chris Bosh wants your vote.

Will you vote for him?

Former New York Yankee Jim Leyritz was arrested on Friday after a car accident he was involved in resulted in the death of a 30-year old woman. Leyritz has been charged with vehicular manslaughter and is also being held on suspicions of driving under the influence of alcohol.

Former New York Yankee Jim Leyritz was a part of the 1996 and 1999 championship teams.

Witnesses of the accident said that Leyritz drove through a red light in his 2006 Ford Expedition and collided with the 2000 Mitsubishi Montero being driven by 30-year-old Ann Veitch. Officers who arrived at the scene of the accident around 3:20am, said that Leyritz has an alcohol odor. Leyritz refused a breatherlizer test requested by the arresting officers. Because Veitch, who was not wearing a seatbelt and was ejected from the car, died, a blood test of Leyritz blood alcohol level was taken without his consent and results have not returned yet.

It was not a good 2007 for the New York Yankees and apparently the year can’t come to a close fast enough.

The Sportstruth’s senior editor, Lucas Dwyer, provides his observations and thoughts from the weekend that was.

On Saturday, one of the greatest days of television programing ever was aired. Starting at noon, ESPN2 ran the following college basketball games back to back to back (to back to back to back): Wisconsin vs. Texas, San Diego University vs. Kentucky, Tennessee vs. Gonzaga, Oklahoma vs. West Virginia, Pittsburgh vs. Dayton, and capped off the night with Memphis vs. Arizona. Wow. If anyone caught all six games, we need to hear about it.

Unranked Wisconsin shocked No. 9 Texas 67-66 on Saturday off of Michael Flowers’ game-winning three at the buzzer

Speaking of those games, here are a few thoughts from what I caught during the day:

- Kentucky is a mess and we now know why Tubby Smith abruptly left to go coach Minnesota. First-year coach Billy Gillespie said before the game that he felt San Diego did not have anyone who could take his defenders off the dribble. Gillespie’s team is worse than he thought - Brandon Johnson attacked the basket whenever he pleased.

(more…)

Australian women’s tennis star Evonne Goolagong knew she was playing a high level of tennis in 1976. However, until 2007, she had no idea just how well she was playing.

Two weeks ago, the now 56-year old Goolagong was given a trophy by the WTA bestowed upon her for being the world’s No. 1 ranked women’s tennis player for two weeks in 1976. Goolagong was told by the WTA that an error in transferring some tournament records to a computer resulted in an inaccurate count of the points she accumulated during that season. The WTA recently noticed a gap in paper records between April and May 1976.

Former Australian women’s tennis star Evonne Goolagong was recently awarded the No. 1 world ranking from 1976 which had not been noticed until 2007 due to a computing error.

When the missing paper records were recovered, it was discovered that Goolagong overtook American tennis star Chris Evert by 0.8 points after Goolagong won the Virginia Slims tournament in late April 1976. Evert officially regained the ranking on May 10th, though until 1976 she was listed as the No. 1 player througout that period.

“I’m very proud of the achievement,” Goolagong told The Associated Press. “I was on a roll for that stretch in 1976. It was a great surprise to hear after all these years.”

The WTA has corrected its records and now lists Goolagong as the 16th player in women’s tennis history to achieve the world #1 ranking since the introduction of tour rankings in 1975.

Here’s a passionate denial from Roger Clemens about his alleged steroid use:

Do you believe him?

Jessica Simpson is being blamed for Tony Romo’s poor performance last Sunday and Terrell Owens wants to make sure it doesn’t happen again. When asked about his opinion on how Tony Romo’s new girlfriend should be viewed Owens said “Right now, Jessica Simpson is not a fan favorite — in this locker room or in Texas Stadium.”

Honestly, a pink football jersey? As if Jessica Simpson wasn’t annoying enough already…

The Cowboys lost 10-6 to the Philadelphia Eagles and Romo had what was statistically the worst game of his career, all while Simpson sat in a luxury box wearing a pink No. 9 jersey she proudly showed off for television cameras.

While the demerits for wearing a pink football jersey can be debated elsewhere, Simpson’s big problem is that Romo floundered the last time a well publicized girlfriend attending a Cowboys home game, also against the Eagles. Last December, at home vs. the Eagles, Romo had his previous worst game with then-girlfriend Carrie Underwood in attendance.

“With everything that has happened, obviously with the way Tony played and the comparison between her and Carrie Underwood, I think a lot of people feel she has taken his focus away,” Owens said, mimicking the sentiment held by many Dallas fans. “Other than that, she was high on my list until last week.

“Oh, I got a message for her when we make the playoffs. Just stay tuned.”