tingilinde

helmets and touch football

A sensible move.  It's remarkable that high schools and colleges still allow tackle football.  

Training rules are beginning to change - oddly enough beginning in New Jersey

 

 

 

 

 

 

very high quality beach volleyball

the tl;dr is Canadians Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes won the most important American beach volleyball tournament yesterday in Manhattan Beach, California  against the best American team. These are the best two teams in the world. Sarah and Melissa also won the world championship in Hamburg, German a month ago.

If you’re interested in a dramatic match and have Amazon Prime:
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It was a very hard-fought match showing off the game at its highest level with some extreme athleticism. Manhattan Beach is important to the sport as it is where the beach game first caught on and has very deep sand that makes movement a challenge. 

It’s on Amazon Prime Video (they cover the American AVP professional league tournaments live) - select women's final replay.  if the Prime Video link doesn’t work, look for  the 2019 Gold Series AVP Manhattan Beach Open - Day 3 and then women’s finals.

for a short version the final set, starting around 1hr 5min is good.. if you like volleyball the full match is going to rivet your attention.

 

 

 

on dealing with drones

A wonderful post by Randall Munroe (xkcd)

 

 

commentary of simone biles

A tweet storm by Suzanne Boswell examines what is special about Simone Biles recent achievements.  Explained for people (like me) who don't know anything about gymnastics,

 

 

 

baseball's mud man

No - I'm not a baseball fan, but this is fascinatin - mud and major league baseball.

a tip of the hat to John

 

what will college football be like in ten years?

Will it survive without serious rule changes?  If changes were made, would fans tire of it?   Evidence for serious brain damage continues to mount.

 

 

 

and a sport where women are paid the same as the men

Sarah Pavan (digging the ball) and Melissa Humana-Paredes winning the Vienna Beach Volleyball earlier today.  They also happen to be the world champions and Sarah is a friend.  Canadians..  odd that one of the world's best (current the best) women's team is Canadian and the best men's team is Norwegian..  tropical beach countries..  

 

The Olympic Channel carries the video of the match.. some cable providers are signed up for it (it will ask for the name of your cable provider)

 

 

kareem abdul-jabbar on the athleticism of beach volleyball

The sport is recognized as one of the most athletic of all sports.  Here's Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's commentary. (via The Guardian)

snip

...

One of the most significant contributors to the sport’s growing popularity is the dynamic play of the women. Although their games are generally not as explosive as the men’s, they play with greater technique, variety of shots, and chess-like thinking, often making their matches more compelling. This was certainly true during this year’s world championships.

Watching the FIVB finals demonstrates why the sport is so riveting. Although, the US team of April Ross and Alix Klineman were defeated by Canada’s Sarah Pavan and Melissa Humana-Paredes, it was one of the most nail-biting finals of any sport. The final score of 23-21, 23-21 shows the Americans had opportunities to win in both sets, but were ultimately unable to capitalize. Despite each team having a 6ft 5in player blocking at the net, the standout player was Canada’s 5ft 9in Pavan, who dug meteoric spikes and placed shots with surgical precision. The men’s gold medal match between Russia and Germany was equally thrilling, with Russia winning the tie-breaking set. In both finals – and in all the matches leading up to them – fans witnessed amazing feats of athleticism. Hits that seemed impossible to even touch were dug by players diving through the sand, then popping up to hit the set. You can’t watch for more than a minute without seeing an extraordinary play that seems to defy what the human body is capable of doing.

...

A nit..  Sarah is six foot five (she's a friend).  Her teammate Melissa Humana-Paredes is the five foot nine defender.  Sarah is also an outstanding athlete.

 

 

 

why is josh harder's fastball difficult to hit?

I'm not a baseball fan, but this piece drew me in.

 

in edmonton this past week

The FIVB - the international body that governs volleyball - runs a series of beach volleyball  tournaments around the world.  This year only one was in North America.  Edmonton was a three star event.  Events have one to five stars.  Four and Five star events have offer large Olympic qualifying points and large purses.  Smaller events are usually skipped by the top players.  Sarah Pavan is a friend and one of the top female players in the world.  Normally she and her teammate Melissa Humana-Paredes would skip a three star, but they're Canadian. That and they won the World Championship in Hamburg a week ago.  The next stop after Edmonton is Tokyo for an Olympic preview, so Edmonton was on the way. 

The larger events usually sell out stadiums with 30 to 50 thousand people.  Beach volleyball isn't big in Canada and the crowd is small.  But Canada has two of the top ten women's teams in the world.  Norway, another country not exactly rich in tropical beaches - has the best men's team. 

This is the gold medal match - Canada vs the US. The last ten minutes starting around 25:00 give a good idea, although the game wasn't exceptionally intense (the gold medal match in Hamburg was .. unfortunately video is paywalled)