Wednesday, 01 March 2006

Autistic Basketball Star

If you haven't seen this video of the autistic kid scoring 20 points in a high school basketball game, watch it now. It'll make your day.


Posted by flow Frazao on March 1, 2006 at 12:24 AM in Cool Stuff, Sports | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wednesday, 26 January 2005

Tennis, Anyone?

As most of you know, I could give a rat's ass about sports. However, I'm currently travelling with an East German guy and his French girlfriend and they're both into tennis. Apparently, one of the biggest tournaments in the tennis world is going on right now in Melbourne, and the number 3 seed is this guy named Paul Hewitt who's from Adelaide.

We've been watching this guy off and on for the past week, and he's won all of his matches. Last night he played the semi-final game against an Argentinian, and we watched the game in Adelaide. Obviously, the locals were totally flipping out, because not only is Hewitt their boy but it was also Australia Day yesterday:

If he were a boxer, someone in his corner might have tossed in the towel. But Lleyton Hewitt simply refuses to surrender. He is a different kind of fighter. And late last night, after an extraordinary contest, he defied injury and a relentless opponent to keep an Australian in the Open.

Watching this guy win in his hometown was pretty cool. There's this cheer in Australia that they do when they're feeling patriotic and drunk that goes "Aussie Aussie Aussie!!!" and then another group of them will reply with "Oy Oy Oy!!!". They did this with every single point that Hewitt took, and in a four hour match that is a shitload of Oy's.


Posted by flow Frazao on January 26, 2005 at 08:36 PM in Australia, Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Monday, 20 September 2004

This Is Gonna Be Me

Check out this video of a guy surfing an obscenely huge wave in the wake of Hurricane Ivan.

When I get to Australia I'm going to learn how to surf. You'll be seeing videos like this of me by around mid-January.

Posted by flow Frazao on September 20, 2004 at 07:05 PM in Sports | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 25 August 2004

Medal Tally By World Population

Here's an alternative Olympic medal tally from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, ranking countries by population per gold medal.

Sadly, Australia (one Gold Medal for each 1,440,000) has suddenly slipped to second after the Bahamas (one Gold Medal for each 317,000).

Posted by flow Frazao on August 25, 2004 at 11:35 AM in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Friday, 20 August 2004

Wet and Wild

Finally, the two things I've been missing from the Olympics - good old fashioned violence and "amazing feats of ball-handling":

Water polo is a combination of swimming, soccer and basketball, plus wrestling, boxing and mugging. The players are phenomenal athletes who perform amazing feats of speed, grace, stamina and ball-handling. They also perform amazing feats of kicking, punching, scratching, clawing and choking. And that's just the men. The women are also fond of tearing each other's bathing suits off.



Posted by flow Frazao on August 20, 2004 at 08:14 AM in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wet and Wild II

What a sport:


Italy's Alexandra Araujo and Kazakhstan's Tatyana Gubina's fight for position during their women's preliminary water polo match at the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, August 20, 2004. REUTERS/Laszlo Balogh

Posted by flow Frazao on August 20, 2004 at 08:10 AM in Sports | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Tuesday, 20 July 2004

Let The Games Begin

Get a bunch of juiced up hardbodies together for two weeks of sex and booze and what have you got? The Olympic Games:

"The secret of the modern Olympics is that the athlete village, with its tightly packed collection of firm young bodies, 24-hour sports television and all-you-can eat international cuisine, has become the most exclusive VIP club in the world.

It’s "a two-week-long private party for thousands of hard-bodies," says Nelson Diebel, an American swimmer who won gold twice in Barcelona. Like a mirage, the village appears in the middle of an exuberant host city for two weeks every two years. Open only to competitors, coaches and trainers, it’s a wonderland of hormones, glycogen and dance mixes.

[...]

At the Albertville winter Olympics, condom machines in the athletes’ village had to be refilled every two hours. And in Sydney the organisers’ original order of 70,000 condoms went so fast that they had to order 20,000 more. Even with the replenishment, the supply was exhausted three days before the end of the competition schedule. (For the record, athletes who were in Sydney report that the Cuban delegation was the first to use up its allocation.) Salt Lake City in 2002 went even bigger: 250,000 condoms were handed out, despite the objections of the city’s Mormon leadership."

Gives a while new meaning to "Going for the gold", doesn't it?

link via kottke.org (over on the left sidebar)

Posted by flow Frazao on July 20, 2004 at 03:55 PM in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wednesday, 30 June 2004

Cheney Booed at Yankees Stadium

Ha:

"With Vice President Dick Cheney looking on and a sellout crowd of 55,231 yelling from the first pitch, there was a postseason atmosphere at Yankee Stadium.

[...]

Cheney, who visited both clubhouses after batting practice, watched part of the game from the box of Yankees owner George Steinbrenner and part from a first-row seat next to the Yankees dugout, where he sat between New York Gov. George Pataki and former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani. Cheney was booed when he was shown on the right-field videoboard during the seventh-inning stretch."


Looks like the RNC convention in September won't be quite the homecoming the Republicans had hoped for.

Posted by flow Frazao on June 30, 2004 at 07:55 AM in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Thursday, 24 June 2004

Are You Ready For Some Football?

This has got to be the most intense soccer game ever played. Portugal vs. England IN Portugal for the European Cup Quarterfinal (i.e. the Elite Eight). Check it out:

3 mins: GOAL - Portugal 0-1 England
The fourth fastest goal in European Cup history. A long ball forward is not dealt with and Owen latches on to a poor defensive header to expertly flick the ball home and give England the perfect start.

HALF-TIME: An open first-half ends with England still leading the tournament hosts 1-0 in a tense quarter-final encounter.

83 mins: GOAL - Portugal 1-1 England
Despair for England as Simao crosses from the left and Postiga soars unmarked to send the equaliser flying into the net off his shoulder.

90 mins: Beckham's free-kick from the left is headed against by the bar by Campbell who reacts to bundle in the rebound - but the goal is disallowed by the referee for a foul by Terry on Ricardo.

FULL-TIME: A dramatic 90 minutes comes to an end with the scores still level, and the game will move into extra-time with the silver goal rule coming into force.

HALF-TIME IN EXTRA-TIME: The first period of extra-time ends with no further goals scored, meaning the final 15 minutes will be played out regardless.

110 mins: GOAL - Portugal 2-1 England
Phil Neville's stumble allows Rui Costa to advance and he lets fly from outside the box, sending a powerful shot flying into the top corner past a helpless James.

115 mins: GOAL - Portugal 2-2 England
Terry nods down Beckham's corner and Lampard swivels on the edge of the six-yard box to smash home a dramatic equaliser for England.

FULL-TIME OF EXTRA-TIME: England's fate will be decided in a penalty shoot-out as the referee blows his whistle to bring a thrilling encounter to a close.

FINAL RESULT: Portugal beat England
Portugal beat England 6-5 on penalties in a dramatic quarter-final in Lisbon.


What you have to understand here is that this game went to penalty shots to decide the winner. There is nothing in professional sports that's more nail-biting than a game that comes down to PKs.

Basically, what happens is each team picks 5 players and sends them out. Those players then stand 15 yards away from the goalie and fire off a single shot.

I used to be a goalie, and the only thing you can do against a penalty kick is stand directly in the middle and pick a side. Then, when the shooter fires the ball you dive in the direction you chose and pray that the ball hits you instead of going into the net. And remember, this is soccer - those nets are HUGE.

Today is a good day for my people.

Posted by flow Frazao on June 24, 2004 at 05:44 PM in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack