"Saudi Arabia's First Female Olympians" by Joboy Quintos

This is historic. Saudi Arabia will be sending two female athletes to the London Olympics. The oil-rich Middle Eastern kingdom was the last to heed the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) moves to end sexual discrimination in sport, following Qatar and Brunei. Judoka Wodjan Ali Seraj Abdulrahim Shahrkhani and middle distance runner Sarah Attar will the first Saudi female Olympians.

Read: "Olympic first as Saudi Arabia names two women in London 2012 team"

Early this month, reports surfaced that the U.S.-born equestrienne Dalma Rushdi Malhas will be London-bound. The International Equestrian Federation (FEI) clarified the rumors. It turns out that Malhas' horse sustained an injury, ruling her out of the London Olympics.

Read: "Dalma Rushdi Malhas (SAU, Equestrian)"

Although this is a groundbreaking move, the fact still remains that the rights of women in hardline Saudi Arabia are not at par with that of the more liberalized nations.

On a wider perspective, the statistics look promising. The IOC, according to a CNN report, noted the gradual rise in female participation in the Olympics through the years. The first time London hosted the quadrennial event in 1908, women comprised 1.8% of all athletes. The percentage rose to 9.5% in 1948 and, most recently, 42% in Beijing.

Article by Joboy Quintos

Source: 

CNN

Holly Bleasdale vs. Yelena Isinbayeva

Pole vault world record holder Yelena Isinbayeva (Елена Исинбаева) always makes her first jump when everyone else had made theirs. The Russian usually isolates herself from the other competitors, opting to cover her face with a towel and nap. British Olympic hopeful Holly Bleasdale was not amused. She called Isinbayeva "disrespectful" and likened her to a "tramp."

Read Tom Battaglia's column on Bleasdale's comments 

Holly Bleasdale at the Palais des Sports d'Orléans. (Photo from Defeder)

Track athletes nowadays feature non of the banter and trash talk prevalent in other sports. Although Bleasdale's words could somewhat help in drumming up interest in the sport, it would have been better if she had been a little more respectful of Isinbayeva.

Yelena Isinbayeva at the Doha World Indoors. (Photo from Erik van Leeuwen)

The sight of tens of thousands of British spectators cheering for a Bleasdale victory would be a sight to behold. I would love to see Bleasdale on top of the Olympic podium, but I'll have to root for Isinbayeva on this one. Despite Yelena's tag as the most dominant female vaulter in history, she has not been in top form of late, showing chinks in her armor the past few years.

Read: "London Olympics Preview - The Pole Vault"

After everything that Yelena has been through it would seem just for the Russian to strike gold one last time.

Christine Sonali Merrill’s Balancing Act and Olympic Hopes

Christine Sonali Merrill deserves a shoutout.

Christine Merrill. (Photo from Djh57/Wikimedia Commons)

The American-born Sri Lankan hurdler will compete in the London Olympics as a wild card, having missed the Olympic “B” standard by almost two-hundredths of a second. She has a personal best of 56.83s, set during the preliminary rounds of the Asian Athletics Championships last year in Kobe. Merrill eventually wound up in 3rd place, thanks to a strong finish.

Click this link to read the full article...

Expelled

London-bound Triple Jumper Voula Papachristou (Paraskevi Papachristou Παρασκευή Παπαχρήστου) has been expelled from the Greek Olympic Team because of a racist tweet.

The following was translated using Google:

 She also retweeted a post by a right-wing Greek politician.

Papachristou has apologized publicly, but the Greek authorities seem steadfast with their decision:

“I would like to apologize to all my friends and fellow athletes, who I may have insulted or shamed, the National Team, as well as the people and companies who support my athletic career. Finally, I would like to apologize to my coach and my family.”

Things do get lost in transation. If you can read Greek, read the original tweet below:

Christina Vukicevic (Љубица Вукићевић) Interview

Watch the following interview with Christina Vukicevic (Љубица Вукићевић):

On Juliane Stolle

I've been perplexed at the popularity of Juliane Stolle. I first wrote about the talented German sprinter back in 2010, as part of my weekly Track Beauty feature in my other blog. Despite her seeming inactivity in the athletics circles (her profiles in All-Athletics and IAAF are dated), she has been drumming up a consistent stream of hits to hurdler49. 

Read: "Track Beauty of the Week - Juliane Stolle"

For instance, my original Track Beauty post on Juliane has generated 105 unique page views today, mostly from search engine referrals. In terms of search strings, 11 people have come across my blog looking for information on Juliane. The post has garnered 1,838 unique page views in its almost two years of existence, at par with articles about active and popular athletes like Maris Mägi (5/1/2011 - 1,962), Janin Lindenberg (3/5/2011 - 1,824), and Danielle Carruthers (8/7/2011 - 1,815).

In fact, my post is at the very top of the Google search results for "Juliane Stolle."

I must admit that I"m embarrassed about this. The tone of my original Track Beauty feature was not entirely positive, reeking of disappointment at the seeming end of her athletics career. 

For this, I apologize to Juliane. The Track Beauty of the Week feature intends to showcase the talent of female athletes, not to highlight their flaws. I have made necessary revisions to uplift the mood of my article.

Whatever Juliane's career path now, however different it may be from athletics, I wish her the best.

Track Beauty of the Week: Dafne Schippers

Dafne Schippers is this week's Track Beauty!

Schippers started out as an excellent heptathlete in her junior and youth days, but has since ventured to the sprints. The Dutch athlete won the World Junior title in Moncton back in 2010, scoring 5,967 points. A year later, she topped the European Junior Championships in Tallinn, amassing a total of 6,153 points.

Photo from Erik van Leeuwen

The 2011 season was a revelation in terms of her flat out sprinting speed. Dafne particularly excelled at the half-lap sprint. Schippers has demonstrated repeatedly that she could hold her own against more seasoned opponents. She made it as far as the 60m dash semifinals at the European Indoor Championships in Paris.

At the Daegu World Championships, the young Schippers ran a lifetime best of 22.69s in the 200m dash heats - a major achievement considering her relative youthfulness and multi-events background. Dafne exited the competition at the semifinals. With her sterling performance in Daegu, Schippers shaved off 1.01s off her then personal best to set a new Dutch national record.

Dafne has not turned her back to heptathlon just yet. In fact, her points tally in the grueling seven-event discipline has shown marked improvement the past few years. To date, she has a personal best of 6,370 points in the heptathlon, set in Gotzis last May 2012.

Godspeed, Gabrielle Anderson!

The U.S. Track & Field Olympic Trials is a cutthroat event. Only the top three athletes per event, provided they had met the required Olympic "A" standard, will be sent to quadrennial event. There are no exceptions, whether the athlete is a budding collegiate talent or an established Olympic champion.

Read: "Track Beauty of the Week - Gabrielle Anderson"

Middle distance runner Gabrielle Anderson stands out among the rest because she is a two-time cancer survivor. The University of Minnesota graduate has recovered fully from her battles with the Big "C," consistently running faster times the past two years.

Anderson has a personal best of 4:06.46 in the 1500m run, ranking her among the top middle distance athletes in Eugene.

Godspeed, Gabrielle Anderson!

Read more...

Tiina Lillak: Finnish Javelin Legend

When I was watching the javelin qualification rounds of the Helsinki European Championships, I noticed a prominent banner. Written in bold letters were the words: “Finland the Javelin Country.” Indeed, the javelin throw is a national past time in the Nordic countries. Of the sixty-nine medals awarded in the event since 1896, a staggering thirty-two medals had been won by troika of Sweden, Norway, and Finland. In fact, Finland had swept the medals twice in Olympic history.

Tiina Lillak circa 1983. (Photo from Jos Hendrix)

The Euro Sport announcers then went on to talk about a certain Tiina Lillak, and how she snatched the inaugural World Championships gold on her final throw – in front of thousands of ecstatic Finns.

Read more...

Nike "Voices" Advertisement

I don't get it how people of the past could discriminate against women playing sports. Our society has grown meteorically from the days when women were not allowed in track events longer than 800m. Nowadays, female sports stars are just as big as their male counterparts. Case in point are the Grand Slam tennis tournaments, where the women's prizes have been upgraded to the same level as the men's event. 

I just love the new Nike "Voices" advertisement. It features pioneers of women's sports like Joan Benoit Samuelson, Lisa Leslie, Diana Tauresi, and Marlen Esparaza "directly addressing the viewer about their own experiences with gender discrimination." Leslie and Tauresi are established basketball stars, while Esparaza is an amateur boxer. Benoit-Samuelson won the first ever women's Olympic marathon at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.

Read: Nike Celebrates Title IX, Female Athletes with ‘Voices'

As a sportsman myself I find sportswomen naturally attractive. There is something inherently beautiful seeing a female sprint hurdler skim over those ten flights of hurdles with grace, or watching a female tennis star trade ground strokes with an equally fierce competitor.

Our world today is not perfect. There are still places in the world where women are treated as second-class citizens, with their basic rights trampled. Although there are still sports which prohibit the Olympic participation of the fairer sex, those disciplines remain the minority.

Track Beauty of the Week: Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou Νικολέτα Κυριακοπούλου (Nikolia Kyriakopou)

Nikoleta Kyriakopoulou Νικολέτα Κυριακοπούλου is this week's track beauty!

Kyriakopoulou is the Greek pole vault record holder at 4.71m. She set her national mark at the London Grand Prix last year. Prior to her breakout 2011 season, the pole vaulter only had a personal best of 4.55m. In 2011, she qualified for the finals of the European Indoor Championships and the World Championships.

Nikoleta preparing to start her run-up. (Photo from Protein-world.com)

 She placed 9th (4.35m) at the European Indoors, a major improvement from her performance at the European outdoor champs in 2010, where she failed to advance from the qualifying stages.

 In Daegu last August, Kyriakopoulou exited the competition with a best clearance of 4.65m, six centimeters off the Greek national record she set early in the month.

The Greek had a respectable junior career, placing sixth (4.00m) in the pole vault final at the 2004 World Junior Championships in Grosseto.

Nikoleta has shown the world last year that she is capable of the big jumps. She is relatively young at 26-years of age. Kyriakopoulou might not make an immediate impact at the London Olympics, but she is defnitely amongst the elite European female vaulters this year. To date, her 4.50m SB outdoors is the sixth-best by a European athlete. With the European Championships weeks away, Nikoleta looks all set for a fruitful campaign.

Sources:

Wikipedia

IAAF

Track Beauty of the Week has moved to Superb Senora!

All the subsequent Track Beauty of the Week posts from hurdler49 shall now appear on Superb Senora. For the complete listing of previous Track Beauty posts, please refer to the links below:

1. 2/18/2012 -5/26/2012
2. 10/31/2011 - 2/13/2012
3. 7/16/2011 - 10/24/2011
4. 4/3/2011 - 7/9/2011
5. 12/11/2010 - 3/27/2011
6. 9/6/2010 - 12/4/2010
7. 5/31/2010 - 8/30/2010

The ten most popular posts are the following:

1. Track Beauty of the Week: Darya Klishina (Дарья Клишина)

2. Track Beauty of the Week: Alenka Bikar
3. Track Beauty of the Week: Cathrine Larsåsen
4. Track Beauty of the Week: Sina Schielke
5. Track Beauty of the Week: Denisa Rosolová (Denisa Ščerbová)
6. Track Beauty of the Week: Christina Vukicevic
7. Track Beauty of the Week: Heli Koivula-Kruger
8. Track Beauty of the Week: Remona Fransen
9. Track Beauty of the Week: Jessica Ennis
10. Track Beauty of the Week: Emma Green-Tregaro