{"id":2818,"date":"2011-01-31T15:48:33","date_gmt":"2011-01-31T19:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/?p=2818"},"modified":"2011-01-31T15:48:33","modified_gmt":"2011-01-31T19:48:33","slug":"sports-week-end-sports-wrap-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/sports-week-end-sports-wrap-up\/","title":{"rendered":"SPORTS: WEEK-END SPORTS WRAP-UP"},"content":{"rendered":"

WEEK-END SPORTS WRAP-UP<\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

Between this week-end\u2019s National Figure Skating Championships and the Australian Open tennis tournament finals, which ware being shown live in the middle of the night, I\u2019m exhausted. But, of course, I have many thoughts on what took place. Here are just some quick ones, so that I can finally get some sleep.<\/p>\n

NATIONAL FIGURE SKATING CHAMPIONSHIPS<\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

All my favorites won! The Ice Dance results were the only lock, with Meryl Davis and Charlie White, two of the most All-American names I\u2019ve ever had to type, being head and shoulders above the up-and-coming competition.<\/p>\n

But the other three disciplines were exciting contests from start to finish. I\u2019m thrilled that the most artistic female skater, Alissa Czisny, re-claimed her crown from two seasons ago. She usually falls on her jumps and takes herself out of contention, but not this year. I\u2019m extremely sad, though, that adorable Mirai Nagasu dropped to third place and will not get to go to the World Championships, after finishing a fabulous fourth at last year\u2019s Olympics.<\/p>\n

And I couldn\u2019t be more thrilled for the most popular national male skater competing today, winner Ryan Bradley. I was holding my breath until he finished his long program and took the crown. It was exciting, though, to see newcomer Richard Dornbush move up from seventh place after the Short Program to take second! And third place finisher Ross Miner, at his first Senior Nationals, skated the most like what I feel a champion should. So, props to all of them! (I do feel bad for last year\u2019s champ, Jeremy Abbott, to have come in fourth, though, and therefore be off the world team. Oh well.)<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But the best performance of the entire championships, to me, was the long program of Pairs Champions, Caitlin Yankowskas and John Coughlin. Caitlin was absolutely breath-taking. I have not seen such grace in a Pairs girl possibly ever! She skated like a Russian Pairs lady, although I can\u2019t even remember one of those who were as graceful as she. Ekaterina Gordeeva is the closest in my lifetime, and I think that Caitlin outdid even her.<\/p>\n

The weirdest part is that the announcers, Scott Hamilton and Sandra Bezic, to whom I\u2019m even related, never even once mentioned it!!! All they talked about was that John\u2019s mother had died a year ago. It was just really odd. Mr. X and I were sitting here with our mouths open at this girl\u2019s beauty on the ice, and the pros didn\u2019t have a clue. Shame on them. [Note: I\u2019m never a fan of the commentating of these two, so I wasn\u2019t really surprised.]<\/p>\n

Also shame on John for not even looking at his poor partner when they won. He was making it all about him. Every comment he made post-performance was for the camera and not really for whomever it was he was talking to off-ice. That made me not want to root for him. And in the on-air interview, that lovely girl never took her eyes off him, while he<\/em> never acknowledged her once! I\u2019ll give him a pass this time because possibly he was too overwhelmed to act normal, but if he snubs Caitlin once more, I\u2019ll pray she finds a partner worthy of her before the 2014 Winter Olympics. [Note: in my opinion, they won because of Caitlin, and not John. He\u2019s not even close to artistic, and is just a big galoot back-drop for her beauty on the ice.]<\/p>\n

AUSTRALIAN OPEN TENNIS CHAMPIONSHIPS<\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

Admittedly, I didn\u2019t watch every second of this tournament, as I do Wimbledon and the US Open. I just don\u2019t have that kind-of time in January, with the Golden Globes suites, football play-offs, and my birthday being the same time. But I did stay up overnight all week-end to watch the finals.<\/p>\n

And I must say that, with four good people as the finalists of both sex singles, I think it\u2019s the first time I did not know for whom to root. After much reflection, I backed the two eventual winners.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It was more than a breath of fresh air to have two lovely women, Kim Clijsters and Li Na, in the final. It seems that everyone had long forgotten about the more-than-creepy Williams sisters and we could just relax and enjoy. (I found-out this morning that their disgusting mother has been tweeting nasty things about Kim, who\u2019s considered the nicest person ever on tour! I guess the apples didn\u2019t fall far from the tree, which I\u2019ve known forever, but I was shocked at the matriarch\u2019s total <\/em>lack of class.)<\/p>\n

Anyhow, even in broken English, Li Na is the most amusing tennis player since the men\u2019s champion, Novak Djokovic. I wanted to root for her, as well, but, since I really wanted Kim to win her first non-US Open championship, I was hoping that Na (which is her first<\/em> name) would be satisfied with being the first Asian woman to reach the final of a Major.<\/p>\n

It took three sets, (she lost the first,) but Kim did triumph in the end. The best part was their post-match speeches. More class you could not find anywhere in sports. Both girls handled their duties exceptionally well, and we, the audience didn\u2019t want them to stop. The Ladies Final was truly a pleasure.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Novak Djokovic.<\/p><\/div>\n

I had more mixed feelings for the Men\u2019s Final. Novak Djokovic had just beaten my beloved Roger Federer to get into the final, so perhaps I should really not have been in his corner. But he always appears to be a nice, honest guy, so I just can\u2019t dislike him. And he\u2019s the only funny tennis player I\u2019ve ever seen. His spot-on imitations of some of the other players are classic!<\/p>\n

But he had won a Major once before, (this one, to be exact,) three years ago, and poor put-upon by the British press Andy Murray has zero Major titles to his name. And they\u2019ve been almost best friends since they were juniors ten years ago.<\/p>\n

I always wish I could ask Roger whom he prefers in situations like this, the guy who beat him or that guy\u2019s new opponent, but since that\u2019s impossible, I figured I\u2019d let the action unfold and see who moves me. When Novak beat Andy in straight sets, which is the same thing he did to Roger, it made me feel a tad better because, as the announcers said, no one was going to beat Novak in this tournament. And that they gave each other a big hug at the end of course choked me up. (Like I wasn\u2019t crying already!)<\/p>\n

So, both Finals worked out really well. I\u2019m still sick for Roger, but the dude will turn thirty in a few months! I\u2019m just praying that he can finally win an Olympic singles gold medal next summer, and then I\u2019ll be prepared to move on the \u201cpost-Federer era,\u201d as it\u2019s being called. I\u2019ll have my fingers crossed for him always until he retires from the game.<\/p>\n

SUPERBOWL PREVIEW<\/h1>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>So now, with the poor Jets falling short again, and my New York Giants not even coming close in a late-season meltdown, for whom do I root on Sunday? I\u2019ve just never liked the Green Bay Packers for some inexplicable reason, and I did used to semi-like the Steelers way back in the day, but how do I root for an accused rapist?<\/p>\n

Who knows if Ben Roethlisberger really did what he was accused of, but if he did, and is getting off scot-free, I couldn\u2019t bear it. I know he\u2019s never been charged, but the fact that he\u2019s had two<\/em> accusers over the years gives me pause. Again, I don\u2019t know what really happened, and public figures are always open to false accusations, and there are so very many liars are out there, that I really don\u2019t know what to think.<\/p>\n

When I was little, my family stayed at the University of Rhode Island for many summers, a place I\u2019m still very attached to. We got to live in the dorms and it was just the most fun in the world. Most nights, all of us would gather in the dorm lounge, and guess who always joined us my first summer there? The Pittsburgh Steelers! I think the university was their training camp, or something like that, and they were housed in our \u201cfamily dorm.\u201d Being a little girl, they looked even more giant than they were, and were nice to us kids, so I had planned to root for them always, which I did for a little while.<\/p>\n

But now they beat my Jets, so it\u2019s the Roger Federer conundrum all over again–would the Jets want their beaters to triumph, or the other team? I think you always root for your conference to win. (My old UCLA basketball champions of 1995 pals taught me that.)<\/p>\n

I think I\u2019ll just kick back on Superbowl Sunday with some snacks, and let it play out and see who deserves it. And just concentrate on the half-time show and commercials. So, Go Doritos!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

WEEK-END SPORTS WRAP-UP   Between this week-end\u2019s National Figure Skating Championships and the Australian Open tennis tournament finals, which ware being shown live in the middle of the night, I\u2019m exhausted. But, of course, I have many thoughts on what took place. Here are just some quick ones, so that I can finally get some<\/p>\n

Read More<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-tennis-ice-skating-baseball-and-the-stars-we-love-to-watch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/itsnotaboutme.tv\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}