WILD WORLD OF SPORTS

1) Cricket, Apparently, Is A Deadly Sport:
As you no doubt have learned by now, Bob Woolmer, coach of the Pakistan national cricket team, was found dead in his Jamaica hotel room just hours after the mighty Pakistanin national team had lost to George Mas--I mean, Ireland-- in the Cricket World Cup. Woolmer, 58, died of "asphyxia as a result of manual strangulation", according to the pathologist's report.
A murder in cricket? This is a sport where they actually break for tea. Woolmer was a large man and reportedly there was no forced entry into his room. There's a certain element of "Et Tu, Salim?" suspicion surrounding Woolmer's death. His room was described as having been covered in "vomit and blood."
It's worth noting that cricket fans considered Ireland's upset of Pakistan to be the most shocking in the history of the sport. But then again, the match was played on St. Patrick's Day.

2) MMA Meets FINA
What happens when an overbearing dad confronts his underachieving (at least in his eyes) daughter after her heat at the World Swimming Championships in Melbourne, Australia?

If you haven't seen the video evidence yet, here it is (click on the "footage" line in the story):

http://www.smh.com.au/news/swimming/family-feud-coach-detained/2007/03/27/1174761465058.html

3) Kenya Believe It?

Though they received very little coverage stateside, the World Cross-Country Championships were held in the stifling heat and humidity of Mombasa, Kenya, last Saturday.
What's that, Ed McMahon? How hot was it ? It was SO HOT that 82 of the 471 runners in the four races (men's and women's, seniors and juniors) dropped out before completing the 12K (men) or 8K (women) courses. This wasn't your local YMCA 5K Run/Walk. These were the best distance runners in the world.
The conditions were oppressive. The temperatures were in the mid-90s and the humidity above 70%. Throw in the fact that 30,000 crazed Kenyans lined the 2K-loop route on the Mombasa Golf Course and it was near-chaos. You might have read more about it, but reportedly a number of laptop computers were stolen from the media center.
The world's most dominant middle-distance runner, Kenenisa Bekele of Ethiopia, was favored to win his sixth consecutive long-course World X-Country title. Bekele, the Olympic gold medalist in the 10,000 and silver medalist in the 5,000, had won both the short (4K) and long (12K) course IAAF World Cross Country Championships for five consecutive years--2002 thru 2006. How impressive is that? No other runner had ever done it even once.
In short, for a dude who's 5-5, 121 pounds, this 24 year-old farmer's son is quite the stud.
And yet, in the withering conditions in Mombasa, Bekele dropped out of the race while leading during the sixth and final lap. "I was slowing down and felt that I was losing control over my body as well as my mind," said Bekele, who was not one of the 27 runners hospitalized that day. "I have never in my whole life participated in a race like this."
When Bekele walked off the course, the Kenyans, many of them hanging from tree branches or standing atop vehicles in order to see, cheered deliriously at his DNF. Never mind that the man who would finish first was not Kenyan but rather Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea, a country that, let's face it, at first you thought was a urinary-tract disorder.
Not a few running devotees were abashed (again, not DanaBashed, but we've covered this in previous blogs) that the Kenyan throng would treat the sport's most outstanding runner so disrespectfully. As former British running great Steve Cram wrote in The Guardian , "Kenya won the chance to host these championships on a ticket extolling the vision of cross country coming home. If that was the case then the sport could do with a change of address."
Americans? Few were brave enough to even attend, based on what they knew would be poor conditions in terms of both climate and security. The top American men's finisher, Michael Spence, came in 55th, 3:42 behind Tadese's victorious time of 35:50 for the 7.44 mile course. At least he Spence, a Princeton alum, made the journey.

Here's what I don't understand. Every weekend tens of--maybe hundreds of--thousands of Americans participate in road races. Why couldn' the leading sports network, which each day does an hour-long sports wrap-up show (and a damn fine one, let's admit), have devoted even 30 seconds to this crazy event? Sure, we wouldn't want it to take the place of an Ed Werder-live-from-Valley Ranch Dallas Cowboy update, but there had to be some spot for it. Consider the number of people who actually were attending the women's college basketball tourney in person (hint: about the same number as the title of a currently popular gladiator film), and yet each of those games got a highlight. Now think of how many people were watching the World XC in person, and consider that this was running--a popular American pastime-- and not, say, cricket, a sport that few Americans understand.
I don't have the figures, but it would be interesting to note the relative number of Americans who participate in a road race versus the number who play a round of golf each weekend? Judging from what I've been able to read, the World X-Country Championships would have made for some bizarre and can-you-believe-what-you're-seeing television.

Anyway, that's one man's beef. For excellent coverage on the race, including photos and video, I suggest you head on over to letsrun.com .