As the IOC assumed its (usual) amoral posture, Olympic sports athletes stood tall as a moral counterpoint in 2020

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As the IOC assumed its (usual) amoral posture, Olympic sports athletes stood tall as a moral counterpoint in 2020

For the past 33 years, Globetrotting has selected annual medal winners in international sports, given to those athletes for whom an Olympic gold is the ultimate goal.

The pandemic that has shattered lives around the world made it impractical and unsafe to have most international sports competitions for the last nine months – and even those that have taken place in the current winter season have been changed by having athletes opt out or, in the case of figure skating, becoming essentially domestic events.

Given that, trying to give awards in the format I used in the past seems like a fool’s errand.

Yet it would not be good to let the year pass without some shout-outs to athletes in Olympic sports, both active and retired, whose achievements or courage (or both) were noteworthy.

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U.S. Olympic CEO deserves credit for decision to take pay cut, but she and board still should be shown the door

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U.S. Olympic CEO deserves credit for decision to take pay cut, but she and board still should be shown the door

When it comes to tone-deafness and managerial ineptitude, I thought I had seen and heard it all in my nearly 40 years covering the leadership and operations of the U.S. Olympic Committee.

I should have known better.

I feel that way even though U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee chief Sarah Hirshland executive has, to her credit, agreed to take a voluntary pay cut of an unspecified amount from her $600,000 annual salary, as she revealed in a Friday statement to Globetrotting.

The USOC may have changed its name to the USOPC last July, but it has not changed the spots that have made its operations a confounding detriment to the athletes it is supposed to serve.

The USOPC bottomed out morally in its untenable decision to ask Congress for $200 million of the federal coronavirus stimulus bill funds, as first reported Wednesday by the Wall Street Journal.

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Erin Popovich: Swimming to her place on the wall

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Erin Popovich: Swimming to her place on the wall

One day about 10 years ago, Erin Popovich was walking down the hall to the pool at the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, where she was training for her fourth and final International Paralympic Committee Swimming World Championships.

As usual, Popovich passed the gallery of photographs on the hallway wall of champion swimmers who had trained in that pool. Michael Phelps. Janet Evans. Matt Biondi. Natalie Coughlin. And many more — all swimmers she had looked up to during her career. Pictures she had seen very often but that still continued to arrest her eye, even if only in passing.

“It truly was a wall of legends,” she said.

And then, on this day, Popovich stopped in her tracks. There was a new photo of a swimmer on the wall: Erin Popovich.

“No one had told me it was going up there,” she said. “I hope I have done it justice and that it can stay up there a while longer.”

As it turns out, the pictures have come down during a renovation.

But Erin Popovich’s place among U.S. swimming legends is assured forever with her selection to the Class of 2019 of the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Hall of Fame.

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For African-American Water Polo Goalie Ashleigh Johnson, The Medium Is The Message: Everyone Into The Pool

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Swimming gold medalist Simone Manuel is not the only African-American woman with a landmark achievement in a Rio Olympic pool.

Water polo goalie Ashleigh Johnson also has made history for black women in the water, whether she wins a medal or not – and her team has a perfect (4-0) record going into Wednesday afternoon’s Olympic semifinal against Hungary.

Manuel, 20, of suburban Houston, became the first African-American woman to win an individual swimming gold medal. In her reaction to that moment of triumph in the 100-meter freestyle, she also won worldwide acclaim with an emotional and eloquent acknowledgement of those black swimmers who had inspired her and her desire to inspire others.

Johnson, 21, of far exurban Miami, is the first black woman to represent the United States in Olympic water polo.

She also hopes her presence will have an “if-you-can-see-it, you-can-be-it” effect in motivating other African-American kids to learn to swim, whether or not it leads them to compete in one of the sports.

FOR MY COMPLETE STORY ON TEAMUSA.ORG, CLICK HERE

For Biles And Ledecky, Greatness Comes From Going Beyond The Top

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RIO DE JANEIRO – In two hours Thursday afternoon, I went from watching Katie Ledecky, who defies the clock in a pool, to watching Simone Biles, who defies gravity on a gymnastics floor.

These two 19-year-olds, born three days apart in March of 1997, each dominates her sport in a way that leaves their rivals in awe.

“If Katie swims the way she can, we all are swimming for second or third,” Denmark’s Lotte Friis, a 2008 Olympic bronze medalist, told me two months ago.

“I knew Simone was going to win; I was just hoping to get second,” her U.S. teammate, Aly Raisman, said early Thursday evening, when Raisman had done just that as Biles took the Olympic all-around title by 2.1 points, the largest victory margin in the last 40 years.

Biles has a team gold medal. And the all-around gold. And she will be favored to add three more in the individual events.

Ledecky has three golds and a silver. She is heavily favored to win a fourth gold Friday after setting an Olympic record in the 800-meter freestyle preliminaries Thursday.

What Biles and Ledecky share is the same plan for getting farther ahead of the opposition when triumph already is a foregone conclusion.

FOR THE WHOLE STORY ON TEAMUSA.ORG, CLICK HERE