Win or Lose, It’s All in the Details

At a certain level, excelling in sports becomes really detail-oriented. When I was younger, I was always amazed by ABC’s Wide World of Sports television program that showed the dramatized inside look at the lives of athletes, especially into the lives of Olympic athletes since I have been obsessed with the Olympics for as long as I can remember (I originally thought I would go as a soccer player. Kudos to the 1996 U.S. Olympic women’s soccer team for inspiring many!). It was awesome to me to see how the lives of these successful athletes were 24/7 about their sport and then to see how after a bunch of blood, sweat, and tears later, everything finally came together in the end and they were successful, at the very least in their own eyes.

The past two months I have been traveling all over the world training and racing my bike. I have reached that point where it feels like my life could be a fairly engaging documentary. One of my training partners and I actually had a conversation based on this fact a few weeks ago. We discussed how we get up early, we ride to the track with our backpacks packed with the day’s necessities, we have a discussion over who’s iPod contains the most motivating playlist, we put that iPod on the stereo system, we ride efforts to the point of nausea, we adjust equipment to try to get the most speed out of ourselves, we try out the new and supposedly most technologically-advanced and fastest equipment, we discuss video feedback of the efforts we just did, we push ourselves even harder on the next efforts, we play cheerleader for our training partners and teammates who are just about on the point of not being able to do any more, we head out of the road for more hours of training, we come back to housing in the late afternoon and eat ridiculous amounts of food, we stretch and try our best attempts at recovery technique some of which include unique inventions of tight pants or humidity, we sleep, and then we start the same process all over again the next day. Some days we crash, and doesn’t that add even more to the appeal of a documentary?

The most interesting part of the actual documentaries to me was what happens after all the training and after the competition. No matter if training goes well or not, if the athlete meets the goal during competition or not, there’s always a reevaluation period. There’s always a flurry of questions as to what went well or didn’t? What could have been better? What can be improved upon next time? When you get to the point where your sporting life seems like documentary material, finding answers to these details consumes more time and effort than I thought was possible from watching the documentaries.

These past two months I took part in two national team camps and competed in two World Cup competitions. The camps went fairly well but my performances at the World Cups were not what were expected. Turn on the cameras; there have been some serious periods of reevaluation. There have been consultations with many people, the stuff ABC eats up. I have had to question all my preparations all the way down to the most basic, even where I live. I’m at that level now. There are checkmarks next to 24/7 and the blood, sweat, and tears boxes. Is there a checkmark next to the successful box? Only time will tell. For now that depends on the details.

www.kimgeist.com

Natalie Coughlin rocks the Rumba

Olympic gold medalist Natalie Coughlin keeps on rolling at Dancing with the Stars. This week, she and partner Alec put together a steamy Rumba en route to a total score of 26. In addition to being a fan favorite, she’s become one of Carrie Ann Inaba’s picks as well.

Here’s Natalie’s segment from this week’s show for those who missed it:

Throughout the season, Natalie will be sharing her DWTS experience through her Twitter (@nataliecoughlin) and Facebook pages so be sure to follow along and VOTE for Natalie all season long.

Natalie and Alec’s official voting number is 1-800-VOTE4-13 or 1-800-868-3413. You may also vote online at www.abc.com starting from the opening of each episode on the East Coast and until 12:00 Noon, ET the following day.

Shaq vs. Serena Williams in tennis?

 ABC  is set to air “Shaq Vs.,” a reality show pitting four times hoops champion Shaquille O’Neal against top athletes in their own sports.

O’Neal, who he’s scheduled to report for NBA training camp Sept. 15 as he joins the Cleveland Cavaliers next season,  began filming this week in Pittsburgh, where he’ll take on Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger in football. 

Other episodes will pit O’Neal against Michael Phelps in swimming, Oscar De La Hoya in boxing, Albert Pujols in baseball, Serena Williams in tennis and Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh in beach volleyball.

O’Neal says he came up with the idea as a fun way to help train for the NBA season and figured sports fans “would really want to see an athlete play another sport.” He knew most of the athletes and recruited some of them on Twitter. He is hoping to book pal Lance Armstrong for a cycling competition once the Tour de France ends.

Each episode will include preliminary challenges along with some comical “trash talking.”  But  when it comes to competing, there is no joking, O’Neal says.

At the finish is the marquee event, usually on the athlete’s home turf, but there’s no cash prize: “Bragging rights are always better than any monetary prize,” O’Neal says

Set your DVRs. The series is set to premiere Aug. 18 and will air Tuesdays at 9 ET/PT.

To bee or not to bee

ESPN usually airs football, basketball, ice hockey and occasionally a NCAA Division I championship  — but kids pushing around vowels and consonants? America’s youngest and most celebrated letter bearers were featured today on the station generally meant to broadcast athletic endeavors (poker notwithstanding).

We’re talking, of course, of the 82nd Annual Scripps Spelling Bee. The week began with a record 293 spellers and today’s difficult semifinals began with 41 contenders. Chairs on stage emptied one by one until only 11 kids were left.

The finalists include seven girls and four boys and the champ will be crowned tonight during prime time coverage on ABC. (8 p.m. ET) hosted byTom Bergeron. Olympic gold medalist Shawn Johnson and Dr. Jill Biden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden, are expected to attend. The winner receives more than $40,000 in cash and prizes.

Favorites include a couple of pretty smart gals: of Olathe, Kan., who’s made it to the finals four times and Serena Skye Laine-Lobsinger of West Palm Beach, Fla.

Longtime ESPN Sports Center co-anchor Chris Mkendry announced the event live from the Grand Hyatt in Washington D.C. Great coverage from a channel that ranks the importance of the Spelling Bee somewhere below Major League Baseball but above women’s softball and basketball.

The highly competitive National Spelling Bee is an excursion through Webster’s dictionary in search of obscure words. Spellers ask almost identical questions as they try to wrap their brain matter around how the word is formed.

“Can you tell me the definition?” “Can you tell me the country of origin?” “Can you use it in a sentence?”

A few of today’s troublesome words included piqueur, grenache and fedelini. Twitter fans can follow www.twitter.com/scrippsbee throughout the competition for highlights.

Can you spell T-O-U-G-H?

(Update: Kavya Shivashankar correctly spelled “Laodicean” to win the 82nd annual event)

DWTS: Season 7 welcomes Misty May Treanor

August 25, 2008 – Now that the Olympics are over, let’s get back to REAL life. 

DWTS’ seventh season airs on Sept. 22 and what’s on everyones mind is:  Who will shake a leg on the award-winning reality show in hopes of winning the coveted mirror ball trophy?

Announced today, here’s a rundown of the Dancing with the Stars contestants and their professional dance partners:

• Singer Toni Braxton, 40, and Alec Mazo
• Singer Lance Bass, 29, and Lacey Schwimmer
• Actor Ted McGinley, 50, and Inna Brayer
• Actress Cloris Leachman,82, and Corky Ballas
• Warren Sapp, 35, and Kym Johnson
• Celebrity chef Rocco DiSpirito, 31, and Karina Smirnoff
• TV personality Kim Kardashian, 27, and Mark Ballas
• Track star Maurice Green, 34, and Cheryl Burke
• Beach volleyball star Misty May-Treanor, 31, and Maksim Chmerkovskiy
• Soap star Susan Lucci,61, and Tony Dovolani
• Comedian Jeffrey Ross, 42, and Edyta Sliwinska
• Actor Cody Linley, 18, and two-time DWTS champ Julianne Hough
• TV personality Brooke Burke, 36, and Derek Hough

Our fave? Beach volleyball player and recent Olympic gold medal winner Misty May-Treanor!  She’ll go straight from Beijing where she and Kerri Walsh won their second gold medal in beach volleyball to the DWTS comp where we hope she’ll follow in the footsteps of another Olympian – last year’s winner Kristi Yamaguchi.