Photo credit : RACHEL FLATT

Rachel Flatt’s photo, which we got from her Twitter feed is:

A. A heartfelt portrayal of a worldwide icon

B. A creatively shot night scene

C. Amazing: the torch is actually working!

Usain and Lightening Bolt...get it? Get it?!?

OK, not really.  But, something like this is actually in the works: “Sources” say that Usain Bolt (fastest guy alive, adoptive parent of adorable cheetah named Lightning Bolt) might race Chris Johnson, of the Tennessee Titans (buyer of cars for his entire O-Line after his 2,000 yard rush season concluded yesterday.)

Our money is on Bolt, but…um…only sort of.    Johnson shattered the Titans’ record for rushing yards in a season, previously held by Earl Campbell with 1,934.  He also, meanwhile, broke Marshall Faulk’s NFL single-season record for total yards from scrimmage Have you SEEN Johnson recently? Nope, you haven’t.  You blinked and missed him!

Oooh, we know. Our wit slays.

The race would be run for charity, and would take place on a standard track.  Johnson was clocked at 4.24 on the forty at the 2008 NFL combine, and he wants a short race, at the most 60 yards.  Bolt, meanwhile, wants the race to be longer.  (Johnson’s longest run lately was a 91 yard TD run early in the season against the Texans.)

not seeing a hat of any kind...

When we think of the Olympic torch, we think of the fabulousness of photo finishes.  The dedication of athletes who devote their lives to sport.  OK, maybe that parade with the interesting outfits and the incredibly excited athletes from Togo, or the Marshall Islands….all three of them.  Here’s what we don’t think of: Over-moussed country singers who, as far as we know, have no special appreciation for sports.

Clearly, we’re not from Canada!

With all the important people and impressive athletes from Canada, the person chosen to light the Olympic cauldron, carrying the torch those final few crucial yards was…Shania Twain.  She seemed to do a decent job…she didn’t trip, or attempt to sing a high C, or anything.  When asked how she felt about the job, which she called “a highlight of my life,” Shania made a joke about..the weather.

We haven’t found pics, but we’re guessing her hat was pink.

The manager, Frank Maloney, was taken to the hospital in shock after finding Sutherland’s body, which British media reports say was found hanging.  Maloney was found to have suffered a heart attack.

Sutherland’s family members professed shock along with the obvious sadness, saying there was no indication that the boxer suffered from depression.  The death has not yet been ruled as suicide or accident, officially.

His next fight had been scheduled for October 16th,  Across the sport, tributes are coming in: sounds to us like a young man with a lot of potential and a lot of good will.

Sad story.

Figure skating has had some recent successes, and in fact today NBC signed a deal to increase it’s coverage of figure skating over the next four years.  And there’s actually a skating cable channel–although it’s totally unavailable to UPH, apparently, no matter what we do.  (Yes, we checked.  Screw you, DirectTV!)

However, a recent article by former international-scene figure skater Jennifer Kirk (she’s from Boston, plus she skated to “Razzle Dazzle” from Chicago in a fab flapper outfit. LOVE.) points out some of the issues figure skating has.  She takes issue with the scoring system, which we talked about fairly recently, and agree has its…well, ups and downs.

Some of the other points she brings up, and what we think….

Stars: Specifically that there currently isn’t one.  Sasha Cohen’s mounting a comeback, but even she never reached the heights she should have.  Sarah Hughes, gold medalist, disappeared after that season to go to Yale.  (A fantastic choice but not one that leads to being the star of the skating world.)  Kimmie, Beatrisa, and other current girls are beautiful skaters, but they don’t have the dominating talent of Michelle Kwan at her best, or the charisma of Cohen (or, in another women’s sport, Shawn Johnson).  This is an issue, but its one that will come and go: skating is spoiled about this because Kwan had such a deathgrip on being the best for so long…in most sports, stars come and go and sometimes there aren’t any.  (Can anyone name a recent female runner that isn’t Caster Semanya, or even a serious male swimmer not named Michael Phelps? Casual fans can’t, and that’s ok.)

Age: Ladies skating is more like prepubescent tiny girl skating.  True!  These girls are TINY and encouraged to stay that way, to put it kindly.  They’re also getting younger and younger, which Kirk attributes in part to the scoring system: you have to be smaller and more flexible to land the jumps that get you the most points, so it skews young.  We don’t think the youth part is an issue, actually, but the body image part sure is…leaving out how unhealthy it is, which should be obvious, those bodies have no connection to reality for plenty of girls today who could be fabulous, athletic skaters if they only thought it was worth a shot.

Accessibility: Figureskating isn’t a sport you can try for fun in your backyard. Even the most basic skills take training, as well as an environment, that isn’t readily available.  By it’s nature, it isn’t going to be a sport that’s big in innercity schools, but the sport’s governing body could and should make an effort to bring skating–even as a spectator sport–to more homes.  We have some of the most beautiful, artistic skaters in the world…and most Americans haven’t even noticed.

We’re excited for the Olympics, and even more excited to see what can be done to raise skating’s profile, especially for women.  (Also? We’ll admit it…we want one of those flippy little skirt outfits. For real.)

Sort of.

Despite the assurances of Semenya and her family that she is a woman, she will undergo gender testing.  Clearly, even though nobody’s actually saying it, Semenya must have some male characteristics even outside her appearance: we’re guessing ambiguous genitalia, or this wouldn’t be an issue, right?  Some conditions that could cause male characteristics such as an overabundance of testosterone are genetic or chromosomal, such as being an XXY male (many are raised as women.)

Interestingly, this has happened at least twice before in the world of track, when women have failed the chromosomal test.  A host of disorders and characteristics, which the New York Times runs down here, could account for Semenya’s male characteristics.  The Bantu people of South Africa, where Semenya is from (though nobody is saying she is of Bantu extraction), are often hermaphroditic–genetically female, but with both ovaries and testes.

Of course, this is where it gets philosophically messy…

Of course, gender isn’t merely physical: there are emotional and social constructs of gender that matter hugely.  Whether Semenya is genetically male or not, clearly she has been raised and socialized as a female, and perhaps even more importantly, considers herself a female.  None of the gender dysmorphia that those who often choose to switch genders appears to be present.

What if it were?  Or, what if an athlete who competed on a high level wished to change genders?  It hasn’t happened yet, but as transgendered people enter mainstream consciousness more and become more common, it probably will at some point.

Men’s and women’s sports are split because of the inherent physical differences between men and women.  But what about mental differences?  Is it chromosomes or physical characteristics that are most important?  A runner who considers herself a female, yet has a Y chromosome, would not necessarily be allowed to represent her country in the Olympics, and a female who transgenders to male would be unable to run with his peers.

Gender, certainly, is social as well as physical, and in one way or another this is something that sports, along with the rest of society, is going to have to face: whether Semenya is a man or a woman, even after chromosomal testing,  is not nearly as straightforward as people may think.

Bolt, whose celebratory antics at the Olympics were either exuberant and real or terrible sportsmanship, depending who you talked to, says he wants to hit a 9.4 100 meter.

Meanwhile, Tyson Gay, world champion 100 meter runner in 2007, set the all-time American runner record at 9.71 seconds, a feat that a year ago would have been good enough for a world record.

The triumph of Bolt–and to a lesser extent, of Gay–is good news for a sport that’s mostly known lately for doping, at least by the casual ESPN-watcher.  We can’t wait to see what he does next: his exuberance is catching!

This week in history….

8/9 /67 Happy Birthday to Deion Sanders, who is awesome because he was on both the Cowboys and the Yankees, and thus can be hated or cheered by more people who love more sports than almost anyone.

8/10/85 Uno Lindstron of Sweden juggles a soccer ball 13.11 miles.  We’re not quite sure if this counts as sports, or as weird, but we thought we’d tell you anyway.

8/11/51 The NY Giants lose to go more than 13 games back in the pennant race to the Brooklyn Dodgers…and later win the pennant.  Listening, Sox fans?

8/12/94 Sad day: the MLB strike begins. Sonya Sotomayor, thanks a bunch, by the way!

8/13/1910 Dodgers and Pirates play to 8-8 tie, both have 38 at bats, 13 hits, 12 assists, 2 errors, 5 strikeouts, 3 walks, 1 pass ball and 1 hit by pitch.  Holy crap.

8/14/59  Happy Birthday, Magic Johnson!!!  We’re going to post about you tomorrow, by the way.  Just so you know and all.

8/15/50 Nothing happened on 8/15.  Except Princess Anne’s birthday, and she was an Olympic equestrian for Britain (I bet they let her skip the tryouts!).  So that counts, right?

All the talk about Nicole Bobek made us think about the weirdness of the new scoring system in figure skating.  We wanted to be sure we understood exactly what was going on with it before the hype to the Olympics–with all the qualifying competition coverage–begins.  So, here goes. What’s up with it?

The current system, called the ISU system, replaced the previous system, the 6.0-is-the-highest that most of us remember from Dorothy Hamil times.  It is used to judge all Olympic skating, including ice dance, which is another thing we don’t get, but that’s another week’s column.  It was created after the 2002 scandal, in which the wrong team seemed to have won the pairs medal    Here’s info if you forgot  that one.

The system is based on required elements–different numbers for different competitions and programs (long, short, etc.).   If an element is in the second half of the program, it is worth more points. Falls and problems are certain automatic deductions.

There is serious criticism that the higher marks given for certain sorts of spins, spiral sequences, etc. make every program look alike, and penalize creativity that might lead to innovation, because without certain elements at certain times, a program has an automatically lower highest-possible score.

We understand how subjective the scoring for artistic sport endeavors is…this is why nobody scores ballet…and we’re in favor of the fact that marks are no longer anonymous, and are published with explanation.  It all seems awfully technical to us, though.  We’d like to see something that  encouraged innovation.

Still, now we get it.