They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. If that’s the case, was Austin Murphy trying to flatter this non-traditional sports fan to no end? Murphy, the cycling and Olympic sports writer for Sports Illustrated, recently attempted a lilting rant across the international spectrum of sports. He implores readers to “open your mind, in other words, to the cornucopia of sporting options” -- a message I have long been preaching for over a year in my own weekly column. I wasn’t flattered, though... for a senior writer working for such a well-established and venerable sports-journalism publication, Murphy fell sadly flat in his execution. 

He goes off about Roger Federer being perhaps the greatest tennis player in history... and then says nothing further about the subject. The caption on the picture contains nearly as many words about Federer’s first French Open championship. Murphy talks about Calvin Borel falling short of an unprecedented Jockey Triple Crown... but doesn’t even refer to Borel by name. He blabbered on and on about his favorite pet project, Lance Armstrong, and the rest of the Astana crew as the Tour de France nears. The only problem is, the race is still a month away and his pandering neglects actual cycling action -- the Dauphine Libere is in progress right now. Murphy implores people to expand their horizons, but is he educating the reader as to when or where they might be able to catch such action? Simply putting proper names in bold does little to inform his audience, for he offers up those names without offering any compelling reasons WHY we should care. 

The article was supposedly tongue-in-cheek, but his blatant omissions and glossing over do a disservice to the message of looking beyond the major North American sports to discover a wider display of the beauty of athletic achievement. That’s where I come in. Where an Austin Murphy might offer up an amuse-bouche to whet your appetite and then leave you hanging without real sustenance, I bring the full five-course dinner every week for you to digest. The Murphys of the world will tell you after the fact what happened around the globe; I provide the necessary tools so that you might make your own judgments in real time. So put down that stale crust of an article that the folks at SI threw your way -- here’s a freshly-baked dose of A Non-Traditional Sports Fan in America! 
 

Let’s start at Belmont Park, the longest dirt race course for horses in North America. The 1.5-mile main track, with its wide sweeping turns, was to be the setting for a new chapter in the annals of horse-racing history. But ever since Affirmed confirmed his dominance here in 1978 by completing the trifecta of Triple Crown races, Belmont has rebuffed many an effort at immortality. 

Kent Desmoreaux can tell a story or two about dashed dreams at the New York racetrack. Before last Saturday, Desmoreaux had twice come to the Belmont Stakes with a legitimate shot of ending the Triple Crown drought. First, in 1998, he rode Real Quiet to victory in the Kentucky Derby and Preakness Stakes. Coming to New York, Desmoreaux had a chance to take the race on the twentieth anniversary of Affirmed’s victory ride before Victory Gallop, who had taken second behind Real Quiet in each of the previous (shorter) Triple Crown races, defeated his mount by a literal nose in the photo finish. Then, ten years later, Desmoreaux had the opportunity once again to break the cold streak. Aboard Big Brown, he took both the Derby and the Preakness convincingly before having to pull up on the reins when the horse showed signs of distress at the quarter pole. 

Twice Kent had the chance to complete the trilogy. Twice Kent came up short. Twice Belmont refused to allow a new chapter of history to be completed. Saturday was vindication for Desmoreaux, who cashed in his karmic credit to take his first-ever victory in the Belmont Stakes... and deprive another of his own shot at immortality. But Kent and Calvin can now console one another and any other riders who might deign to sit down at their table with stories of the one that got away. 

Saturday was to be Borel’s big moment. After weeks of the “Will she?/Won’t she?” drama surrounding the status of Preakness winner Rachel Alexandra, the filly’s owners decided to withhold her from the start of the third leg of this year’s Triple Crown. Borel would not go without a mount, though... Mine That Bird was free once again to ride under Borel toward visions of glory. 

Mine That Bird, remember, was the 50-1 longshot who swept past the entire field under Borel’s guidance to take the upset victory at Churchill Downs. The three-year-old gelding, after defeating a cast of star-studded names -- Pioneerof the Nile, Friesan Fire, Dunkirk -- in the Kentucky Derby, was still lightly regarded when the road show took its act to Pimlico for the Preakness Stakes. Not even Borel fancied his shot at the full-fledged Triple Crown. The gelding was spurned for the filly, and Borel guided the Kentucky Oaks winner ahead of the Derby winner to make it 2-for-2 for the Cajun rail-rider. 

After the questions surrounding Rachel Alexandra were answered, the door was open for Borel and Mine That Bird to be reunited. With Borel in the saddle and top-male status in both the Derby and Preakness on his record, Mine That Bird was a longshot no more. But frontrunner status prior to the race matters little, for it cannot guarantee a frontrunner finish. Coming down the stretch, Borel guided the gelding into the lead. For a moment it looked as though the gap would be enough for Mine That Bird to claim a once-improbable two out of the three jewels in the Triple Crown. But then, taking advantage of the extra length at Belmont, Silver Bird closed in as Desmoreaux pulled up alongside Borel. The gap widened, Borel and Mine That Bird left behind, and then Dunkirk swept past as well to relegate the pair to third. History would have to wait once again for another chance -- though Belmont might only serve to doom it once again... 
 

Just like Desmoreaux, another athlete managed to exorcise the demons which have long plagued him like Kryptonite at one particular venue. For Desmoreaux, it was Belmont Park; for Roger Federer, it was Roland Garros, the home of the second Grand Slam of the season in tennis. For the past four years, the Coupe des Mousquetaires -- the trophy awarded to the French Open men’s singles champion -- had effectively been the exclusive property of Rafael Nadal. As Nadal ascended up the rankings to become Federer’s chief rival largely on the strength of his clay-court game, his stranglehold on the French Open stunted the aspirations of the game’s Swiss dynamo. 

You see, Roger Federer was on pace to render every career record obsolete. So potent is his game that it was hardly a question of IF he would match and surpass Pete Sampras’ record of fourteen Grand Slam men’s singles titles, but rather HOW QUICKLY Federer would pull off the feat. On all surfaces -- including clay -- Federer is one of the most skilled players of his or any generation. But every year he would square off against his blossoming rival... and every year he would leave Court Philippe Chatrier empty-handed, another opportunity lost. 

This year seemed at first glance as though the story would remain the same. Only a single hiccup -- losing to Federer in the finals of the Madrid Masters -- blemished an otherwise dominant-as-usual spring clay campaign for Nadal. The past twelve months seemingly marked the transfer of power from the Federer Era to the Nadal Era. Breaking through first at Wimbledon last summer and then in Melbourne this January at the Australian Open, Rafael had discovered an all-around game that had some (this author included) dreaming seriously about the possibility of an ever-elusive calendar Grand Slam. 

By the midpoint of the tournament’s fortnight, the dream had died away as easily and painfully as it had for Borel at Belmont. Robin Soderling, an unheralded Swedish journeyman, toppled the king of clay and inadvertently helped keep his countryman’s co-record safe -- Bjorn Borg still reigns alongside Nadal atop the records with four consecutive French Open titles. So now the stage was set for Federer to complete his career Grand Slam and join the exclusive club of players to accomplish the feat with wins on all three surfaces. 

It was fitting, then, that Federer would have to conquer Roland Garros by besting the first man to conquer Nadal at the venue. Soderling had kept up his momentum after taking out Nadal, sweeping aside Nikolai Davydenko in the quarterfinals and surviving a grueling five-set classic against Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez to earn his first trip to a Grand Slam final. Soderling had a wonderful story to tell future generations, but he would not write the final chapter of his march through the bracket with one last upset. In his fourth consecutive attempt at taking Paris, the Swiss powerhouse prevailed. Proving too much for his Swedish counterpart, Federer cruised through to a decisive victory in straight sets (6-1, 7-6[1], 6-4). The curse was lifted once more, and another chapter is added on to perhaps the greatest career in tennis history... 
 

Greatness is a wonderful thing to watch in real time, but hanging on to that name recognition isn’t enough to sustain oneself when greatness is sustenance for the spectator’s soul. Austin Murphy felt the need to excoriate bandwagon fanatics -- “... watch Versus’s Tour ratings go through the floor if and when it becomes apparent that Armstrong has no shot at an eighth victory....” -- rings hollow when you take a look at his past five cycling articles: 

• Lance Starting to Look Dangerous (5/28/2009)
• Leipheimer Looks to Avoid Mr. February Curse at Giro d'Italia (5/15/2009)
• A Forced Vacation Can’t Keep Lance Away... (3/23/2009)
• Lance Armstrong’s Comeback is On Track (2/25/2009)
• Lance is Back, and Still the Star (2/19/2009)

 

For a guy who wants to berate “the Lance freaks” out there for following a trend, he has to ask himself just what he was doing to further sell that trend. When four out of five articles in a given genre deal with but one subject (and the other is about a teammate), how really are you furthering the public’s knowledge of what is a “sumptuous buffet” of action? 

The problem is that he only implores readers to give the Tour a chance. Far from asking someone to take a chance on the wonder of Paris-Roubaix, or the inscrutable challenges of the Giro, or touting any number of major and minor races across the globe, Murphy instead does exactly that which he purports to deplore: narrows his focus. He didn’t even see fit to acknowledge in passing the fact that the sport still goes on, and there is a major race at present underway. 

The Dauphine Libere is an eight-day stage race which covers a lot of the roads usually featured in the Tour de France. Run since 1947, this current incarnation (the sixty-first) is presently halfway complete. We are watching a duel develop which could very well play out again in one month’s time in the Tour. Cadel Evans, the runner-up at the Tour each of the past two years, and Alberto Contador, the 2007 Tour champion, are locked in a tight battle. 

The race began with a short time trial through the streets of Nancy. Along the mostly-flat route, Evans bested Contador by eight seconds to grab the yellow jersey. He held on in Stage 2 before ceding the jersey for a day to Niki Terpstra of Team Milram, who was the highest-placed rider in a long breakaway with a handful of other riders. In the Stage 4 time trial, Evans finished but seven seconds behind world time-trial champion Bert Grabsch of Team Columbia-High Road to regain the jersey. 

Today, though, is when the real fun starts. Stage 5 starts the mountainous second half of the race, beginning with a summit finish atop the infamous Mont Ventoux. Stage 6 features a Pyrenean climb up the Col d’Izoard before finishing uphill in Briançon. Stage 7 scales the Col du Galibier before the first-category summit finish in Saint-François-Longchamp. Stage 8 finishes with a winding down for the riders with shorter climbs en route to the race finish in Grenoble. So we will see some real fireworks from France for sure in the next four days -- and we just might see the next Tour de France champion honing his fitness for July along the way... 
 

As we draw imminently near toward crowning champions in both the NBA and NHL, the long summer run of baseball gets into its familiar clockwork hum, and the all-season NFL news feed bombards fans with the most inane of information, perhaps you’ll deign to glance outside the big box of North American traditions and dig deeper for some truly entrancing sports action. I may not have been impressed with the totality of Murphy’s article, but there’s one message with which I can agree: “There's a wealth of drama and great stories outside the Big Three. And you'll find them not quite as stale.” 

So get out there and find your own niche! There’s plenty of nooks and crannies in this wide world of ours where a fanatic can get lost in the spectacles of athletic accomplishment...