Tuesday Cardinal Couple -- Featuring Sandy's weekly escape from Cardinal Couple Headquarters

TUESDAY CARDINAL COUPLE

  Sandy Walker with tidbits on The 

Olympics, soccer, Ms. Solo. boxing and rowing. Have some ! 

Photo by Mott the Hoople

OLYMPICS

The Olympics are now past history but with plenty of new history also now in the books.

ü  For the first time, every country that brought a team included at least one woman on that team – 5000 women representing over 200 countries – including Saudia Arabia participated in the games.

The United States women (earlier coined as “Team Title IX”) while good in the past, have experienced a break-through year in 2012.

 Courtesy of AP. Photo
by Elaine Thompson

 Women’s basketball now has a record 5 consecutive Gold Medals – observers are calling Candace Parker (Tenn.) shown here passing to a teammate

as the player who lead the team to Gold.

                                    

ü  Gymnastics now has the team gold medal

ü  Women’s doubles beach volleyball duo of Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh Jennings now possess a record 3 consecutive Gold medals.

Picture by Richard Mackson USA Today Sports

Add Women’s Soccer, swimming track, boxing, judo… 29 of the US total 49 gold medals and with the exception of China and Great Britain, the women have won more gold than the totals for any of the remaining countries.

As a break-through year for women in general and the attention they have received -- younger girls around the world are seeing them as examples of what is possible but there will always be challenges ahead.  Next, in addition to adding an even greater % of female participants in Rio – we also need to conquer the International Olympic Committee itself whose membership should look like the population it represents.  The current 22 women spread among the 109 Olympic Committee members does not reflect the population of participants but this change should be a piece of cake compared to what has already occurred.

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ROWING HIRES NEW ASSISTANT COACH

Sarah Zelenka pretty much left her Olympic rowing position in the women’s pair event which was held just last week and jumped into a new position as assistant coach of the Cardinals.  She rowed during college at Grand Valley State University in Allendale, Mich where she was named MVP in 2008 and 2009.  She has been a member of the US Rowing senior national team during the last two years and was a member of the U-23 team in 2009.

Picture by US Rowing.org
Courtesy of Garett Wall, UofL

After the announcement of her hiring, Sarah was quoted as saying “The reputation of the Cardinal athletic department is second to none and it is a great privilege to be joining their family. Derek has shared his passion for the sport of rowing with me and I am looking forward to assisting on his coaching staff. I hope to be a positive influence on these student-athletes and help push them to new levels.”

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SOLO ON SOLO

Hope Solo’s new book, “Solo: A Memoir of Hope” is set for release today.  Love her or hate her, it seems that no one says Hope Who? and that everyone has an opinion. 

Bing.com\images

 The social media sites appear to attract some pretty severe extremes of thought.  That’s OK , at least they are talking and it always includes her involvement in women’s sports so we all win.

Like Ginger Rogers, she does everything the men do except she does it going backwards and in heels!

Adam Taylor ABC

( Editor note: Solo is a soccer goalkeeper who has been on the
USA women's soccer team since 2000.  Whether or not she plays soccer in heels or not is probably subject to debate, but her news/media coverage has spiked again since the Olympics have surfaced. USA's exciting win over Japan to win the Gold in London shows how the Americans have maintained a strong, exciting and successful program in a sport that has had European domination in past years. The American women won the vast majority of Team USA's medals in the 2012 Olympics. WE approve of this. What we'd like to see is increased coverage of all women's sports on a regular basis. We're doing our part.)

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WOMEN’S OLYMPIC BOXING

Tickets to the women’s boxing matches were reported to be almost as difficult as those for women’s beach volleyball.   The unveiling of the women’s tournament received enthusiastic reviews from fans, boxers and Olympic officials who loved the sold-out crowds and the emergence of new heroines.  US teenager and Gold Medal winner, Claressa Shields

Patrick Semansky AP Photo

drew attention by answering an interview question by answering,  “I just like to hit people”.

(Sandy Walker is a featured columnist for CARDINAL COUPLE and you can watch her sort out the laundry each Tuesday here at the site, in addition to other small loads she'll be handling throughout the upcoming UofL sports seasons. She's a favorite of Timmy the Intern...that is scary.)
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