Another Wolverine Makes the Olympics
Excellent. I couldn't care less about the Summer Olympics but I follow participants tied to Michigan. So technically I could care less but that's neither here nor there
you do understand the Caring Continuum. Carry on...
If this was Kentucky Basketball, we'd have no trouble get publicity. John Calapari would be spinning these athletes around in front of cameras left and right.
Fuck yourself.
There are three more former Michigan track athletes on Team Canada... Nicole Forrester, Nate Brannan, and Nicole Edwards-Sifuentes.
Fingers crossed for Mikulak... some amazingly bad luck yesterday/today.
Injured his ankle in the last event of the prelims, and sat out all of the final round events today except the pommel horse...
The article linked above has the video of three of Sam's routines in prelims, including the NBC commentary which gives you a good idea of how well he's being received. The vault landing at the very end of his competition isn't shown, but it aggravated one of the ankles he broke a year ago. Despite the landing, his still got a great score because of the difficulty and execution. But that was yesterday.
He still has a chance to make the Olympic team based on the selection committee's deliberations. Only the top two men were named to the team today, with the rest being named during the women's finals tomorrow. There was a big gap in scores between 2nd and 4th place, where Sam would have been (he was only about a point behind the top two as of yesterday), and since he had the highest all-around score in prelims with great consistency continuing from the nationals, many think he should be named. But there's no guarantee considering how they have to shape a winning team with the new smaller team size. If they needed a third all-around competitor, which they don't, I think he'd be their first choice. Here's hoping.
He's good at it, they need it, he's a shoo-in.
Geena Gall (800) is also headed to London.
Anna Pierce (nee Willard) and her crazy hair run tomorrow in the 1500 final. Best of luck to her and all the Wolverines who are headed to London!
Horford practiced with the team but is not on the roster. Also, the Dominican Republic team hasn't yet qualified for the Olympics. If they do, Josh Asselin might be another Wolverine Olympian if he's included on their final roster. See Ex-Michigan basketball forward Josh Asselin makes Dominican Republic national team.
I'm writing a diary (I think, if the charts aren't any good it will be a board post) about the USTAF Olympic Trials, breaking down Olympians by school and conference and comparing the strength of programs/conferences. Sneak peak for the Big Ten Men:
Evan Jager, 3000m Steeplechase, Wisconsin
Matt Tegenkamp, 5000m Run, Wisconsin
Jeff Porter, 110m Hurdles, Michigan
As you can tell, this won't be ending too well for the B1G. Then again, I still have the women to match names and schools, and having even one Olympian is a major honor.
If you're going to do it, I recommend putting it in a diary. It's way too much work to relegate it to the board.
so I am inclined to go diary, but as of right now I basically have a list of names and schools. We'll see what I can do with Excel and some thought about how to break it down in an interesting manner, hopefully it ends as something I want archived as a diary.
Edit: It's a diary, and it's up. Looking for suggestions on any possible improvements or ways to manipulate data for clearer analysis from anyone who sees this.
Big Blue taking over the world...
IBM?
I suppose they did win the Super Bowl...but I wouldn't call that taking over the world. Also, don't know what it has to do with this thread.
Love to see Michigan getting it in.
Do we have the most athletes of any college?
up in the diary page (shameless self-plug, but it seems useful).
http://mgoblog.com/diaries/usatf-olympic-trials-and-ncaa-conference-aff…
Canadian women's basketball team qualified, so that means Krista Phillips gets added to the list.