Caster Semenya To Tackle 1500m As Well

The London Olympics will be taking place next summer, and 2009 800m world champion Caster Semenya of South Africa has decided she will attempt to go for the gold in the 1500m as well.

"I'm going for my second successive gold medal in Daegu in August," she said to the Guardian. "This will also be part of my preparations for the 2012 London Olympics. I'm looking forward to my first Olympics and the plan is to include the 1500 meters."

She's prepping for the 2011 World Championships by  not only running races in her homeland, but an upcoming May 28 event in Dakar, Senegal and the Nike Prefontaine Classic in Eugene, OR on June 4.  

The Nike Prefontaine event will be a major test as to whether Semenya is close to being back to her championship level form that shocked the world in Berlin.       

The 2011  IAAF World Championships will be held in Daegu, Korea from August 27-September 4.   I'm  hoping that after all the unnecessary drama she was put through she not only wins gold at Daegu, but I hope she does the same next summer in London as well.

Maya Goes To Minnesota

Lost in the blizzard of news I've been covering this month was the WNBA draft.   Now that they've hired a new president for the league, I'm somewhat ready to forgive them for screwing my Comets since Donna Orender resigned in December.

And who was the WNBA's overall number one pick in the draft.   Give you one guess who it was, and UConn Huskie fans can probably tell you.

Yep, it was UConn's Maya Moore, .who will be spending her WNBA summers when she's not playing for Team USA next summer in London playing for the Minnesota Lynx.

Renee, Can You Say Threepeat?

It may be your game, and Canada has won the International Ice Hockey Federation women's title nine times, but when it comes to what have you done lately in the IIHF world championships, that trophy has stayed on our side of the border since 2008.

The 13th annual women's International Ice Hockey Federation championship concluded today with a overtime goal by Hilary Knight to secure a hard fought 3-2 Team USA win over Team Canada. for our third straight IIHF women's world title and fourth overall.

USA! USA! USA! 

And to underscore our growing star spangled superiority in 'your game', peep the most recent IIHF Women's world hockey rankings:   

The top ten of the World Ranking is as follows:
1 USA 2970
2 CAN 2930
3 FIN 2800
4 SWE 2700
5 RUS 2670
6 SUI 2620
7 KAZ 2475
8 SVK 2470
9 CHN 2385
10 GER 2355


Don't worry, you'll get another chance to take that title away from us next year.    And Sochi is only three years from now.

Team USA Women vs Team Canada For 2011 World Championship Gold

There will be two familiar foes skating against each other for the 2011 Women's World Ice Hockey Championship in Switzerland on Monday night.. (1 PM CDT) 

The defending back to back world champions Team USA got off to a slow start in their semifinal rematch with Russia and gave up an early goal, but unleashed 33 first period shots to erase that early deficit and take a 2-1 lead over the upset minded Russians at the end of the first period.  Team USA continued to show off their offensive firepower as they advance with a 5-1 win and get a shot at a Women's World Ice Hockey Championship threepeat    .

Team USA won the previous IIHF Women's titles in 2008 and 2009.

Meanwhile in the Canada-Finland semifinal rematch with Finland the good news was Finnish goaltender Noora Raty stopped 74 Canuck shots.    Unfortunately for them four got past her to propel Team Canada to a 4-1 victory and another clash for women's hockey supremacy between Team USA and Team Canada..

The Finns and Russians will battle each other for the bronze medal on Monday night .

USA! USA! USA!

Canada's going down on Monday!
 

Hey Renee, Canada's Going Down In The 2011 IIHF Women's Ice Hockey Championships

Was flipping through the various cable channels a few nights ago when I stumbled upon the third period of the USA-Sweden match in the IIHF women's hockey tournament.     Had forgotten the tournament was happening this month in Zürich, Switzerland.and started on April 16.

Don't care if it is 'your game', in this tournament Team USA are the two time defending champs and so far are playing like it.

Team USA was in Group A in the preliminary round and knocked off Slovakia 5-0, Russia 13-1 and Sweden in the aforementioned match 9-1 to win their group and get the bye to the semifinals.

Your Canadian women were in Group B, and beat the host Swiss 12-0, Kazakhstan 7-0 and Finland 2-0  to win their group and also earn a bye into the semis.

The semifinals happening today are group play rematches.  Canada plays the Finns while we get the Russians with the winners going to the gold medal match.

The semifinal losers will play for the bronze.medal. 

But you know who we want in the gold medal match and it'll be on like Donkey Kong again.

USA! USA! USA!.

Texas A&M Wins 2011 NCAA Women's B-Ball Title

Danielle Adams prophetically called it in a Thursday night YouTube video, then dropped 30 points to ensure her prediction came true as the Texas A&M Aggies won the 2011 NCAA women's title over Notre Dame 76-70.

With the win Texas A&M ended the best season in school history with a 33-5 record and became the fourth Texas based school after Texas (1986), Texas Tech (1993) and Baylor (2005) to bring an NCAA women's basketball title back to the Lone Star State

Yes people, we do play sports other than football and spring football here.

After last night's bricklaying convention at Reliant Stadium, it was nice to see a game where people actually hit midrange jumpers and play defense.  Both teams played hard with Skylar Diggins dropping 23 points for the Irish but a clutch Tyra White three pointer would swell the Aggie lead to 73-68.  A defensive stop by the Aggies on the next Notre Dame possession ensured that the NCAA championship trophy would be coming back to Texas.     

In addition Aggie coach Gary Blair made a little history as well.   He becomes the oldest coach at age 65 to snag an NCAA women's title.


They're probably still partying in Bryan-College Station right now and at Aggieland.

Whoop!   Congratulations to the Texas A&M Aggies.

Texas A&M Aggies Playing In NCAA Women's Title Game

Had to show some love to my Texas A&M family as their lady ballers are playing in tonight's NCAA women's title game in Indianapolis.

As they've made this run through the season I've smiled at times.   It goes back to my recent speaking engagement at Aggieland a few months ago and a conversation I was having with several of the female students about women's basketball.

One student decried the sexist way it was promoted, and to emphasize her point she pulled up the Aggies women's basketball website and used as Exhibit A the glammed up photo of the 2010-11 Aggie women's team on the front page, then compared it to the men's squad. 

Was a nice photo, but back to the story.

The Aggies are in their first NCAA Final Four and NCAA Championship game, and they want to complete their mission of bringing the title back to the Lone Star State.


Danielle Adams did say in a YouTube video posted after the Aggies arrival in Indy Thursday night "We're winning it all right here,"  alluding to the fact this was the school's first women's Final Four appearance.

So far so good.


The Aggies knocked off their season long nemesis in Brittney Griner and the Baylor Lady Bears in the Dallas Regional final after three frustrating losses to them in Big 12 play and in the Big 12 tournament championship game.   Despite being a number two seed in the Dallas Region, it was considered an upset when they beat the Ogwumike sisters (ahem from Houston) powered Spokane Region champ Stanford 63-62 in a Sunday night thriller.

Now they take on the 'home' team in Notre Dame, who had a similar frustrating situation with UConn.   To set up that fourth meeting with Maya Moore and the Huskies, they had to go through number one seeded Tennessee in the Dayton Region final.

South Bend, IN homegirl Skylar Diggins lit up UConn for 28 points to not only avenge their three straight losses this season to the Huskies, but ended their bid for a threepeat with a 72-63 thumping on home state soil..


It's shaping up to be an interesting matchup between the Aggies and the Fighting Irish, and y'all know who I'm rooting for.


Gig 'em!