Henk van de Goor's Bloggers@large

With the 2008 summer Olympics just a few months away, protests against the games taking place in China gain momentum. It's no secret that China doesn't care that much for human rights as has been proved many times by Human Rights watch organizations. The way China handles the problems in Tibet is just disgusting. The Chinese authorities promised the IOC and the international community real improvements in human rights in order to win the 2008 Olympics for Beijing back in 2001. Off course they did not keep their promises.

There are many people that state that you should not mix politics and sports, but I think that is a load of crap. If Iran was hosting the games I am 100% sure that most countries would boycott the games. But as usual it's all about money and power: China is a super-power and an important investor in the US. Heck; if it wasn't for China, the USA would have been bankrupt already!

The Olympic Charter says sport must be “at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” I say that all athletes should look hard and long at what is going on in China and then should decide to at least make a statement in which they speak up in favor of those dissidents and in favor of democracy.

Anyway: if you like to make a statement of your own, you can sign these two cyber-petitions to let the Chinese government know what you think of their politics:

Boycott of opening ceremony of 2008 Beijing Olympic Games
Action on human rights before 2008 Beijing Olympics

If there is just one thing dominating the media in Europe right now, it's all the scandals surrounding this years Tour de France. It just seems that in this day and age in any competetive mult-million dollar sport cannot do without doping. Even though everyone agrees its bad sportsmanship to use doing as it takes away the equality of opportunity of athletes. It is almost the same as with cheating in videogames; there is nothing more annoying (and I can say this from my own experience as an avid gameplayer). So why is it impossible to ban doping? I guess the biggest reason is that there is money to be made. And people do everything for money. So the best thing for sports would be if no money was involved and it was just about spotsmanship in the first place. But believing in that would be like believing in Santa Claus I guess... (oops did I burst your bubble there?)..

Anyway, it is funny how grown men come up with the stupidiest excuses to explain a positive test for doping. The Canadian channel CBC has come up with a funny Top 10 Doping Excuses:
Continue reading "All doped up" »

Revenge! As I wrote earlier, we lost on Friday just with a mere 11-10 from Cuba. But today was payback day. At first it looked rather grim. After three innings we were looking at 6 - 0 and the Dutch team was nowhere close to how they played on Friday. But then in that same inning we finally scored and got into the game with a whopping 5 points. The Cubans made a few errors and after scoring 2 points in the 4th inning at we didn't let go. And got to a 6 - 8 score in the 6th inning and another in the 7th! It was a hell of a match and the Cubans sure can play, but in the end we made less mistakes. And with a nice 3 strikes out, our pitcher finished the match at 6 - 9!

Party!

What a match, what a party! Last night I went to the Haarlemse Honkbalweek ("Harlem Baseball Week") together with my friend Sander to watch Cuba - Netherlands. Sander and I have known each other since highschool and we always liked baseball but both of us haven't taken any time to watch matches. I think the last time we both watched a live match together was in New York (NY Yankess vs NY Metz). However, my collegue Sebastiaan is a big baseball fan and in fact played baseball on a semi-professional level for years here in Holland. His father-in-law happens to sponsor the event so we were lucky enough to get some tickets from him for Friday's match and the finals on Sunday.

We had a blast watching Cuba - Netherlands. The weather was great, people where enjoying themselves and it was a hell of a match: a thriller that everyone considered to be as exciting as a final match. Holland was playing very good and the eight inning ended in a 10-10 score. But with two out and two strikes in the 9th inning the Cubans won 11-10 when Cuban player Urgelles scored. Cuba is now leading the tournament and will play in the finals on Sunday (which we are going to see as I mentioned). Now, if Holland wins from the USA tonight, we will see a re-match of Cuba - Netherlands! That would be a big treat!

(You can listen and see the matches live if you want: Honkbalweek webcam & live radio).

Let's play ball