Sports | VivirLatino

Archive for the ‘Sports’ Category

FIFA Announces Player of the Year Nominations

11:23 am By Maegan La Mala · Latin America| Spain| Sports · Comments Off

12 Dec 2008

Futbol is the only sport la Mala half ass follows.Today FIFA announced the finalists for the 2008 World Player and FIFA Women’s World Player awards, to be handed out here on January 12, 2009 and some of the top nominees are from Latin America.

The male nominees are Kaka (Brazil), Lionel Messi (Argentina), Cristiano Ronaldo (Portugal), Fernando Torres (Spain), and Xavi (Spain).

Nadine Angerer (Germany), Cristiane (Brazil), Marta (Brazil), Birgit Prinz (Germany) and Kelly Smith (England) will contest the women’s award.

Last year Kaka won the award and yes his name still makes me laugh as if I were a 13 year old.

Via / France 24

Pacquiao Beats the Golden Boy De la Hoya

8:44 am By Maegan La Mala · Music| Sports| race · 1 Comment

7 Dec 2008

Last night Filipino boxer Manny Pacquiao beat the Mexican American Golden Boy Oscar de la Hoya. In fact, it’s being said Pacquiao beat De la Hoya into retirement, even though no official announcement has been made.

It was clear by the third round that De La Hoya was going to need a miracle to reverse the pummeling he was taking.

Pacquiao displayed every punch in the arsenal, raking the Golden Boy with straight lefts that nearly closed De La Hoya’s left eye and stunning him with hooks, jabs and uppercuts.

It was so savage of a beating that it was hard not to feel sorry for De La Hoya. At the end of the bout, a thoroughly beaten De La Hoya trudged across the ring and met his one-time trainer, Freddie Roach.

“You’re right,” De La Hoya said to Roach, who had prepared Pacquiao brilliantly. “I don’t have it any more.”

So Much For Everyone Loving a Hockey Mom

2:00 pm By Maegan La Mala · Sports| US Presidential Race 2008 · Comments Off

13 Oct 2008

Peep the people booing, thumbs down, and Obama signs in the background. I feel bad for the Palin kids pero not for Sarah Palin. I mean did she seriously think peeps would give her a warm welcome? This ain’t no McCain rally.

Via / Culture Kitchen

Paralympics Begin in Beijing

12:40 pm By Jennifer Woodard Maderazo · Beijing Summer Olympics| Sports · Comments Off

8 Sep 2008

Like most U.S. citizens, you probably weren’t aware that the Paralympics began this past Saturday in Beijing, China. What are the Paralympics? Originally billed as the “Parallel Olympics” to signify the fact that they ran “parallel” to the Olympics, the Paralympics is a two week long sporting event that centers disabled athletes. Modifications are made in different sports to accommodate the needs of physically, mentally and learning disabled athletes, including lowering nets in volleyball, and using bells to guide blind athletes.

Cuban Athlete Ousted for Kicking Referee

24 Aug 2008

Taekwondo isn’t a sport for the faint of heart, but the violence needs to be kept in the ring and the kicks directed at your opponent. But Cuban martial artist Ángel Matos apparently doesn’t see it that way. When Matos was down for count during yesterday’s finals match due to an injury, the ref called time, giving the win to opponent Arman Chilmanov of Kazakhstan. As Chilmanov celebrated jumping up and down, Matos jumped up himself and began screaming at the referee. His trainer joined in in the belaboring of the ref. Then the stadium went still as Matos delivered a huge kick to the referee’s unexpecting face.

Both Matos and his trainer, Leudis González, have been banned from ever participating in the Olympics again as a result of the attack. According to Spain’s El País, González insists that Kazakhstan “bought” the judges, bribing them into ruling in favor of their team.

Via / El País

Image via Reuters/El Pais

U.S. Defeats Spain for Basketball Gold, Argentina Takes Bronze

6:07 am By Maegan La Mala · Argentina| Beijing Summer Olympics| Spain| Sports| World · Comments Off

24 Aug 2008

Not too many of us will have had the energy to stay up all night to watch the game, but I’m here to tell you that the U.S. men’s Olympic team was unstoppable in the final match-up with current world champion, Spain. I was only able to catch the last quarter, and it was a super tight game. Spain and the U.S. were both at the top of their game (Spain was down an average of only 6 points) and it was disputable whether or not The Dream Team would actually win this one up until about 2 minutes before the final buzzer. In the end, the stars of the NBA triumphed over the Spaniards 118-107.

Spanish media is calling Spain’s loss a win, referring to the game as “the most dignified defeat” and “a golden silver medal”, given the fact that they were so very close to winning against the world’s most storied basketball team.

Argentina is also celebrating its triumph as bronze medal winners in basketball, stepping up to the podium in third place. An excellent representation for Latin America in one of the Olympics’ most watched sports.

Via / El Pais

Image via El Mundo

Latino Henry Cejudo Gets Olympic Gold, Gets Stereotyped

4:04 pm By Maegan La Mala · Sports| mexico| race| society · 3 Comments

19 Aug 2008

Latino wrestler Henry Cejudo took home the gold for the U.S. in men’s freestyle wrestling in a dynamic win today over opponent Tomohiro Matsunaga.

According to The L.A. Times, Cejudo, the son of undocumented immigrants, invoked his Mexican heritage as he spoke about his win:

“This is cool. Coming out of a Mexican American background, it feels good to represent the U.S.,” said Cejudo, whowasborn in Los Angeles. “Not too many Mexicans get the chance to do that.”

Cejudo’s parents divorced when he was 4 and he saw his father, Jorge, only one more time before he died in Mexico City. But his mother, Nelly Rico, raised a family of six children on her own, bouncing from low-paying jobs in California to New Mexico and Arizona, where the family sometimes slept four to a bed.

It’s a nice story, indeed. But what I personally don’t care for is the way his win is billed as “The American Dream”, supported comments from people who know him make it seem like that it’s a miracle he didn’t turn out to be a criminal in light of his family background. In fact, that’s exactly what they imply:

“He has done an unbelievable job coming from the environment that he came from,” his coach, Terry Brands, said. “Could be in prison. Could be a drug runner. Could be this, could be that. He’s done an unbelievable job of not being a victim.

Is this because he comes from a situation of adversity or because he comes from a situation of adversity and he’s brown? Way to taint an otherwise uplifting story…

Via / LA Times

Argentina’s Olympic Women’s Soccer Team Gets on the Hate Bandwagon

11:32 am By Maegan La Mala · Argentina| Beijing Summer Olympics| China| Sports| race · 3 Comments

19 Aug 2008

When the Spanish sports teams did their offensive eye posing, it was easy to dismiss the racism as coming from Europeans with their own history of conquest. But now the women’s Olympic soccer team from Argentina has been caught doing the same exact “slant-eye” pose, we have to wonder just what the hell is going on that makes people think that this is ok?

Besides the gesture being obviously offensive, there is the dismissal that all three teams have made: that they didn’t mean to offend. Which begs the question, what exactly did they intend? To make us laugh with their antics? To get us excited about China? To reveal a deep desire to be Chinese that they all have? To show us how stupid they are?

In this case payback is a bitch, as they say because Argentina’s women lost 2-0 to China. In fact, they lost all three of their matches.

Via / Who Ate All the Pie

Spain and Chile Triumph in Men’s Tennis

7:26 am By Maegan La Mala · Chile| Spain| Sports| World · 1 Comment

18 Aug 2008

Spanish Rafa Nadal is officially the number one tennis player in the world, having swiped away the title from Swiss Roger Federer at Wimbledon a few weeks back. And he further proved his dominance this weekend as he picked up the gold at the Olympics for men’s tennis. Here he is yuckin’ up with the press with the Queen of Spain looking sporty at his side:

Rafa beat Chile’s Fernando Gonzalez, but the defeat left Chile in not such a bad spot: taking home the silver medal for men’s singles. Watching Gonzalez get his medal – the first one for Chile in these Olympics — is quite moving.

Congrats to Rafa and Fernando!

Via / YouTube

Spanish Olympic Tennis Team “Winks” in China Too

15 Aug 2008

Seriously, Spanish Olympic sports teams, cut it the f out! Now the Spanish Olympic Women’s Tennis team poses making “slant eyes” for a camera. Well actually it’s not a new pic, but one that is a few months old.

The latest photo to emerge shows Spanish women tennis players pulling the pose, apparently in anticipation of their Federation Cup match against China in April…

It was apparently taken after the team defeated Italy in the quarter-finals of the competition – the premier team contest for women tennis players – in February. Wine glasses are visible on the table in front of the party…

The photo is still visible on the official website of the Spanish Tennis Federation, where it was spotted.

The original is captioned “Estamos preparados para China”, which translates as “We are prepared for China”.

Via / The Latin Americanist

Older Entries

Newer Entries

AmeRICAN: Calle 13 is a bad luck charm brought on Puerto Rico ex-Boxing Champion Miguel Cotto a BEATING by Pac [...]

Maegan La Mala: I don't think so [...]

Maegan La Mala: I was thinking about this...how the two are connected [...]

Maegan La Mala: Well I certainly don't condone an eye for an eye politics and don't think that that kind of "justice [...]

Raymond Lee: This is an outrage, again a young gay man attacked and killed and the fact that they where gay or bi [...]

VivirLatino