excellent article about the history of the torch<\/a> in Monday\u2019s New York Times. Later this month, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., will also join in the Olympic celebration with an exhibit titled, \u201cNazi Olympics: Berlin 1936.\u201d<\/p>\nHitler\u2019s torch made its way from Greece through Eastern Europe and Vienna tracing out a path that Hitler\u2019s army would soon take. In 2008, China sent the torch through Taiwan so that everyone is clear that China considers Taiwan to be its property rather than an independent sovereign nation.<\/p>\n
You can see why the torch ceremony brings out the protesters but there are more creative ways of expressing opposition to this sometimes nationalistic procession posing as a symbol of peace. During the runup to the 1956 Olympics in Australia, the Times article says, a student took a chair leg and an empty plum-pudding tin and made his own torch. He stuffed a pair of underwear into his torch, lit the underwear, and presented it to the Mayor of Sydney. Those Aussies, they just can\u2019t help being performance artists.<\/p>\n
Fed\u2019s New Coach<\/b><\/p>\n
It\u2019s time for musical chairs – in this case, recycled tennis coaches. Roger Federer<\/b> has chosen Jose Higueras<\/b> as his new coach and, really, how much choice was there?<\/p>\n
Mats Wilander<\/b> won the French Open more than a few times and he would have been a good choice if he hadn\u2019t questioned Federer\u2019s manhood after Federer refused to attack the net in his 2006 French Open final loss to Rafael Nadal<\/b>. Larry Stefanki<\/b> is otherwise employed though so is Higueras \u2013 he coaches Robby Ginepri<\/b> who must feel just a little bit less important at the moment. Darren Cahill<\/b> is a very gracious and proper guy but he doesn\u2019t seem to wander too far from Las Vegas. Brad Gilbert<\/b> is anything but gracious and proper. Where are the young, up and coming coaches? Anyone have any suggestions?<\/p>\n
I must say I\u2019m a bit puzzled by the choice of Higueras. When Pete Sampras<\/b> was faltering and went winless at the slams for a two year period before finally winning his last slam, he worked with Higueras for a while. I remember an interview with Pete just after he\u2019d played a match and just before he took off for the practice court. That\u2019s right, the practice court, and it was after a match, not before. Pete admitted at the time that this was not something he was used to.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what it\u2019s like working with Higueras and that seems like the last thing Federer needs at the moment. Evidently Federer stopped off at the Mayo Clinic on his way home after the Indian Wells-Miami Master Series swing. Maybe he was just checking to make sure he really is over his bout of mononucleosis but even if he is, surely overwork can\u2019t be a good thing.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m also puzzled by Federer\u2019s choice to play Estoril considering that the three clay court Masters Series events will be squeezed into four weeks this year and the first one starts next Monday. He plays very few optional events so he could be piling up some easy points to pad his lead over Nadal and I wonder if he\u2019ll find a way to opt out of the middle Masters Series event in Rome so that he\u2019ll be fresh for Hamburg. By that time Nadal will be even more exhausted than he was last year when Federer beat him. Nadal is playing his home tournament in Barcelona and that gives him no weeks off between Monte Carlo and Hamburg.<\/p>\n
Just one more reason that Nadal is likely to lose to someone this clay court season even if it\u2019s not Federer. And I\u2019m guessing it won\u2019t be Federer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
What are the origins on the Olympic torch and what is Roger Federer in for with his new coach? Torch Songs In what year did the Olympic torch make its first journey from Olympia to the site of the Olympic games as it still does today? If your first guess was a date in ancient […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ninarota.com\/tennis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}