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By
Cyd Zeigler
Jr.
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The heat
rolls in: Perfect weather succumbed to a
heat wave today. Temperatures were in the 90s,
the humidity was up, and the sun felt like it
was beating down on Montreal with a vengeance.
Last night was marked by several downpours,
which are also supposed to hit tonight and
tomorrow night, with the weather cooling off a
bit for Thursday. The heat made the incredibly
slow pace of many residents of Montreal a bit of
a nuisance at times. It's cute and all, but it's
kind of a pain when you want to get somewhere,
it's hot as hell, and the person in front of you
at the train station, at a stop sign, or in line
for some food has nowhere better to be.
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Spectators looking for answers: Nora
Balogh and her friend Anne (withheld her last
name) came from Ottawa to the Outgames as
spectators. While there are people watching all
of the sports (some more than others), many of
those people are other athletes. Nora and Anne
are two of the few who traveled here to have fun
and just watch some sports.
However, they've had
trouble doing so. They want to watch women
playing sports, but there are virtually no
schedules that tell you what divisions and
genders are playing at a particular time. The
fact that ballroom dancing was taking place at
the Olympic Stadium on Tuesday from 10 a.m. to 6
p.m. is very easy to find; but, to find out that
that women's A division finals were at 1:30, you
had to go to the venue and get the schedule.
This morning, Nora and Anne went to one of the
many tennis venues to watch some women's tennis.
The venue they picked happened to have only one
women's match until mid-afternoon; and that
match was forfeited early in the second set
because of an injury.
While the events
seem to be well-coordinated for the athletes,
the spectators seem to be the ones left
wandering from venue to venue hoping to stumble
upon the specific division of events they want
to see.
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Spectators
II: The
CBC chimed in about the lack of
spectators:
The first World
Outgames so far appears to have attracted more
participants than spectators. As the games for
lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered
athletes enter the third day of competition,
athletes have outnumbered the fans at many
events.
A swimming event attracted 70 spectators to the
Olympic pool, which can accommodate 2,000. Only
17 showed up to watch a women's soccer game
between Spain and the U.S. Across town at a
volleyball match, six fans cheered on Mexico and
France.
Olympic gold medal swimmer and Outgames
co-president Mark Tewksbury said Monday this is
not unusual for this level of amateur
competition.
"When I swam at the highest level of amateur
sport in Canada there were 30 people in the
stands to watch me break a world record — other
than the swimming moms and dads," Tewksbury
said.
"That's just a very common challenge of this
level as opposed to the Olympic level of amateur
sport."
Tewksbury has a
point. Spectators were few and far between at
every Gay Games I've been to and most audiences
were composed of other athletes in that sport. A
lot of people work during the day, making it
tough to get to events, and many of the gay
visitors come more for the parties than the
sports. --Jim Buzinski
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Hot guys, and hot play, at volleyball:
The hottest guys I've seen so far in Montreal
are at volleyball. The A- and BB-division
playoffs were today and, oh my lord, I could
have watched these guys all day. The quality of
play was also very high. Some of these teams
were on par with some collegiate teams. I'll
definitely be heading back there tomorrow to see
the B-division playoffs. We'll see if the lower
divisions offer as many chiseled faces and toned
bodies as the upper divisions. --CZ
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Missing the Americans at swimming: Ido
Verhagen of the Netherlands said that he's
missing the Americans at the swimming venue. The
Netherlands is doing very well (Verhagen thought
they were leading the medal count), and he
wishes the Americans were there to elevate the
competition. He said the times of both the Gay
Games and Outgames will be comparable, but
having the Americans and the international
swimmers at one event would have raised the bar
that much more.
The International
Gay and Lesbian Aquatics group had their world
championships at the Gay Games, as they always
do. But, missing so many international swimmers
who opted to go to Montreal kind of left
Verhagen sad the IGLA championships this year
really didn't include the "I."
Still, it's a strong
competition with competitive times here in
Montreal, he said. --CZ
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A Cypriot looking at Lebanon: Luke Kay,
swimming in Montreal this week, moved to Cyprus
from the United States for work a year ago. He
came to Montreal last Wednesday after seeing
first-hand the flood of Americans and other
refugees who have fled southern Lebanon. He said
the airport and seaport are overwhelmed by the
refuges, and the mood in the country is a bit
dour. Cyprus is not a Muslim country, it is 80%
Greek, according to Kay. But, the government and
Cypriot people condemn Israel for their
retaliatory attacks on Lebanon.
Kay said the gay
life in Cyprus is pretty rough. While Cyprus
decriminalized homosexuality in order to join
the European Union, the culture has not caught
up to the law. He said many gay men are
pressured by the culture and their families to
marry women, and that there is only one gay bar
on Cyprus. Kay returns to Cyprus on Monday. --CZ
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Ballroom dancing gets to me: When I was
at the swimming venue, one of the swimmers told
me I had to go to ballroom dancing, that she had
been the day before, and that it moved her to
tears. I kind of chuckled to myself at that,
thinking it couldn't possibly be as she was
painting it.
I was wrong. An hour
after I spoke with her, I was on the side of the
dance floor as a gorgeous pair from Cologne,
dressed to the nines in all white, came onto the
floor. As they started dancing to the slow, soft
music they had chosen as their introduction,
flashing under the golden lights as they passed
under them, I too started tearing up. For some
reason, all of the struggle for rights that we
have been going through around the world, and
the idea of these two women simply being caught
up in the moment together without another
thought passing through their minds, moved me.
I'm going to try to see the men's event before
the end of the week to see if two guys in
tuxedos can do what two women in dresses do for
me. --CZ
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Mat B. keeps rolling: My friend Mat
Bergman, who's staying with me in Montreal, and
who decided to join the B-division tennis
tournament about a month ago, is through to the
quarterfinals after a 7-5, 6-1 victory in the
round of 16. --CZ
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The public
speaks: From a complaint to the Edmonton
Journal -- "The Journal has nothing better to
put on the front page than a story about gays
being unhappy because Prime Minister Harper
didn't attend the World Outgames? ... The PM is
busy. Get over it."
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The good and bad of handball: I stopped
at handball today and made several observations:
1) It's actually a very athletic sport. It
involves all of the skills of basketball from
jumping to passing to cutting. I was actually
impressed with it, as it was the first time I'd
ever watched it. I still don't understand the
rules (sometimes the players dribble the ball,
sometimes they just run with it), but I enjoyed
it. 2) There are only four teams in the men's
competition: two from Paris, one from Oslo, and
one from Copenhagen. I know the sport is pretty
popular in Europe, and I was surprised there
weren't more teams. 3) The venue stunk. It was
by far the worst venue I've seen here in
Montreal. It was a college gymnasium, but it was
worse than the gymnasium in my elementary school
back home. 4) I would not want to be a goalie in
handball. The ball is flying at your head from
15 feet out, and you don’t have any protective
mask or gear. I'm assuming the goalie has a cup,
otherwise no man would do it. --CZ
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Good thing the Rock Dogs aren't here: I
had heard from a couple people that the
basketball tournament in Montreal was going to
be a joke: five teams and none of them are from
the United States. After watching one quarter of
a game between the two Paris teams, I'd say
those people are right. The Paris 2 team was OK,
in the way that Division IV high school
basketball teams in Massachusetts are OK; the
other team was just downright terrible. I would
venture to say that the Paris 1 team would have
major trouble going .500 in any high school
division of any state in the United States. It
wasn't pretty. The women's game didn't look much
better, but it did look like some of the games I
saw in Chicago. --CZ
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Finally, a signage problem: I finally got
frustrated today trying to find the bridge
venue. I went to the address where it was being
held but there wasn't a sign out front, there
weren't any volunteers in yellow shirts, and
there wasn't an information booth. I called
security to find out where I had to go: Down two
floors via a staircase, out onto another street,
down 50 yards and back inside the building. --CZ
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Is bridge a sport?: I love bridge. I've
played it since I was a freshman in college.
But, I've always scoffed at the notion that
bridge or chess or anything like that would be
considered a sport. But the athletes at the
bridge venue do consider it a sport, and its
participants athletes very worthy of gold
medals.
"It's a sport in the
sense that, in the pairs competition we're
playing 18 hours in three days," said Graham
Southgate of Belgium, who is playing pairs
bridge with Rick Prestien from Dallas. "So it
takes a lot of mental effort and concentration.
You can't lose your concentration for a second
or it could be a disaster. It's a mental sport
that requires concentration." --CZ
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Is bridge
a sport II?: Bridge is a nice game and it
takes mental concentration to play well, but so
does doing the New York Times Sunday crossword
puzzle or Suduko. But it's not a sport -- saying
so cheapens real sports, where it takes a
combination of the mental AND physical. Just
because something takes some skill doesn't make
it a sport. And poker, darts and competitive
eating aren't sports either, despite what ESPN
programmers think. --Jim Buzinski |
