On the cusp of a better world for sports

We’re sitting on the cusp of something very big here.

No, not Hidiki Matsui’s porn collection. I’m talking about a new, more equal frontier of athletics.

Yesterday, The Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled that amputee sprinter Oscar Pistorius can race in the Olympics, overturning an earlier ruling that said his prosthetic legs gave him an unfair advantage.

This latest, and perhaps one most important, development shows a trend that sports is fast becoming more and more equal, just as society is.

We now live in an age where gay marriage is legal in California; where both a black man and a woman have a shot at being elected as President; where everybody has a chance to compete.

A little over a month ago, Danica Patrick won her first race, the Indy Japan 300, marking the first time that race has been won by a woman – and meaning that Patrick means business.

No longer a curiosity or an also-ran, Patrick is even being considered a favorite now for the Indy 500. Patrick, the driver whose small frame was considered an unfair advantage, could win one of the most famous races in the world.

Funny thing, those unfair advantages. Where else in the world would your gender, or the amount of leg you have, be considered not just unfair, but also an advantage.

When Patrick first started to race, some suggested that she race with weighed plates – making her car heavier then anybody else’s – to make the races fairer. After her win, one newspaper asked “is it time to start taking her seriously as a driver?”
Never mind that she had been racing in the IRL since 2005 and was named rookie of the year, right? She was just a curiosity on four wheels.

It’s not a lot different for Pistorius, either. Like Patrick, it’s easy to see him as a novelty, the racer who runs on fiberglass blades. But there’s something else, too. Like Patrick, he also has an overlooked advantage.

Determination. Patrick did not give up racing, even though she did not win a race in her first two seasons. She refused to let herself be put in the same class as other curiosities as Manon Rheaume or Amy Williams.

Pistorius did not give up when the Internation Association of Athletics Federations ruled he could not race. He fought that decision, right up to the highest court in sport, where he won his appeal.

It’s hard to see many of today’s more successful athletes to have the same kind of determination. If a basketball player doesn’t like his college coach, he can transfer to another school. If a hockey player doesn’t like his team, he can force a trade.

If they feel they’ve been slighted, they can just complain about it to the media or on their blog.

Instead, both Patrick and Pistorius both hung in and each ended up winning the respect they should have had all along.

And sport is better for it.

Barbaro makes a belated comeback

What a sign it is that a horse – not just any horse, mind you, but Barbaro, the horse that shattered it’s leg some two, maybe three years ago – has become a symbol of the right to die movement.

That’s right, no longer is there just a right to life movement, but also a right to die movement (I fully expect for there to be a right-to-feel-passive or a right to wear-mauve movement to spring up any day now).

For those of who you may have missed this story, Barbaro – a horse that died over a year ago – is set to be immortalized as a statue. Butt it’s not at the track where he shattered his leg, nor any home of his victories or even his stable.

No, it’s in New York’s Central Park.

And it’s not galloping mightily in the wind, nor in any pose that Red Smith would have dreamed up.

It’s lying in it’s back, legs in the air, belly draped with his saddle cloth (that’s how you can tell it’s Barbaro). This apparently represents how it couldn’t walk after it broke it’s legs and is a fitting tribute to the right-to-die movement.

Okay, so I get the concept. Don’t let animals live in some kind of vegetative state for years, like Terri Shaivo, existing only to make money. But to make it statue of Barbaro?

But when I think of things that should be euthanized, Barbaro is far from the front of the list, behind even Kim Jong Ill, Rev. Fred Phelps and Bob Cole.

Come on, Barbaro’s just a horse. Well, just was a horse, anyway.

But don’t let that get in the way of sculptor Daniel Edwards’ message. He’s the same guy who has sculpted such other modern wonders as Paris Hilton, dead on a autopsy table (complete with removable organs!) and Britney Spears giving birth (comes with a bearskin rug!).

But come on, Barbaro? The same horse that people sent flowers, apples and get-well cards to? How did a horse, inexplicably loved by tens of thousands, become a symbol of the right to die?

"We believe a memorial dedicated to the Right to Die will encourage horse owners to forego their own self-interests and act mercifully on behalf of their suffering horse," said Leo Kesting Gallery co-director, John Leo. "If Barbaro has taught us anything, it is that horses deserve our compassion first."

I still don’t get it. Had Barbaro lived – he was put down, after all, almost making him a martyr, I suppose – he would have gone to stud. You know, just hanging around the farm, occasionally mating with other horses, maybe getting visitors from the city once in a while.

And that’s supposed to be a fate worse then death?

Sounds like the afterlife to me.