athlete

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Masks: a Goalie's Power Play
 Masks: a Goalie's Power Play 
SLIDESHOW

Masks: a Goalie's Power Play

Players spend top dollar expressing themselves on gear

(Newser) - Unlike their cookie-cutter colleagues in other sports, NHL goalies wear their hearts on their faces, the Washington Post reports in a retrospective celebrating the 50th birthday of a netminder's best friend—the goalie mask. Players take great pride in personalizing them, sometimes spending $1,000 on images of prizefighters, dead...

Usain Bolt Crashes Gift Car, Walks Away

Bolt has only minor scratches

(Newser) - Olympic gold medalist Usain Bolt walked away from a car accident in Jamaica with no apparent injuries except a thorn in his foot. The world champion sprinter crashed his BMW M3—a gift from sponsor Puma for his performance in Beijing—after speeding down a wet highway, the Guardian reports....

Tiger Returns to Win at Bay Hill

'God, it felt good,' he says

(Newser) - The clutch shots, the late charge, an electric birdie putt on the 18th hole at Bay Hill. Tiger Woods is back. With a final putt everyone knew he was going to make, Woods nailed a 15-footer to win the Arnold Palmer Invitational for his first victory since returning from knee...

Sharapova 'Excited' to Return to Tennis

Grand Slam champion will join Elena Vesnina for doubles

(Newser) - Maria Sharapova has recovered from an acute shoulder injury that sidelined her for six months and is returning to tennis this week, CNN reports. Sharapova will play doubles with Elena Vesnina at the ATP-WTA tournament this week in Indian Wells. "I am excited to be playing competitive tennis again,...

Smiling, Frowning Is Hardwired Into Genes: Study

Blind, sighted athletes adopted similar expressions in victory and defeat

(Newser) - Facial expressions from smiling to sneering are dictated by human genes that all of us share, a new study suggests. Researchers examined the facial expressions on thousands of photographs of blind and sighted athletes at the 2004 Athens Paralympic Games and the 2004 Athens Olympic Games. They discovered that no...

Colleges Drop SAT Bar for Jocks

Athletes score 220 points lower on SAT than average classmate

(Newser) - Though athletes have long enjoyed a break on college admissions, new numbers on how far they lag behind other students on SAT scores have raised concerns of fairness. Nationwide, football jocks average 220 points lower on the SAT than their classmates at 54 universities studied by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Basketball...

'Jocks Only' Tutoring Centers Irk Others on Campus

Critics say investing in flashy, athletes-only centers is unfair to other students

(Newser) - Resentment is building as college athletic tutoring centers nationwide get bigger and flashier, the Chicago Tribune reports. Critics say that the multi-million-dollar, athletes-only centers should be open to all. Some suggest that, since the centers are generally funded and run by the athletic department, they create a conflict of interest;...

Gunmen Fire Bullets Into Sprinter's Leg

USC runner goes under knife after Halloween drive-by

(Newser) - A University of Southern California sprinter was recovering today after being shot in the leg three times after leaving a Halloween party, the AP reports. Bryshon Nellum, 19, was hospitalized in stable condition following the shooting at 2 a.m. yesterday, police Officer Sam Park said. Nellum had attended a...

US Olympic Medalist Details Sex Abuse
US Olympic Medalist Details Sex Abuse

US Olympic Medalist Details Sex Abuse

Swimmer Hoelzer goes public in hopes of helping other victims

(Newser) - Olympic medalist Margaret Hoelzer was sexually abused, she tells the AP in the hopes of helping other victims. The abuse by the friend of a father started when she was 5 years old, the swimmer says, and did not stop until the family moved 2 years later. The abuser was...

China's Gold Rush Pays Off Nicely for Athletes
China's Gold Rush
Pays Off Nicely for Athletes
Olympics

China's Gold Rush Pays Off Nicely for Athletes

Government, corporations give athletes big bucks on top of Olympic glory

(Newser) - Decades ago, bringing glory to the motherland would have been the sole reward for victorious Chinese Olympians. The glory is still there—plenty of it, as China leads the gold medal table—but champions can now expect an average reward of $300,000 in cash and bonuses, even before corporate...

An Olympic Medal, but Then What?

Many athletes experience a vacuum when they withdraw competition

(Newser) - When Olympic careers end, many athletes endure emotional stress or cope with the comedown by turning to drugs, the New York Times reports. Few can expect the multi-million-dollar endorsement deals that await Michael Phelps, and many fail to redirect their focus. The fix, says one sports psychologist, is to identify...

Phelps' Victory Dance: It's Evolutionary
 Phelps'
 Victory Dance:
 It's Evolutionary
OLYMPICS

Phelps' Victory Dance: It's Evolutionary

All primates share body language of pride, shame: researchers

(Newser) - The classic chest-out, arms-outstretched victory dance Olympic champ Michael Phelps performed after Sunday's 4-x-100 relay final is older than humanity, the LA Times reports. The same display of pride is instinctive to all primates, researchers say, and the body language of victory and defeat is rooted in the age-old need...

10 Buzz-Worthy Olympians
 10 Buzz-Worthy Olympians
OLYMPICS

10 Buzz-Worthy Olympians

Phelps, Bolt, Xiang take sport's center stage

(Newser) - Competing in 20 Olympic events and going for a record eight gold medals, American swimming phenom Michael Phelps is first off the block in the BBC's list of 10 to watch in Beijing. Here are some of the others:
  • Natalie du Toit: This South African swimmer and Paralympic gold-medalist will
...

Some Runners Leave a Cloud of More Than Dust

Poll finds serious athletes may still light up—on the sly

(Newser) - Though many athletes prefer to keep it hush-hush, a number of devout runners are also devout smokers. The LA Times takes a look at the unlikely phenomenon, moved to investigate by a recent Runner’s World poll which found that 2% of responders smoked without their running friends’ knowledge, while...

Top 100 Olympians to Watch
 Top 100 Olympians to Watch

Top 100 Olympians to Watch

Galaxy of stars aims to seize golden opportunities in Beijing

(Newser) - With the Beijing Olympics right around the corner, Time lists the top 100 athletes to watch. A sampling of stars gunning for gold, from the court to the pool to the track:
  • LeBron James, basketball: This determined athlete's golden guarantee is raising hopes for the US team, which has lost
...

Athletes Got Nothin' on Rock 'n Roll Drummers

Sports scientists say they're like Olympians

(Newser) - Sure, the lead singer gets all the attention, but how about a little respect for the drummer? Sports scientists are taking up the cause with a new study that says the rockers are as fit as Olympic athletes, the Times of London reports. The best of them lose 2 quarts...

Chinese Athletes Destitute After Glory Days

80% are jobless, injured, or impoverished

(Newser) - Zhao Yonghua was a Chinese national skiing champion and won several gold medals. But now, at 31, she is bedridden from diabetes, exacerbated by overtraining. With no hope of recovery or employment, the former star finally had to sell one of her gold medals to raise money for treatment. As...

Olympians Fearful of Chinese Food Chemicals

Athletes worried about mystery additives plan to pack their own food

(Newser) - In addition to concerns about air quality in Beijing this August, many Olympic athletes are worried about contaminants and chemicals in the food, ABC News reports. With many of China's agricultural products boosted by growth stimulants, or steroids, or amped by antibiotics, athletes are particularly concerned that they might unwittingly...

India's Growing Riches Buoy Olympic Hopes

Billionaire bankrolls effort to increase medal haul in 2012

(Newser) - India is not a nation known for its Olympic prowess—it's never even won more than two medals in one Games—but Indian billionaire Lakshmi Mittal wants to change all that, the Christian Science Monitor reports. The Mittal Champions Trust is spending millions to train and prepare India's elite—often...

How to Be an Olympic Athlete
 How to Be an Olympic Athlete 

How to Be an Olympic Athlete

Pointers on what it takes to go for the gold

(Newser) - Before you clear a spot on the mantle for that gold medal, you may need a quick reality check: Forbes runs down the numbers behind the blood, sweat, and tears of an Olympic athlete's training.
  1. Training: 4 to 8 years to maximize lung capacity and heart strength
  2. Sessions: up to
...

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