The real XXX Olympic Games – sexy sports women

Maria Sharapova continued her domination of fellow Russian and 10th seed Nadia Petrova with victory in round one of the Rogers Cup in Toronto.
Former world number one Sharapova came through 6-3 6-4 for her eighth win in nine meetings with Petrova, and third this year.
Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine beat 13th seed Marion Bartoli of France 6-4 6-3.
France’s 15th seed Amelie Mauresmo was beaten 6-2 3-6 6-1 by Fransesca Schiavone of Italy.
World number 17 Samantha Stosur of Australia and Poland’s 14th seed Agnieszka Radwanska enjoyed straightforward wins, with leading names Dinara Safina and Serena and Venus Williams to play later in the week.

Maria Sharapova

Sharapova is currently ranked 49 in the world as she makes her way back after 10 months out following surgery.
The 22-year-old broke Petrova in game five as she eased through the first set and, after dropping serve at the start of the second, reeled off four games in a row.
Sharapova failed to serve out the match at 5-3 but made amends immediately by breaking back and finally clinching victory on her third match point.
“She had an opportunity to make the match 5-5 in the second and it was good that I finished it in two,” said Sharapova.
“I think we know each other’s game very well, I have a pretty solid game plan when I play her and the main thing is execution.
“If I do what I have in mind, I’m going to win the match.”
She added: “Coming back trying to get use to the situation again, you just hope you move forward and get better and better every match. That’s my goal right now.
“Obviously when I come into a tournament I want to win it but the mindset is to focus on every match.”

source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/tennis/8206406.stm

The 2010 Games will be the best covered in Winter Olympic history, judging by the overwhelming interest in a media centre for unaccredited journalists, says B.C.’s minister for the Games.

“In all, media at the centre will reach more than 500 million viewers a day,” said Mary McNeil, the provincial minister of state for the Olympics, referring to the $2.5-million government-funded B.C. International Media Centre.

The centre, with 1,300 spots, is still tiny compared to the International Broadcast Centre and the Main Media Centre for 10,000 accredited broadcast, print and Internet-based journalists. Their work at the waterfront Vancouver Convention Centre, built for nearly $900 million, is expected to attract as many as three billion worldwide television viewers.

But the centre for unaccredited journalists, which in past Olympics has been a poor sister to the official media centre, has been overwhelmed with requests and every inch of available space is booked.

More than 24 news agencies and television broadcasters are setting up in the new centre, which will temporarily take over the University of B.C.’s Sauder School of Business at Robson Square. They’ve been lured by abundant space, central location to downtown events, the provision of high-value standup camera positions and at-cost high-speed transmission facilities.

ESPN, ABC, Fox News, Associated Press TV, British Press Association and several Asian news agencies have all said they will set up newsrooms at the centre.

It will also serve as the base for reporters representing more than 400 newspapers, said McNeil.

The 2016 Summer Olympics, officially known as the Games of the XXXI Olympiad, are a major international sports and cultural festival to be celebrated in the tradition of the Olympic Games, as governed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The host city of the Games will be announced at the 121st IOC Session (which will also be the 13th Olympic Congress) to be held in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 2 October 2009. The 2016 Summer Paralympics will be held in the same city and organized by the same committee.
The bidding process for the 2016 Summer Olympic Games was officially launched on 16 May 2007. The first step for each city was to submit an initial application to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) by 13 September 2007, confirming their intention to bid. Completed official bid files, containing answers to a 25-question IOC form, were to be submitted by each applicant city by 14 January 2008. Four candidate cities were chosen for the shortlist on 4 June 2008: Chicago, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo (which already hosted the 1964 Summer Olympics.) The IOC did not promote Doha to the Candidature phase, despite scoring higher than selected candidate city Rio de Janeiro due to their intent of hosting the Olympics in October, outside of the IOC’s sporting calendar. Prague and Baku also failed to make the cut.

Nawal El Moutawakel of Morocco will head the 10 member Evaluation Commission, having also chaired the evaluation commission for the 2012 Summer Olympics bids. The commission will make on-site inspections in the second quarter of 2009. They will issue a comprehensive technical appraisal for IOC members one month before elections; the final selection will be made by the 115 voting members of the IOC membership on 2 October 2009, in Copenhagen, Denmark.

There are many restrictions barring the bidding cities communicating with or influencing directly the 115 voting members. Cities can’t invite any IOC members to visit them and they can’t send them anything that can be construed as a gift. However, bidding cities invest large sums in their PR and media programmes in an attempt to indirectly influence the IOC members by garnering domestic support, support from specialist sports media and general international media. Jon Tibbs, a consultant on the Tokyo bid, was recently quoted as saying “Ultimately, you are communicating with just 115 people and each one has influencers and pressure groups but you are still speaking to no more than about 1,500 people, perhaps 5,000 in the broadest sense. It is not just about getting ads out there but it is about a targeted and very carefully planned campaign.”

Based on the design which city would you pick?

2016 olympic games candidate

Maria Sharapova

Maria Sharapova’s bid to reach the third round of the Aegon Classic was delayed by rain on Wednesday, with the former Wimbledon champion leading American teenager Alexa Glatch 6-3, 5-4 before a downpour halted play.
Sharapova twice held match point but was unable to close out and play was suspended for the day with 19-year-old Glatch holding an advantage point on her own service game.
Sharapova is playing only her third tournament since being sidelined for 10 months with a shoulder injury. She had to work hard to contain a promising young player on the verge of the top 100, who mixed slice and topspin well and looked to be growing in confidence.
Glatch saved one match point at 30-40 with a first serve that caused Sharapova to block the ball back long, and another with an ace.
Sharapova had led 4-2 in the second set, when she produced an indifferent service game and allowed Glatch to break back.
However, there was enough match time on Wednesday for India’s Sania Mirza to beat 11th-seeded Briton Anne Keothavong 6-1, 7-6 (5).
Mirza won seven of the first eight games, which triggered an uncharacteristic moment of fury from her opponent. Keothavong launched a ball in anger out of the centre court stadium and gained a conduct warning for ball abuse.

Amanda Ray Beard (born October 29, 1981 in Newport Beach, California), is an Olympic-level swimmer and model from the United States of America. Beard participated in the 1996 Summer Olympics, 2000 Summer Olympics, 2004 Summer Olympics, and 2008 Summer Olympics, capturing a total of seven medals, the most recent in the 2004 games. She held the world number one ranking of 200 meter breaststrokes in 2003. In U.S. competition, Beard won three 200 meter breaststroke, three 100 meter breaststroke, and two 200 meter individual medley US National titles.

Amanda Beard

Her modeling work has included appearances in FHM, the 2006 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, and she posed nude for the July 2007 issue of Playboy magazine.
She is a spokeswoman for Defenders of Wildlife, and enjoys interior decorating. Both of her sisters, Leah and Taryn, are swimmers. Amanda placed eighth in the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Celebrity car race in 2006.
In November 2007, Beard made her first television commercial for GoDaddy entitled “Shock“. It featured her “flashing” the seven Olympic medals she won from 1996-2004. Mark Spitz made a cameo appearance.
In April 2008, she joined Fox Network’s popular sports talk program, The Best Damn Sports Show Period as a correspondent, covering major sporting events.
In 2008, Beard participated in an anti-fur campaign for the organization PETA. She was photographed nude in front of an American Flag. The flag in that photograph is hung incorrectly according the the United States Flag Code with the blue field to the upper right

Olympic pole vault champion Yelena Isinbayeva will compete at the London Grand Prix as a final preparation for the defence of her world title.
Russian Isinbayeva has signed up to compete at Crystal Palace on 24 and 25 July, when sprint star Usain Bolt will also be in action.
“I want to make sure I am in good shape and at my best there,” she said.
“It will be my last proper competition before heading out to Berlin, so I want to know I’m in the best possible form.”
Isinbayeva, who turned 27 on Wednesday, has won the London event in each of the last six years, setting a new world record mark on three occasions.
She won her second Olympic gold medal last year in Beijing with a clearance of 5.05m – her 14th outdoor world record – and she has since raised her best indoor mark.
“I’ve set three world records there already so I know it is a place where I can perform well, and hopefully this year will be no different,” said Isinbayeva.
“I’ve set 26 world records so far, and I still feel I can get even better, so hopefully I will give everyone plenty to cheer.
“My coach and I have selected five events I want to compete at this summer as I prepare to defend my World Championship title in August, so every meet will be really significant.”

source: news.bbc.co.uk

It took Svetlana Kuznetsova just 74 minutes to clinch the women’s French Open title on Saturday, but this was a triumph that was more than a year in the making.
The Russian seventh seed blew away world No.1 Dinara Safina 6-4, 6-2 on Court Philippe Chatrier to secure a triumph that owes everything to her own intuition and desire to battle for her career.
Though Kuznetsova is still just 23, her life has been built around tennis. Over the past year, there were several occasions on which she contemplated walking away from a game that had steadily become a chore to her.
In the end, she had the courage to seek advice, never an easy task in the egocentric world of tennis, from those she respected. Those impromptu counselors included Roger Federer and even Safina’s brother, Marat Safin, who gave her a pep talk before the 2008 French Open.
The chat with Safin led to the abandonment, at least temporarily, of retirement plans. The discussion with Federer at the Beijing Olympic Games resulted in a move back to Russia, the homeland she left as a 13-year-old to pursue training opportunities in Spain.
Kuznetsova’s game has not directly improved since her return to Moscow, but her mindset has. Indeed, she is believed to spend less time on the practice court now, and a greater portion of her life socializing with friends.
It appears, however, that it was that newfound sense of inner calm which gave her the mental strength to fight past Serena Williams in a nerve-jangling semifinal and to surge away from a nervous Safina on Saturday.
Women’s tennis is still looking for one superstar to break clear of the pack and establish herself as the undisputed leader of the sport. Safina had a chance to move some way toward that mark at Roland Garros, but she fluffed her lines when it really mattered after putting together an outstanding tournament. Kuznetsova probably lacks the all-round consistency and weapons to get to No.1, but she is a deserving and worthy champion.
Once again, the women’s game has proven itself wide open, and Kuznetsova had the fortitude to grasp an opportunity where others faltered.

source: sports.yahoo.com

Alison Stokke

Alison Stokke, who normally rises over the pole-vaulting bar, rose to Internet Fame when a picture of her when she was 17 at a track meet was posted on the Internet.
Soon, more pictures would surface, millions of new fans would stare at her gazingly, and this future California Bear Field Star, would find unexpected, and unwanted fame as one of the few Internet stars that have kept their clothes on.
She was the National Freshman Record holder in the pole-vault in 2004 going 12-08 and winning the California State Meet. In 2005 she was trying out a new pole during a practice session at Golden West College and unfortunately fell into the concrete box, breaking her tibia.

Alison Stokke

At age 15, Stokke won a California state championship, and broke several national records in her age division. As a senior at Newport Harbor High School, she set the second best mark in the nation for that calender year with a 13’7″ vault. In the CIF State Championship finals she finished 4th after a leg injury interfered with her ability to sprint down the runway. After being highly recruited, Stokke now vaults for the University of California at Berkeley.

Alison Stokke

Alison Stokke the beauty sport babe of the week

Nigeria’s 2008 Olympic bronze medalist Blessing Okagbare of University of Texas, El Paso (UTEP) is one of four track and field women athletes nominated for the Collegiate Women Sports Award presented by Honda to the top NCAA Division I female athletes in their sport.
Okagbare becomes the first UTEP athlete to be nominated for the distinguished award.
The winner of the track and field award, as voted by Division I Senior Woman Administrators, will automatically become a candidate for the Honda-Broderick Cup honor given to the Honda College Sports Woman of the Year.
The UTEP junior is in elite company as she joins Colorado’s Jennifer Barringer, Michigan’s Tiffany Ofili and Tennessee’s Sarah Bowman in the group of nominees.
A five-time All-American during her first season in a Miner (UTEP Athletics team) uniform, Okagbare will represent UTEP at this year’s NCAA Outdoor Championships in three events, long and triple jumps and the 100-metres dash.
Okagbare was a silver medalist in the triple jump and finished third in the long jump at last year’s national meet and was the anchor for the sixth-place 4×400 metres relay team.
With nine Conference USA crowns under her belt in just two years, Okagbare has made a name for herself owning the league’s all-time bests in the outdoor 100 metres, and the outdoor and indoor long and triple jumps.
She is also the UTEP record holder in both indoor and outdoor jumping events while writing her name into a handful of stadium records throughout the country.
Okagbare became the first female athlete to be a three-time C-USA Champion in the triple and long jump after taking the titles at the 2009 C-USA Championships earning the High Point Scorer and Performance of the Meet awards.
It was the third Performance of the Year award for Okagbare. A five-time C-USA Athlete of the Week honoree, Okagbare was the 2008 C-USA Newcomer of the Year and the 2007-08 UTEP Female Athlete of the Year.
She was named the U.S. Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association’s NCAA Indoor Mountain Region Women’s Field Athlete of the Year and the Outdoor Midwest Region Women’s Field Athlete of the Year in 2008.
She is the current MCAA Midwest Regional record holder in the outdoor long and triple jumps.
Beyond the national spotlight, Okagbare soared to this year’s all-conditions world-best mark in the long jump at the April 11 UTEP Invitational with a mark of 6.86 metres.
Okagbare will head into the NCAA Championships next week with the nation’s best marks in the long and triple jumps and a seventh-place ranking in the 100 metres dash.
She has won a total of 20 events while competing at UTEP that include eight in the long jump, five in the triple, five in the 400m relay and two in the 100m.

source: athleticsafrica.com

Anna Kournikova is moving away from her image as a sexy tennis star in hopes of reaching out to a much younger audience.
Known as much for her good looks as her success on the court, Kournikova now works for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America and the Cartoon Network. She says she is driven to get kids off their sofas and into sports and exercise.
Kournikova says the move from bikini model in magazines like FHM and Maxim to kids’ exercise advocate was not expected by some of her fans.
“People always get shocked,” Kournikova said Wednesday while preparing for the Boys and Girls Club of America’s national conference in Atlanta. “It has been a gradual transition, and I wanted it that way.”
Kournikova’s provocative photo spreads made some refuse to respect her tennis career, despite winning two Grand Slams doubles titles with Martina Hingis and becoming the eighth-ranked singles player in the world in 2000.

Anna Kournikova

The 27-year-old says she is determined to be taken seriously when educating kids about exercise.
“I started working with the Boys and Girls Club in 2004,” she said. “The first couple of years I didn’t want to do any publicity. I just wanted to learn about the organization and find out about what was going on. I went to the conferences and went to the conventions unannounced and just sat in the back and listened.
“People can tell if you’re being sincere, and I think that has helped me in the last few years. I think people have seen that I am sincere about it and I know what I’m talking about.”
She said proof came in a recent appearance on Rachel Ray’s talk show.

Rest of the story at newsok.com