Ron Rapoport

[roman meal]

of NPR spent a solid ten minutes on the News Hour with Jim Leher this evening referring to "Floyd Norris's" victory in the Tour de France. *** is Floyd Norris? Is he Floyd Landis' chimeric twin?

He also quickly got off the subject, and spent more substantial time talking about Tiger Wood's "heaving sobs of grief" at the British Open. Atmo, that's between Tiger and his Dad. I also heard he played some outstanding golf, too.

Apparently, Floyd Norris has alienated his hometown Mennonites, according to RR. Sigh. It looked like RR wasn't getting enough oxygen to his head.

:confused:

[CNY rider]

Floyd Norris was (is?) a New York Times columnist.

[Elefantino]

Floyd Norris is a business columnist for the New York Times.

It's easy to get the two of them confused.

[Jiwa Jiwa]

Sounds like Floyd and Chuck got into a cage match.

[roman meal]

http://tinyurl.com/osty3

[stevep]

they both have big asses atmo

[flydhest]

That was some of the worst NPR reporting ever done. Rappaport said that no one pays attention to cycling except one week a year. He contrasted Landis to Armstrong, almost denigrating Armstrong for being so machine like in his winning. Others, in cycling, have made this kind of comment, but then Rappaport goes on to extol Tiger Woods for winning another masters in his meticulous, relentless style and essentially went on to describe an Armstrong-esque focus and execution style. What a schmuck.

Rappaport blew that one, big time.

[atmo]

That was some of the worst NPR reporting ever done. Rappaport said that no one pays attention to cycling except one week a year. He contrasted Landis to Armstrong, almost denigrating Armstrong for being so machine like in his winning. Others, in cycling, have made this kind of comment, but then Rappaport goes on to extol Tiger Woods for winning another masters in his meticulous, relentless style and essentially went on to describe an Armstrong-esque focus and execution style. What a schmuck.

Rappaport blew that one, big time.
is there an online feed for the interview atmo?

[flydhest]

dunno, prolly, but I heard it au naturel as it were.

[atmo]

dunno, prolly, but I heard it au naturel as it were.
too much information atmo

[OldDog]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5574520

Try this link and click "listen" for last Satrudays show?

[roman meal]

to the transcript. The Realaudio link is on the page, Richie-san.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sports/july-dec06/victory_07-24.html

[atmo]

to the transcript. The Realaudio link is on the page, Richie-san.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/sports/july-dec06/victory_07-24.html
he gets paid to report??

[flydhest]

he gets paid to report??

quite a disappointment, no?

[atmo]

quite a disappointment, no?
yeah.
i don't normally do this, but ***...
---------------------------------------

JEFFREY BROWN: Two Americans, two countries, two sports, and two big victories. We begin in France.

After years of cycling domination by Lance Armstrong, there was a new American in Paris, when Floyd Landis crossed the finish line yesterday to win his first Tour de France.

FLOYD LANDIS, Tour de France Champion: Thank you, everybody who kept believing. And most of all, my team, when things weren't going so well, they kept fighting and never stopped believing.

JEFFREY BROWN: It was a victory that almost wasn't. After a disastrous ride on Wednesday dropped Landis to 11th place, eight minutes behind Spaniard Oscar Pereiro, he made most of the time back with a remarkable climb through the Alps on Thursday.

ANNOUNCER: Floyd Landis will win the Tour de France.

JEFFREY BROWN: In the end, Landis won the grueling tour, three weeks and 2,257 miles, by a mere 57 seconds and brought a more positive kind of excitement to a race that began with a doping scandal that eliminated several top contenders.

Adding to the feat, the 30-year-old Pennsylvania native had suffered a hip injury from a crash several years ago and will undergo replacement surgery this fall.

FLOYD LANDIS: I don't feel like my life was a failure if I didn't win a race, but it was a dream. And I would be extremely disappointed if that was taken away by an unfortunate accident.

JEFFREY BROWN: Landis became the third American to win the tour.


The comeback kid


JEFFREY BROWN: And with us is Ron Rapoport, sportswriter and regular commentator for National Public Radio's "Weekend Edition."

Ron, the tour's director called Landis' big comeback ride on Thursday "the best performance in the modern history of the tour." That's pretty high praise.

RON RAPOPORT, Sports Writer: Kind of gets your attention, Jeffrey, doesn't it, I imagine, saying a thing like that?

You know what I think though, part of it has to do with the fact that Landis had done so badly on one day and then he has one of this great, great days that they're calling the greatest in the history of circling the very next. Now, that's the kind of performance everybody can get behind, being awful one day and great the next. It's sort of instant redemption.

And I've got to tell you that I think there's another reason they're so excited, and that was, before the race began, there was this incredible indictment of drug use in that sport. And here is a sport that people really only pay attention to one week a year, and they're just getting ready for their big moment, and all of a sudden all anybody wants to talk about is drugs.

Along comes Landis. He has this wonderful victory, very exciting, and all of a sudden everybody is feeling good about bicycle racing again. So no wonder they're a little excited, I think.

JEFFREY BROWN: Tell us a little bit more about Floyd Landis and his background?

RON RAPOPORT: Well, he comes from Farmersburg, Pennsylvania, a Mennonite upbringing, no radio, no television, no alcohol, no caffeine. Jeffrey, when he first started riding, his parents had him ride in sweat pants because they thought shorts were unbecoming.

And to get into this kind of level, he literally had to run away from home, go to California, and start riding seriously. Now, his parents weren't very happy about it. They've gotten back together, and they're all one big, happy family now.

But not everybody in the community where he grew up is excited about it. They think that there's too much emphasis on the individual nature of the victory. It's not the kind of thing that he's been taught, and so there is a lot of getting used to what this all means in Farmersburg.

JEFFREY BROWN: Now, doing all this with this hip injury that I mentioned seems all the more remarkable. Do you know to what extent, if any, it affects his riding? And what's the talk about whether he's going to be able to come back after this and compete at this level?

RON RAPOPORT: Well, I think he put off the hip replacement surgery that he needs so he could ride in this race, so obviously he made a calculated decision. But you're right: He's had three four-inch screws inserted into his hip after the crash.

And he told his mother that lately -- he told reporters -- that he told his mother lately the screws are pushing against bone and muscle. So this is a young man in need of a serious operation. And it's a real testament to his ability to ride this way with that kind of injury, you bet.

JEFFREY BROWN: And what about another American winning there in Paris in France's great race? Is there any, oh, I don't know, resentment building?

RON RAPOPORT: I don't think so. You know, this is something different. Lance Armstrong was such a machine when he won these races, it was sort of a given, where as Norris (sic), you know, had this bad time and this good time. And everybody kind of really is enjoying the way he won the race.

But, Jeffrey, I've got to tell you that this is the most drug-addled sport there is, and it's not going to be long before somebody accuses Floyd Norris (sic) of having taken drugs just the way they accuse Lance Armstrong and everybody else who's ever won the Tour de France.

You wait and see. He's going to be facing some of the same charges, too. It's just the nature of bicycle racing at this level, I'm afraid.

[neverraced]

of NPR spent a solid ten minutes on the News Hour with Jim Leher this evening referring to "Floyd Norris's" victory in the Tour de France. *** is Floyd Norris? Is he Floyd Landis' chimeric twin?

He also quickly got off the subject, and spent more substantial time talking about Tiger Wood's "heaving sobs of grief" at the British Open. Atmo, that's between Tiger and his Dad. I also heard he played some outstanding golf, too.
:

He's after Phil Liggett's job.

[roman meal]

He also quickly got off the subject, and spent more substantial time talking about Tiger Wood's "heaving sobs of grief" at the British Open.

Rapopunt actually said "Not shedding a tear, not at the emotion of it all, not just, "You know, thank you, Dad, and so on," but wracking, relentless kinds of sobs as he collapsed into the arms of, first, his caddy and then his wife."

Sorry. At that point, Rapopunt was the one giving me the heaves.

As an aside, notice that Tiger went for the caddy first for solace, then the wife. I mean, a good caddy is hard to find. Just as George Harrison said to effect, after the boyd debacle: You can find another wife, but you can't find another guitarist like that.

[Russell]

As an aside, notice that Tiger went for the caddy first for solace, then the wife. I mean, a good caddy is hard to find. Just as George Harrison said to effect, after the boyd debacle: You can find another wife, but you can't find another guitarist like that.

Huh? The caddy is always the first to get the hug/handshake/whatever.

[goonster]

Rappaport said that no one pays attention to cycling except one week a year.

Surely he meant that he only pays attention to cycling one week a year, and even then only when an American with an "adversity" angle wins the Tour.

Dreadful drivel is written when sportswriters cover events they don't follow, or understand, because they are The Story. Happens every four years with the World Cup too.

[flydhest]

Goonster,
I dunno. When I was listening to it, it seemed pretty clear that he really meant that no one pays attention to it.

[goonster]

I dunno. When I was listening to it, it seemed pretty clear that he really meant that no one pays attention to it.

I know. :beer:

I'm just doing my darndest to deconstruct his gormless pundit-speak into something that is useful to us. :banana:

With respect to the whole Tiger thing . . .

I find it truly nauseating when sportswriters and commentators ascribe significance to what they perceive as an athlete conducting his emotional catharses on the grand sporting stage. They would like the athlete to live out all his life's key moment's in public, for us to play a part, and for the whole thing to transcend sports somehow. Boo.

Sometimes a game is just a game, and we don't have to crawl into the personal lives of every athlete.

( . . . says he who just started a thread about Floyd's parents' Sunday schedule ;) )

[flydhest]

indeed.

[roman meal]

Huh? The caddy is always the first to get the hug/handshake/whatever.

A couple had been married for fifteen years. There was only one thing that Ruthie had forbidden her husband to do. That was to open a small silver box that was kept upon her dresser.
One day the husband was cleaning the mirror above Ruthie's dresser and accidentally knocked the silver box to the floor. Out spilled six golf balls and a thick wad of cash. The husband was bemused. He counted the cash which totalled $25,000. Shocked but controlled he put it all back.
At dinner he apologised to Ruthie for the accident and asked what it all meant.
Ruthie said that each time she cheated on him with his caddie she put a golf ball into the box.
He thought.
He said, 'we have been through good times and bad, six times you drifted in fifteen years. I can forgive that..........But the cash? Where did the cash come from?'
Ruthie replied, 'oh the cash!? You see my dear, each time I had a dozen golf balls I sold them for $10.'


:eek: