Word: sports
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Currently, the only Olympic sport in which men compete and women don't is in boxing. (Baseball is only for men, but it has a female counterpart, softball. And, in any case, both sports will be eliminated from the Games after this Olympics.) My suggestion: Get rid of synchronized swimming and rhythmic gymnastics and bring in women's boxing. In Athens, women's wrestling was added for the first time. The sport now has an enthusiastic international following, from Japan and Kazakhstan to Spain and Canada. Outside of the Olympics, women's boxing is already a serious sport...
...face of an entire sport, the pretty one on all the magazine covers, was a mess. Jennie Finch stood on the medal stand, silver around her neck - yes, a silver for softball. She was shocked, down, wiping away tears. Before today, the U.S. had won all three Olympic golds in softball. The U.S. owned softball, winning 22 straight games in the Olympics. Now, on top of losing, softball may be gone for good: the International Olympic Committee purged it from the 2012 Olympic program three years...
...softball down," she says. "Many women have worn this uniform, and accepted nothing but gold. So many thoughts. What more could I have done? And then, can this be the last time that softball players stand on the podium at the Olympic games? The unknown [future] of our sport, all those young girls watching us, and all the many people who've supported me. I haven't seen my son in a month and a half, I can't wait to see his little face when I get home . . . so many things...
...advanced to the gold medal games. The U.S. even made table tennis history. Chen Wang became the first American, man or woman, to ever make the quarterfinals in a singles event. Yes, the water polo team lost to The Netherlands, earning silver. But softball is the true surprise; the sport was dropped from the Olympics, in part, because the U.S. was so dominant. "I really kind of feel that maybe people [will] get off our back, and realize that there is some parity in this game," says U.S. coach Mike Candrea. Too late for that, coach, maybe your team should...
...that's it for softball. The sport is gone from the 2012 games. Proponents are pushing to get back in 2016, but with no guarantees, the anti bat-and-ball bitterness lingers. It's especially strong against baseball. Dick Pound, a member of the IOC and former head of the World Anti-Doping agency, says that, more than the U.S. dominance or lack of participation in many countries, baseball's steroid scandal sparked softball's excommunication. Baseball will cease after Beijing as well...