2019日本之旅-札幌篇

我們在札幌做的第一件事是到巨蛋看日職棒，北海道日本火腿鬥士隊對福岡鷹隊，CeCe月前已在Stubhub 網站購票，到達後的第一個挑戰是泊車，原來球場本身附設的停車場要有票才能進入，不過負責管理停車場入口的職員很熱心幫忙，叫我們打開地圖app, 指出附近那裡有停車場，收費也合理（二千日元），入到場館就要找Stubhub指示去的ticket counter, 那裡有掛上Stubhub的招牌！把打印出來的電郵交給售票員就成功取票，入場後就要「揾食」：既有美式漢堡薄餅薯條，也有日式麵食小丸子，當然還有札幌啤酒及北海道軟雪糕，售價和場外相約，不像美國球場餐廳都斬得球迷一頸血。開賽後發現日本球迷對球隊相當熱情，差不多當每位球員上陣擊球時，球迷都會唱為其度身訂造的打氣歌，連客隊球迷也帶來大鼓銀樂隊，這方面亦比美國觀眾優勝，客隊先拔頭籌，接著數局拉鋸，主隊一度追平又被客隊大比數領先，我們秉承美國觀眾沒有看到完場就走，第二天方知主隊在最後一局幾乎成功收復失地卻功虧一簣，其實客隊是太平洋聯盟榜首隊伍而主隊只是中下游，不過主隊出過好幾名現在美職甚有名氣的猛將，包括投手Yu Darvish及職棒唯一一名「雙刀」投手兼擊球手大谷翔平，而現役球員則有來自台灣的王柏融，可算相當國際性！
札幌其他景點還有酒店對出的大通公園，我們在其下的街找到UCC cafe(這個品牌的即溶咖啡相信大家都在超市見過吧）吃個早餐，再欣賞大學農務系學生佈置的花壇。
另一個品牌白色戀人大家也不會陌生，在札幌有其chocolate factory, 平日有收費tour, 因為裝修關係暫時取消並供免費參觀！它的花園佈置得十分美麗，拍結婚照簡直一流。還有定時出現的機械公仔，好像置身主題公園一樣。

2019 Indy 500

今年好像過得超快，上星期眨下眼就見電視打Indy 500的廣告，也見到兩屆F1總冠軍艾朗素對車隊表現表示不滿的新聞，星期日錄了來看，發現不見艾朗素的踪影，還記得上次他首度出戰成績不俗，只是被壞車拖累無法完成賽事，但今年竟然排位賽也未能出線！實在令我大跌眼鏡，此報導說了Indy Car賽事對F1（分站或總）冠軍車手也不是那麼容易（雖然從F1過江耀武揚威的車手也大有人在，立時想到的就有Nigel Mansell, Juan Pablo Montoya）而今年Indy 500的冠軍車手Simon Pagenaud其實也是來自歐洲（法國），曾在那邊的初級方程式賽事打拼過，我估他也曾有未能一㘣的F1夢吧。如今他擁有一屆IndyCar總冠軍及一次Indy 500冠軍的榮譽，總算名留賽車史。

Suunto watch

I have been a long-time Garmin user who has spent several years on Vivoactive and Forerunner tracking my biking and hiking activities (some running and swimming too) I can't say I am a big fan: the sync mechanism is not always reliable. Need 3rd party app (dwMap) for GPS navigation on the Vivoactive and it kills the battery fast (no more than 5 hours) My original Garmin HR belt that came with the Forerunner died finally so I figured it's time to try out a wrist-based HR fitness watch and I decided to go with Suunto this time. It is known for its long battery life and somewhat accurate wrist HR (with the slimmer Spartan Trainer model)

Obviously there is a huge learning curve when it comes to switching brand, which I can still handle for now (not sure about several years down the road :P) Here were a few things I ran into during the first week of using it:
1) The software running on the watch itself requires update right away. Otherwise it won't sync with the Suunto App on your phone via Bluetooth.
And the way to update is via a piece of software called SuuntoLink on your PC/Mac (and the USB cable) SuuntoLink syncs to Suunto's own portal: Movescount.com.
The odd thing is that Suunto App and Movescount use separate login!
And the latter is supposed to be obsoleted by the development of the former so they are NOT entirely compatible (see the point about sports mode later.)
Sounds complicated? Oh well.

2) I previously paired a Wahoo RPM Cadence sensor to my Garmin via ANT+. This Suunto watch does not support ANT+. Fortunately the Wahoo also works with Bluetooth. On the Suunto this is under Bluetooth and "Bike POD"

3) It can display the moonphase on one of the watch face. I am obsessed with this feature even though I have absolutely no use for it.

4) I had a whole bunch of my own routes saved on MapMyFitness. And I rely on it to search for interesting routes done by others. It's relatively easy to sync those routes to my watch. I just need to export the route in the GPX or KML format and then import to Movescount and sync the watch via my PC.
This link explains GPX vs KML

5) I got WhatsApp notification displayed on my Suunto ONCE (oh yeah, it can display Chinese unlike the Garmin) but no more.
I think it has to do with running the app in background but too much trouble to figure it out.
I gave up on this feature for now.

6) Even after I paired my Wahoo RPM Cadence sensor as a Bike POD on the Suunto via Bluetooth, the cadence is not shown while riding with both existing biking "sports mode". After sync-ing the exercises to the phone, the cadence is not shown in the app either. Turns out only Movescount.com shows it. However, one can create a brand new Sports mode and customize the fields displayed on the watch. So I created a "custom biking" mode with several screens of cadence and other stuff I care (like the current time! I haven't figure out how to see the current time while using a "sports mode" to record my exercise yet) It is capable of showing more fields than my old Garmins for sure.
However, I do need to warn that once you created Sports mode on your Suunto App on your phone, you cannot create Sports mode on Movescount anymore. I am not ready to give up this yet (I am an old schooler who prefers using computers to phones)

7) The biggest selling point to me is the long battery life while using the watch's GPS for navigation. Of course that's one of the first feature I tried! I found there are 2 ways to get into the navigation "mode": simply choosing navigation from the main menu (this will NOT record your exercise). Alternatively, while recording your exercise (say with the "custom biking" sports mode), one of the automatically displayed screen is the navigation screen, which has a menu that you can open using the bottom right button. You can choose an existing route using the menu option.
This is a route I uploaded and rode:

Compared to the Vivoactive and the Forerunner, the Suunto Spartan Trainer certainly looks cooler (less dorky) The UI is intuitive enough (once I got used to it since it's very different from Garmin) I need to do a really long ride to test its navigation capability. So stay tuned for my next review.

傳統中國武術vs現代格鬥技

今日看新聞見到「格鬥狂人」徐曉冬再次擊敗「武術高手」，這次對手是一位名田野的老師傅，這場「比賽」相當一面倒，可觀性甚低，如大家還有興趣可看看這視頻。還是去年對詠春丁浩那一場比較有趣：

作為業餘愛好者的我和朋友，只看此片段已看到幾點值得一提：

• 中國功夫欠缺抗打訓練 
• 中國武術衫亦是弱點，鬆身容易被人拉住衫領打頭 
• 主持說結果是平手，真是「假到無朋友」（不過徐和主辦單位則似乎甚有交情，對此沒有異議） 
• 拳手落地即停止進攻，對詠春相當有利，不用在地面抵擋巴柔的殺著。

在網上還找到（似乎是）懂詠春的人寫的分析，以及當日裁判的訪問，也提到以上幾點呢。

The sad story of the First Responder Bowl

As a football junkie, I try to catch as many college bowl games as I can (when I am in the country, of course) However, during my 20+ years of watching college football, I don't remember any bowl game that was cancelled, until today: lightning in the Dallas area where the First Responder Bowl was held. After delaying the games for hours, the weather is still bad (and dangerous to play under) and the game was cancelled! It will show up as "no contest" on the teams' official record. No stat from the game would be counted. At least it resulted in this satirical article. All commenters played along too!

UEFA Nations League

I was not sure making up yet another soccer tournament/competition for European nations is a good idea. The author of this article thinks so: 

The Nations League has already shown plenty of positives though including, in my opinion, the lesser noticed League D. The 16 teams split into four groups of four in League D are European soccer’s lowest-ranked nations – but it is surely the most intriguing league.
The format gives these teams – used to being group whipping boys in traditional qualifying – a real test against an opponent they have a chance of beating or at least competing with. And, incredibly, it shows European soccer’s underdogs an unlikely route to the finals in two years.

Sports lowlights: 有線61足球台變身662體育2台

想當年為了Euro2000在家中裝了有線電視，18年來從不間斷地看61台（因為聽聞畸寶服務永遠無法終止！）今天早上四時在播放緬恩斯對慕遜加柏上半場臨完場時，機頂盒更新，61號頻道消失，由662接手，然後在六時正見證了logo由「足球台」轉為「體育2台」這個歷史性的一刻。

RIP有線61足球台

Derek Jeter

I heard this during the broadcast of the 2018 MLB season opener Cubs vs Marlins. The focus was of course on the new Marlins owner Derek Jeter and the fact that he has to deal with a team in complete rebuilding mode: all 3 outfielders from 2017 were gone (first time in MLB history) In comparison, the team W-L record of Jeter's career is 500 games over .500! And throughout his career, he has only played in 1 game that the Yankees have been mathematically eliminated from playoff. That's incredible stats!

削球手

我的小學時代最瘋魔各級學生的活動我想非乒乓球莫屬！每當小息大家就會衝去操場的球枱開波，由於球枱數量有限，當然以球技決定誰有得繼續打誰早早出局離場，老實說我打的機會不多，所以長大後很珍惜有得打的時候，看電視轉播也津津有味，香港有線電視體育台經常播出中國及世界的乒乓球比賽，旁述解釋得相當不錯，也令我認識到一類型打法獨特的球手，就是削球手：

削球手的打法是消耗戰，任你狂攻猛打，他慢條斯理，好整以暇的一一化解，以柔制剛，一分球打上十多廿板是等閒事，戰至酣時，來回數十板亦有之，對進攻球手的體力消耗，可想而知......藉着技術和膠皮的性能，削出的球時而帶有千斤沉重的下旋，時而帶有輕飄飄令對方容易出界的上旋，這都是本身沒打球的觀眾難以察覺的。

土耳其首都.音樂.足球

剛剛在FB看史檔介紹伊斯坦堡，作為一個歐洲史及藝術史的學生，對該城的重要性當然略有認識，但現代土耳其共和國的首都其實是安卡拉(Ankara)伊斯坦堡竟然不是土耳其的首都！原因何在？Google輕易找到多個相關網頁。定都伊斯坦堡的顎圖曼帝國可算是現代土耳其的前身，在第一次世界大戰戰敗後，伊斯坦堡被盟軍佔領；後來領導土耳其重新獨立的Mustafa Kemal Ataturk（此姓氏由後來土耳其國會贈予，意為土耳其人之父！）以較接近國家中部的安卡拉作為基地，成功後就定都於這個新政權勢力龐大的地點，並無把首都遷回伊斯坦堡，也有和舊政權劃清界線、破舊立新的意義。寫本文時當然也找點土耳其音樂人的作品來聽聽，我介紹以下兩位：
Tahir Aydoğdu玩的是傳統土耳其箏

Ozan Musluoğlu則是一位爵士低音提琴手
無獨有偶，前幾天在有線電視BeIN台看了半場土耳其聯賽賽事：勁旅費倫巴治對阿克希薩爾竟然輸波；又在意甲賽事羅馬對拿波里看到前者的新晉土耳其射手Cengiz Under大顯光芒。

Sports highlights: the All-Star games, Torrey Pines

By now I am used to NFL Pro-Bowl and NHL All-Star game happening on the same day (at around the same time too) I didn't really plan to watch either game (especially after NHL has chosen Kid "Loud Mouth" Rock as the guest performer) but ended up watching both. The Pro-Bowl started rather lopsided with NFC having a big lead but the AFC came all the way back under the leadership of Derek Carr (yeah, we still like the Raiders in this household) Glad we watched the game. For NHL, I did watch some of the semifinal (skipped the show) and the pre-recorded final. Also glad to see "our" division, the Pacific, winning it! However, the most exciting event of the day was probably the Farmers Insurance Open at Torrey Pines GC in San Diego. Of course the reason I watched was it was Tiger's first PGA Tour event after his long break. By the time I tuned in (after the Pro-Bowl has started), 4 players tied at -11 on top of the leaderboard. (Tiger was done with -3 and even for the last round) Then all of them went down hill from there and three ended up going to the playoff. After the first playoff hole, two left but couldn't break the tie for the next few holes (Former world #1 Jason Day wasn't able to convert a few relatively short putts for victory) The playoff has to continue on Monday! Then it was decided only after 1 hole: Alex Noren's ball spun back from the rough around the green into water. Tiger's next tournament won't happen 'til Feb. And NASCAR is coming in Feb too. That's what off-season is like for me.

Sports highlights: NASCAR Championship weekend

As a big fan of NASCAR, I knew there will be a 3+ month break after this weekend that seems like forever but still I was really excited about this. The truck race was without much drama: Christopher Bell wasn't really challenged during the whole race. The Xfinity race was more competitive: William Byron's car was strong during most of the race but Elliot Sadler was equally if not stronger at various times during the race too. (Daniel Hemric's car had a failure that took him out of the equation and Justin Allgaier's car couldn't find speed, even with the help of 7-time championship winning crew chief, Chad Knaus, in his pit) Sadler was leading the final stage of the race and had a good chance to win the championship. However, he was held up by Ryan Preece, who could have just let Sadler go. And William Byron seized the opportunity to use Preece as a "pick" and passed them both. That was THE championship winning move. Sadler bumped into Preece as a desperation move and hit the wall which made it even less possible for him to catch up to Byron. Sadler was really mad at Preece at the end of the race. After all, looking at the history of the series, this year might have been the closest one where an "old dude" (Sadler was a full time driver at the top level for about 10 years before moving "back down" to this series) win it all. When I look at the list of champs starting from 2001, 6 of them moved on and won championships at the next level. For some reason this series favor young guns.

The cup series championship featured even more drama: all 4 drivers had their moments that look promising for them to win it all. Keselowski's car was the weakest among them (which kinda proved his point that Toyota had an unfair advantage over other manufacturers.) I kinda rooted for Martin Truex Jr who was the only one among the final 4 who has not won a championship yet but was the winningest driver this season (and he has shown huge improvements in the past few years) and have been dominant on 1.5 mile race track like this one in Miami. It seems that he has lost his magic here though. Busch's car has been the strongest, especially in long runs. In situation like this, it's only natural that Brad K's team would play the strategy game by going off sequence, i.e, pit early and try to gain ground with new tires while hoping to get lucky. Harvick and Truex's team followed suit but Kyle Busch's team decided to stay out and pit normally, which would have been the winning strategy if there was no more cautions since his 3 competitors all need to pit one more time then him. However, luck was not on his side. The caution was brought out by none other than his older brother Kurt! Talk about sibling rivalry! So Kyle's car ended up behind Truex's and like Sadler he was held up by another driver with nothing to win: Joey Logano (who was certainly no friend of Busch) but unlike Sadler his car was strong enough to eventually pass Logano but he admitted later he used up his car doing that and was not able to pass Truex even though he got really close.

The other "winner" that I must mention is this year's brand new point system! I think it did make the races prior to the championships more competitive.

Sports highlights: NASCAR "semifinals"

All 3 NASCAR series will have their final races of the season that determines the champion this weekend. And the 4 finalists for each series were determined by last weekend's race which made the races extra interesting, with a few notable crashes involving those fighting for playoff spots. During the truck race, the 4th final spot holder at one point, Ben Rhodes, tried to cut in front of his closest competitor Austin Cindric at a restart and was wrecked. Rhodes' crew chief was very upset about that but the announcers didn't think it's the fault of the latter, who got that final spot eventually, as a beneficiary of the crash of course. Similar issue happened to #48 Brennan Poole of the Xfinity race when he tried too hard to gain around on other competitors. Once he crashed out, the 4th spot came down to either Daniel Hemric or Cole Custer. Custer tried his best to overtake Hemric but just came up short. Another unfortunate #48 was Jimmie Johnson, who also had to fight for that 4th spot for the Cup championship at the bottom of the final 8. And that's not the only drama: Denny Hamlin was leading for a long time and looked promising to get that 4th spot. However,  remember he wrecked Chase Elliott at Martinsville and ruined the latter's chance to win the first Cup race of his career (and more importantly, advance to the championship)? So, no surprise that when Hamlin lost his top spot from the pit and restarted near Elliot, the latter would take revenge (after all, his only chance to advance was to pass everyone else, i,e, win the race to got into the championship 4) Last but not least, Matt Kenseth won his first race of 2017 (by overtaking Chase Elliott for the top spot) which would also be his final season in NASCAR. It's cool to see him going out on top.

Sports highlights: NASCAR, EPL, Bundesliga, Champions League, World Series

It has been two really intense weeks back home and I missed quite a bit of playoff actions from NASCAR and Major League Baseball in the States. Glad that I was able to catch Game 6 and 7 of the World Series. Thumbs up to the Astros winning it all. Any pro team from Texas winning a championship is always welcome, especially beating a team from So Cal, my #2 "disliked" team LA Dodgers. The road to WS victory was definitely a tough one even though they played very well in the regular season, they were almost eliminated by the Yankees in ALCS. And if they didn't mount a big comeback in Game 5 of WS, LA just needed to win one of the next 2 games at home to win the series!

I didn't bother to record the 3 NASCAR races I missed but relied on Comcast's On-demand "condensed race" replay of Talladega 2, Kansas 2 and Martinsville 2 (the first race of the Round of 8.) I guess I still watched most of the highlights, e.g. key passes and crashes :P The race at 'dega featured a tons of the latter as expected. And I've finally understood how the new point system works! So basically there are 3 different types of points: the "original" points drivers used to get based on their finishes at the end of each race, the "stage" points that were given to drivers finishing in Top 10 at the end of each stage, and the "playoff" points that were given to stage and race winners. Additional playoff points were awarded based on the end of regular season standings. And playoff points came into the picture during the playoff (obviously!): these points are added to each driver's total points after the point reset for each driver at the beginning of each playoff round, and carried over through out every round and every race in the playoff (except the final race) So drivers have incentive to win stages and races to accumulate the playoff points which would help getting to the final race.

The interesting matchups during the past few weeks in Champions League for me are Real Madrid vs the Spurs and Manchester United vs Benfica. Looks like it's finally time for Real Madrid to have a down year: only able to tie the Spurs at home and lost 1-3 away. The first Man U-Benfica match was a thriller: Man U scored a lucky goal but the 2nd win seems more convincing. (Oh yeah, their victory over the Spurs during the past weekend was a good one too!)

Bundesliga is the only domestic league that my dad followed and Bayern played Leipzig again right after they met in the German cup (which went to extra time) The latter had a player sent off for both games and lost both. (Also lost their Champions league match to Porto!) I guess the team is still not ready for too much spotlight.

NASCAR in trouble?

Readers of this blog all know that I have been a big fan of NASCAR for several years. I probably started following the sports when it reached its height in popularity and witnessed its decline in recent years. I won't blame the NASCAR bosses for their efforts to reverse the trend. Critics actually think they tweaked the rules for the championship too much! For example, stage points and playoff points were introduced for the first time this season to encourage drivers to be competitive not just for the win of each race but also in the middle of it. I guess the goals of these rule changes are (1) having multiple (4) drivers eligible to win the championship and (2) encouraging drivers to win races instead of just accumulating points. It's hard to argue against that, IMO. However, with no such "playoff" system, IndyCar's championship battle almost always come down to the last race anyway. Unfortunately, as this article pointed out, there are just way too many distractions happening in NASCAR right now. The following video shows one of them: young phenom and championship contender Chase Elliot's car was caught "cheating" with illegal modification to give the car an advantage:

2017 Indycar championship

It was a busy weekend for auto-racing fans! All 3 of the NASCAR series, F1 as well as IndyCar raced during the weekend. To be honest, IndyCar normally doesn't get the highest priority but it's different this weekend because IndyCar will crown its champion at this final race of the season with 6 drivers still mathematically eligible! Based on the history of the past few seasons, Penske drivers came to the race leading in points were totally capable of screwing up their chances. I still remember how Will Power squandered his lead years after years until he finally won one. And just 2 years ago, Juan Pablo Montoya was leading the championship entering the last race but crashed with Will Power and losing the championship to Scott Dixon from Chip Ganasse Racing. In fact, I think Dixon has a good chances to do it again this year even though he was behind Josef Newgarden of Penske racing in the standings. The point gap would have been bigger if Newgarden didn't crash chasing teammate Will Power exiting the pit during the penultimate race. (I seriously questioned why the team decided to pit both drivers on the same lap!) Team Penske drivers were again fighting for the lead during this race. The defending champ Simon Pagenaud got ahead of polesitter Newgarden with a different pit strategy. Luckily no crash this time and Newgarden finished second safely and become the first American IndyCar champion in 5 years (the last one was Ryan Hunter-Reay) Glad to see that. (Newgarden's sponsor Verizon, which was also the series title sponsor, should be happy too. Their CEO Lowell McAdam flew all the way to California to present the trophy to their own driver!) These two and fellow American Alexander Rossi (2016 Indy 500 Winner who also won at Watkins-Glen last month) should increase the interest in the sports among Americans in the coming years. (Forbes agreed too)

Sports highlights: Young guns and underdogs

I enjoyed all 3 NASCAR races this past weekend. Gotta admit I slept through most of the laps but did wake up in time for the exciting endings: both Sam Hornish Jr and Darrell Wallace Jr were able to preserve their lead late in their respective races (Xfinity in Mid-Ohio and truck in Michigan) and fought off the strong challengers from behind. You just don't see Kyle Busch finishing 3rd in a truck race often (NASCAR is limiting the number of lower-level events for top-level drivers so fans would actually see other drivers winning more :P) I guess it's an irony to see an African-American driver winning in a sports rooted in the south on a weekend dominated by news about white supremacists. And it's the first race that Bubba returned to the series this season! For the cup race, Martin Truex Jr was dominating as usual but out-gunned by Kyle Larson at the last restart. Yup. It's a weekend for the young guns and underdogs.  

The same is (almost) true for the opening weekend of the English Premier League, with defending champ Chelsea beaten by the underdog Burnley and Liverpool tied by Watford. And the young guns of Man United shined in their game vs West Ham: the 24 year old Lukaku scored twice in his EPL debut for Man U. So did Martial and Pogba.

And the awful SF Giants actually went 6-4 for the last 10 games, even won 2 on the road! Welcome back, Panda!  

奧運城市

上兩個月就想介紹一篇文章，關於奧運城市在申奧成功後往往大興土木，建球場體育館宿舍等等，但在奧運結束後即荒廢，其頹敗情狀認真不堪入目，是不折不扣的勞民傷財大白象！政府落得負債累累，受害的當然是市民；而事前政府所指的經濟效益，也只是空頭支票，真正撈到油水會是貪官和朋比為奸的承建商，難怪每次申奧都有不少城市樂此不疲。

奇怪的是，2024及2028這兩屆，竟然無人問津，巴黎和洛杉磯輕易取得主辦權！還記得十幾年前遊巴黎，見不少和申奧有關的橫額海報，不過輸了給倫敦。今天聽體育台的Happy hour節目討論此話題，原來洛城是少數辦奧運真正有錢賺的城市，皆因校際體育活動及旅遊業本已相當發達，大部份設施可使用現成的：包括大學宿舍､體育館､大球場及酒店。希望到時不用加州或美國政府倒貼吧。

Sports highlights: three impressive (or improbable) victories

I am talking about golf's British Open, soccer's Gold Cup (semi-final) and NASCAR's Brickyard 400.

Heading into Sunday's final round, Jordan Spieth had been leading the tournament since Round 1 on Thursday. However, blowing his lead in the final round of a major championship was something he has done before (last year's Masters) And he almost did it again with consecutive bogeys in the beginning of the round. Then he finally lost his lead to Matt Kuchar on the 13th: his tee shot went way way wide. It took a long time to find his ball and then another lengthy delay to find a place to drop the ball (ended up somewhere near the driving range) Nevertheless, he did a good job with damage control: he was only 1 stroke behind after this hole. Then he sank a long put to eagle the 15th and never looked back. I didn't have the guts to watch all these live (glad that I switched channel before the "disastrous" 13th) but I am so happy to see a fellow Texas alum winning a big one. (To be honest, I would not have followed it if not for him. Who won the 2017 US Open anyway? I have no clue) He is now the youngest golfer to have won the first 3 legs of the 4 majors since Jack Nicklaus.

The rematch between 2 former Gold Cup finalists, Mexico and Jamaica, happened one round earlier this time, at the semi-final. Mexico has not trailed at any moment in this tournament so far. And they had many chances during the first half, only to be denied by the excellent Jamaican goalkeeper. Jamaica's play improved in the 2nd half. And the game was 0-0 until the very last minutes. Just when I thought it would end with PKs. Jamaica scored an impressive free kick. The Mexican goalie had no chance. Looking forward to the final between Jamaica and USA! (Even though my buddy looked down on this tournament!)

NASCAR drivers and owners consider the annual Brickyard 400 as one of the more prestigious races (other than Daytona) on the calendar, because it races at the iconic Indy Motorspeedway. Kyle Busch won it last year (as well as the year before, but nothing since then) has been strong and leading the whole race, until he was wrecked by the also very competitive (in fact, red hot all season) Martin Truex Jr (who admitted his fault after the race) The crash left the door open to drivers like Matt Kenseth (who lead after the restart) and Trevor Bayne (who was on a different pitting strategy) Then we have 3 drivers stayed out of the pits: Brad K, JJ and Kasey Kahne (who has been in a long slump with a 100+ race losing streak) Kahne was the first among these 3 that pitted and he got lucky: Kurt Busch crashed right after Kahne left the pit so he became the leader after the subsequent restart. He survived the last restart at the OT and ended his drought! This 18th victory could be the one that revived his once-promising career.

Cycling and sailing (and a new America's Cup winner!)

I have been loosely following this new edition of the America's Cup since Oracle USA's miraculous victory 4 years ago. I watched a bit of the Louis Vuitton Cup competition earlier this year and was surprised by the new system used by Team New Zealand: instead of winding with arms and hands, they used a bicycle-like pedaling system which winds with leg power. I was very curious and immediately Googled it and found this article. And I missed the TV coverage of all America's Cup races until it's over! This time no comeback from USA. This new pedal system seems to be THE innovation that contributes a lot to the success of Team New Zealand according to this article. Congrat to the Kiwis! (yeah, Larry doesn't win every time)