Ladies of Daegu

The 2011 World Championships in Athletics just wrapped up in Daegu. I love sports, especially beautiful women doing sports. Here's some.



Last time I wrote about track and field, I started improbably with a cute hammer thrower. I'd like to continue that trend by starting with a cute shot putter who also happens to be a world champion: Valerie Adams.

Now, I'm no schmoe, but check out those guns. She's real cute, too. Shame she's not likely to break any all-time records, given that almost all of them were set in the '70s or '80s, by women from the Eastern bloc. Yeah.



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The 100m sprint is a particular favorite. Norway's Ezinne Okparaebo put in a brave performance in the semifinals:

The gold medal, however, went to the equally beautiful Carmelita Jeter.

She also came second in the 200m, and looked stunning throughout.

And, finally, anchored the US to a gold medal in the 4*100m relay.

In the 1500 metres, Norway's Ingvill Måkestad Bovim impressed us by coming in sixth and being cute.

The most impressive track performance, however, came from Russia's Maria Savinova, who beat South Africa's Caster Semenya for the gold medal in the 800m with a fantastic final sprint.

She was awesome. By the way, I have to admit that Caster Semenya does look kind of like a dude. However, that's absolutely no justification for the disgraceful way she was treated in the whole ridiculous gender controversy that arose in 2009. It was absolutely disgusting, and showed a total lack of respect for both her as an athlete and as a human being. I'm glad she's competing again. I'll have to get back to all this "gender testing" nonsense later, but for now, here's one more picture of Maria:

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In the heptathlon, our favorite Jessica Ennis ended up taking home a silver medal after, as the Finnish media put it, tripping over the javelin.

The gold went to Russia's Tatyana Chernova.

The women's javelin throw turned into an unbelievable event. South Africa's Sunette Viljoen took the bronze after setting an African record, and the gold medal was decided in the last round when Barbora Špotáková broke the championship record to take the lead, only for Maria Abakumova to beat her with a new Russian and championship record of 71.99m. Awesome.

I think I'm a fan.

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My favorite event, as always, is the pole vault. I'm a huge Yelena Isinbayeva fan, so it was a real shame to see her fall short of the medals in her comeback championships.

After all, she pretty much single-handedly took women's pole vaulting past the five meter mark. I believe she's still the only woman to ever have cleared 5m, but I don't know that for a fact. She's awesome.

At Daegu, though, Jelena only narrowly beat the gorgeously buff Jiřina Ptáčníková for sixth place.

The undeniably cute Silke Spiegelburg, who I previously dubbed the Emma Watson of the pole vault, also struggled to a ninth-place finish.

Our congratulations to the medalists: Brazil's Fabiana Murer, Russian veteran Svetlana Feofanova and Germany's Martina Strutz, who took home a silver medal after setting a German record with a jump of 4.80 meters.

Gold medalist Fabiana Murer is also the indoor world champion, but this is her first outdoor world champs medal.

I'm already looking forward to the pole vault at London!



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It was a heck of a championship, and I really enjoyed watching it. As a dedicated anti-patriot, I'd also like to point out that these were Finland's worst athletics world championships ever, with no medals and no points finishes.

Ladies of the European athletics championship

The 2010 European Athletics Championships wrapped up last weekend. It was fun watching the sports, and in doing so some of the ladies competing caught our eye, too. As I've maintained before, watching athletes who are good at what they do is a form of pornography in itself, so when they're good-looking as well as proficient, it's twice as good.

We'll start with an improbable creature: a good-looking hammer thrower.

For those of you not up on your track and field, hammer throwers are usually gargantuan, barrel-shaped, sexless things. Not Italy's Silvia Salis:

Not only is she cute, but she's not half bad either. She finished seventh in the Euro champs this past weekend, with a result of 68.85m. Her personal record is 71.77m. We're fans!

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To take a purely pornographic line for a moment, I have to admit I do find athletic bodies absolutely beautiful. Based on the past weekend, I might have to admit I have a thing for Eastern European track. Here's the Ukraine's Yelizaveta Bryzhina to kick things off:

She won a silver medal in the 200 meters with a time of 22.44, behind France's Myriam Soumare.

Russia's lovely Mariya Savinova conquered the 800m race:

And her countrywoman, Anna Alminova, competed in the 1500m:

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One of my favorite sports to watch is the pole vault, even though the fantastic Yelena Isinbayeva is taking the year off. Her predecessor as women's record setter, Svetlana Feofanova, predictably took the gold at Barcelona, but Silke Spiegelburg put in a good performance to win the silver medal.

She is the Emma Watson of the pole vault.

Finishing a very respectable third was the young Lisa Ryzih, Russian-born but representing Germany. Those of you who watch the women's pole vault probably remember that Isinbayeva has a habit of talking to her pole. Ryzih does a similar thing. When she was trying to gear up for her last shot at 475, she harangued not only the pole but the crowd and probably the whole world. Her preparation was a sight.

Sadly, she didn't make the 475, but she'd already broken her personal record by clearing 465cm, and took home a bronze medal. Well done! At some point, she apparently also found time to pose for a German magazine:

That's right: when you want Lady Gaga and pole vaulting, you come to this blog.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Czech Republic's Jiřina Ptáčníková, who finished a respectable fifth and looked damn good doing it.

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Now that I mentioned Lisa Ryzih's harangues at the world, it's only fair I also note German high jump bronze medalist Ariane Friedrich, who also psychs herself up quite impressively.

Hey, she's cute, too.

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I've just looked over this blog post, and I like it. However, as lovely as the preceding ladies are, when it comes to combining sporting excellence with being gorgeous, there can be only one.

The beautiful Jessica Ennis is a world champion heptathlete, and she just won the gold medal at Barcelona as well.

I have a huge amount of respect for all multi-event athletes. In my opinion, it's much easier to optimize for a single event than for seven. So the way I see it, what she does is awesome, and she looks great. Therefore, Jessica Ennis is the queen of Barcelona.

Explain to me again why I shouldn't like sports.