Hometown Hero Potential: Minnesotans in the Olympics

Kelci Bryant (L), Minnesota's first London medalist

It's currently about 4 am in London, which means that Day 5 of the XXX Summer Olympiad (brought to you by IBM, Chevrolet, and the fine folks at Rick's Cabaret) has wrapped up. The Games are now about 29.4 percent complete, which seems like a natural (?) point at which to meet and greet the Olympians with ties to Minnesota; call this your super-abridged cheering guide if you want. I wanted to get this out about a week ago, and then Silky came along with that great Wolves off-season recap and the ol' lazy summer dog days mentality kicked in. And here we are, with you, our loyal readers, ready to peruse a list of "people to watch," and you can't even watch some of them anymore, as their events have already handed out all their medals.

It's this kind of dogged determination to get the story out with unparalleled timeliness that makes us the 13th or 14th best sports blog in Minnesota.

Anyway, root for these folks.

Offseason Report: Timbas Edition

KLove has gone on record saying the Timbas need to improve significantly. Lets see if Kahn and Co. were listening.

I’ve wanted to do one of these for a while now, but the timing was never right (as we found out before). So, I waited. I waited for free agency to start. I waited for the Nicolas Batum saga to come to a close. I was ready to do a write up, but the signings kept coming in. It wasn’t until these last 24 hours when I felt comfortable enough to declare the Timbas’ offseason complete and, more importantly, a resounding success.

The Week in Review: Heat Wave Edition

"Hot enough for ya?" is the kind of thing annoying people say when they want to get punched in the face. Yes, Ned, it was hot enough for most of America last week; more than 3,800 record highs were recorded across the country as temperatures soared and sizzled in the 90s and 100s across much of the nation. In considering how our local sports teams have resembled this heat wave over the past week, we must remember and assign value to the good things associated with high temps (Kiddie pools! Free sidewalk grilling!) with the less good things (Drought! Excessive heat warnings!) To the recaps:

Roger Federer Can Suck It: A Wimbledon 2012 Recap

I was just starting my junior year of high school in early September 2003 as Andy Roddick won that year's U.S. Open. The fiery, often hilarious Roddick took the title in a year where old bull Andre Agassi came into the tournament as the number one seed. The 21-year-old Roddick took out the three-seed, Juan Carlos Ferrero, in straight sets in the final, taking over the crown of Open champ from Pete Sampras, whose 2002 triumph constituted the last match of his illustrious career. I was a fervent young American tennis fan, schooled on Sampras' serve-and-volley and Agassi's unmatched service return game. I watched that tournament excitedly as one generation of American tennis stars dissipated and the new vanguard--led by Roddick, but also including James Blake, Mardy Fish, Taylor Dent and Robby Ginepri--looked poised to secure several spots among the top of the tennis world rankings.

And then, four months later, Roger Federer just started winning everything.