PHOENIX (AP) — Diana Taurasi says she is a tougher person for her experience with the doping authorities in Turkey and doesn’t worry that the situation there will affect her reputation.
* Diana Taurasi called the period between learning about the positive drug test and being cleared “one of the most stressful times in my life.”
By Eric Gay, AP
Diana Taurasi called the period between learning about the positive drug test and being cleared “one of the most stressful times in my life.”
“The only thing I’m guilty of,” she said, “is putting a lot of hours in the gym, and I’ve been doing that since I was a little kid.”
The two-time Olympic gold medalist, 2009 WNBA most valuable player and former college basketball player of the year spoke Monday at the Phoenix Mercury media day.
Late last year, while playing professional basketball in Turkey, Taurasi was told by authorities there she had tested positive for the banned stimulant modafanil. In February, the Turkish basketball federation cleared her of wrongdoing after the lab that conducted the test retracted its report.
“It toughens you up,” she said of the experience, “and life’s about going through stuff that is really hard. You can let it really wreck you and you can be mad at it, which I was for a while. But I finally got over it, had a really good group of people around me here in Phoenix, my family, my close friends, my teammates, the fans here in Phoenix. You really sometimes have to depend on those people to get you through tough times and they did. They got me through it.”
Taurasi said she has no concerns about her reputation being sullied.
“Because I know I never took it,” she said.
via ‘Tougher’ Diana Taurasi back in WNBA after Turkish turmoil – USATODAY.com.
Turkey’s Sahin voted Bundesliga player of the season
(AFP) – 19 hours ago
BERLIN — German-born Turkish international Nuri Sahin, who is leaving Borussia Dortmund for Real Madrid, has been voted Bundesliga player of the 2010-11 season by his peers, Kicker magazine said Monday.
The 22-year-old midfielder was voted best outfield player with 46.1 percent of the vote, the magazine’s survey of 298 players showed, followed in second place by his Dortmund teammate Mario Goetze with 18.7 percent.
Chilean Arturo Vidal from Bayer Leverkusen was third, followed by Bayern Munich’s Dutch international Arjen Robben and teammate Mario Gomez in fifth.
Schalke’s Manuel Neuer, widely expected to move to Bayern Munich, was voted best goalkeeper with a thumping 70 percent of the vote.
Dortmund’s Juergen Klopp was rewarded for leading his team to their first league title since the 2001/02 season by being voted the Bundesliga’s best coach.
The Washington Wizards only won 23 games this past season and will pick sixth in the upcoming draft. The Washington Post reports that there is at least one player who would really like to find himself in D.C.: 6-11 Enes Kanter.
“If I had the choice, I like Washington,” Kanter told reporters, according to the Post. However, Kanter, who grew up in Turkey, is expected to be selected before the Wizards get a chance, the paper notes.
The Post suggests that more realistic options for the Wizards are San Diego State sophomore swingman Kawhi Leonard, Texas freshman forward Tristan Thompson, Kansas twin junior forwards Markieff Morris or Marcus Morris, center Jan Vesely from the Czech Republic, or Lithuanian forwards Jonas Valanciunas or Donatas Motiejunas.
The Wizards met with Kanter Wednesday and have an interview set up with another possibility, Arizona Wildcats forward Derrick Williams, but the Post notes that he too will likely be gone by the time the Wizards pick.
The 18-year-old Kanter is currently an assistant coach at Kentucky because he’s been ruled ineligible to play in the NCAA due to receiving money from a team in Turkey.
via Turkish center Kanter hopes Wizards pick him – Scoop Du Jour – MLB Blog – Yahoo! Sports.
General Manager of Real Madrid, Jorge Valdano is sure that Real Madrid ‘s Turkey trio of Mesut Ozil, Nuri Sahin and new recruit Hamit Altintop will be successful. Real Madrid Transfers..
Nuri Sahin and Hamit Altintop two newest additions to Real Madrid Turkish delights
Last year was the year of Fifa World Cup. Not many players emerged as stars in the most glorious football event in the world. A starlet however shoved himself, glimpsed in the German National team jersey. Mesut Ozil, a turkish-german player showed impressive attacking qualities, accurate long and short passes and some enjoyable goals on deadly shots. He must have impressed Real Madrid board and manager Jose Mourinho, so they have signed him for a 5 year contract at the end of that season. He was the first footballer with turkish ancestors to play for the mighty Real Madrid.
The coming season will welcome two more turkish players for Real Madrid, both play for Turkey National Team, increasing the total numbers of turkish players in the Real Madrid squad to 3.
Valdano guarantees Real Madrid’s Turkish Connection will succeedJorge Valdano on turkish transfers Sahin Altintop
Jorge Valdano, the general manager of Real Madrid for football operations stated yesterday in a telephone interview with NationalTurk, they expect the three Turks to be successful in their Real Madrid carriers. Valdano, manager Jose Mourinho and Real Madrid transfer comitee decided to transfer Turkey players Nuri Sahin and Hamit Altintop and pulled the trigger for the moves, after Mesut Ozil had a very good season with Real Madrid. Valdano said that they were more than pleased by Mesut Ozil ‘s performance in his debut season and decided to land two additional Turkish Players in order to increase the coherence of Mesut Ozil in the team.
Jose Mourinho approved the transfers of Nuri Sahin and Hamit Altintop
Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho wanted these players to play for him the next season, Valdano commented. They have watched Nuri Sahin’s progress as a floor leader for a couple seasons. This season Nuri Sahin have played a vital role in Borussia Dortmund’s title run in Bundesliga, emerging as one of the star footballers in the German leauge, just like Mesut Ozil in the previous season.
The acquire of Hamit Altintop also was Jose Mourinho approved, added the Real Madrid GM, Altintop’s résumé speaks for itself. Hamit Altintop ‘s 4 year spell with Bayern Munich contains many successful moments. He won two Bundesliga titles and two German Cups, as well as helping the Bavarians reach last season’s Champions League final. Mixed with the fact that Hamit Altintop transfer is free, Valdano stated in the press conference, his capture is a bargain and shows the changing transfer policy of Real Madrid.
In the Spanish La Liga, teams are ‘not allowed to register more than 3 non EU players. All three turkish players are dual citizens, thus are eligible as EU players, which played a key factor for their respective transfers to Real Madrid.
A NationalTurk special article. Cannot be used without NationalTurk reference.
via Valdano :Real Madrid ‘s Turkey trio will be succesful / Real Madrid Transfers.
OPINION: WITH ALL due respect to the NZRL, there’s something deeply disturbing about the proposal to stage a so-called Anzac league test in Turkey in 2015.
Photos: Photosport Let's call the Last Post on this farce: The Kiwis line up to face the Kangaroos last weekend.
Photos: Photosport
Let’s call the Last Post on this farce: The Kiwis line up to face the Kangaroos last weekend.
Fair enough; playing a footy match to commemorate the landing at Gallipoli (where 11,421 Aussies and Kiwis perished) may have seemed a bright idea when first mooted at executive level. But you’d think cooler, or at least more sensitive minds might have eventually prevailed. It simply feels wrong on so many levels.
It’s true, league is not on its own, here. Sport has always had this thing about comparing itself with war. Clearly not content with the standard theatre and drama it offers in the name of entertainment, it continually seeks non-existent parallels with the battlefield. League is merely the most recent example of this. The NZRL’s marketing slogan: “More than just a Game” is a delightful self-portrait; managing to sound both defensive and delusional in five easy words.
For all that, the idea of league trying to boost its reputation and relevance (not to mention its coffers) by hanging on to war’s coat-tails is about as embarrassing as it gets. No wonder sport is so often lampooned for losing perspective. It’s bad enough that a commercial sporting event should even be using the “Anzac” tag for publicity, but this Turkey plan borders on the obscene. Good grief, why don’t we just party on the graves?
From what I’ve read, most of the soldiers who survived either of the world wars preferred to keep their sport firmly in context. Former New Zealand cricketers Frank Cameron and Artie Dick spoke recently of the culture clash within the post WWII teams: the players who had served in the conflict and those who hadn’t. The first group tended to compete hard, accept a win or a loss magnanimously and play hard afterwards. The second were, typically, more obsessive and intense.
In Greg Growden’s fabulous biography of Australian Bodyline batsman Jack Fingleton, it was again evident that the war veterans refused to treat sport as seriously as many of the peacetime players. The dashing all-rounder Keith Miller was regularly at odds with Don Bradman on the 1948 tour of England, at times refusing to bat or bowl in protest against his captain’s ruthless tactics. Unlike Miller, Bradman hadn’t seen any WWII action.
The point of all this? Only that those poor blighters unfortunate enough to be caught up in either of the Great Wars knew where sport stood in the scheme of things. It was a game, just a game and certainly no more than a game. It was something to be played for fun. Those people knew what real drama was; they’d seen it with their own eyes. The horror, the death, the putrid smell of decay; they’d witnessed first-hand what genuine loss meant. And it had nothing to do with sport.
League is trying far too hard. Presumably, many grocers fell at Gallipoli as well as footy players, along with butchers, bakers and candlestick-makers. Builders, plumbers, sparkies and farmers; salesmen and drivers, alike. Yet, as far we’ve heard, there are no plans for any of these industries to hold their 2015 annual conferences in Turkey. Only sport, represented in this instance by the NZRL, could be fat-headed enough to think along those lines.
Quite apart from that, there’s also the irony of the Turkey proposal. After all, the Aussie league fraternity didn’t even really support WWI; they avoided it like the plague. Check out any credible historical account and it will tell a similar story. Australian historian Michael McKernan estimated about 75% of unmarried Aussie league players somehow managed to avoid serving. The NSWRL Roll of Honour, for first-grade players or officials killed in WWI, numbers 10, including the secretary.
The purpose of this is not to belittle, of course; just to highlight the hypocrisy of the latest brainwave. Many were the reasons for Aussie’s new working-class sport not supporting the war. But the glaring reality is that, collectively, it did not. In 1915, as a comparison, it was reported that 197 out of 220 of Sydney’s regular first-grade rugby union players were in active service. London’s Daily Telegraph estimated 5000 Aussie union players served; about 98% of all adult playing numbers.
As another Australian historian, Sean Fagan of website RL1908.com, notes, the NSWRL’s decision to continue playing its competition throughout the war, unlike union, was also controversial. Many considered it a reason for the 13-man code subsequently gaining an ascendancy over its rival. At the height of the debate the NSW Labor Premier went as far as calling on all able-bodied sports-men to do more to help their mates. “Your comrades at Gallipoli are calling you,” he exhorted. “This is not the time for football and tennis matches. It is serious. Show you realise this by enlisting at once.” Yet, even then, Aussie league’s finest avoided serving in their droves. There was no full draft and clearly, many had their reasons for not volunteering, not least a simmering hatred for the English. Nothing wrong with that, of course. But whichever way you look at it, Gallipoli and Aussie league have never had much in common.
All the more extraordinary, then, that the powers-that-be should be attempting to make a connection between today’s annual trans-Tasman league fixture and the historic WWI battleground. It doesn’t as much seem wrong as downright distasteful, the idea of trading off the heroism, bravery and spirit of our Gallipoli veterans; in a tacky attempt to associate their privations and sacrifice with a tin-pot game of footy.
More than just a game? Hopefully the NZRL will soon come to its senses.
Ruh-roh. It looks like Sebastian Vettel hasn’t quite ingratiated himself with his hosts in Istanbul, though there’s no telling what (if any) repercussions might ensue.
According to reports, Vettel was told before the start of this weekend’s Turkish Grand Prix that, if he were to win, he would not be allowed to drink the champagne. Not because alcohol isn’t permitted in Turkey – while in Abu Dhabi and Bahrain the traditional bubbly is replaced with a sparkling non-alcoholic beverage in deference to the ban on alcohol under Sharia (Muslim law), Turkey, while predominantly Muslim, is a more liberal country. No, the instructions were given specifically to Vettel because of a new Turkish law that places the minimum drinking age at 24. And Vettel (both the youngest race winner and the youngest world champion in F1 history) is just 23. As you can see above, drink champagne he did.
Now Vettel isn’t the youngest driver on the grid this year. Toro Rosso’s Sebastien Buemi and Jaime Alguersuari and Sauber’s Sergio Perez are all younger, but given their track records compared to Vettel’s… well, let’s just say the bookies weren’t giving even odds on that particular bet.
The restrictions in Turkey extend as well to a ban on advertising alcohol, forcing some teams to temporarily jettison their liquor sponsors (much as they did when tobacco advertising was banned in certain countries, but not others). McLaren, for example, is sponsored by Johnnie Walker scotch whisky, as Force India is by Whyte & Mackay, while Sauber is sponsored by Jose Cuervo tequila. (Ferrari is apparently no longer sponsored by Martini, while we assume Vettel and Webber simply left the vodka out of their Red Bulls for this round.)
Will Vettel face some sort of punishment at the hands of the Turkish authorities? We’d hate to think what that would entail, but one way or another, he’ll be legal by next year’s grand prix. That is, assuming the race takes place again next year; an increase in the fees by Bernie Ecclestone could mean that this year’s was the last for Istanbul Park.
[Source: ESPN | Images: Luca Bruno/AP]
via Vettel gets in trouble in Turkey for driving, then drinking — Autoblog.
