(AFP) 27 June 2008:

The Bulgarian Olympic Weightlifting team might not be where one would go to find gender equality on a normal day. And it’s true that the men and women compete separately, lifting different weights. It’s also true that the women compete against women from other countries, men against men.

However, there is one area in which they do share complete gender equality, even if this might not be something to be all that proud of. All of the applicants to this summer’s Olympic Games have been rejected, for all of them, each and every man and woman, were found to be taking banned anabolic steroids.

Still equality is a good thing, right’

(NEWSDAY) 8 June 2008:

Since farms and the transportation industry stopped using horses in the first few decades of last century the horse “industry” has been largely taken over by women. In the “English” disciplines, 85 percent of owners and riders are women, in Western, the number is 60 percent, and the youth equestrian organizations are 90 percent female.

But horse racing itself is still an overwhelmingly male domain. In part this comes from the fact that  racing is dominated by frenzied betting, something which may appeal less to women than it does to men.

All that gambling has another effect though: horse racing is a financially driven industry, rather than one of partnership between horse and rider as the disciplines are. Perhpas it’s that emotional disconnect that women like less and thus they avoid the industry.

(TMZ.COM) 20 December 2007:

NBA star Tony Parker, hubby to Desperate Housewives Eva Longoria, has filed a $20 million lawsuit against X17, the photo agency that published reports and text messages alleging that he cheated on Eva Longoria shortly after the couple were married.

X17 claimed that French model Alexandra Paressant had an affair for two months with Parker. Parker vehemently denies the allegations.

(ESPN.COM) 19 December 2007:

Jessica Simpson’s new beau Tony Romo is said to have had the worst game of his career a week ago…when Jess was up in the stands watching the whole thing. Some pundits have claimed a Jessica “curse” and are calling for her to stay away from Texas Stadium. Controversial and talented wide receiver Terrell Owens has jumped into the fray, quoted as saying, “Right now, Jessica is not a fan favorite–in this locker room or in Texas Stadium”

T.O. goes on to actually make some sense: “…I think a lot of people feel she has taken his focus away.” Keep in mind that T.O. is paid millions of dollars to catch the ball that Romo throws to him.

Is Romo star struck? Just in case, T.O. has a message for Jess. “Oh, I got a message for her when we make the playoffs. Just stay tuned.”

Owens has said he was just kidding, and he probably was. But when T.O. lips off, the whole world listens. “I tried to get (Romo) to call her so I can explain to her that she doesn’t really know me and that I can be funny. And that everything I say, the media will take it and run with it. It’s not a big deal. I will try to rectify the situation between her and I.”

(Huffington Post) 8 November 2007:

It’s a commonly held belief that men are better athletes than women.

There are a few instances, however, where this doesn’t hold: fencing for example, or equestrian events. There’s also another couple of sports where it might be (as with Paula Radcliffe in the recent New York marathon) that pregnancy increases the subsequent performance of the woman.

Two reasons put forward are that pregnancy itself greatly boosts the blood volume and that as this shrinks post partum some of the beneficial effects of increased ability to absorb oxygen remains. The other is that in certain sports, like endurance swimming, subcutaneous body fat is a great boost: and as many women complain, pregnancy can certainly increase the presence of that.

Unfortunately, the population of world class female athletes who compete after childbirth is probably to small for us ever to be able to properly study this.

(MSNBC.COM) 5 October 2007:

US Olympic Gold Medalist Marion Jones has vehemently denied using performance enhancing drugs for years. On October 5, she recanted and admitted that she had used them.

“I consumed this substance several times before the Sydney Olympics and continued using it after,” Jones told a US District Court judge. “By November 2003, I realized he was giving me performance-enhancing drugs.”

She also pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators when she denied using the drugs. She faces a maximum sentence of 10 years and 500K.

(SPORTS.YAHOO.COM) 2 October 2007:

A federal jury decided Madison Square Garden and its chairman must pay $11.6 million in damages to former New York Knicks executive Anucha Browne Sanders in her sexual harassment lawsuit.

The jury, which decided MSG had committed harassment against Browne Sanders, found that the Garden owes $6 million for allowing a hostile work environment to exist and $2.6 million for retaliation. MSG chairman James Dolan owes $3 million.

The Garden said it would appeal.

A verdict earlier Tuesday found that Knicks coach Isiah Thomas subjected Browne Sanders to unwanted advances and a barrage of verbal insults, but that he did not have to pay punitive damages.

After an ugly, three-week trial, that verdict gave Thomas a partial victory in the $10 million lawsuit.

(SALT LAKE TRIBUNE) 24 June 2007:

This is the first year that the prize money for the mens’ and womens’ tennis championships at Wimbledon will be equal. Many are praising this, bringing the event into line with the other Grand Slam events.

Others are less happy, pointing out that women play three sets each match to the mens’ five, meaning that the women are earning more per hour/game. That greater effort on court also means that the men rarely also play in the associated doubles tournaments, while most of the women do. Finally, there are those who point out that the top women players get vastly greater sponsorships than the men, boosting their overall earnings.

(REUTERS) 5 May 2007:

In Norway, an attempt was made to bring together the Islamic and Christian religious and what better way than to play the world game, soccer.

Unfortunately the imams refused to play when they realized that some of Norway’s female Lutheran priests would be playing, insisting that such close physical contact (in soccer?) with a woman could lead to impure thoughts.

The Christians were unwilling to field an all male side, insisting that this would be sex discrimination, so the game was abandoned.

Pity they couldn’t have simply gone for a drink together.

(THE INDEPENDENT) 11 March 2007:

Quoting recent research showing that men and women form friendships in different ways and for different reasons, British commentator Sarah Sands believes that friendships are in fact solely a female thing.

Some research suggests that men form shallower relationships while women stick at a friendship through thick and thin.  Sands writes, “Girls continue to form friendships; men join teams.”  She also writes, “Girls love social networking internet sites; boys lose interest once they have posted pictures of themselves and given their opinions.”

Perhaps it’s not that men don’t form friendships, they just form them in a different way.  The friendships formed on a sports team by men mean just as much to them as womens’ friendships do.