Manning Down

Latvian beach volleyball players Martins Plavins and Janis Smedins defeated Americans Jake Gibb and Sean Rosenthal in an elimination round at the London Olympics, leaving no Americans left in men's beach volleyball.  With Lithuania having one one gold medal and one bronze and with Estonian (Heiki Nabi) having won a silver medal in Greco-Roman wrestling., that leaves Latvia as the last Baltic country not to have won a medal in London. So I'll be rooting for Plavins and Smedins, and I'll be counting on them bring the kind of glory to their country that hasn't been seen since the days of the great bobsledder (let's say it together) Janis Kipurs! :-) 

As for American men's team sports . . . I don't want to talk about it.  Our men's soccer team didn't make it to London, our men's field hockey team is a bigger joke, and the men's water polo team got creamed by Hungary.  Gabby Douglas's embarrassment tonight doesn't come anywhere near this humiliation.  I hope our men's basketball team and men's volleyball team don't end up choking.

Meanwhile, it's quite possible we could hear the Latvian national anthem, "God Bless Latvia" - I swear I am not making that title up, and you can look it up if you don't believe me - at a beach volleyball medal ceremony.  Three cheers for the white and maroon!