Category: Sports

Beijing’s Ghost Town

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Zach Honig:

About ten hours after the end of last night’s closing ceremony, I headed to the Olympic Green, completely unsure of what I’d find when I got there. I hadn’t heard much about when the Green will open to the ticketless public, or if it would stay open until the Paralympics — so I knew it would either be packed to the brim, or completely deserted. I arrived to find the latter.
When I approached the Olympic subway line, the streets packed with tourists and scalpers just yesterday were now empty, and only one of dozens of security checkpoints to access the subway was open — and there wasn’t even anyone in line. Unsure if my accreditation card would still be valid, I approached the checkpoint to find a guard waving me through. Two of the guards were even taking a nap — it was obvious that I was their first customer for quite some time.

All Roads Still Lead to Lombardi

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Dave Anderson:

All you need to know about Green Bay is that Lambeau Field is on Lombardi Avenue.
Even the numerals in the Packers’ address, 1265 Lombardi Avenue, are significant — 12 for the franchise’s record number of N.F.L. championships, 6 when Curly Lambeau was the coach, 5 when Vince Lombardi was the coach. The 1996 team won the other title in Super Bowl XXXI with Mike Holmgren as the coach (he later defected to Seattle) and Brett Favre at quarterback (he is still the face of the franchise). But Lambeau and Lombardi remain its cornerstones.
Lambeau, a star tailback at Green Bay East High School who left Notre Dame after a year, organized the original Packers team at a meeting in the dingy Press-Gazette newspaper offices in 1919 when a local meatpacking company put up $500 for uniforms and pro football was a small-town sport.
Lombardi, a New Yorker originally out of Sheepshead Bay, St. Francis Prep and Fordham before coaching at St. Cecilia’s in Englewood, N.J., at Army under Red Blaik and the Giants’ offense for five seasons (including the 1956 championship team), gilded Green Bay with a major league mystique.