Archive for the ‘sports’ Category

In the first game of the final season that marks Texas Stadium as the Dallas Cowboys home, da ‘Boys played their first game on the road against Cleveland.

Tony Romo’s bloodied chin needed stitches and an X-ray, and Marion Barber’s ribs were badly bruised. The Dallas Cowboys absorbed more than a few hard knocks on Sunday. Not as many as they landed, though.

Picking apart Cleveland’s secondary with ease, Romo passed for 320 yards, Terrell Owens caught a 35-yard touchdown pass and Barber scored on a pair of 1-yard runs as the Cowboys opened a season they expect to end in the Super Bowl by overwhelming the out-of-sync Browns 28-10.

Coming off a 13-win season, which ended with a bitterly disappointing playoff loss at home to the New York Giants, the Cowboys lived up to all their preseason hype with a solid all-around performance. They’re the team to beat in the NFC, and after one game, it’s hard to argue there’s any better.

With all day to throw, Romo completed 24 of 32 passes as Dallas’ offense racked up nearly 500 yards, controlled the clock and strung together four long touchdown drives. The defense held one of the AFC’s most potent offenses to 205 yards, and except for some silly penalties, the star-studded Cowboys, whose training camp was profiled on HBO’s “Hard Knocks,” had a knockout debut.

Editor’s Note: Thank you to Scott Horner for emailing us with the following details on Leslie Porterfield’s amazing times at Bonneville.

As reported on landracing.com…(early Sept 5)
NEW FASTEST WOMAN ON A MOTORCYCLE……..231mph
Leslie Porterfield of High Five Cycles working with tuner Scott Horner ran a 231mph one mile speed at the Bub event today. That makes her the fastest woman running a motorcycle! This surpasses the exactly 30 year old (Sept ‘78) 229mph record held by Marcia Holley in the Don Vesco streamlined motorcycle.

She also accomplished a 209mph “naked” record during Speed Week to earn her entry into the Bonneville 200mph Club.
With both of these runs she is now the fastest woman on two wheels faired & unfaired.

Outstanding job Leslie & Scott. Great comeback from last year!

Late Sept 5-
She backed up her 231mph mile run with a 233.184 which will net her a 232 FIM/AMA World record in MPS BF 2000!!!
She ran a 234.197 in the Kilo and in fine racer fashion, pushing every last bit out of the engine, sent a
rod through the cases! She shut down and got off the course without incident. Outstanding job!
Congratulations to Leslie for surpassing the exactly 30 year old (Sept ‘78) 229mph record held by
Marcia Holley in the Don Vesco streamlined motorcycle. She is now, as Bill said,
the Fastest Woman on a Motorcycle and she accomplished this by not only running faster but by also
setting a record!

Leslie will be riding a Honda CBR 1000 on 9/6 in the production class. Thus far she has run as fast as 191.9 on a 191.2 MPH record.

This hasn’t been confirmed from a second source yet, but as of Friday evening (5 Sep 08), we were contacted and informed that Dallas girl Leslie Porterfield just cracked 231mph at the Bonneville Salt Flats.

AMAZING!

The amazing Leslie Porterfield has set the Womens Land Speed Record at the Bonneville Salt Flats with a speed of 209.046mph.

She had to hold her speed for a full mile of the track which is not easy when a 5′-10″ woman that weight 115 pounds is traveling that fast on two wheels on a surface not renowned for great traction. She had the full 200mph wind hitting her all over. But she did it! And now she is the first woman in the Over 200 Club for speeds at Bonneville.

Last year Leslie tried for the record and the bike lost it at 110mph. 7 broken ribs and a punctured lung later, she fired herself up for another go of it this year on the same Suzuki Hayabusa bike.

When Leslie’s not showing the boys how it’s done, she’s running her dealership, High Five Cycles on LBJ Freeway between Greenville and Abrams.

As we mentioned last month, U.S. athlete Nastia Liukin won the gold medal for all-around gymnastics at the Beijing Olympics.

Now it looks like it’s Liukin’s turn to take the spotlight and run with it!.

The young gymnast will soon be all over the place.

First up? She’s set to appear in ads for Cover Girl this fall.

The gymnast will also have her own Nastia Liukin Gold jeans and tops produced by Vanilla Star Jeans. Those will be out for sale this winter.

Liukin will also get her image featured on a Wheaties box!

Looks like Michael Phelps isn’t the only athlete pimping himself out.

And, as if all that weren’t enough, Nastia will also be appearing on a future episode of Gossip Girl.

Oh, and there’s also the possibility of her getting her own line of activewear with GK.

During a recent interview, Liukin said, “You work so hard for this, and you’re getting so many opportunities, and now is the time to take those things because they don’t last forever. Winning the Olympics can change your life, and nothing can prepare you for that. You can go with the flow and enjoy the ride.”

She’s right. Enjoy it now while you can!

As for the fame she’s receiving, Liukin says, “It’s weird. Now anywhere I go everyone notices me. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it.”

Really????

Don’t get too full of yourself, missu!

But she does want to be a good role model, adding “I always looked up to the older girls, and I feel like the kids look up to me, so I feel I have to set a good example for them. I’ll do anything to inspire them and help them live their dreams.”

As for her futute, Liukin adds, “I feel I have more to do,” she says. “I have nine World Championship medals, and I’m tied with Shannon Miller, so I want to beat that. That’s the competitor in me. And I’d love to do some acting and modeling, but not as my career.”

A Texas-sized homecoming celebration is being planned for Olympic gold medalist Nastia Liukin.

Liukin will be feted at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport Thursday upon her return from Beijing.

A statement from the Frisco Convention and Visitors Bureau and the WOGA Gymnastics Academy said Liukin and her family are scheduled to arrive Thursday on a United Airlines flight at 4:13 p.m.

The celebration will be held at Terminal B, Gate 35.

The city of Parker had planned a parade on Saturday to honor the gymnast, but the parade has been postponed. Parade organizers tell NBC 5 they are concerned about issued caused by recent rain,

Parade organizers say they do plan to announce a new date for the parade.

For the first few minutes, Dallas girl Nastia Liukin didn’t even know the score, unable to see anything beyond the “2″ in front of her name.

When she finally did look, she figured she had to be seeing double.

The Olympic all-around champion finished with the same score as China’s He Kexin in Monday night’s uneven bars final, but He got the gold medal and Liukin went home with a silver thanks to gymnastics’ convoluted tie-break system that sent everyone scrambling for the rulebook. Reading hieroglyphics might be easier than explaining why He won.

He’s teammate, Yang Yilin, won the bronze.

He is one of the girls that is in the center of the controversy over whether the Chinese gymnasts are even of age to compete in these games. They are several inches shorter and up to 30 pounds lighter than the girls on all the other teams.

Gymnastics used to give out duplicate medals at the Olympics. In a bit of irony, Liukin’s father, Valeri, got one of his gold medals at the 1988 Olympics after tying teammate Vladimir Artemov on high bar. But the International Olympic Committee told the FIG to stop sharing medals after the Atlanta Games, and a tie-break system was implemented in 1997.

It’s a complicated formula that is based on deductions from the execution mark and involves more math than the SAT. Even Liukin wasn’t quite sure how the tie was broken — and that was after someone explained it to her.

The short answer is that He Kexin had .033 less in deductions when you apply the second tie-break formula.

For the long answer, grab a pencil and some scratch paper.

He and Liukin both finished with 16.725. They had identical 7.7 start values (the measure of a routine’s difficulty) and they each had a 9.025 for execution after the highest and lowest of the six judges’ marks were tossed out.

The execution mark is based on the perfect 10 scale, and the first tie-break takes the average of the four deductions that counted. He and Liukin were still tied after that.

For the second tie-break, the three lowest deductions that counted are averaged. When that was done, He had .933 in deductions and Liukin had .966.

Got that?

Not that Liukin will raise a fuss about it.

Besides, Liukin has the medal that REALLY matters….the all-around gold.

And with four medals, she’s pulled even with her father in the race for family bragging rights. Valeri Liukin won four medals in 1988, two gold and two silver.