Rio Olympics Could Leave Top Golfers Out -- Media Watch

(ATR)Larry Bohannan, a golf writer for the Southern California publication The Desert Sun, explains how the Olympic system is leaving top golfers out.

Golf returns to the Olympic Program this year in Rio for the first time in 112 years. The men's and women's tournaments will take place from Aug. 11-20.

"As of this moment, Brittany Lincicome, the reigning champion of the ANA Inspiration LPGA major championship, is not in the Olympics field for the United States," Bohannan writes.

"How is that possible? Because the rules for getting into the 60-player Olympics field are pretty straight forward, and Lincicome is the player on the outside looking at that the moment for the United States."

Contributing to the Nikkei Asian Review, one of the world's largest financial publications, writer Hamish McDonald explores whetherwe will see one of the world's great sporting mysteries being repeated in Rio de Janeiro.

"Form suggests that India, with 1.3 billion people and set to overtake China as the world's most populous nation six years from now, will once again win a pathetically small number of medals."

New York Times columnist John Branch spotlights Brazilian judo champion Rafaela Silva in the lead up to the 2016 Rio Olympics.

"Brazil has never won more than five gold medals at a single Olympics, but no sport -- not sailing, not beach volleyball, not swimming or track and field -- has produced more Brazilian medalists than judo.

"Silva, 23, is expected to add another."

Jonathan Watts and Ana Terra Athayde, columnists for The Guardian stationed in Rio, feature two African refugees hoping to make history at the 2016 Games.

"When Popole Misenga and Yolande Mabika fled the Democratic Republic of the Congo three years ago and sought asylum in Brazil, they hoped to escape history.

"This summer, they may end up making it instead as refugee athletes competing in the Olympic Games for a flag rather than a nation."

Writing for Wired, a monthly tech-focused magazine, Liz Stinson explores how Brazil designed its shapeshifting Olympic torch.

"It is almost entirely white, save for a logo. With a satin aluminum finish, it looks almost clinical in its simplicity," Stinson says.

"Then you open it. At the moment of the kiss -- the handoff from one torch bearer to another -- the runner will turn a knob to ignite the gas valve, which will simultaneously cause the top of the white cone to expand, revealing five ribbons of bright, metallic colors."

In other news

Contributing to U.S.-based magazine Outside, writer Brian Alexander explains why he thinks the U.S. should never host another Olympics.

"It's expensive, demanding, and in the eyes of the many cities that have refused to throw their hats into the five-ring circus, a total scam," Alexander says.

He adds, "After enough pleading and promises to make a desperate boyfriend seem hard to get, the IOC thought it had the final list of candidates that would compete to host the 2024 Summer Olympics: Paris, Rome, Hamburg, Budapest, and -- a last-minute substitute for Boston -- Los Angeles.

"But then, late last year, Hamburg said no thanks, leaving four organizing committees in four cities who say they really, really want the Games. So now we wait. And wait."

Madeline Buxton, a writer for the fitness daily Shape magazine, poses a question to sports fans: "Why Do We Ignore Some Sports Where Female Athletes Dominate Until the Olympics?"

She adds, "If you think about the female athletes who have dominated the news cycle in the past year -- Rounda Rousey, the members of the U.S. Women's National Soccer Team, Serena Williams -- you can't deny that there's no more exciting time to be a woman in sports.

"But as we head into 2016, the year of the Rio Olympics, it's hard not to wonder why certain female athletes are just now becoming known to the world."

Compiled byNicole Bennett

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