Letters

Readers respond to "Sports Person of the Year: Serena Williams" by King Kaufman.

Jan 4, 2003 | [Read "Sports Person of the Year: Serena Williams" by King Kaufman.]

Mr. Kaufman will soon be inundated by e-mails from Lance Armstrong's Amen corner, demanding he retract the heresy that Serena Williams was a more important athlete in 2002. I will bite my tongue on this question, due to my ignorance of both Ms. Williams' achievement and her sport.

However, I will call Kaufman out for perpetuating his ignorance on the subject of bike racing. He tacitly endorses the falsehood that bike racing, like competitive marathon, is settled entirely on the basis of fitness.

Going fast isn't just a function of pushing the pedals. Because of the speeds involved, a rider sitting in the slipstream of another rider expends 30-40 percent less energy. If you were the strongest bicycle racer in the world, it would still be impossible for you to win races just by pedaling fast; weaker riders would sit in your slipstream, wait for you to tire, and pull away at the finish line.

Drafting provides the basis for cycling's tactics and strategy. It is a way to use other riders' energy to one's own benefit; it's why cycling is a team sport. The strategic vocabulary of bicycle racing is at least as rich as that of football. And since more than two teams compete, temporary rivalries and alliances form during the course of a race.

Kaufman's dismissal is not only wrong, it is shamefully wrong. It betrays as much naiveté as the claim that boxing matches are settled entirely on the basis of who can punch harder, or that basketball players just put a ball through a hoop. It's a sentiment more worthy of a petulant high school band geek than a professional sportswriter.

-- Keith Adams

In his bile-soaked offering of Serena Williams as Sports Person of the Year, King Kaufman demonstrates yet again that "sports journalism" is an oxymoron, and that you don't have to know anything about either sports or journalism to put the title on your business card.

Let's get one thing straight. "Riding a bike" -- in the way that a paunchy, sideburns-and-soul-patch Internet sportswriter understands it -- has as much to do with bike racing as beating your 5-year-old at "horse" has to do with sinking free throws down the stretch in an NBA Finals.

Real athletes like Tiger Woods, Wayne Gretzky and Michael Jordan have all publicly recognized the magnitude of what Lance Armstrong has accomplished. Too bad Kaufman's too hip to share in the fun.

-- Brad DeVries

Serena's great and deserving and should win the award someday. But if your criterion for Sports Person of the Year is based on how much Americans care about the sport, the winner should come from football, golf, or NASCAR every friggin' year. No thanks.

Bike racing is one of those sports (like golf, I'd argue) that's incredibly boring to watch if you don't know anything about the finer points. The more you understand, though, the more interesting it gets.

Asking Americans to spend some time on a sport with a bit of a learning curve is not a bad thing. The tactics involved in bike racing, particularly long stage races, make football and NASCAR look like the Neanderthal undertakings that they are.

One more thing. Lance didn't win because of his performance this year; he won because of his performance the last four years. Breaking Lemond's record for American wins in the Tour was just a convenient time to give it to him.

Serena's great -- if she can keep it going for four years, she'll deserve all of the awards she'll win. For now, give Lance his due.

-- Ray Sachs

Bravo to King Kaufman! Serena Williams was the dominant force in sports this year and clearly deserves all accolades. Instead, Sports Illustrated went with the safe choice: a white, male cancer survivor.

Serena is brash, ballsy and reminds me of a great quote by Laurel Thatcher Ulrich: "Well-behaved women rarely make history."

-- Stacey Tardif

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