The Smithian

[on the move]

Banned under Mao in 1959 for some 30 years, considered both a barbaric practice and also too Western, the sport of boxing has since begun to grow in China…

more.

If Serena Williams, a 15-time tennis grand slam singles champion, a 13-time grand slam doubles champion, and the reigning gold medalist in women’s singles and doubles, cannot get the respect she deserves within her sport because her body does not match the other women’s whom alongside she plays (and repeatedly beats, especially Wozniacki), who can?

more. Serena remains “mum.”

Costa Rica on Monday became the first Latin American country to ban hunting as a sport, after an unanimous and final vote from Congress.

Starting in January, the…print version of The Sporting News—which has been published since 1886—will be no more.

more.

“I don’t really look at color, but a lot of people ask about it because I’m one of only a few African-Americans in women’s golf…”

more.

…a…social history…an examination of English football’s most influential [Jewish athletes]…

[meaningful glance]

…he and the rest of the [cycling] team were…doping all along. They began with little “red eggs” of testosterone before graduating to injected erythropoietin, which enhances red blood cells and decisively increases energy: known for short as EPO, or “Edgar Allan Poe” to the American riders, their old buddy Edgar. And then [Tyler] Hamilton went to Spain to be introduced to the ghoulish practice of blood doping, in which a rider’s blood is taken from him, kept cool and reinjected before racing.

more.

…part of a circuit of underground child boxing in [Thailand] that has up to 30,000 participants…it’s often one of the few ways for families to earn money…They train rigorously, and endure fights that leave them with broken bones and bloody noses…

more, and a trailer, here.

New York Times Magazine