Thursday, August 21, 2008

A couple of major streakiness items from the Olympics:

The U.S. beach volleyball duo of Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor won the gold medal for the second straight Olympiad. Overall, the pair has won 108 straight matches.

Another U.S. women's juggernaut, the softball squad, had its reign of three straight Olympic golds snapped by Japan. The gold-medalist pitcher, Yukiko Ueno, had quite a last two days. After pitching eight scoreless innings (seven innings is the regulation length) against the U.S. on Wednesday before losing in the ninth, Ueno came back later the same day to pitch all 12 innings of a 4-3 win over Australia. Then today, in a rematch with the Americans, she limited them to one run, the Japanese winning 3-1.

Given that Ueno gave up several runs during this stretch, I'm not sure we can say she always had the "Hot Arm," but I don't think anyone would dispute awarding her the title of the "Durable Arm!"

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