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Zika may overshadow this year's Olympics

June 30, 2016

It's very unfortunate that with only five weeks before the opening ceremony of the Rio Olympics, the biggest story will not be the upcoming hopes and dreams of the athletes in the gymnastics or swimming competitions, but it will be the anticipated effects of the Zika virus. Those worries of the possibilities of the potential damage the Zika threat presents, will not be known for a significant number of years.

I don't know why the media is so fixated on this topic so close to the beginning of the Games when at this point there is nothing they or anyone else can do to help the situation short of stopping the games altogether.

The sport which has had the most bad press so far caused by the threat of the virus is men's golf. The number one player in the world, Jason Day, withdrew as a competitor for his home country of Australia this week. Rory McElroy from Ireland withdrew last week. This could only do more damage to the public's perception of the sport as not being Olympic worthy, yet this fear from the players is not something to be taken lightly.

I think the reason no female golfers have withdrawn so far is because they understand intuitively that the women's professional game needs all the positive publicity it can get. We can only hope there are no more withdrawals and even more so, that there is any bad effects from this fear of what the virus could do. It's troublesome on many levels.

The Phillies have finally woken up from their seven-week hibernation by sweeping the Arizona Diamondbacks on the road. Hopefully they can continue their positive momentum and start winning games more consistently. Maybe then their overall record will become more respectable. This will be a difficult task in the short term since this weekend they're playing the defending world champion Kansas City Royals. May their bats be as hot as the weather!

Everyone seems to agree that the Philadelphia 76ers had a very positive NBA draft. As expected, they drafted Ben Simmons with the first overall pick. He is supposed to have the potential to be an all-star player in the near future. They also drafted two foreign players, Luwawu-Cabarrot and Korkmaz (that really is their last names), who were supposedly undervalued by most teams. There are a lot of very passionate local basketball fans who definitely deserve a whole lot better results than they have been getting in the last ten years.

  • A 2002 Cape grad and 2007 UD grad, Lewes resident Sumner Spence is one of the Cape area's biggest sports fans. Although he’s used a wheelchair his entire life, he has lived vicariously through his sports-playing father, brother, and friends, who gave him his love of sports. He hopes to provide new and interesting perspectives on the sports stories and issues of the day. Email Sumner at sumspence@gmail.com.

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