This past week the United States Olympic Committee had its second annual meeting last week. Here are a few links to reports on the event: (We will add more as we find or hear about them)

USOC (Schedule of Events): http://www.usolympicteam.com/117_47331.htm

LA Times: USOC Draws Up a New Strategy: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-newswire24jun24,1,7366511.story
– Mentions that the USOC is eager to explore the feasibility of an Olympic Sports Channel on Cable TV

Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph: USOC Taking Conrol of NGBs: http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1318679&table=story_archive&sec=3
– Mentions Team Handball’s decertification
– Notes that international perception that USA NGBs are poorly run hurts US bids to host Olympics as NGBs are responsible for organizing the competition

Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph: USOC Opts for a New Bid Approach: http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1318701&table=story_archive&sec=3
– Highlights changes to the USA selection process for Olympic City Bids
– Notes the Olympic TV Channel that is being considered

Colorado Springs Gazette Telegraph: USOC fears that young people don’t care about Games
http://www.gazette.com/display.php?id=1318731&table=story_archive&sec=3

Matt Van Houten Myspace: http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=73440975&blogID=139200389&MyToken=2a4ef497-ac6b-4bc0-966f-de04cde0aff4
– Matt Van Houten's report on the meeting

Houston Chronicle: US Olympic Channel May Be Coming Soon: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/4001293.html
– Highlights that the USOC would like the channel to be availabile prior to 2008 Olympics

Just in case you didn’t know already- The USOC now has an active web site http://www.usoc.org/237.htm and has posted documents concerning athlete selection procedures for upcoming National Team Competitions, the Team Handball Advisory Group, and College Nationals results. According to the Pan Am Games selection procedures the US and Canada will play a “best of 3” to determine which nation will directly qualify for the Pan Am Games in Brazil, 2007.

Just released. Thanks Jan!

This update includes an overall seeding for each division and the pools for each division.
The game schedule is almost complete and I will try to send in out in the next two or three days. Taken into consideration by the Competition Committee were last year’s standings, league and tournament results (when known) and relative preliminary roster strengths.

The [color=#0000cc]A[/color] , [color=#9900ff]B[/color] , [color=#006600]C[/color] , [color=#ff0000]D[/color] groupings were determined by, among other factors, seeding as well as geographic considerations.

There will be a general meeting on Friday afternoon starting right after the 12 Noon games. It will be held on the Main court in the Convention Center. There will be a representative from the USOC in attendance.

Registration will be on Thursday afternoon starting at 3 PM in Hilton America Room 346 A & B. the Coaches Meeting will be held on Thursday evening at 8.30 PM in the Hilton America in Room 344.

[b]ELITE DIVISION:[/b] Overall seeding 12 teams:

1. NYAC (Garden City), 2. Condors Elite, 3. ATH, 4. Cal Heat, 5. Carolina, 6. LATH, 7. Miami Sharks, 8. Salt Lake Warriors, 9. Chicago Inter, 10. NE Freeze, 11. Houston Firehawks, 12. Houston Stars

POOLS:

[color=#0000cc]A: NYAC, Salt Lake, Chicago[/color]
[color=#9900ff]B: Cal Heat, Carolina, Firehawks[/color]
[color=#006600]C: Condors, Miami, NE Freeze[/color]
[color=#ff0000]D: ATH, LATH, Stars[/color]

After the initial round robin, the teams will be rank ordered one through three in their respective groups and the remaining games are as follows:

1) A1 vs. B2
2) A2 vs. B1
3) C1 vs. D2
4) C2 vs. D1

The teams that finished third in their respective groups after the first round robin will then form one Group [A3, B3, C3, and D3] and play a second round robin and their final standings in the second round robin will decide their placement in a final game for 9th & 11th place.

All elite teams play 5 games.

[b]DIVISION 1:[/b] 8 teams – 2 pools of 4 teams each. Each team is guaranteed to play 5 games. Seedings in paranthesis.

[color=#0000cc]Group A: NCTHC (1), Air Knights (4), West Point Gold (5), Rock Handball (8)[/color]
[color=#ff0000]Group B: West Point Black (2), Atlanta Metro (3), Georgia State (6), Houston Stars Too (7)[/color]
[i]**Division 1 teams in 2 groups of 4, play as A1,A2,A3,A4,B1,B2,B3,B4 on Friday and their first game Saturday. Get reseeded based on results and play Sat evening as MDx[/i]

[b]WOMEN'S DIVISION:[/b] 9 teams – 3 pools of 3 – 6 games for 7 teams, 5 games for 2 teams (I think)

[color=#ff0000]Group A: Smurfs, West Point Black, Rock Handball[/color]
[color=#0000cc]Group B: Carolina, Firehawks, Atlanta Metro[/color]
[color=#006600]Group C: Houston Shooting Stars, Cortland, West Point Gold[/color]

Teams in 3 groups of 3, play Friday as A1,A2,A3,B1,B2,B3,C1,C2,C3, they continue Saturday reseeded as WOx. The bottom team (A3,B3,C3) in each group continues through Sunday as WOx. The other teams, top two based on Friday results, depending on Saturday results Group D (A1,B2,C2) Group E (A2,B1,C2) become WxoD & WxoE Saturday evening.
[i]**There is s a chance that there will ONLY be 8 women’s teams. If this happens teams will be regrouped into two pools of four.[/i]

According to Spanish Handball site 7metros.com http://www.7metros.com/balonmano-article1349.html, Isidoro Martinez Martin has been hired as the new US Men’s National Team Coach. Previously, until this season, he had been the Assistant Coach at Ademar Leon, a top Spanish 1st Division Club. He is scheduled to start work on 22 May at a training camp in Alabama prior to the Men’s Pan Am Championships. According to Telemadrid.es, http://www.telemadrid.es/actualidad/noticia.pag?codigo=149401, former US National Team Coach, Javier García Cuesta, appears to have played a role in his hiring. Additionally, it appears that the contract is a short term one focused on the Men’s Pan Am Championship.

Note: This information was gleaned through automatic translation websites, and anyone who can provide a more accurate translation of the significant points of these articles please feel free to post in the comments section.

Side Note: Spanish naming conventions can be confusing to Americans. For instance, I was always confused as to why the last names on player jerseys sometimes didn’t match the last name on the roster. A Spanish coworker set me straight. Typically, there are 4 names (First, middle, Father’s last name, Mother’s last name) When Spaniards are confronted with an Anglo naming convention they have several options on how to handle it. Often, but not always, they drop the Mother’s last name and simply use the first 3 names. Assuming this is the case with the new coach, he would be Coach Martinez.

USOC Press Release: http://www.usocpressbox.org/usoc/pressbox.nsf/6272c9a938d3a5cb8525711000564abd/c1b0544530a84946852571320000f9c7?OpenDocument

As pointed out by Bernward from Cal Heat in the chatbox, the USOC has now dedicated a portion of their website’s Governance area to Team Handball’s decertification. These documents have been previously posted at teamhandballnews.com with the exception of Jim Thome’s, Jan O’Shea’s and Matt Van Houten’s responses to the USOC compliant. The site can be accessed at http://www.usoc.org/43922.htm

Also, of interest, is a public notice for interested organizations to apply to become the NGB for Modern Pentathlon. http://www.usoc.org/Modern_Pentathlon_RFP.pdf A short web search did not turn up much on Pentathlon’s governance issues other than a short sentence in the NY Times which indicated that the current leadership had essentially abdicated responsibility of the sport to the USOC. As this somewhat parallel’s Team Handball’s current status, it would not be surprising to see a similar public notice for Team Handball at some point in the future.

Probably no surprise for all those who followed the developments over the last months: the USOC has decided to revoke USATH of its status of National Governing Body (NGB):

[blockquote]On February 11, 2006, pursuant to 36 U.S.C. § 220521(d) of the Ted Stevens Olympic and Amateur Sports Act and Article X of the USOC Bylaws, and upon the recommendation of a Panel appointed to hear a complaint filed by the USOC Chief Executive Officer against US Team Handball Federation (USTHF), the USOC Board of Directors terminated USTHF’s membership in the USOC and revoked USTHF’s recognition as the National Governing Body for the sport of Team Handball.[/blockquote]
[file=request.php?6]Complaint finding[/file]
So we can start anew…